STUNTMAN: IGNITION

Platform: Xbox 360
Review: Jason Round

Every boy at some stage in their life wants to be a stuntman, and frankly, some of us don’t grow out of it given our driving, but now you too can become part of the stunt elite thanks to Stuntman: Ignition, and trust us, it’s pretty damn hard work.

Of course, you can’t really go wrong when you’ve got such a manly title, and by that I mean it combines everything we love, like fast cars, explosions, fire, floods, weapons… It’s, in short, ‘the bomb’.
A follow-on from the 2002 PS2 release, the first thing you have to understand about Ignition is that it does have a kind of loop-like, repetitive game-play. Basically, you are walked trough a movie stunt sequence by an omnipresent director, which usually lasts a few minutes. With six movies and six sequences for 36 total stunts all up, it may not seem like much, but trying to perfect the stunt and perform it as smoothly as possible does prove diabolically hard, and thus the aforementioned repetition.
You do get a rehearsal, or practice period, which is helpful for getting a feel for everything before you try and tackle the stunt itself, but still, things move by at a rapid pace, and often first attempts will usually fall into the ‘not too pretty’ box.

On top of that, you can also earn bonus points by adding in power-slides, a bit of occasional drifting, running close to objects, wheelies and the like, and this does add another dimension to the game as a whole, making it extremely rewarding when you finally do pull off that reverse barrel roll over a flaming river.



The controls are tight, the sound effects spot-on and the graphics more than adequate for this kind of genre, including particle effects, so there are no complaints there. The two secondary game-play modes are also interesting for a mild distraction.
If you were the kid buried in the Lego box, you’ll love Constructor mode, where you can basically set up your own stunts from scratch. This kind of reminded me of Trackmania a bit, and it’s your one chance to truly build a killer display of physics that would see both gravity and luck conspire in real life to break every bone in your body, and hey, that’s what the punters come for, right?
The Odd Jobs mode is also great fun and allows you to take on smaller 30sec or so stunts, which means you don’t have to go through the whole trial-and-error process of the larger stuff. The motorbike stuff in particular really had us hanging off our seats.

Online, there are three modes. Race and Battle are held in the back-lot, so they’re not of too much relevance, but Movie Challenges sees you up against other players all performing the same stunt. It’s truly entertaining stuff to just squeeze under that bridge first, letting it collapse on the guy that’s on your tail – a symphony of destruction you may very well call it.
So, Stuntman: Ignition stands as something of one of the more unique titles out there for the 360, which should appeal to anyone who’s got fuel pumping through their veins, or just those who like a bit of movie magic. Whatever the case, it’s a winner, and yes, for once you can try this at home.

4/5