Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense
- January 01, 2000 00:00 AM PST
Closet road warriors all over the country have been waiting with their feet on the gas for the sequel to the all-out vehicular blast, Vigilante 8. With all-new features, vehicles and weapons, Second Offense aims a homing missile at the best games in the auto-combat genre, but unfortunately its guidance system is a little off.
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Vigilante Justice
When Vigilante 8 was released not so long ago, it revolutionized the car-combat genre which had been more or less dominated by Twisted Metal. True to the spirit of its grandfather, Interstate '76 for the PC, Vigilante 8 pitted the classic all-steel designs of cars from the 70s with powerful and deadly weaponry like rockets, oil slicks and turrets. Concentrating more on action than the simulation aspects of I-76, Vigilante 8 scored a direct hit with action gamers looking to blast stuff into smithereens. Now V8's back for its Second Offense.
Second Offense's problems lie mostly in the same things that give it its strengths - namely, the manner in which the game skirts realism and brings you over-the-top action and unbelievable physics. For a game that sacrifices realism in the name of fun, it fails to inject fun into certain situations, like when your Firebird-esque muscle car hits a chain-link fence and flies straight up into the air. You're likely to spend more time going, "huh?" than you will saying, "rock!"
Take Offense
Second Offense looks rather nice on the N64, especially in High-Res mode, in which you sacrifice a bit of the frame rate for crisp textures and polygonal models. Unless you look ahead into the distance, the game looks great� but in the distance you see textures drawing onto the polygonal landscape. You'd think the N64 could handle drawing textures better than that.
If you don't like the opulent sounds of the 70s, you'll find V8's music offensive. The quality of the music is extremely nice, especially considering that it's coming from an N64, but the tunes themselves quickly get annoying and repetitive, and it often adds little to the mood of the game. Weapon sounds work well, but the sound bites repeated every time someone fires a special weapon (especially the "Whoop! Whoop!" disco call) really grate on the nerves.
Second Offense really offends in the area of control. Tossing out realism in favor of fun is an honorable notion, but they should have actually factored in the "fun" after they threw away the physics. Your vehicle controls like a floaty version of how a real car would control, bouncing and flipping and spinning all day long. Heavier vehicles might find themselves stuck on unclimbable inclines or turned upside down in the water, unable to do anything to get free.
Three Strikes And You're Out
The first V8 was revolutionary, and the DC version of Second Offense looks very nice, but this particular incarnation could use a little work. If you must have every car-combat game out there, get this one, but most gamers will find other games that better satisfy their urge to destroy.
