Jackie Chan: Stuntmaster

"What?!? A Good Liscense-Based Game?"

Jackie Chan Stuntmaster... I can't say it's the greatest name, and not the greatest game. Rather than having you attempt Jackie's most memorable stunts you are thrust into a game that has excellent Jackie-esque scenes/humour sequeezed into some very uninspired platform play (not necessarily bad, just unimaginative).

GAMEPLAY: 8/10
Jackie jumps, punches, and kicks his way throughsome standard platform situations with pretty tight controls. Chan is a little stiff in general movement, and he seems to be getting slower as he gets on in years but all of his style has survived a foray into the digital world. By combining different combinations of punches and kicks (as well as using delayed or quick presses) you can string together an impressive array of combos, an array that surpasses any game of this type that I can think of (and they are not as difficult to pull off in combat as those in Gekido). By using some of Jackie's other moves such as rolls (which can be cancelled into launching uppercuts for some juggling action), and strafes in conjunction with all of the ledges, breakable railings, boxes and weapons you can actually have fights that resemble Chan's on-screen extravaganzas rather closely.
When not fighting Chan has a lot of jumping (yes, Jackie can jump off of walls to reach higher places like he does a lot in his movies) and trap dodging to do. None of this platform stuff is bad, but it does get tiring once it becomes obvious that the level designer seemed to have a major lack of ideas... in some levels you actually go through the same series of traps, jumps, etc. multiple times (yes, in the same level). Once again, I'm not saying that there is no quality here as the times you are chased by trucks and trains, or riding on top of subway trains (damn that was fun... but hard) are both great fun and quite cool.
A couple of final gameplay notes:
1)The enemies can kick you butt in this game. Each enemy type (types consist of a variety of ethnic stereotypes) needs to be handled with a different strategy; in other words you can't just make it through all of the fights just jump-kickiing everything.
2)It is very hard to judge depth/the size of platforms with in a few places, which can lead to frustrating and stupid deaths if you are not very careful.

PRESENTATION: 7/10
AUDIO: 8/10
I was extremely impressed with the audio in Stuntmaster. Music ranges from jazzy beats to some rather funky and electic electro tunage where, IMHO, it's all very listenable. Sound effects are well done, especially the sound of boxes and railings being broken.
Voices.... I'm hearing strange voices... well not really, but everyone in Stuntmaster loves to talk but, unlike in the Gex series, they usually talk for a reason. Jackie himself has recorded samples that pop up when he dies, gets hurt, enters a new level/room, sees an enemy lounging around, etc. Of course all of the enemies talk too and that's where the ethinic stereotype deal I mentioned above comes in as there are oriental types, european types, french types, etc. who share the same sample sets.
VIDEO: 6/10
Unfortunately the game doesn't look as good as it sounds. Scenery is relatively bland and detail is lacking. Enemies suffer just as the backgrounds do, and in many cases they not only look rather poor but also share far too many animations. The graphics for Jackie are brilliant though (or at least in the context of this game) and the cartoonish Jackie punches, kicks, gets hit, dances, etc. with nearly perfect animations. Joining Jackie are the bosses who, while being only kind of original (there is a Disco boss who uses many of Eddy from Tekken's moves... hmmm...) all look quite nice.

VALUE: 6/10
Stuntmaster is a platform game and now-a-days that means that there are things scattered about the levels to collect. In Stuntmaster you are asked to collect ten red dragon heads in each sublevel (or collect nine and get the last as a bonus for getting high scores in combos, fighting, and style at the end of the sublevel). This, however, is it... and very few of the heads are that hard to find as long as you are skilled and/or observant. Due to the fact that some of the levels are constructed of the same set pieces used repetitively and that the challenges are simply tough enemies and quality platform play there is not a ton of incentive to playing this game through many times over, but you probably will want to pick it up once and a while.

OVERALL: 7/10
Jackie Chan Stuntmaster is a good platform game that really does capture some of Jackie's personality. It, however, is not really a great game and does not warrant a purchase for more than Greatest Hits price. If you are given the chance to rent it be sure that you do, but don't buy it for more than about $30 Canadian.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 04/05/00, Updated 04/05/00