When I was at school many moons ago, you would spend a miserable Friday evening's detention cleaning the schools desks if you were caught scribbling a pair of boobs onto them. I often was caught and prayed for the day when I could go doodling all over anything I wanted under the cover of darkness. The only issue with this is that graffiti is essentially a criminal offence punishable by death. Maybe not that harsh, but it is seen in many eyes as more of a nuisance than pieces of urban artwork. And those people, who are probably elderly and probably spend most of their time writing moaning letters to Points of View, will no doubt welcome an outlet for a frustrated street artist in the form of Mark Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure.

This latest Atari offering is already creating a stir in the video games industry as one of the most innovative urban titles developed for this generation of consoles. Working directly with Marc Ecko, a once highly sought-after graffiti artist turned accomplished New York fashion designer, Getting Up takes the appeal of street art and combines it with addictive gameplay and stunning graphics. The game opens with the main character falling from an enormous height and then being beaten up by a prostitute; a normal Saturday night for some politicians, but for Trane it's a wonder how he got to this. Casting us back three months, the Trane's tale begins. As an up and coming artist in a city where the law enforcement are waging war on the gangs associated with graffiti, Trane is cast onto the street by his brilliantly stereotypical grandmother. With no home and only a few cans of paint and his black book, our hero's journey begins in the unforgiving war zone that is New Radius.

The city is in turmoil and over-zealous riot police are taking the mayor's tough stance on crime a little literally, by beating up anyone who is out after dark. Not good news for any street artists, especially a relatively new one trying to establish himself as one of the greats. And that's pretty much the aim of the game - Trane goes onto the streets to find a new home and become a graffiti artist that would be held in as much high regard as the likes of Futura and Cope2_UK, who are among the legendary artists that Trane meets on his travels. Along the way you will no doubt find love and save a city in desperate need of a hero.

The way in which the game teaches you the controls is brilliant. So many times in previous reviews I have moaned about the lack of tutorials, but Getting Up sets a standard for all other games developers to aim for. From the beginning you're taken through the most simple movement controls, right through to the more complex elements of graffiti and combat modes. The controls are so very intuitive, so rarely do you find yourself facing the wrong direction or struggling to perform some kind of action. Although this is very much a title about your quest to become an established street artist, it's also about the gang culture associated with tagging turf. So a lot of time is spent beating down opposing gang members in an impressive variety of different ways, in order to tag over their work.

Unfortunately, we can't just take Trane down the streets and beat up any passers-by, which is particularly annoying when some snooty passer-by questions your artwork before informing the police as to your whereabouts. But there are plenty of other gang members to beat round the head with all manner of pipes and clubs, as well as things to throw at them such as paint cans and basketballs. The combat in this game is so varied that it takes over as by far the best feature. As well as full on slogging matches, you can also include some stealth to your attacks, kind of like a ghetto Splinter Cell. You really get the feeling that a lot of time and effort has been taken on creating this game. As you move through the levels, more and more interactions with various elements of the environment become available, from pulling sliding gates, to opening padlocks with a pair of bolt cutters.

The huge variety of artwork available is impressive enough, but each area is fairly large and fully-explorable in three dimensions. Almost the whole of each environment is like a blank canvas, and as long as you evade cameras, security guards and members of the public who phone the police, you can tag up any surface you see fit. Putting the main theme of this game aside, it still looks and feels fantastic. The characters are imaginative and are much closer in their look to reality than many previous competitors. Each area you're sent to has a real urban ghetto feel to it and this is encompassed into the storyline perfectly.

Along with Marc Ecko as a main point of reference for the artwork, Atari have brought in Sean 'P.Diddy' Coombs to work on the music for the game. And it's a move that has paid off, providing Getting Up with one of the best soundtracks since the most recent edition of the Grand Theft Auto series. With the game running a very urban theme, most of the music is from the likes of Notorious B.I.G and Mobb Deep, but there is something to cover all tastes on Trane's iPod - even Scottish rockers Kasabian have a place on the track list. The characters have great voices too, while a lot of the dialogue is film worthy.

With the near move to next generation consoles already in its infancy, you can almost sympathise with game developers just churning out more of the same for the next few months and saving any big ideas for their debuts on the likes of Xbox 360 and PS3. But what Atari and various partners have achieved here is a credit to those of us who still want original titles for what we have now. Getting Up is like a breath of fresh air, never before seen in the games industry and implemented to a degree that should make it a must in any gamer's collection. Time to dig out your spray paints!

Reviewed by Rob Byron for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).