Vigilante 8

"A mini Vigilante 8 in more ways then you may think"

To be honest I could never get all the hoopla about Vigilate 8. It was a good game to be sure, but the fact that people dared to say it topped Twisted Metal baffled me. Not content to leave their product on the consoles, Activision put the able bodied Vicarious Visions (they did Tony Hawk 2&3 for GBA) to the task of bringing all the vicious car combat to the palm of your hand. Lock and load baby!

Gameplay: Boy, this section is bound to be short. You pick from one of the eight or so characters, and then have it in various locales such as Las Vegas of the Hoover Dam. Many weapons from the console versions are included, even the hard to use but oh so satisfying mortar weapons.
One major flaw is your cars have a tendency to get stuck on objects or walls, and the only way to free yourself is to rock the d-pad much like in Dark Arena for GameBoy Advance. One thing that this version doesn't share with the console versions is the view. Since GBC lacks 3D hardware you'll have to settle with a overhead view instead. I must also note due to the lack of space on GBC games, there is only a handful of locations to combat in either one or two player matches. Probably had to do with all the recorded dialogue..........

Graphics: The coloring is very bland, but the developers did manage to make the cars resemble their console counterparts. Surprising to say the least. The explosions also blow up real good! Really in the end the graphics are decent enough.

Sound: This is where the game will blow you away. This little GBC pack feature spoken dialogue! In fact the game is packed with tons of it. Also the effects sound recorded from the console version as well. While a bit on the scratchy side, the sound effects are certainly better then most GBC games. Honestly, this is probably where most of the cart space went.

Control: Hit and miss. For the most part the control works okay, but due to the phony 3D view (via the overhead view) the controls tend to get sticky at times. Also getting stuck on objects or walls got annoying after a while to say the least. Aiming is also not the easiest of affairs at times, but usually I didn't have too much of a problem.

I must say to get the most out of this game multi-player is a must. However, even still this game gets quite dull in a matter of a couple weeks. While I really appreciated all the recorded dialogue, I can't help but feel it may of been used in making a larger game. Less flash, more game that is my motto, because as is Vigilante 8 is quite tiny.

Score:5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 09/01/02, Updated 09/01/02