The premise for Stuntman: Ignition is much the same as its predecessor. You assume the role of a Hollywood stuntman who is a driver for "big" movie blockbusters. As the stunt driver, you'll need to take part in one of six films and fulfil certain criteria (by pulling off specific moves) in each of the films to progress. For each of the six films there are also six scenes, so whilst you'll become familiar with a film (and a film location) quickly, you'll need to keep on your toes as the requirements for filming change. A typical take would consist of your vehicle taking off, driving under a big rig, avoiding a man hole, jumping over a truck, avoiding crashed cars, doing a U turn, turning quickly, reversing and jumping into the air Dukes of Hazzard style to finish the shot. If this doesn't sound intense to you we should probably mention you've only got about two minutes to pull everything off and you'll have a director screaming in your ear telling you what to do.
Overdrive, a movie we're pleased to participate in.
We had an opportunity to star in two films, Overdrive and Aftershock. Aftershock is your typical Dante's Peak style film, so you'll be driving just in front of lava, navigating through houses (yes, through) and avoiding cars as pedestrians try to get out of the way. Overdrive is your typical car chase film and will see you do the typical 180's, driving through boxes, going down narrow lines and clipping police cars.
Ignition includes a combo meter where every stunt you complete, you'll be awarded points. This is all well and good but if you want to get a high score, you'll need to complete combo stunts. At the end of a take you'll be awarded a star rating out of five. Getting three or four stars didn't seem too difficult but five stars seems like it is going to take a lot of practice.
One of our major complaints with the original Stuntman was the unforgiving nature of the game. Missing one stunt would often result in failure but Ignition is now a lot more generous in that you're allowed to miss five stunts before you'll have to reshoot the scene again. If you make more than five mistakes then you're ready to start again anyway, so the game on the whole feels a lot fairer this time around. After a scene, you'll also be able to see your wild antics with cinema replays that are actually worth watching.
Looks like you're just going to have to jump that.
Impressively, even though there is plenty going on during a take, we didn't encounter a moment of slowdown. It's quite common for games that are still months away from release to be unoptomised but even with large film locations and destruction raining down in buckets, the frame rate didn't skip a beat. All in all, Ignition already felt extremely polished.
Our hands on with Stuntman: Ignition was only really a mere taste of what's to come in August. Ignition is just an incredibly fun game that will grab you and just won't let go. There is no time to be complacent in the game and even though each scene is only a few minutes long, you'll feel like you've been "shooting" for hours. Ignition feels like the perfect resurrection for the series and it looks like the game will be a must purchase for wannabe dare devils.
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