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Vigilante 8: Arcade Review for Xbox 360

Vigilante 8: Arcade Review for Xbox 360

Little More Than a Haphazard Throwback

Vigilante 8’s original home was the Sony PlayStation. In the vehicular combat genre it really only had one opponent: Twisted Metal. Yet, instead of being direct rivals, the two titles complemented each other. Both featured arena-based level design, starred wacky characters, mounted improbable weapons on automobiles, and had vehicles that few would ever associate with the word “combat.” Their gameplay attitudes could be boiled down to a simple phrase: destructive fun.

Vigilante 8: Arcade screenshot

However, there’s a qualifier to all this history. Vigilante 8 may have been a respectable title two console generations ago, but this Xbox LIVE revamp, running 800 Microsoft Points ($10), is so steeped in its own collective nostalgia that it constantly seems to be crying out, “Hey, remember how much fun I was?” There’s the past tense crux: Vigilante 8 may be spruced up in the graphical department, but its gameplay is bittersweet, a reminder that age doesn’t make all things better.

Don’t go looking for story because you won’t find it. Instead, the gameplay itself serves as motivation: you’re thrown into an arena with other vehicular renegades and they want you dead. The only solution? Kill them first. If you do a little more searching, you’ll find that each of the characters has a small back story, but it’s so generic that you’ll quickly gloss over it. The character designs themselves are ’70s stereotypes: there’s Torque, the token African American whose main problems in life are gambling and “The Man;” Dave, a hippie obsessed with UFOs; and Boogie, a professional disco dancer who looks like he moonlights in a Bee Gees cover band on the weekends. All this is in jest, of course – by its nature Vigilante 8 is arcadey, so character attachment isn’t priority number one.

What is a top priority and makes character selection important is the particular vehicle each character drives. Not only does this lend to distinct stats – for instance, sedan-like cars have better top speeds and acceleration, whereas trucks and vans have more armor – it also affects weapon selection. Every vehicle can pick up weapons like mortars, missiles, and rockets, as well as fire stock machine guns, but each character has their own specific weapon. Boogie unleashes a entrancing disco ball that flings opponents through the air, Dave recruits UFOs to fire a storm of lasers, and Torque can unleash the power of his subwoofer, sending a shockwave in all directions.

Vigilante 8: Arcade screenshot

So, in theory all this should lead to good times, but unfortunately that’s not the case. The first interactive obstacle is the controls. Things like weapon-fire work well enough, thanks to the ability of most of the weapons to home-in on their targets, and performing a quick boost (handled by tapping the gas twice) is quite easy. It’s actually driving around the arenas, chasing after others, where Vigilante 8 makes its biggest slip up. General steering controls fall into one of two extremes: you’re either sliding all over the place, akin to your car skating on ice or wrestling with a virtual steering wheel that seems overly stiff. It doesn’t help that the horizontal camera control is inverted and unchangeable – once enemies pile up near you, trying to pan their way becomes way more difficult than it should be.

These disorganized controls are made worse by the nature of combat. A general assumption would be for the whole arena to be utilized, so there would be lots of chasing and long-to-midrange weapon-fire; not here. A good chunk of the time the computer will ram into your vehicle and then proceed to unload its payload as fast as it can. This would be considered a viable strategy if the game didn’t have a strange sticking problem. A lot of the time, when the computer slams into your vehicle, it plops your ride on top of theirs, and, since there’s no way for your car’s wheels to make contact with the road, you’re just left there – stuck in the middle of air, getting blasted. The nice thing is you can turn this exploit around and use it on the computer. However, it totally defeats the purpose of having a big arena. Why drive around, making hairpin turns when the easiest – and sometimes only way to win – is to collide with your nemesis as soon as possible? This forced close quarters combat favors the strong armor vehicles, making the more nimble rides seem worthless.

Vigilante 8: Arcade screenshot

“Sticking” issues aren’t relegated to only the combat. On several occasions you’ll notice your vehicle wedged on a hill or embankment, unable to continue forward. You eventually get unstuck, but it takes several seconds. If that weird kind of geometry error isn’t throwing you for a loop, the sound effects might literally do that. During one play session Torque’s sedan tires started to squeal, an expected result from rubber hitting the pavement. Only one problem: they didn’t stop for the entire level. Even when the car was completely stopped, the sound effect lingered. Also, some sound effects are flat-out omitted. When you drive through a fence you hear a predictable crash sound, but sometimes when your car is flipping over-and-over you won’t hear a single effect, almost as if the car is stuck in an audio vacuum, unable to communicate what’s going on.

Vigilante 8: Arcade screenshot

Single-player’s main mode is The Quest. Each of the eight characters compete in three arena battles in locations like the Hoover Dam or a ski resort, and if they come out victorious, then they get a new color for their car – a little bit of an underwhelming reward. The Quest mode is essentially there to serve as a proving ground for the multiplayer, as most of the other single-player modes are customizable skirmishes. Free Wheelin’ – an enemy-free mode where you search for alien artifacts – is shallow and resembles more of an excuse for achievement hunting than an actual gameplay type.

Multiplayer, with its split-screen deathmatch and co-op options, as well as Xbox LIVE potential, should be a great boon for the game. Racing and firing off weaponry with up to seven friends is somewhat fun, but the same problems from single-player – control issues and combat problems – carry over. It also doesn’t help that the online community (as of the time of this review) is very, very small. Many requests for quick and even custom matches will return with a “no games found” response, forcing you to continually search or start your own game and hope that eager players stumble upon it.

Nostalgia-stricken fans of the original might be able to look past Vigilante 8’s deficiencies and find some fun to be had, but those unfamiliar with the aged gameplay won’t be won over by the slicker presentation. Vigilante 8 is a throwback in the purest sense: it’s so concerned with preserving aspects of the original that it forgets to question if there was anything wrong with them in the first place.

RATING OUT OF 5 RATING DESCRIPTION 3.0 Graphics
The polygon counts are impressive, but most of the textures have a polyurethane sheen, resulting in an overly glossy look. 2.4 Control
Responsiveness isn’t there: vehicles either get stuck in weird spots or control in a very disorderly manner. 3.3 Music / Sound FX / Voice Acting
The disco and funk tracks channel a decent ’70s vibe. However, the sound effects are another story. There are missing sounds (like when you car flips over) and sometimes particular effects get stuck, resulting in a never-ending loop. 2.5 Play Value
Single-player – even with its four modes – is minimal and really just a training ground for the multiplayer. Multiplayer could be fun if it weren’t hampered by the lackluster controls and if there were plenty of people to play with – trouble is there aren’t. 2.7 Overall Rating – Average
Not an average. See Rating legend above for a final score breakdown.

Game Features:

  • Cool vehicles: Choose from eight gorgeous, highly-varied supercharged 㣪s vehicles, each rendered using advanced metallic shaders with more than 10,000 polygons.
  • Custom options: Play as different Vigilante 8 personas, choose the color of your car and trick out your vehicle with special weapons.
  • Weapons: Use six standard weapon pick-ups with three advanced attacks each. Try both the “classic” (combo) and “casual” (charge-up) input methods.
  • Battle arenas: Experience five newly designed, highly interactive arenas, using Bezier patch technology for maximum surface smoothness. Discover collectible power-ups, salvage points, and artifacts, and thrill to the spectacular destructive and pyrotechnic effects.
  • Single and multiplayer: Play the single player modes against sophisticated bot A.I., including the Quest story mode, or play with friends in local split-screen modes with up to four players, and online multiplayer with up to eight players in a variety of versus and co-op configuration possibilities.
  • Extras: Leaderboards, achievements, extra downloadable content, and more are available for the game!

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