See, Gangs of London comes fresh from Sony's London studio - the birthplace of The Getaway and The Getaway: Black Monday on PS2. Taking place in the same universe, Gangs of London sports the same fully-realised sprawling city map as well as the familiar mix of in-car and on-foot action. From the outset things looks peachy, with the game featuring the same high quality presentation and attention to detail found in its PS2 brethren.
Each of the five selectable gangs has its own largely unique story arc tying together the game's 60-plus missions. Each gang's tale unfolds through gritty static comic-style panels which, while lacking the cinematic punch of The Getaway titles, are pleasing enough and complimented by full voice acting. Although the option to select between Cockney, Triad, Yardie, Russian and Pakistani gangs at the start of the game is nice, in practice there's not a startling difference between each, with many missions cropping up again and again, albeit with minor cosmetic differences.
Despite its abundance of atmosphere and tongue-in-cheek mockney charm, however, it's disappointing to note that Sony seemingly hasn't learned from criticisms leveraged at The Getaway series in the past. Once the first cut-scene has reached its conclusion, it's instantly apparent that many of the flaws found in Gangs of London's predecessors have made an unwelcome return - a fact made even more puzzling as the PSP version has been developed by a brand new team.
Inexplicably, Sony still isn't capitalising on The Getaway games' finest achievement - the vast, sprawling recreation of London's city streets. Once again, outside of the Free Ride mode, exploration of the city is nigh on impossible, with the bite-sized missions unfolding across miniscule sections of the map. While this does help focus the narrative aspects of Gangs of London and make the whole thing a little more portable-friendly, the action - particularly when compared to Gangs of London's closest PSP rival, GTA: Liberty City Stories - feels unnecessarily restrictive. It's a bit like dangling a carrot three miles in front of a donkey then tying its feet together.
While that could be overlooked, the problem is further compounded by the limited variety of mission objectives, with d¿j¿ vu striking all too quickly. Vehicular missions essentially fall into one of three categories: get from A to B on the map, follow an AI opponent or bugger off as fast as you can. On-foot missions are even more limited, with gamers continually forced along linear corridor-style maps with not much to do beyond killing everyone in sight. Again though, we can see Sony's logic in all this - keep the action brief, taught and focused and you've got the ideal portable iteration of The Getaway.
For some of the time this design choice actually works. Missions move along at a sprightly pace and, because available objectives can be attempted in any order, the general lack of variety isn't immediately obvious. Trouble is though, there's so much fundamentally broken in Gangs of London it never manages to stay in its carefree groove for very long. For starters, controls range from the twitchy to the nigh-on unresponsive, with driving falling into the former and anything on-foot falling into the latter.
Ah yes, the on-foot missions. Simple actions, like strafing and shooting at enemies, require near-bionic dexterity - four buttons at once seems a tad extreme - and that can only be put down to poor design. When essential functions like 'crouch' randomly decide they can't be bothered to work at critical moments during (the almost unplayable) stealth missions, it's simply unforgivable. Throw in a targeting system which, much like the PS2 games, favours locking on to enemies so far away they may as well be on a different continent, or - even more excitingly - enemies standing behind objects your bullets couldn't penetrate if they were actually lead hippopotami, and frustration becomes your closest friend.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gangs of London's AI has a tendency to veer from the distinctly lacking to the virtually non-existent. While the up-side is that poor control becomes far less of an issue when enemies happily take a few rounds square in the face without even acknowledging your presence, opponents have a tendency to swarm en masse in your general direction with guns a-blazing - it's more akin to attempting to bat away tacks when you're wearing a magnetic jumpsuit than fighting anything resembling intelligent opposition. Allies tend to suffer at the hands of the game's sloppy AI too - despite offering the option to order team-mates to square-up or stand-down via the d-pad, all too often we found our fellow gangsters would rather sit on the sidelines while we took a beating.
Moving on from the single-player Story Mode then, Gang Battle - essentially an angry Guy Ritchie's Risk - is a pleasant diversion as are the various Free-Roaming modes. Of these, Free Drive and the taxi-focused The Knowledge are undoubtedly the best, offering the only real opportunity to enjoy Gangs of London's impressive city map at your leisure. Meanwhile, London Tourist is an oddly relaxing jaunt around London on a trek to photograph some of the city's most famous landmarks.
Less successful are Riot Control and Four Weeks Later - both of which suffer from their reliance on the game's wonky on-foot mechanics. In fact, the same is true of the much-touted Game Sharing mode - it's all well and good having the option to download a completely unique demo of the game but, to be totally honest, Gangs of London simply isn't fun enough to herald it as the be-all-and-end-all of gaming innovation. Lastly then, there's a variety of single-player or multiplayer pub games: think skittles, darts, snooker, pool and an actually-quite-a-lot-of-fun retro arcade machine. Although they're a nice addition, it's a bit like finding a pound coin down the back of the sofa - there's a momentary thrill on discovery, but ultimately you wouldn't miss it if you never knew it was there.