This review is about the sequel to Stuntman – Stuntman Ignition. Now the original on the PS2 was a bit of a Marmite game. You either liked it or wanted to drop your PS2 from a great height after half an hour of getting things wrong and waiting 2 minutes for the game to load so you could start again.
Basically, the director calls the shots and you have to obey, whether it be pulling 180 degree handbrake turns. Smashing through buildings, firing rockets from your car or jumping over ramps – all within a movie scene. This time around you don’t get just one fault before the director yells CUT and the loading times are instant. You get to race around a volcanic distaster movie, a Starksy and Hutch style pastiche, a Batman universe, and a Bond spoof to name a few.
Within each scene are a number of short levels but this game’s all about getting a higher score, not only to beat yourself but an opponent. You find yourself asking Can I take that ramp better, can I pass close to that car to make my combo higher and do the scene a fraction of a second quicker? Maybe I’ll just have one more go to find out.
As well as these single player scenes you have multiplayer races that can have you whooping with joy or crying onto your joypad. You put combos together during a race and this is called stringing. Problem is, just before the finish line, an opponent can bump into you, steal your string and take them over the line with them. Great fun to shaft someone over a fraction of a second before the finish line. Not so much for you if they’re in the same room and have a violent streak.
All in all this is a great improvement on the last game and is a lot of fun to play. Being a fan of narrative I do miss any proper story in the game but at its core, this is a quick fix arcade game and it does this rather well.
Stuntman Ignition gets a dangerously very good 7 out of 10.
