Amazon.com
Vehicular combat game Vigilante 8: Second Offense is a big improvement in a series that was already the best in the genre. Fortunately for gamers, the creators have shifted away from enhanced plot development in favor of setting up the mayhem. Gamers are quickly immersed into the action in this fast-action game, which still boasts an excellent quest mode.
New power-ups make this game even more fun to play than its Sony PlayStation and Nintendo 64 predecessors. This time around, players can pick up radar jammers that will scramble both enemy radar and incoming homing projectiles. But the best new features are the hoverpods and hydrofloaters that will give any car the ability to hover over land and water, respectively.
Weapons are plentiful and formidable. In addition to standard stock (missiles, mines, machine guns, rockets, flame-throwers, and so on), each character has their own special weapon that wreaks havoc when powered up. Among the best is the Garbage Man's compactor weapon, which can reduce even the toughest competitors into a nice compact package. New combination moves have also been added, which add to the overall devastation that can be wreaked in this glorious high-resolution game. The game is for one or two players. --Bill Hutchens
Pros:
Solid control; cars are easy to maneuver More satisfying kills with the new combos Great diversity in battle environments Cons:
Arenas are almost too big and can be confusing
Review
The console cousin to Activision's Interstate 76 line, the Vigilante 8 series, focuses on a group of good people who drive cars tricked out with weapons and fight against a group of bad people who drive cars tricked out with weapons. That's almost all the plot description you need, save for that the setting is the 1970s and the game recycles the only things anyone would ever want to salvage from that era: muscle cars, funk music, Afros, and fat sideburns. The second in the series features a time-travel storyline, which of course necessitates the introduction of the weapon-laden flying vehicles that everyone's driving in the future as well as other bits of advanced technology that allow cars to skim along on ski slopes and water. As in the last game, you can play either on the good side or the bad side, each of which has its own mission requirements for each level, before all the other vehicles must be eliminated. As a good guy, you might have to gather stolen cash and return it to its owners, while the baddies have to actually steal it. The mission objectives are now more elaborate than before, which should be good but isn't, because they aren't always as clear as they should be. For instance, on one level, you have to protect a train and collect several toolboxes. To gather all the toolboxes, you have to shoot the train, something you'd assume you'd want to avoid doing to accomplish the other objective. In another level, you have to launch a rocket, which requires you to blast open a building, trigger a computer control to move the rocket to the launch platform, and trigger the control again once the rocket is in place. You can check over your objectives at any time in the game, but they offer scant instruction and don't check off once one has been accomplished. One change in the series that has no drawback is that you can improve the performance of your car. Each time you destroy another vehicle, you can collect an icon that will add a few points to one of several factors (speed, armor, and so on). If you get a hundred points in any category, your car's chassis will automatically upgrade. The icons only appear for about ten seconds, so you'll want to be right on top of your opponents when you take them out, instead of up a mountain firing mortars from a safe distance. You'll probably encounter this feature first in the quest mode, but it's available in the arcade mode (in which you pick how many opponents you want and which stage you want to fight in) too, where you can build up your ride even faster. Another clearly positive aspect of the game is its music, which is fantastic. Each song tackles a different genre of '70s music and incorporates all the cliches without sounding cliche in the end. Nearly every song is infectious, but unfortunately since rounds tend to run long in the game, you end up hearing them over and over again. If only a few more tunes could've been included in V8SO, the audio side could be considered flawless. Meanwhile, the graphics look much the same as in the last game, save for more impressive explosions, a few minor other bits of eye candy, and a greater variety of environments in the levels. The level design itself is much improved, with even more interactive elements (from ski jumps to hungry alligators and sharks in the water) and hidden areas, and now absolutely everything seems to be destructible. The main sticky point of V8SO is an aggravated problem found in the first game. In the original, you'd sometimes find yourself flying in the
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