So Marc Ecko, fashion designer, entrepreneur and a lot of other things that I do not know. I am not familiar with this man, and I’ve never seen any of his works. But I am familiar with his one time video game directorial debut. Wanting to create a game all about hip hop and graffiti, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Content’s Under Pressure was born. The game was published oleh Atari, the kings of the bargain bin, and developed oleh The Collective, responsible for creating a lot of licensed games before merging with Shiny Entertainment to become Double Helix Games, which would later go on to be bought oleh amazon and turned into amazon Games Studio, stuck in a horrible state nowadays. Marc Ecko’s Getting Up did not sell too well and was hit with harsh criticism on release day. And Marc Ecko took it well. So well that he insulted game reviewers and gamers in general, calling them suckers and nerds and then blaming the hardware of the PS2 because anda can’t have a graffiti game and picture perfect climbing and combat… Jet Set Radio, Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, and Any of the 3D beat em ups released at the time. Clearly, Marc Ecko was just being a bit salty, but maybe he was right. Maybe the reviewers were being harsh. Some reviewers on the back of the box have described this game as the Tony Hawk of graffiti. Maybe we can find something good here.



Despite the title, this is not a game about a man trying to “get it up” in the bedroom, but is actually about a young graffiti artist named Trane as he goes on a rebellious journey across the city ruled oleh the corrupt politician Mayor Sung and his attack unit known as the CCK oleh menulis graffiti of anti-political propaganda, and also getting into fights that may atau may not end with thugs getting set on api and being thrown off edges to their deaths. But it was all in self-defense, anda know. Along the way, you’ll meet other characters who will say things to each other that I am just far too white to understand. Despite that, I can appreciate a good style when I see one, and this game does have it. I cinta these big urban settings with the hard graffiti all over the place which can contrast hard with the pure white buildings that the CCK occupy. And climbing up these buildings and subways to do stuff like this is pretty intense. Made lebih crazy when anda do research and find that real graffiti artists do this kind of stuff. Stuff that my vertigo ridden pantat, keledai could never attempt. I can barely look down the stairs in my own house without feeling the urge to vomit. It’s pretty fun… in concept. While it is satisfying at times to climb up buildings, a problem I’ve noticed is a combination of the controls and the camera. The controls sometimes feel delayed. Trane just won’t go down to the selanjutnya pipe at times, so anda gotta hit down atau lingkaran a few times before he finally does it. Adding the stubborn camera that is fine on foot but once you’re climbing up buildings atau across pipes, it just refuses to listen to anda and you’re left to your own. It makes actually getting a perfect on doing graffitis difficult. anda have a usual score of doing the graffiti quickly without getting caught, without adding too many spots onto the graffiti and not dripping paint. But because there are times where the camera angle is aimed at different directions, it’s almost impossible to see what you’re doing, so anda could end up getting drips without warning.
But the platforming and graffiti lures anda in. At first, it’s pretty off, but not bad. But once anda gotta start adding spotlights and enemies, along with traps, it becomes a massive pain. These controls do not allow anda for fast movement and precise jumping, so once anda start adding enemies to the mix, it’s all over. Try getting a perfect on your graffiti while a spotlight is moving toward anda and shooting at you. How can this city be calling Trane a terrorist for his graffiti, yet no one bats an eye at the constant gunfire in the streets. And this isn’t a one time thing. Almost every big building after this with spotlights will have them shooting at you, and they don’t just stop. They keep firing at anda until anda leave the building completely atau anda die. And then there’s the insat-kill situations. One room has a bottomless pit that kills anda and anda gotta get onto moving platforms. If anda topple over, Trane will catch the pipe, but a moving device will come and knock him off instantly, just giving anda hope only to take it away. atau how anda have to jump onto a pipe to avoid a moving train. And the possibility of anda missing completely and falling to your death is still there, so anda know… that’s fun. And add that with levels that go on for way too long. anda will be tasked with tagging signs on a building, then beating up some vandals, then going down to another courtyard to beat up lebih and tagging their graffiti, then going to a small park and then climbing up buildings to graffiti them. And that’s just before the checkpoint! After that, tag three lebih signs oleh climbing across buildings, really high, all while sneaking around cops that are far too tough for anda now, then climb up a completely different building to talk to an NPC, all so anda can tag a building while a spotlight is moving around it. These levels go on for so long and you’re just left exhausted oleh the end of it. Doesn’t help that some levels can be done in a few seconds. Levels like tagging the train, atau fighting in a graffiti battle across a highway. Those short levels are fun. These long ones… no.
But hey, the game isn’t all about graffiti and bad platforming. No, it’s also about combat. And just like the platforming, it lures anda in. At first, it’s got so much that you’d think, “Yeah, this isn’t so bad”. And then it all falls apart. I can pinpoint the exact moment it stopped being fun too. It was around the fight with the character Dip who had his sabuk buckle as a weapon and he would knock anda down and then proceed to start beating anda on the floor with no chance of anda getting up until anda finally got up. anda just gotta hope anda survive before anda die. And it’s a shame, because there’s a lot to the fighting. Combos, stuns, guard breakers, blocks, grabs, able to grab weapons, using the environment to kill your enemies (Trane would never kill). But once the CCK comes in… fuck it. Just fuck it. It’s not even remotely fun anymore. They just swarm you, they can block your attacks, and then immediately follow up with a knock down. And if you’re on the floor, good luck. It can either be one hit on you, atau they all hit anda with nightsticks, do a Bruce Lee stomp, do a grapple pindah and then decide to lift anda up, before knocking anda down again. And that’s assuming they don’t stun lock anda and then arrest you, which is an immediate game over. And that’s just the first CCK soldiers. Then anda get the ones that can shoot anda with guns, which is just a massive pain in the ass. Kill them first, otherwise anda will die. Thankfully, at the point they get introduced, the game starts handing out checkpoints like it’s halloween candy. They knew it was a pain in the ass, but the game was gonna ship that month, so they could only program in checkpoints… At least, that’s my headcanon. Also, there seems to be a problem where if anda do a combo and knock them into a wall, since they weren’t knocked down, they’ll just get back on their feet immediately and start kicking your pantat, keledai immediately. And remember, unless it’s bosses, it’s never one on one. Shit, one of them is a two on one, with anda having the partner, and it’s still a massive pain in the ass. The fight with the fat cop lady can stun lock anda with api that still hurts anda until anda die, and that’s assuming anda can survive the pain in the pantat, keledai of the first fight to get there. The fight with (SPOILERS) Gabe is a pain because anda have to throw him near the edge to continue the fight… and then do it again because Trane just pulls him up. And then there’s the fight with the police chief voiced oleh Adam West. Yes, Adam West is a voice in this game, and look, I cinta Adam West as much as anyone else, but his voice does not fit that of a serious police chief. I just hear the campy joking voice of Adam West. And despite wanting to hear his voice the most, he was in… like three cutscenes before he’s out of the game forever. Can I… Can I enjoy one thing in this game? Just one.
Oh yeah, and glitches. Glitches a plenty in this game. And no, it’s never just a few bad textures, because of course not. Stuff like Trane falling within cutscenes, enemies able to fucking kill anda in cutscenes (Can’t tell anda how many times I had that happen to me), the level becomes harder because anda can’t use your compass atau obective finder to find the objective, an enemy gets stuck in the ground making it impossible to hit him (But don’t worry, he can still kick your ass), and my personal favorite, just moving along a tram got me stuck within the dinding and I wasn’t able to escape. I had to sit there for ten menit because I refused to restart the entire level since I already got the checkpoint and had to wait for the CCK with guns and spotlights to slowly kill me. I believe it was the detik to last chapter of the game where I just decided “Fuck it” and put in an infinite health cheat code. And boy am I glad I did it right then and there, because the hardest enemies in the game were abundant. Gun wielding CCK, spotlights aplenty, and new Agent enemies that can dodge your attacks and had a fuck ton of health. I did not care anymore about the game. I just wanted it to end. The constant stream of annoyances, glitches, and how the game felt like it was trying to leave anda at a disadvantage every step of the way, not for the sake of a challenge but for the sake of just getting in your way, I decided that the game wasn’t going to play fair, so neither was I. So, I don’t care if I had to cheat. This game sucks and so do I. And I haven’t even told anda about the story. It’s average. The cinematography is great, the visuals are spectacular. I cinta the urban setting a lot, the graffiti is really stylish, and the music, despite me not being a big rap and hip hop enthusiast, is bumping and definitely something I can get behind. The game even has a few real graffiti artists doing voices. anda can tell it’s them because they sound super awkward when they voice themselves, like real artis that have never voice acted in their lives. There’s a stilted charm to it. It’s a shame. I cinta everything about this game except the gameplay. If this game was lebih of a comic book or, I dunno, the fashion that Marc Ecko is known for, I think it would be lebih admired. But the thing is I hate this game. This is probably the worst game on PS2 Cents. Yes, lebih so than The Bouncer. The Bouncer was frustrating and terrible, but at least it was an jam long and done. Marc Ecko’s Getting Up is a slow burn. It puts roadblock after roadblock in front of anda preventing anda from getting to the fun part of the game, and it all ends with a boss fight between some acak woman added in at the last menit and an ending with no credits. Because all anda had to know was Marc Ecko made this game and it had the RZA in it. Programmers? Who’s that? Testers? … Ha ha ha, who am I kidding? No one tested this game.
Marc Ecko’s Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. Yeah, despite having Getting Up in the title, I have to say, I’m pretty soft. This game was way too stressful. Man, I just wanted a fun game, get away from the stress of reality, like all the shit on the news, bills to pay, rent to pay, child support to pay, and I just wanted a fun graffiti game. But no, Marc Ecko’s Getting Up is just a slow burn of constant stress, glitches, unfair gameplay, and is only a fun game to look at. I’ve heard that Marc Ecko is making a brand new game, Marc Ecko’s Unlimited… yeah, no thanks. I’ll stick to Jet Set Radio. So yeah, award time. It’s Bottom of the Bin, no contest. Am I just a nerd who got wedgies in school like Marc Ecko says? Yes, absolutely, but that changes nothing. Fuck this game.