Stuntman for PlayStation 2

Intro:
I love action, I love danger. When I was 10 or 11, I use to set-up crazy stunts and do them while my friends were recording with a video camera. Now I?m in no way meaning to brag, but I consider myself very healthy and in good shape(what with watching my weight for wrestling and working out to stay in shape all the time). Anyway to my point, I use to think of myself as a daredevil, I?d always do the stuff others wouldn't?, and when most kids my age would come out of a bike crash crying, I?d emerge laughing my a$$ off and thinking nothing of the damage I had done to myself. I tried doing things that only professional people could probably do, only I did these things on my bike a lot. A few of these include a back flip off a 3-foot ramp(I?m stupid, yes) and running head-on into a parked car to end up flying up and over the vehicle(I never said I was intelligent).

Gameplay|Control:
I thought it would be super uber cool top lay as a stuntman that performs the most dangerous stunts ever, without having to put myself in a fire suit and risking my life for a few lousy thousand bucks. But once I finally got my hands on the game, I was disappointed, to say the least. In the game, you play the role as an awe-inspiring stuntman, who must work his way up from rookie driver to the best of the best(in the stuntman universe anyway). You'll start out shooting takes for a low budge film, then as you progress you?ll eventually start ?stunting? for a major film. There are four or five different movies in the game, and you?ll create between 2 and 4 stunt scenes for each. Once you finish all the stunts for a movie, you?ll be shown a sort of movie trailer for the movie you just ?stunted? for, that will FMV and the stunts that you did will be shown in different parts of the trailer. You know how in a real movie trailer you?re only shown the cool parts(most of not all for some movies) and such while showing other little nit-picks and such.

Anyway, you?ll complete different stunt takes by doing a variety of different things to create one big stunt. You?ll drive a variety of vehicles that range from a golf-cart looking thing in Thailand, to a snow mobile. There is a big diversity in vehicles, and each one is accurate to the movie it?s suppose to be in. Anyway, before you start, you're given a short intro on what you?re suppose to do, although when you?re finally put in the driver?s seat, the stunt you were introduced to in the pre-discussion is the last thing you do. SO before you get to the main stunt of a scene, you drive through different areas following the directions you?re suppose to go by green chevron like arrows(although they didn?t exactly help you in some areas), and you do ?mini?-stunts like doing a 180, ramming barrels, ramping over or through different objects, and sometimes chasing another vehicle before getting to the final stunt.

While you?re ?stunting?, you?ll have different things on your heads-up display you should know about. First is the score bar in the upper left hand corner, which counts each stunt you did by a green bar that depending on the difficulty of the stunt, will be different lengths. So basically, the bar is divided up into sections which divides every individual stunt and the length depends on how hard the stunt is to perform. When you do a stunt right, the portion of the bar below the score bar will be green, or if you screw the stunt up, it?ll be red. Then you?ve got the timer to how much longer you have for the stunt sequence, and how much total time you?ve spent on the whole scene; then you?ve got the speedometer and the meter that shows how much damage your vehicle?s taken(when too much damage is taken you?ll fail the stunt). So this isn?t a demolition derby, keep damage down to a minimal to complete the stunt(although some times it?s damn near impossible to finish a scene without getting damaged).

Depending on how fast you finished the scene and how many stunts you completed before completing the final stunt, you?ll get paid at the end. You don?t really get paid that much, only like 1200 or so somethin? bucks, and I don?t even see the point in getting paid because you don?t get to buy anything like new cars or nothin, but actually instead after completing stunt scenes you?ll unlock new vehicles and stunt toys to make your own course in the stunt arena.

Like Kenshin-Guy, I was looking forward to Stuntman for awhile, but when it was finally released and I got to play the complete version, I was disappointed. I mean, the concept of the game is wonderful, but it wasn?t quite executed as well as it should have been. And what I mean by this is the controls are very slick, and one small hit from another vehicle can send your vehicle flying, and cause you to not be able to make it to the next check point in time.

Graphics:
I was really looking forward to what would become of the graphics in this game, because the other game published by Atari, Test Drive had some purdy? graphics, and I believe that Stuntman had been in development longer than Test Drive, so I was expecting for the visuals to be a notch or two above Test Drive. Anyway, the vehicle models are pretty good, however vehicles in Project Gotham Racing beat out these car models by a good margin. Either way, the car models look good, and same for the environments, but there were places in the backgrounds that had some rough spots, but other wise they?re pretty good.

As for the FMVs, they look kind of grainy, and when they show the movie trailers as FMVs, it looks like a real trailer. One of the bigger problems I had with this game was the multiple frame rate drops that occurred at random times, or while you?re doing a stunt where a lot of activity is happening on-screen. This slow down may not be visible by all, but there are places where it is clearly visible.

Sound:
I was kind of let-down in this area, there are a few songs for listening, but it?s usually drowned out by the engine noises and ?director commentary?. The voice acting is pretty average, nothing to get all fussy about, but they get the job done. The director will tell you what you?re suppose to do next, but sometimes you?re going too fast and the directions aren?t exactly clear enough to understand what you do(therefore making you have to re-do a stunt multiple times before you get it right).

Rocky?s Corner:
Stuntman isn?t worth 50 of your precious dollars, but it makes a fine weekend rental. There are some DVD extras such as interviews with stuntmen, making of stuntman, and even a short teaser of Reflection's next project, Driver 3.

~Happy Gaming