Italian Job Review

Anannya Sen’s Review

An average driving game for your phone. The film tie-in doens't really add anything and while it's ok to play, there are better games out there such as Car Racer 2.

The Italian Job is supposed to be based on the film re-make with Mark Wahlberg and Charlize Theron (wah wah wah!). While the film is an enjoyable remake of a seminal classic, the game falls far short.

There are essentially only 2 levels. Both involve you driving around in a sporty mini. First you have to find out which truck holds the gold out of the three trucks driving around (2 are decoys). Then you have to transport a certain amount of gold to the station. That's it.

The graphics are ok, the main screen isn't bad and the cars look nice, but the overhead view is a little dull and the single images where you catch the truck or go into the metro to get the gold are repetetive and a bit pointless. Nothing special graphically.

The sound is non existent. Not even a honk of the horn!

The controls are pretty simple, you can use either directional or relative mode. Directional makes you turn in the direction you press (ie press up to go up) and relative makes you turn as if you were driving a real car so you only have to press left or right to turn 90 degrees. Fairly straightforward.

The playability is average. As there are only two levels to play it won't hold your attention for very long. There are three difficulty settings and I never once managed to complete it on normal. Easy was hard enough. Once you have found the correct truck you have to play the second level and keep transporting gold from the metro to the train station. In between, there are bike and choppers shooting at you, the road gets more difficult to drive with increased holes and road blocks, so right from the off, it's pretty tough to get through. And with only 3 minutes to try and complete it in normal, that's a mission and a half. One nice aspect is that you can change between 3 mini's each with it's own damage bar, but the damage is so easy to accumulate and with no way of reducing the damage, 3 mini's isn't enough.

The lastability of the game isn't that great either. With the 3 settings and 2 levels, there's not much to do. Driving the mini's around is fun but there are better driving games out there. I suppose to be fair, it was designed for a quick pick up and play as the normal level is 3 minutes long, but there is nothing to this game for me. Much more could have been done.

If you want a different option, try Car Racer 2.