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Urban
culture has always been a difficult subject to keep track of, as
it’s always the underground culture, so once the general public
know about it its old hat anywhere that it matters. This has been
proven with underground music, all through the late 1980’s the
only music you’d hear  on any underground video, be it skate, surf
or simply messing around was Rap or Hip-Hop, now this is all
you’ll hear in the Pop culture, the underground has chosen
Electronica and more variable versions of Hip-Hop to vent its
identity. This is visible even in life-styles; the skateboarding
craze has to be one of the biggest underground success stories since
the French Revolution: in the way that it started from a couple of
guy’s hobby and expanded to be a universally recognised sport in a
similar way to football and skiing. This was greatly help by one
man, who performed something never thought possible by the
skateboarding crew, doing a nine-hundred-degree spin on a
skateboard; the publicity the media gave this event not only helped
the man who did it but the whole of the skateboarding culture as
well, but it wasn’t until this man put his name to a well know
skateboarding game, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skateboarding, that the
effect on the skateboarding industry was really seen.
So
now the once underground hobby has become Pop, and the Tony
Hawk’s series has seen several releases across more than
twenty formats, it’s time for a new underground to take it place.
A recent, little known hobby that has made the massive jump from
obscurity to one mans international stardom is the art of graffiti;
this gentleman has just released a game. Mark Ecko’s Getting
Up: Contents Under Pressure, and this could rock the world.
Now
don’t worry; this isn’t a simple game based, like Tony
Hawk’s, on doing as many Tag’s in one area in the given time
as possible then going on to the next Level. The title features a
very in-depth story, set slightly further in the future, but
portraying exactly what the ideals  of Graffiti are based around. You
are Trane, a young man living in the deprived areas of a
dictatorship state where freedom of speech is outlawed. Trane
expresses himself with art, but is harried by his grandmother about
it until he leaves home, forcing him and his art onto the streets to
fend for himself, but the streets are where expression isn’t just
frowned upon, it’s forbidden.
The game starts in a subway station, from here you can choose
to go to catch one of the trains and start a Level from a new or
loaded game or go and browse the stores and see what options and
extra’s are available. If you go down to catch the train you will
be given the option of what stop, or Level, you want to stop at and,
once you have chosen a stop you can choose from up to four unlocked
Sub-Levels in that Chapter. Before you go anywhere though you get
the option to organize your Black Book - the graffiti artists bible
- every piece of work you do, see and like or think-up is in this
book. When you open it before a Level you get to organize your
Pieces and your Free-Form, your pieces are the massive bits of
artwork that you put in Sweet-Spots around the areas, these are
Throw-Ups; quick and easy pieces, Murals – more intricate artwork,
Roll-Ups; set pieces you just roll-up the wall and Wheat Paste – a
quick a easy big piece. You get to choose four out of the massive
selection to take with you to the Level. The Free-Form artwork is
the Tagging you  do to earn yourself extra Rep on a Level, there are
five different styles at the start and many more to unlock; marker
pen, aerosol, posters, stickers and stencils. You can choose four
different media to take to the Level with you.
Once you’re in the Level you are left to go around where
you like and complete the various tasks at your leisure, though you
do have to work out how to get to them first - which is a big part
of the game. Being a graffiti artist means you have to put your Tags
in the most visible places you can, but unfortunately these places
don’t have elevators to get to them, so you have to par-take in
quite a lot of Free-Running; wall-jumping to high ledges, balancing
on impossibly small ledges, shimmying along pipes and remembering to
roll when you land. But once you’re at the place where the
graffiti sweet spot is, it’s just a simple task covering the
entire chalk outline with spray, going over each area thoroughly and
lightly making sure that there aren’t any drips from staying over
one area too long as these look bad and decrease your Rep.
Your Rep is used as a gauge to how other artists respect you
and to unlock things through the game, you can get through many
various ways, from completing the tasks to simply avoiding the cops,
or CCK as they are. Getting more Rep will also unlock more attacks
to use in the fighting-side of the game. Giving you a set of
combo’s based around the Square and Triangle Buttons, and
additional Throw manoeuvres by pressing both Buttons  together –
your Special Finishers are executed by holding down to button at the
end of a combo – the combat featured in the title is little more
than competent, but never falls below the level of decency.
There’s also Taunt moves you can unlock where you double-tap
towards the opponent then press one of the attack buttons to stun
them, then hold a button down next to them to perform a vicious
Taunt move.
The one thing this game keeps coming back to is the
storyline: it’s the basis of the entire game. You learn more and
more graffiti Tags as you take advice from the graffiti legends and
spend time learning new things, you learn new ways of spreading your
word as people come to see you because your name has got bigger,
like abseiling Tagging. The story’s really engrossing a gets
deeper and darker the further you go into it, to start you are just
another guy on the street but soon you start to see how deep the
underground really goes, until it’s way above your head and you
just have to carry on.
Looking at the general set-up of the game it’s a lovely
complete package, from the moment you enter the Splash Screens you
are immersed in their fictitious world - every Level starts from the
Subway Station that you travelled into, and there are very few
glitches in the title; apart from the occasional freezing.
Graphically the game is highly competent, looking like a very
polished Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, with brilliant vision
effects and really polished facial features, the night-time city
effects look awesome too. But one big problem this game has are the
camera angles, it does have a Free-Roaming position where you can
position the camera: apart from when it’s important. When trying
to Tag an awkward spot, the camera will fix itself to a top corner
somewhere leaving you only able to  see the side of the Tag whilst
the rest is a distant memory. This doesn’t happen when you’re
Free-Running though which is a great relief, as that would destroy
the game.
Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure, is
a brilliant attempt to give the underground a new lease of life in
videogaming, but ultimately is defeated before it starts – as
simply by creating such a mainstream game of underground culture
brings it to light. Apart from the odd glitch and camera angles this
game will give a great amount of joy to anyone currently enjoying
the graffiti culture or looking to get into it. Not entirely
original, but a veritable composition of many genres more refined
elements.
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