The Italian Job

The Italian Job is a great-looking, great-playing and kinda-good-sounding racing title. The game is a good buy although there are more recommendable games now. Still, if you’re a fan of the movie, this is a great buy.

The Italian Job is a great-looking, great-playing and kinda-good-sounding racing title. The game is a good buy although there are more recommendable games now. Still, if you’re a fan of the movie, this is a great buy.

While TIJ doesn't exactly fail on any given level, it certainly doesn't really over achieve either. Another movie, another bland game is released. The world continues on.

The Italian Job feels like it should have been an arcade game due to its length. If the game was a little bit harder, longer, and just better overall this would have been one of the best movie to game conversions in a while. At least give this game a rent.

The Italian Job is a must-have if you're a fan of the movie, but probably only a rental otherwise. Story Mode is a bit short but still rewarding. The replay value is mostly in unending repetition, performing one objective until you get it right. The graphics are top-notch and there are plenty of modes to provide some variety. Overall, far better fare than most movie licenses.

Fahrgefühl und das Gokart-ähnliche Steuerungsverhalten der Mini-Flitzer wurden vom Entwicklungsstudio Climax gut umgesetzt. Es macht Spaß, Abkürzungen, halsbrecherische Fahrmanöver und Kurvenschneiden einzusetzen, um gegen deftige Zeitlimits und Gegner zu bestehen. Neben dem Story Mode dürfen Sie Ihr Können auf Hinderniskursen und Stadtrennen beweisen. Statt gegen drei Konsolengegner fahren Sie bei den Stadtrennen auch gegen einen Freund. Grafisch und audiotechnisch präsentiert sich The Italian Job ansehnlich, zusätzlich motiviert die Jagd nach Bonuspunkten, die es zum Beispiel für Sprungeinlagen gibt. Die "künstliche Intelligenz" ist eher dürftig - meist weiß die Polizei, wo Sie auftauchen, zivile Fahrzeuge fahren Ihnen gelegentlich rücksichtslos ins Heck und versetzen Ihren Fahrplänen damit im Handumdrehen den Todesstoß.

When you take a turn at top speed and get your MINI on two tires as you slide between oncoming traffic, you really do feel the rush of excitement. But with so many better, deeper racers coming out in the last couple of months like Midtown Madness 3 and Midnight Club II it's still tough to recommend The Italian Job as anything more than a rental.

When you take a turn at top speed and get your MINI on two tires as you slide between oncoming traffic, you really do feel the rush of excitement. But it's still tough to recommend The Italian Job as anything more than a rental. Even though the game's release failed to coincide with the film's debut, the project still feels rushed as corners like additional movie footage and added depth to Story mode seemed to be cut in order to get the game out on store shelves before the movie left theaters altogether. If you pay anything more than the three dollar rental fee for this one, you're just one more victim of the heist.

Any game that enables you to speed a MINI Cooper down a flight of stairs then watch as the two cop cars chasing you crash head-on into a mangled mess can't be half bad. Then again, when you take into consideration the fact that you can complete the entire Story mode in less time than it takes to watch the movie the game is based on, you feel like Edward Norton isn't the only one getting ripped off.

Ich wurde nicht so recht warm mit The Italian Job. Dies liegt aber vor allem an der durchschnittlichen Technik. Spätestens seit Burnout 2 kann man mit einer Grafik wie bei The Italian Job keinen mehr hinter dem Ofen hervorlocken. Insbesondere der lahme Multiplayer-Modus fällt hauptsächlich durch Ruckeleinlagen auf. Und eine so detaillierte und große Stadt wie True Crime: Streets of L.A. bietet Eidos´ Gangsterhatz auch nicht. Wenig überzeugend fand ich auch das Fahrgefühl eurer Karossen. Schade. Wer aber auf solide Gangsterkost im Rennspielkleid steht, kann sich das Spiel ja mal anschauen.

Despite the fact that the GameCube is short on racing titles, resist the temptation to do anything other than rent this one. It just isn't worth it. Had it been a little longer and fleshed out a bit more, it could have been a great game. As is, The Italian Job is little more than a glorified advertisement for the Mini Cooper.

Why do developers insist on proving the axiom that "licensed games are never as good as original titles?" Sure, there are the occasional exceptions to the rule, but by and large the generalization holds true. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a very good generalization now would it? Sadly, Eidos' The Italian Job does nothing more than prove the generalization correct.

On ne peut pas dire que l'adaptation vidéoludique du film Braquage à l'Italienne aura bénéficié de beaucoup de considération de la part du développeur. Voilà un soft d'arcade tout juste sympathique mais qui affiche de façon un peu trop effrontée son manque d'ambition.

On ne peut pas dire que l'adaptation vidéoludique du film Braquage à l'Italienne aura bénéficié de beaucoup de considération de la part du développeur. Voilà un soft d'arcade tout juste sympathique mais qui affiche de façon un peu trop effrontée son manque d'ambition.

On ne peut pas dire que l'adaptation vidéoludique du film Braquage à l'Italienne aura bénéficié de beaucoup de considération de la part du développeur. Voilà un soft d'arcade tout juste sympathique mais qui affiche de façon un peu trop effrontée son manque d'ambition.

The Italian Job, like just about every other big action or adventure movie lately, was a pretty big theatrical success. Netting over ninety million dollars, the all-star cast and over-the-top driving action obviously drew theater goers everywhere into the seats. Therefore, The Italian Job also managed to do what most action or adventure movie licenses did: become video games.

Despite being cursed as a game based on a movie, The Italian Job is a surprisingly decent driving game. It has modes for every mood and no glaring flaws, although its short length and numerous frustrating bits will surely turn people away. But the game is also very demanding, making it worth a look if you have a free weekend.

As yet another movie-licensed game storms the consoles, you have to wonder why developers keep doing this. It works out so rarely that it just doesn't seem to be worth the effort. But in the case of The Italian Job, it's actually not as bad as you'd think. The game has good modes, solid mechanics and decent looks. For a game based on a film it's a little thin on plot and over far too quickly, but just like the movie, it makes for a good rental.

There’s a simple rule about video games, anything based off of movies is going to suck, and with very few exceptions, it’s a pretty good rule. So what of The Italian Job?

The Italian Job is a licensed product, but just barely. Since there is no FMV from the film and none of the stars’ images or voices were used in the cutscenes, it’s basically just a run-of-the-mill racing title with Mini Coopers. I’m not saying that a game has to follow the movie it’s tied to exactly, but this is really pushing it. So, we’ve already established that this isn’t going to do much for Marky Mark fans. What we’re left with is just another driving game – one that fails to distinguish itself.

Every time you pass a mission in Story mode, the game asks if you are sure you want to play the next section. You want to know why? Because it is serious gut-check time and you really have to ask yourself if you want to continue playing this dreadful game. The missions are short, the graphics are average at best, the playcontrol is horrendous, and having to listen to the monotone voice-over relaying the story is like listening to fingernails grading on a chalkboard. The circuit and stunt modes are better, but not by much. Sure, Mini Coopers are neat little cars, but I think I would rather be run over by one than play this game again.

It’s not to say that The Italian Job is a horrible game. It clearly went through some testing, as I didn’t encounter much by way of weird pop-up, suspect AI, poorly executed collision, or framerate difficulties. It’s just that what is there is the bare bones. You are only afforded a small handful of cars and not much by way of customization. The story mode features cutscenes whose only animation is the camera moving around a car or van, and alternate modes only encompass two players.

MINI Coopers, assuming you can fit in one, are an utter blast to drive?so much so, in fact, that they make this bare-bones racer seem better than it actually is. A basic copy of Wreckless, The Italian Job has you darting around L.A., causing havoc over a series of timed missions. The graphics are crisp and astonishingly smooth, but the game is terribly short?the mission mode is too easy and the auxiliary racing bits are uninteresting. While not an awful game (Climax's driving engine is rock solid as always), it would be much better suited for arcades than home systems.

"OH JOY!!" WE EXCLAIMED as another movie tie-in game turned up for review. This time, it was The Italian Job: L.A Heist from UK based developer Climax. Movie tie-in games are generally met by games journalists with a certain cynicism, and the greed-inspired nature of movie studios to 'cash in' wherever they can is normally the driving force behind it. However, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that movie producers spend millions on their films, and have to at the very least recoup that expenditure.

The Italian Job won't please anyone. Fans of the film looking to experience some Mini Cooper-themed racing fun of their own will be severely disappointed by the game's short and pointless story mode. Fans of open-city racers will quickly discover that this game doesn't even come close to recent releases like Midtown Madness 3 and Midnight Club II. But even on its own merits, The Italian Job simply doesn't have enough going on to make for an interesting ride.

The Italian Job won't please anyone. Fans of the film looking to experience some Mini Cooper-themed racing fun of their own will be severely disappointed by the game's short and pointless story mode. Fans of open-city racers will quickly discover that this game doesn't even come close to recent releases like Midtown Madness 3 and Midnight Club II. But even on its own merits, The Italian Job simply doesn't have enough going on to make for an interesting ride.

Eidos Interactive is the latest publisher to dive in on the recent flurry of mission-based driving games with its movie-based title The Italian Job. Like games such as Midtown Madness 3 and Midnight Club II, The Italian Job tries to wrap some form of meaning around large, easy-to-grasp open-city racing. Unlike the entries from Microsoft and Rockstar, though, The Italian Job is almost completely devoid of both flavor and interesting gameplay, and the whole thing feels like it was slapped together in a supreme hurry to cash in on the release of the film.

The Italian Job offers players a visceral experience while it lasts, but it is over all too quickly. Lacking any sort of replay value, it is hard to recommend the game as anything other than a rental, especially when there are other, deeper, options out there like Midtown Madness 3.