Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

"Stay away, terrible game comming through"

Wreckless is basically a tech demo to show off the Xbox's power gone wrong. I have seen many high reviews for this game that do not make any sense. Different gamers will like different games, but anything over a 5 is a gift.

GAMEPLAY - The gameplay portion of the game is the first strike against the game. It looks spectacular when you're driving, but that's the next section. That's too bad I guess. The basic idea is to drive aimlessly around a city and complete missions. Your car really doesn't have anything special about it, and neither do the levels. But, some levels are designed okay. A few you'll even notice include shortcuts which require your car to drive through an obstacle. All in all, you drive around a town multiple times just to finish missions that include the most tedious tasks ever. Now, for the game killer... there isn't even a Free Roaming Mode!

-Positives:
*Graphics (dang, wrong category)
*Some levels are fun

-Negatives:
*Most levels are not fun
*No Free Roaming Mode
*Very arcadey
*Some levels are very frustrating
*Levels are just the same thing over and over

GRAPHICS - Wreckless has some of the best graphics for a driving game. Your car can get busted up, and there are plenty of boxes, tables, barricades, and walls to plow your car through. When you play the game for about five minutes, you know where the WHOLE development team spent most of their time. Very unfortunate for this game and the people that bought it.

-Positives:
*Great effects
*Tons of objects to destroy
*All around looks great

-Negatives:
*The developers forgot about the actual game

STORY - Now honestly, do you play a game like this for the story? I'll save you the pain of playing the game and tell you that it's just an EXTREMELY BORING story that involves you destroying cities just to stop a few cars. And along the way, you have to stop outside of docks and take pictures of crime lords (you don't get out of your car), jump near impossible ramps (where if you mess up once you better hit restart), and slam into stuff.

-Positives:
*Ummmm, nice Graphics (did it again)

-Negatives:
*Very boring
*Pointless

LASTING APPEAL - Wreckless has NO Replay Value. Why play a terrible game like this twice? I stuck with it for awhile waiting for it to get good, but it never happened. Even if you beat the game, all you can do is go back and play THE SAME levels over again. And once again, you're always timed.

-Positives:
*When you finish the game you'll realize how much time you just wasted

-Negatives:
*No Free Roaming Mode!!!
*Nothing new

OVERALL - This game is a stay away at all costs. I can't think of one non-graphical part about the game that I like. But, I had to write the review after seeing how sites game this travesty 9's. THAT IS A GIFT! If you don't believe my opinion, go to the GameFAQs Xbox Board and ask them how good this game is. STAY AWAY! I would give it a 2 out of 10.

BUY OR RENT - NEITHER!

Reviewer's Score: 2/10, Originally Posted: 08/02/02, Updated 08/02/02