Stunts and skating

by ERIK LEIJON

Manny Perry makes movies. If you haven’t set foot in a Guzzo movie theatre in the past couple of years, you may have forgotten the poor Hollywood stuntman—a lone wolf in the fight to end movie piracy. As gracefully as he explains performing death defying car tricks for a living to an Enemy of the State montage, Stuntman: Ignition (X360, PS3/THQ, Paradigm) puts you in the driver’s seat of a metallic fireball on wheels, flying over ramps and under big rigs in a Burnout-style racing/strategy game. To quote Manny: “You’re going for one hell of a ride.”

Actually, Stuntman: Ignition’s greatest triumph is showing precisely what the dangerous occupation is really about—following extremely linear scripts with no spontaneity or action whatsoever. That may sound like a downer, but it really isn’t—Stuntman is at its best when played as a puzzle game masquerading as an action game. Expecting any sort of white-knuckle action, or hoping for this title to re-capture the giddy thrill of your favourite Smokey and the Bandit scene, will only infuriate you.

Starting as an inexperienced stunt driver for commercials, the career mode covers the chase scenes from six different movie sets. The traditional action genres are all represented, from the James Bond-ish “Never Kill Me Again,” to the Dante’s Peak-inspired geological thriller “Aftershock.” Each set consists of six action sequences, which need to be perfectly completed in order to get even a marginally respectable score. The levels have a series of tricks, from dodging traffic to making big jumps to sharp turns.

There isn’t much variation between the levels or movies, but that’s the point—being a real stuntman is about nailing a small set of specific tricks. Your stunt co-ordinator will guide you, and the stunt icons are clearly marked, but to succeed one must repeat each level, every time figuring out how to narrowly avert danger by a progressively thinner margin of error.

Prepare to play the same stages over and over, and learn how to string tricks together. One thing that irked me was the arbitrary time by which stringing combos ends—it doesn’t flow with the level, so in the midst of preparing big jumps, my combo time would run out. One has to be constantly doing something dangerous—literally one second of safe driving will end combo time and ruin your score. It’s that tough, and not particularly rewarding unless you like strategy games.

With a title like Stuntman: Ignition, gamers may be expecting a more action-oriented racing game. Although not the case, Stuntman is for those who strive for perfection, since getting five stars on even the basic levels will likely take at least a dozen run-throughs, each time taking note of small details that could result in a higher final score.

Hella Rad

Skate (X360, PS3/EA, Black Box) couldn’t be more different from the most famous skateboarding game ever, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. The controls are a little tricky at first, especially for those who have played the more arcade-y THPS, but ultimately Skate is a truly ingenious and realistic skateboarding game.

Once you become accustomed to only pushing three times to attain full speed, the controls become intuitive and pulling off tricks becomes second nature. Something I especially admired is the default camera angle, which is placed behind the character’s feet, tilted slightly upwards. The amount of detail in the character’s foot animations are well displayed, and it perfectly emphasizes the more technical nature of the game (as opposed to THPS, which is about crazy, unrealistic tricks and combos).