Conclusion, final thoughts and awards
So once again Stuntman: Ignition is plagued by the sheer amount of repetition required to make any progress in the game. Sure, you can divert from the movie in hand to do side jobs such as commercials or exhibition stunts but often you’ll find that success in these is even tougher than filming as one mistake blows the whole stunt. To its credit, Stuntman: Ignition has very fast reload times when you fail a scene and there’s even an option to just jump back to the start rather than the pre-scene info screen.But as fun as it looks on paper, with the idea of pulling off masses of cunning stunts to be edited together into an amazing movie, Stuntman: Ignition’s strictness, lack of warning and direction and constant reloading only serve to frustrate. It perhaps wouldn’t be so bad if there was some sort of map or more visual clues but there isn’t. You do have the option to drive the whole scene in a practise mode or even make a filming attempt in ‘Easy’ mode where the director is much more forgiving, but then you only earn half the points…
Click for larger imageThe real problem is that just completing a scene, even if you only get one or two stars, is such a relief that there’s little to make you want to go back and try for more. In too many of the scenes the slightest wrong move can send you out of shot, into water or off the edge of a drop, forcing an instant reshoot… which can be incredibly frustrating if you were doing perfectly up to that point. Falling behind is just as bad as you’ll score a strike for the mistake that got you behind and then you’re faced with either lagging too far behind for timed explosions of having to skip some stunts to make up time… either way, you might as well just restart.
And the even bigger problem is that whilst a scene where an entire shopping centre collapses as a kid on a motorbike screams along the roof to do a death defying jump through a fireball onto the neighbouring car park would be blood impressive on the big screen, it’s just not nearly as impressive in a video game. I guess what I’m trying to say is that although you’d think that careering around through flames, crumbling buildings and off ramps would be incredibly exciting it’s just workman-like and somewhat less satisfying in a medium where we’ve had dogfights in space, raced Formula 1 cars, had massive sword fights and cast fireball spells at bad guys.
Click for larger imageNow I’m not saying that Stuntman: Ignition is a bad game, I’m just saying that its main selling point, that of being in the thick of over-the-top movie style action, has the edge taken right off it with the repetitive nature of the gameplay and the fact that in-game explosions are just never going to have the same impact as their real life movie counterparts… which kinda removes a lot of the point in playing.
Pros
Looks good
Some great humour in the voice work
Nicely parodies or pays homage to plenty of Hollywood blockbusters
Cons
You have to re-take scenes over and over again
One little mistake can mean a restart
You find yourself just glad to be through rather than having any sense of achievement
Effects just not up to the ‘wow’ factor of the real movies
Stuntman: Ignition is, at best, a ‘dipping’ game… either that or you’ll need the patience of a Saint.
HEXUS Awards
Stuntman: Ignition – PS3
