Mark Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under pressure (16+)
Verdict: Like watching paint dry
Platform: Xbox, PS2.
Rating: 2/5
Once upon a time ago I was a painter and took some of my inspiration from graffiti and artists such as Basquiat. These days the nearest I get to real paint is when decorating the house so I always jump at the chance to get creative when games allow me - I’ve probably spent just as much time designing graffiti in Jet Set Radio as skating.
Imagine my disappointment and confusion when I loaded Mark Ecko’s first foray into video games (and contender for silliest title of the year) - a game about graffiti - to find that you can’t actually design any!
From this unfortunate start point you embark on the story of Trane, a young graffiti artist willing to make his aerosol mark on the world and take on a distopian government.
Broken up into seperate areas that require graffiti to progress, you spend your time between clumsy fights, frustrating platforming and repetitious tagging - a typical palette of poor game design.
The graffiti mechanic - ‘press button, move stick and repeat’ is shockingly basic considering it’s the central part of the game and the ironically named ‘free-form challenges’ are so utterly devoid of challenge or freedom that they seem like a bad joke or filler content.
The story isn’t enough of a driving force to keep you going either and the repetitive and rewardless gameplay means every time you have to tag to progress you feel the desire to do so ebb away.
The game as a whole is held together by some great stylisation and music though and works as a piece of edutainment on real world graffiti artists - perhaps a sequel would be better suited as an interactive DVD than a game.
The ability to customize and create in games allows you to have a tangible connection with them and if they’d allowed you to create and use your own graffiti in Getting Up you might actually have an inclination to leave your mark on the landscape and achieve some satisfaction from the uninspiring gameplay.
You’ll have more fun painting your house.