Stuntman: Ignition (Xbox 360, 2007)

The original Stuntman was somewhat of an underground hit for the PS2. Allowing players to live the life of a movie stunt driver, you could pull 180-degree turns, perform jumps off of ramps and drive like a bat out of hell to your heart’s content. Now, THQ is preparing Stuntman: Ignition, set to release this Summer on the PS2, PS3 and Xbox 360, and the game is looking to add even more intense action to the Stuntman franchise.

Stuntman: Ignition will allow you to play through six different movies, each with their own set areas with their own goals. At THQ’s Gamer’s Day event, they showcased two of these movies: Aftershock and Overdrive. Aftershock presented a disaster movie involving a volcanic eruption, similar to movies like Volcano and Dante’s Peak. You must drive through flaming buildings, jump across lava flows and dodge oncoming traffic as you progress through the stages and perform various stunts as they appear on the screen at the behest of the director. The second playable movie, Overdrive, was done in the style of a 70’s cop show like Starsky and Hutch, where you drive through a San Francisco, weaving through trolley cars and screeching through the windy streets.

The areas in Stuntman: Ignition were completely action packed, and there’s never a lull in intensity from the time the director yells “action” until he yells “cut.” Your goals will require some pretty crafty driving skills, and you’ll have to become pretty dexterous behind the wheel to keep in the game.

Graphically, the game is coming along quite nicely. The preview build of the game featured tons of great special effects and movie magic, including camera crews at the side of the screen (if you’re not careful, you could end up hitting some poor unsuspecting grip, so keep your eyes on the road). The cars responded with the right amount of arcade feel to them lending well to the game’s overall fast-paced intensity.

The first Stuntman was a fun game that came out of left field and became a sleeper hit. However, Stuntman: Ignition is a great step up for the series, and could project it to a full-fledged success.

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Stuntman for the original PS2 was a favorite of mine, despite its many flaws. The difficulty built in a lot of challenge and longevity into the experience and I kept playing in order to unlock the next movie trailer. The sequel, Stuntman Ignition, is still challenging, but a lot more forgiving (no load times on restarts! THANK YOU!) and adds a very addictive Tony Hawk-esque Combo Scoring System.

Graphics: 9/10
Pros: Fantastic visuals, great animation and action sequences. Gorgeous replays.
Cons: FMV for movie trailers (mixing with ingame graphics) aren't necessary anymore. They should have used the ingame engine to do the movie trailers to make it look less disjointed.

Gameplay: 8.5/10
Pros: The gameplay & scoring system is vastly improved. No load times for restarts, serious driving skills required, and a variety of movies, commercials, stunt shows, and cars to fool around with.
Cons: Levels still require a lot of trial and error to figure out what's going on. No real way to beat a level on your first try. Instead of confusing sketches during the load screens, they should give you a map with all the stunts on it that you can look through prior to your stunt run.

Sound/Music: 8/10
Pros: The voicework for the directors/characters is all really well done. There are definitely a few good impersonations and charicatures of directors currently out there. Sound effects do the job well.
Cons: Standard music and score detract from the epic orchestral scores we hear in the movies

Lasting Appeal: 6/10
Pros: There's online multiplayer with several different modes, stunt shows, commercials, and quite a few movies to shoot through. There's also the challenge of stringing (comboing) every single movie scene to get full stars on each stage and unlock everything for the build your own stunt arena...which offers quite a few thrills itself.
Cons: NO ONE plays online...guess this game didn't sell very well or everyone is just caught up with Halo 3, Gears of War, etc. It is really annoying being forced to replay levels again to get higher stars to unlock the next movie...if you beat all the levels...you should unlock the next level. I didnt' have the patience to go back and replay the levels again to unlock the final movie, since I had to play some others over to unlock the movie I had just completed.

Average: 78.75%
Tilt: -0.75%

Stuntman: Ignition lacks some of the charm the original had. I still remember the orginal as having some of the best graphics on PS2...Ignition doesn't leave the same impression as far as graphics go for PS3 or Xbox 360. The movies aren't as diversified either and there isn't the same sense of working your way up from a small indie film to the big budget blockbuster...they all sort of seem like blockbusters...which ups the action but reduces the charm. It's still a good sequel and a pretty engrossing experience though.

Verdict: 78%

The original Stuntman game always intrigued me. I tried it out at a friend's house but we never had enough time to seriously get into it before other activities came up. When I found a cheap used copy of the title, I snagged it and spent countless hours throwing my PS2 controller on the ground in anger...but kept picking it back up. The original game was extremely challenging and had fascinating levels of car damage and physics detail, but suffered from HORRENDOUS load times...every...single...time you would hit "restart"--which was literally hundreds of times. I spent more of my time staring at title screens than playing. Fast forward to 2008, when I first rented "Stuntman Ignition" for the 360 my roommate provided in college. The game was obviously smoother, more detailed, and more content-laden (with the ability to rack up points and improve each stunt sequence by doing things like driving dangerously BETWEEN director stunts in each sequence), due to being a newer console title, but it still held that same classic challenge, without the stupid loading screens. Restarts are instantaneous, and you can't believe how awesome that feels after playing the original. Like many other video games that I enjoy, Stuntman Ignition has some great memories associated with it, and that's the trouble with game reviews...memories don't mean a thing to the next guy. I will tell you a little story though, just for the fun of it. I was in the midst of the James Bond spoof in this game on a lazy Friday afternoon, with no more classes until Monday (a great feeling, if you haven't experienced it). My friend who lived in the dorm room next to mine dropped in and watched curiously for a few minutes, then asked to try it. Next, a friend from the room TWO doors down showed up and repeated this act. Before we knew it, the three of us were dutifully taking turns, passing the controller clockwise as each of us attempted the scene...and the next scene...and the next "film"...and the ENTIRE GAME. It took all weekend, but we completed the game and "vowed" to never play it again (but...I bought it recently...it's been two years). There were plenty of laughs, such as when one of my friends got frustrated at the demanding director in the Bond film and started his turn by backing over the camera crew instead of attempting the stunt sequence. Although nobody else reading this review probably cares about any of this, the point is that the game was captivating enough to entertain three college guys for an entire weekend (none of us are heavy gamers) and it was great fun throughout, albeit highly challenging. I would recommend this to anyone who liked the original Stuntman enough to put up with the loading screens, or who WISHED they liked it enough to put up with them...cause you don't have to in this one.

This driving game may seem confusing when you first play it, but once you get the hang of it, you will like it.

You are the stuntman for a movie, so you have to make all the dangerous driving scenes, and do specific crashes, jumps, etc.

You have to play over most of the scenes to make it right, which makes each stage repetitive, but still, you will definitely keep playing it.

Cool game.Easy to play for the whole family.Controls take a little while to master.Good variety of vehicles and levels.Recomended if vyou can purchase for $30.00 or less.Game is also adicting hard to put down,kinda like the old Tony Hawk games hours and hours of game play.Even after u beat levels u can always go back and rank higher on the levels.