The Italian Job--blockbuster movie, and now video game. I generally tend to stray from games based on movie licenses, mostly because of the often well deserved preconception that any game based on a movie will be slapped together in a short amount of time and with little thought put into it. I would have been missing out on a solid title though, if I hadn't given The Italian Job a shot. The game has a pretty good variety of modes, including Story Mode, Circuit Racing, Stunt Driving, Time Trial, Free Roam, and some extra bonus content including stills photos of the game in development, of it's developers, and from the movie itself.

Story Mode - As the title suggests, this mode roughly follows the story of the movie - steal gold back from one of your former partners-in-crime. The gameplay is entirely mission based, with each of the 15 missions split into two or three objectives. Fail just one of your objectives though, and you will be repeating the entire mission over. The objectives range from a simple get from point A to point B to tailing someone to a certain location--all the while avoiding the cops and completing your objective in a given amount of time. The cops are a big problem though for it seems the developers made the big blue a bit too tough to avoid easily. If two cops are on your tail and you hit absolutely anything, those two cops will be trapping your car, and you will be failing the mission. This can get frustrating quickly, and will lead you to repeating the same mission over and over until you're finally able to get it right. Once you complete a mission, you are graded on your performance; getting points for completion, time remaining, distance traveled, stunts, airtime, and smash up (hitting movable objects like parking meters and boxes). Then you are deducted points for using respot (if you get turned upside down and can't move), traffic collisions, and damage sustained. Based on your score, you are given a grade. An A will unlock new cars in circuit mode.

During the course of the Story Mode, you will be playing in two different cities, each is enormous and fairly inventive. There are shortcuts everywhere, driving through backyards with pools, along pedestrian-only sidewalks, even on roofs of buildings. The built-in radar though, is a little lacking. It tells you where you need to be, and not much else. With such a huge environment, you may be searching for that one point on the radar for a very long time, especially with those certain points being in a back alley, or in a underground portion of the map. Cut-scenes between missions help move the story along nicely, and the voice-acting isn't terrible either. The Story Mode is pretty short though, 4-5 hours of playtime at the most.

Circuit Racing allows you to drive in all the cars you unlocked with those grade A scores in the Story Mode. The five courses are within the cities, and giant red arrows let you know where you need to turn to keep on the circuit. Completing each course in first place unlocks the next. This is also the only mode that allows for 2 player racing.

Stunt Driving is really less about pulling stunts (such as skidding through corners), than it is about completing ridiculously difficult courses in as short of an amount of time as possible. There are three main courses, and a fourth that is merely the first three put together into one (in other words... almost impossible). Each course past the first is unlocked by achieving an A grade on the prior course. In each course you will be required to traverse the most narrow of elevated paths with hairpin turns everywhere. You will have to start over if you should fall off the course, and in this respect the game is a bit unforgiving. In some areas, if you get one tire off the course in the wrong spot, it will result in an out of bounds, but in other areas, you can get stuck on edge with no tires on solid ground, and still be able to use a respot. Stunt Driving is ultimately the most frustrating portion of the game, but that makes it that much more satisfying when it's completed.

In Free Roam, choose the city you wish to explore, and you're finally given no time limits to freely go about the streets as you see fit. Helps out quite a bit when you're trying to find shortcuts for certain missions in either story mode or circuit racing.

The game mechanics all seem to be executed well. Each car handles noticeably different and learning how to navigate corners in each is a fairly simple matter. The controls are very intuitive; the A button is the gas, B controls braking and reverse. Alternately, you can use the C-stick to control the gas (up for forward and down for brake/reverse). The Y-button is used for to change camera angle, and Z to use respot.

The graphics are very nice, and I didn't experience any slowdown at any point of the game. The Mini-Cooper looks almost real and the terrain of the cities are well done. You'll never be wondering where a turn is because the graphics aren't clear enough. My one big complaint however, is that no matter how much you hit that light post or guard rail, your car never sees a bit of damage but smokes instead.

The game's music suits it well, a lounge-ish trip-hop song plays on the menu, and during play you'll get more of the same occasionally introducing an offbeat funk tune. The sound effects all seem to fit, with the appropriate car horns and crashes, but nothing really stands out from the rest.

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.