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Dom Robinson reviews
Rockstar Games
- Price: £39.99
- Players: 1-2
Smuggler’s Run 2 is,yes, more of the same as with the originalSmuggler’s Rungame – albeit this time set in Russia – the basic idea herebeing to race around each of the different landscapessuch as Forest, Snow and Desert, picking up contraband and delivering it at therequired destination, although this amounts to little more than drivingover a green block first and then through red flares posing as checkpointssecond.
There are several cars you can drive – unlocking more as you continue -and a number of teams, or gangs in this case, up against each other.
There are several ways to play the game :
- Smuggler’s Mission: You’re required to do as described above,starting with easy missions but they soon progress to become more difficult,especially with the rozzers on your tail and it’s easy to attract theirattention.
- Joyridin’: A practice round in which you can drive anywhere andeverywhere.
- Checkpoint Race: does exactly what it says on the tin.
- Turf War:
There are three sub-options here :
- Crooks ‘N’ Smugglers: It’s every man for himself when you’re eachracing for the contraband, stealing it from each other and making for thecheckpoint. This leads to apparently seeing several changes of objective perlevel. One second you’re after contraband, then it changes to “opponent pickup”so you go chasing after another car, then it changes to another car if theysteal it from the one who has it, etc.The one to grab the most in the time limit, or the maximumpick-ups allowed, is the winner.
- Loot Grab: similar to the above, but with two teams going after severalpieces of loot. Again, the team to grab the most is the winner.
- Bomb Tag: similar to the above, but if you get stuck with the bombwhen it explodes, you score resets to zero.
The cars move fast enough, but the graphics are only slightly improved-uponfrom last time. However, they are still fairly sparse and certainlydon’t do a great deal to promote the PS2 and all that it’s meant to stand for.
Sometimes the real-world physics leave a bit to be desired when your car rollsover and unrealistically rights itself. On the other hand, it’s fun to driveinto people, run them over and watch their bodies fly into the air.
The vibration feature isn’t used a great deal though. It’s mainly for crashinginto other cars and hardly ever when driving about over terrain unless youthrash about too much.
The sound? The engine revs, the horn honks and police car sirens go“Woo-woo-woo-woo!”, etc. Big woo!
There’s improved computer A.I. and weather effects too, but it makes youwonder why those weren’t made better last time round?
SOUND EFFECTS AND MUSIC
PLAYABILITY
ORIGINALITY
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Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.