Smuggler's Run: Warzones

"A good game, but gets boring after a while"

Well, when i picked up this game, i really wasnt expecting a whole lot out of it. I had heard of it before and it was supposed to be ok, but i figured what the heck and got it anyway. I loaded it up, and it wasnt all that bad.

Plot 7/10

Not very good, but it wasnt all THAT bad. There are these guys that need some other guys to smuggle drugs into russia. It is a very important job and they need the best of the best to do it because some other guys will try and bust you. It gets deeper as it goes on with the game, but i do not want to spoil anything.

Graphics 9/10

Excellent graphics. There are movie sequences played by actual actors and it runs and looks just fine. It has good voice acting and other things that come along as a bonus to this too. The actual gameplay has a very nice scenery as well, the cars, people, buildings, and the background especially look excellent.

Sound 9/10

As said before, there are movie sequences and the voice in this is excellent. Throughout the game there are obviously sound effects that the cars make and people say, etc, that are excellent. Not much to say here except, nice job.

Gameplay 6/10

This is where the game is not as appealing as it could have been. It does have several modes: missions, vs mode, cruise mode, and a checkpoint race. This offers a decent variety of gameplay (especially the versus mode, that was excellent). The missions, what the game is mostly about, are somewhat of a failure though.

The first couple missions are training missions, they just teach you how to play the game right? Wrong. They are easy like normal (which is good) but they just happen to give you an idea of what you will be doing for the next 36 missions. In every mission, you are either picking up loot (they call it ''contraband'') and delivering it to a dropoff point, or you are chasing down some guy trying to stay close to him or destroy him. Now this would not be all that bad if there was more of a variety of these missions, but they are all the same. You run from the cops and try to deliver the stuff to the different points without being destroyed.

Versus mode allows computer players, and you can play against your buds in three different modes. Get the loot (1 at a time) to your dropoff, get the loot (lots at a time) to your dropoff, and get rid of the bomb. These are ok, and offer lots of fun with your friends. This is probably the best part of the game.

Cruise mode is nothing special. This just allow you to pick your car and explore the different terrains without the cops tailing you fast (or with them, you choose).

Checkpoint race is another good mode. Its quite fun as you get to race other cars to the finish as long as you hit all of the checkpoints along the way. You can do this for many different tracks and you can spend quite some time trying to beat these.

Replay Value 6/10

Not much replay value, but i suppose if you finish all of the missions you may want to do them again. The versus mode and the time challenge is another thing you might want to keep pulling this game back up for.

Overall 7/10

This was a good game, but they needed to make the missions much more original for a higher score, it was like they spent most of their time on the rest of the game, but just threw together some missions (the part most people usually like best!) and didnt seem to care about them. If they would have made them a bit better, i would have given it a higher score.

Rent or Buy?

Rent it first. If you really like it, i suggest buying it. Otherwise, this is not a MUST buy, just a good game to rent.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/23/02, Updated 09/23/02