Smuggler's Run

"Mediocre fun when all is said and done"

Sure Smuggler's Run start out fun enough. Who wouldn't want to playa driving game where you are on the wrong side of the law, showing flagrant disrespect for the cops, the roads, pedestrians, even animals. The promise of high speed chases across lots of terrain through a ton of missions in several different cars sounds great!
Then, you play it for a while. You start to realize that there really aren't that many different terrain (basically there are 3 stages and they have you drive around different parts of them). And there's not that many cars (6 total). On top of that, the cars don't get that much better. Plus, they all have the exact same paint job so you don't even really feel like you are getting a different car half the time.
The worst part is just how similar the missions all are. Basically, there's an arrow at the top of the screen telling you where to go. You follow it. End of story. For about forty missions you just follow the arrow.
''Go get some drugs!'' Follow the arrow.
''There's some crazy computer chip!'' Follow the arrow.
''Knock down some towers!'' Follow the arrow.
Occasionally having to steal stuff from rival gangs will break up the monotony a little, but you'll still be following the arrow to get to them. I'm not saying this game sucks, it just gets a little old.

So, here's the breakdown:

Graphics: 6/10
Not bad, but not really great either. While I was playing it my roommate walked through the room and asked, ''Is this a Playstation One game?'' Everything looks smooth enough to let you know it's PS2, but bland enough to make you question. Not a title you're going to use to show off your PS2's blinding power.

Sound: 5/10
Again, not really bad, but not good. The cars sound pretty good. The sirens and the police voices are all good. But the whole time you've got this woman giving you ''advice'' which means repeating annoying phrases over and over again. You will have heard all of them by the sixth or seventh mission but you'll get to hear them again for a long time to come. I eventually put on a CD and turned the sound completely off since you don't even really need it. The music is pretty much disposable as well.

Originality: 4/10
A little originality for the basic concept but then they just recycle the same stage 40 times and call it a game. (Refer to the ''Follow the arrow!'' bit from above) I got kind of tired of it after a little while, but I'm a stubborn bastard so I refused to give up.

Replay Value: 5/10
I didn't really like the game so I wouldn't really want to play it again but you can get better scores. It doesn't seem like there's much else to find in the game so I hope you like joyriding.

Overall: 5/10
Nothing spectacular. Go rent it. Maybe this will be right up your alley. I'm returning it so there should be one in stock.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 12/12/01, Updated 12/12/01