Action! Cut! Repeat!

by Christopher Colquhoun

Fun factor: Average

Worth to: Rent

We all knew making movies is a repetitive business, but the trial and error aspect of this title might turn off players before seeing the end-product.

Stuntman: Ignition puts you in the shoes of a no-name Hollywood stunt driver as he gets his big break in the movies but to succeed he’ll have to impress various directors with precision driving through some of the most over-the-top action scenes ever shot on film. It’s an appealing concept and one that may be enough to keep gamers interested provided they can accept playing the same levels multiple times to get the most out of the game.

Everybody should drive like this…

The game’s Career mode takes the player through 6 different parodies of Hollywood blockbusters as well as odd jobs such as commercials, which are really just as long as playing a scene from any of the movies. All together there are 42 different scenes to play through and each last about 2 to 3 minutes. However the only way of progressing to bigger and better movies is to perform well in the scenes you’re given.



Success is measured in points which are the translated into a star rating. 1 to 4 stars are awarded for getting a high score, which is determined from scene to scene, whereas the elusive 5 stars are only awarded by keeping your score multiplier active throughout the whole scene (which ironically leaves you with 0 points). After a few seconds without doing a stunt you lose the multiplier and the points you saved up are multiplied accordingly and banked.

Stunts fall into two different categories. The first ones are “director stunts,” which you need to do to please the director -- failing to do 5 of these will lead to the director yelling cut and demanding a re-shoot. The other type is stunts the player executes to keep the multiplier rising for extra points while looking stylish in the process. Why turn the corner when you can drift it? Why not get a bit closer to that oncoming traffic? Netting these stunts is essential to getting a good score. The whole concept is rather forgiving. Even if you were to stumble throughout the game getting 1-2 stars it’s still enough to unlock most scenes.

If only directors weren’t as harsh with their stars

However it’s not so kind when the cameras begin to roll. This is because of the 5 strike limit you have on your actions. Messing up one director stunt will unfortunately more often than not lead to 2 or 3 stunts being messed up since timing is so important; it’s rather frustrating to be penalised multiple times for messing up once. For those who can’t stand the trial and error nature of the game there’s an “Easy Mode” which allows twice as many screw ups, however this privilege gives players half the scores and that ultimately means they won’t progress through the game as quickly.



Stuntman has more than just cars; you’ll also drive bikes and trucks. All of these have nice, tight handling and are easy to control. Sadly, the game loses steam about two-thirds of the way through since later on you don’t get to see anything new -- you will have driven all the different vehicle types and seen all the different stunts by then. But even after this point the game stays enjoyable enough since they do a good job of working the scenes in ways that make them exciting and fresh. The game is rather short, though. Career mode won’t last you more than 4 or 5 hours, at best, unless you really want to be a high achiever and go back to scenes to improve on your score.

Shooting movies can be repetitive…

Possibly the biggest surprise Stuntman has to offer is it’s parody of Hollywood, not only in its movie premise but in the directors and trailers you get to watch after completing work on a movie. It’s not the funniest material you’ll ever see but it gives the game a good amount of personality that it otherwise wouldn’t have had. It also helps that voice acting throughout is solid, although some more lines of dialogue would have been nice; listening to you stunt coordinator say “Crush the police car” 5 times in a row in the exact same way tends to get old, fast.



On top of Career mode Stuntman offers a level editor and a Quickplay mode. Quickplay takes you to the set of specific movies and has you do smaller scenes or just leaves you to your own devices to rack up as many points as possible. The lack of bombastic Hollywood moments that define Career mode make Quickplay scenes not quite as fun to play, especially if you’re done with Career mode but still want more of those moments. The level editor sounds great in theory; you can create stunts at your own leisure while using the most ridiculous set of ramps and props Hollywood has ever seen. However it’s hard to see your vision out when you need to unlock just about everything by performing well in Career mode, and even if you have everything the level editor lacks polish and just feels clumsy while putting together even the simplest of stunts.

Summary

The game offers some genuine, if limited, thrills but has baggage in the form of trial and error gameplay that isn’t seen in games very often nowadays. If you can get past this Stuntman: Ignition is a solid title that should be snapped up at a budget price.