Marc Eckō's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure

You are a young adult named Coltrane Crowley (a.k.a. Trane) who has decided to become a graffiti artist in a city filled with corrupt and oppressive police. Grab your black book, stickers, spray cans, paint roller, and posters, and start tagging. Initially, you'll target abandoned skate parks, metro stations, and low-income neighborhoods. Along the way, you'll meet some of the most famous graffiti artists of the time, asking them for autographs, inspirational words, and sketches. Of course, you'll also find yourself getting into fights with local hoodlums, metro workers, and the police force.

So what genre is it? It's primarily a mix of stealth action and platforming. Sometimes you can ditch stealth altogether and just fight anyone who stands in the way of your art. Other times, you'll need to be discreet about your actions. Throughout the game, you'll rely on parkour to navigate the city and find the best spots to paint your art—whether it's on rooftops, moving trains, police stations, bridges, or even a funicular railway. Occasionally, you'll need to use safety ropes to lower yourself to hard-to-reach places. All this happens while a banging OST blasts in your ears and controls that might just test your patience.

The game is divided into levels where your main objectives are to tag walls, fight off goons, and occasionally meet other graffiti artists. In my opinion, the structure is solid. However, the controls can leave a bad taste in your mouth. I didn't play with a controller, so I can't say if it's more comfortable that way. My main gripe is that painting walls can be frustrating when too many obstacles get in your way—like helicopters shooting at you, APCs firing at you, blinding searchlights, or police officers attacking you—all while you're struggling with the graffiti mini-game. On top of that, the developers could have been more generous with checkpoints; it's all too easy to make one mistake and lose significant progress. Not to mention the occasional graphical glitches and game crashes.

Overall, though, it's a good game that's often available at a 90% discount. Still—Free Crew rules!