Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

"Pure Fun mixed with High-Calorie Eye Candy"

Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions appears to have been completely misunderstood. It is an extremely impressive-looking, fun-to-play mission-based driving game with that campy Japanese-game aura rel gamers love. It's no Halo, of course, but it is much better for pick-up-and-play.

Gameplay - Wreckless is 20 missions of varied driving tasks, blasting through heavily trafficked Hong Kong streets, split 10/10 between 2 cute policewomen/2 bumbling spies. Each has up to 7 unique vehicles as you progress, of which a few are very challenging to ''unlock''--unlocking occurs by both going off the beaten path to ''tag'' the secret vehicle, THEN get back on track and still finish the mission on time. Some missions are simple and easy; others are multi-tiered and very demanding.

In other words, Wreckless is a REAL game, forcing you to use skill to finish within a prescribed time limit. Challenge, people. Stop the whining.

What's more, the game controls spot-on, with a handbrake for tighter corners and awesome weight-transfer physics.

Story - These characters are designed for humor, and the voice-acting is perfect as such. What else did people expect with 2 cute female officers in a pink and yellow buggy, or a gorilla-sized spy driving a monster truck?! I only wish there were more cutscenes with these characters.

Audio/Video - Simply superb graphics. I did not really expect Xbox to push these kinds of graphics so quickly. So much detail, so much environment, people and cars flying/running to and fro, fireworks-caliber explosions, EVERYTHING with no slowdown even on the HARD/HEAVY TRAFFIC combo. It looks better every play as more detail is recognized.

Audio is well-done, with fun voice-acting, environment objects having unique crash sounds, bystanders voicing disapproval of your driving, etc. Only one demerit--the monster trucks spin their tires loudly and incessantly unless you feather the throttle (analog).

Music is also well-done, with no need for your own replacements. However, being able to choose from among the 20+ music tracks would have been nice (it is random as you start a mission).

Replayability - Unending. Most of the missions never get old, though 2 or 3 (out of 20) are too simple. Not coincidentally, those are often the ones cited favorably by other reviewers...

To buy or to rent? - As with every game at $50, if this doesn't sound exactly like your thing, rent first.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 02/11/02, Updated 02/11/02