Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

"Good, not great, but good"

This game is ultimately fun in the end. Once you get past the bad control and easy gameplay, it is a good game.

Story: 1/10

This is where the game really trips and falls flat on it's face. The story consists of two different quests. The Flying Dragons quest, which is a quest where you play two female cops that go after the Yakuza after they make one of the cops spill their pudding. The other quest is Spy Story, in which you play two stupid spies, one of them looking like a hunchback. Overall, the story in this game is good for a few laughs, but in general, the story is the worst I've ever seen in a next-gen video game.

Gameplay: 9/10

This is where the game really shines. The cars are fun to drive and easy to turn and handle. Speeding through a city in pursuit of a armored van has never been so easy. The reason I gave it a nine was because of the haunting fact of the time limit. It would be fun to just drive around the cities but due to the time limit, it's just not gonna happen.

Controls: 5/10

The controls in this game are about average. There are several problems though. One being the accelerator. You press the A button to accelerate. It would have made much more sense to just make it the R trigger, that way it could have been pressure sensitive. Another problem is that the turning for the cars is a little too responsive. Press the joystick to the left and watch as you turn on a dime and slam into a wall. The controls are basically a mixed bag. A bag containing pieces of candy, and poisonous snakes.

Graphics: 10/10

The graphics are easily the best part of this game. The light reflecting on the cars, the shadows on the building as your car speeds past it. Everything is lovingly detailed right down to the peoples motions as they fly through the air when you hit them. There isn't much to complain about here. The only thing that bugs me is the lack of realistic car damage. Actually, the lack of car damage at all! You can ramp a car, spin through the air, slam into a building, fall to the concrete upside-down, cause a 82 car pile-up. And your car still remains unscratched.

A.I.: 8/10

Well, ok. The A.I. in this game is not the best ever, but it get's the job done. You can swerve out of the way of a bus, yet it will swerve along with you and ram you. If you ram a car, it will crash, yet still recover and drive off as if nothing had happened. The A.I. isn't brilliant, but it's about average for this type of game.

Rent or buy?

Rent. This game is not worth spending you hard-earned cash on. The game is decent, but it has far to many glaring flaws to suggest a buy. Rent it. Have fun with it. Give it back. It is just not good enough to warrant spending 50 dollars on. Save your money and buy a better game.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/30/03, Updated 03/30/03