Stuntman

"Innovative and fun, but terribly frustrating"

Stuntman is a game that is notorious for being incredibly difficult, requiring a massive amount of patience and a commitment to come anywhere near finishing the game. Many people are displeased with the amount of effort needed to finish the game, while others seem to enjoy the challenge. Well, for all you reading this review who haven’t played Stuntman, let me say this: Stuntman is a game that will test your patience and push you to the limits in terms of irritation. Stuntman, although exceptionally creative in concept, is generally unpopular because of the extreme difficulty of the game.

Personally, I found Stuntman to be a terrific joy ride all the way through. Admittedly, some levels damn near pushed me to the point where I wanted to smash my controller, but overall I felt that beating the game gave me a certain sense of accomplishment. The story behind Stuntman is simple; you are a novice stuntman who has dreams of working on high budget films with all the bells and whistles Hollywood has to offer. Of course, you must first prove yourself, working your way up the motion picture food chain. Every movie has more high risk maneuvers, tougher stunts, larger budget and increasing difficulty. By the time you get to the top (assuming you haven’t gone insane with frustration prior to arriving there), you will be engaging in the most dangerous, high-tech stunts in the world. Of course, your career progress is hindered by the fact that some stunts seem impossible, and you may give up on the game way before you get to the final movie. It’s up to you…

What makes Stuntman so tough are a number of things. The big one being the sheer uncooperativeness of the director. He gets upset if you don’t get a scene near perfect, which is understandable, but he refuses to fill you in on exactly what you will be doing in the scene. This means you have to be able to basically guess what the next stunt will be by a shout from the director and a logo in the upper right hand corner. Seems a little harsh for a director who wants perfection on every scene, eh? Well, you do have the guidance of phantom arrows that lead you through the correct route, but in some scenarios, you’ll find yourself totally stumped on where you were supposed to go. This only adds to the mayhem which is a typical scene in Stuntman.

What makes this game so unbelievably fun is, quite simply, performing the stunts themselves. You are given a course with many obstacles that you are expected to obliterate, overtake, jump, etc. Some scene setups are very ingenious, and many of the individual stunts are a blast. Things like swerving though a fence to avoid the fuzz, accelerating off of a hill, and plowing through a chimney before getting back on the road make this game marvelously exciting to play. It seems like every scene you are involved in, the grand finale is something so incredibly splendid, which makes each scene worth playing until the end. One memorable finale is in one of the earlier movies where you dodge two falling towers and then jump a massive gap between a bridge traversing a swamp (with a little help of turbo of course). Another one is swinging off of a highway, into the window of an office building, driving through the building and eventually coming out on the other side. As each scene passes, the difficulty and sheer amusement of the typical stunts increases, making each scene tougher than the next.

Of course, this is where the frustration comes in and where many decide that Stuntman is just too damn tough for them to waste time on. Many factors effect the director’s opinion of an acceptable run. For every stunt, you start off with a timer running, and should the timer reach zero before reaching another checkpoint or completion of a level, you must redo it (the exception being, of course, the chase scenes). Then there is accuracy. You have to complete a certain percentage of all the stunts for the director to even think about incorporating the scene into the film. This can prove to be an expectation that will lead to the removal of your hair when you finish a run to find out that you missed a few stunts in the middle, and you’ll have to repeat it. Then there is vehicular damage. You need to keep your vehicle in working order and in the upright position, or it will not be acceptable. Upon the failure of a scene, you must wait for the scene to load up again, which will seem unbearable after about 8 times on any scene.

You will go through a plethora of varying terrains on just about every vehicle you can imagine; cars, buses, jeeps, tanks, snowmobiles, motorcycles, and even a Tuk-Tuk (an Asian taxi that runs on three wheels). Every single vehicle is different in attributes and each reacts differently to the surrounding environment. What you get is an unpredictable, thrilling romp through just about every scenario imaginable. A bleak and snowy mountainside, a barren desert, shady London wharfs, and even an urban sprawl in Bangkok ( I think that’s where the movie “Blood Oath” is located…if I am incorrect, forgive me). Whatever the case, you’ll always find that the landscape or the vehicles throw in a few unexpected difficulties; whether it be driving an SUV on ice or a Tuk Tuk around Bangkok.

So, what’s your incentive to completing scene after scene of seemingly impossible tasks? Unlockables. The game kind of suckers you into beating some of Career Mode in order to make Stunt Constructor more fun (I’ll delve into the subject of Stunt Constructor later) by leaving barely anything available at the beginning. Should you try to play Stunt Constructor without unlocking a good portion of the unlockables, you’ll find it to be a boring experience.

Another cool thing worth playing for is the replay of the completed scene. After you beat a scene, you can view it as it will be seen in the movie, which are all of your stunts captured in glorious camera angles. For me, this proved to be a real motivator to finish every level, because I thought seeing my run how the movie viewers would see it was a great idea. Stuntman incorporates the replay in another feature, as well: the movie previews. After finishing all the scenes for a movie, you get to see the trailer for the movie itself, which includes some of your memorable stunts. These stunts mixed in with the actual dialogue from the film makes this a neat little feature that I got a kick out of.

To make things even better, Stuntman has a feature called “Stunt Constructor.” This is where you are given an inventory of items you can select and position just about anywhere in an arena, choose a vehicle, and start the mayhem. Things like remotely launched cars and school buses make the possibilities just about endless. This game proves to be a great break from the frustrating Career Mode, and you will most likely spend your time in this mode rather than Career Mode. The only downside is the limit to items you can add to the arena. Stunt Constructor would have been infinitely better had there been no limit to the items.

However, I can see why a limit was implicated. The frame rate suffers dramatically at some points during Stunt Constructor, especially when multiple cars are launched simultaneously. This makes things go unbearably slow, and is actually rather annoying. For the graphics of the game itself, I have mixed emotions. You see, the cut scenes look beautiful, very realistic with every detail accounted for. The backgrounds look lush and the cars and people look astoundingly real. However, during the game you may notice that the cars seem to take on a rather choppy appearance and the frame rate suffers during some important occurrences, like mentioned above. On a good note, detail is great in this game. Things like dust rising from a car racing on a dirt road to scratches on the building make the game look nicer as a package. As you may see, the graphics of Stuntman are both good and bad.

Stuntman doesn’t exactly have a brilliant soundtrack. In fact, I can only think of about 3 songs played in the entire game (not counting the background music during the levels). Stunt Constructor probably has the most interesting music, consisting of only one song that will get stuck in your head for hours. There is a single line, repeated throughout most of the song, “Let the bassline hit ya, three hundred pounds of pressure.” Listening to this over and over may very well lead to the loss of IQ.

In short, Stuntman is a game that is incredibly frustrating in many different aspects. However, it is inventive in concept and game play, and it extremely entertaining. You should definitely give Stuntman a try.

Final Score: 8 out of 10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 05/09/03, Updated 05/09/03