Vigilante 8

"Opportunity to Have a Good Handheld Vehicular Combat Game: Wasted"

Opening Remarks: Console-to-GameBoy ports are a mixed bag. Some are excellent (Grand Theft Auto), some are decent (Turok 2), and some are crap (Ready 2 Rumble). So which category does Vigilante 8 fall into? That's right, the all-to-common crap category.

Gameplay: You've got to hand it to Vicarious Visions - they've got balls. They've taken a very 3D game and put it into a 2D top-down game on the GameBoy...too bad the outcome sucks. Like the PlayStation version (which I hated despite the positive reviews it got), you roam around in different levels in your car, that's been jacked up with some wicked weapons, killing all the other cars. Problem is, it doesn't work in 2D. It's like porting Super Mario 64 to the GB Color. It's difficult to control you car (you can't go 5 seconds without getting caught on the scenery) and hard enough to even target other cars. To make things even worse, there's only 5 levels, and you can only carry 3 weapons at a time. The Rumble Pak in the game is used to a minimum, as it only rumbles when you get hit and when your car lands after jumping over something. The game's OK if you play in 5 minute spurts, but any more will bore you out of your head.

Pros: Turning it off
Cons: Boring gameplay, only 5 levels

Graphics: The graphics aren't too shabby. The pictures of the characters on the car select screen look nice (if not blurry), and the stages all look very good. The game suffers what I've come to call "Grand Theft Auto Syndrome", in which small projectiles like bullets and small missiles are impossible to see. Metal Gear Solid had this problem too, and now you can add Vigilante 8 to that list.

Pros: Levels looks pretty good
Cons: Can't see small missiles

Sound/Music: Now here's what I just don't understand at all. Why is it that all the crappy games have great sound, but all the great games have crappy sound? Bionic Commando and Grand Theft Auto are great games, but have crappy sound (especially that horrid speech in BC). Army Men is a
terrible game, but has great speech. Now we have V8. The gameplay sucks, but the speech and sound effects are great. All the weapons sound terrific (the sound effects are taken directly from the PSX version). The music isn't much. There's only one song, the title screen song (which is also straight from the PSX version), but it sounds great. Sadly, nothing plays during the actual game, making it that much more boring.

Pros: Sound FX are great
Cons: One song, nothing plays during gameplay

Play Control/Game Design: As in Grand Theft Auto, you can only point in 16 directions. The difference? V8's levels have so many obsticals that you're always getting caught on them (GTA didn't have this problem). To add insult to injury, backing up requires you to press Down and A. They should have titled this game "Back That Ass Up", because that's 99% of the game. As for Game Design, the levels are modeled after their PSX counterparts. It wasn't bad on PSX, but then again, it was easier to avoid obsticles in that version. Oh, and remember how in the PlayStation version, you could destroy just about everything? Not here. Nope. They could have at least made an effort to make some original level designs.

Pros: Turning off the GameBoy
Cons: Wasting my battery life on this turd of a game

Improve: The boring gameplay and frustrating controls

Recommended if you like: You've got problems if you like this game.

Final Words: Vigilante 8 could have been great. But it got delayed, and suffered the fate of so many other console-to-GameBoy ports. It's boring and frustrating. If you need to kill some time, it's fun, but only if the time you're killing is less than 5 minutes. This game will put you to sleep. If you want a top-down action game, get Grand Theft Auto. Vigilante 8 isn't exactly terrble, but...wait a minute, yes it is.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/17/04