Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense

"Fantastic sequel in a stellar series"

Most gamers think of Twisted Metal when they hear of the car combat genre, but there once was a time when Activision put forth their own set of games to totally kick it's ass. Vigilante 8, set in the 70's western United States, produced a much more favorable system of car combat. Calling it more realistic wouldn't be accurate, but the destruction was much more gratuitous and battles were more vivid and believable, contrasting early Twisted Metal games that frequently came off cartoon-ish. It also improved on the idea of button combination moves (fighting game style), giving each weapon two unique moves that drain ammo rather than just one long list of generic attacks that consume a special meter - all of them proving far more entertaining or useful than the special abilities found in the Twisted Metal franchise. With an awesome initial game it was only a matter of time before they made a sequel, and with the sequel they basically improved everything.

One has to admit from the start that there isn't a whole lot different here, there wasn't much wrong with the original game to warrant changing it around. Rather a nice list of additions has been made, including a flamethrower to the equippable weapons, a new button combination move for all of the older weapons, plenty of new characters, all new cars with new, original specials, all new stages that rival the first's, and a couple of other gameplay upgrades. There's way more than enough to get excited about here if you loved the first game.

The story starts sort of where the last left off. The Coyotes are defeated but thanks to some spiffy time travel the first game's Slick Clyde and some of his minions come from the future to change the past. Pretty standard stuff, and none too fascinating. The multitude of interesting and likable characters helps it keep rolling along though, and the story mode features objectives that are far less repetitive than those that were found in the first game. The coolest feature though is the upgrade system. Upon killing enemies they drop upgrade points, which increase your defense, offense, acceleration or top speed when you pick them up. Not only does this noticeably increase the performance of your car, but as you gain points the appearance of the car upgrades as well, so that when you have it fully upgraded it will be sporting an entirely different look from before. These cars can be taken into regular arcade battles to be used to your advantage, and in the car selection screen you can even change the color of the car (through the use of the red, green and blue bars to alter it' shade of color) making the already large selection of vehicles very customizable.

As mentioned before the actual combat isn't a whole lot different, just a lot of nice additions have been made. The biggest would probably be the movement power-ups: hover, water and - in the snow levels - snow skis. Water skis are absolutely awesome as they allow you to travel on and battle across the large waterways in levels, opening up all kinds of more unique battles to be had. Hover pods are a bit less amazing, they are too common and fighting hovering enemies is often just plain annoying. With any of the movement power-ups though they will be destroyed after receiving a moderate amount of damage, meaning combat is still primarily fought on four wheels.

In pretty much all cases the new cars and special weapons outclass the first games. While I do dearly miss Convoy's tires packed with dynamite that chased enemies, 2nd Offense's selection of specials strikes the best balance between effectiveness, entertainment and believability. Only a couple special weapons remain from the first game, namely Boogie's disco ball and Sheila's massive chain gun, but those were two of the funnest special weapons so their return is appreciated. The stages are amazing as well, all at a good size and simply packed with their own unique features. Huge structures, from oversized buildings where the most hectic firefights take place inside of, to a massive destructible bridge that spans the entire way across a level, the stages are impressive to look at even before there are five cars tearing the hell out of them. Areas are chock full of hazards and secret areas too, including plenty of outright crazy features like a rocket that can be ridden high above the battlefield where the air is chock full of items, or an giant ant-like alien that hides in a crater and attacks anybody that gets too close to it. There's more than enough of the conventional hazards too, including electric shocks, giant wind-pipes that will suck you right through, oil, flames, sharks, and lots and lots of explosives. And if you find yourself missing the original games more modest but still awesome stages guess what? Just load the Vigilante 8 disc up while playing 2nd Offense and you can play any of the original stages, complete with all of the new features of 2nd Offense. Kudos Activision. That is how you reward the loyalty of the fans of your series.

The visuals have taken a very large step forward, in particular the cars are much more detailed and easy on the eyes. Environments look a bit better, my only complaint is that I'd like to see more wreckage appear when destroying the larger buildings. This is only a minor complaint however. The music is the one thing they really seemed to screw up on. While the first game had plenty of disco and rock beats that suited combat perfectly, 2nd Offense tries to have more variety and it just, well... sucks. Too many of the tracks just aren't what you want to be blowing up buildings to and the new voices they've put in many of the songs detract from them rather than add to their value.

Even without a friend (which will almost assure your fun will never end), 2nd Offense piles on plenty of replayability. Besides all of the characters that can be unlocked, the upgrading/customization available for each car and the massive arenas that were just made to be screwed around in and are packed with secrets, besides all of that Activision included all kinds of cool codes. Things like an infinitively fast firing rate for weapons, reduced gravity, no speed cap for cars, and even a stronger difficulty are all hilarious things to mess around with - even though they seem to stand a chance at crashing the game if you get really crazy.

Overall Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense is about the best you can do with a car combat game. Even compared to PS2's Twisted Metal Black I'd recommend it more, the Twisted Metal series just doesn't provide satisfactory car physics. So if you can find either of the Vigilante 8 games, definitely go for it. The second game especially will keep you entertained for hours and hours, and if you have a friend to play along you might never put it down.

Gameplay - 10
Story - 4
Sound - 5
Graphics - 8
Replayability - 9

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 11/22/06