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Vigilante 8 on Xbox Live Arcade is a re-release of the original PC/Playstation game, with a few extra features included from Vigilante 8 2nd Offense. But despite the attempt to cherry pick the best elements of three different titles, some of the classic pieces that defined the series have been left on the cutting room floor and even though this latest version features updated graphics it still feels very dated.
Featuring a total of eight drivable vehicles (that’s four “Coyotes” and four “Vigilantes”), Vigilante 8 very loosely tells the story of a posse of law bringers hunting down a band of outlaws. It is a very simple narrative endemic to most of the car combat games of the late 90’s and serves mostly as an excuse to pit machine gun and missile equipped cars against one another in such environments as a farm, an oil field, a ski resort, a meteor crater site and a dam.
The largest problem with this re-release is that any modern gamer (that is, anyone who owns a 360 and, consequently, everyone who might play this game) is very accustomed to more realistic physics and car handling than what systems were capable of in the days of yore, and without any real tweaks or additions these floaty mechanics don’t make for a pretty transition into today’s modern world.
If your mouse handles as well as these cars, good luck hitting the jump for more.
Thankfully, one of the elements to successfully make the transition into the new millennium is the combat. You can carry up to three different weapons at any time, with each mapped to one of the face buttons and your machine gun defaulting to “A.” Holding down a button will charge each weapon up to three levels, typically doing more damage as you move up the ladder. With homing missiles, land mines and mortar attacks as just a portion of your arsenal, it is possible to hit your enemies with multiple weapons at once, creating “Whammies” for massive damage.
Every time you total an opponent, depending on how much style you did it in they will drop a varying amount of salvage, which can be picked up in order to increase the strength of your vehicle. Chiefly this combat system works, but it doesn’t look too fantastic. For the most part the weapons effects come out as various colored lights, with the highest level mortar attack being the only thing to come close to looking like fire. Of course, you won’t really notice the lack of graphical detail when you are fighting tooth and nail just to keep your own car’s wheels on the ground.
Cars shouldn’t fly. We’re not talking, “Burnout Paradise is getting the DeLorean,” flying. We’re talking accidentally bumped into the ski lift chair which tips you over and sends you hurtling down the hill, flying. We’re talking upside down and a double tap on the directional pad rolls your car 360 degrees so you are on your back again, flying. This game is Cirque du Soleil on wheels. The fact that the only truly unlockable vehicle (the rest are just the classic models from previous games) is a UFO that handles exactly like the rest of the cars really tells you something.
The silver lining to this cloud is that, because the handling for the vehicles is so loose, the 18 wheeler and bus, which are supposed to handle sluggishly, now feel very maneuverable and are actually able to be driven in a straight line, unlike the smaller sports cars where your only option is constant oversteering. I almost wish that the handling were so bad that it made the game unplayable, but it honestly doesn’t. It just makes driving an unnecessary chore. That is, until you figure out that every car handles perfectly fine when driving in reverse, at which point the game becomes a zigzag pattern toward your opponents and a straight line backing away from them, firing weapons during your withdrawal.
The graphics are actually pretty sharp and the retooled environments are fun to drive around in, even though there are so few of them. It can be frustrating fighting your way through all the destructible clutter, which you’ll feel has been added mostly to conceal the one hundred alien icons dispersed throughout each of the five stages (finding all of which unlocks the aforementioned UFO).
With eight different vehicles to choose from in the Quest mode and three stages per quest, you will play through each of the environments a minimum of five times, assuming you have the fortitude to complete every single campaign. The odds are though that once you realize how difficult the game can be, you’ll crank it down to Easy, play through with one or two cars and then spend your time elsewhere. There is a bit more life breathed into the game through the inclusion of a co-op split screen mode and an online and offline versus mode. The final selectable mode, “Free Wheelin,” can be quite useful, as it lets you drive around the environments alone learning where the weapons and repair icons are (so you can grab them before your wounded opponents do), or hunt down the alien icons.
Most likely anyone interested in purchasing this title will intend to do so for the nostalgia factor, but anyone making that leap will be disappointed. The nadir of this entire experience is embodied in the game’s tagline, “Not your father’s V8.” Even though the graphics have seen some improvements, the lack of any linear, cohesive campaign really feels like a huge departure from the good old days, and you’ll likely spend hours wondering why this thing or that thing wasn’t included in the game, only to realize you were thinking of some other title. In my case, I wondered why the soundtrack was full of generic, wordless music tracks and not the more stylish Mighty Mighty Bosstones that I remembered.
A couple Google searches later and it will slowly dawn on you: that game I was thinking of was Rogue Trip. Maybe in your case it will be Twisted Metal 1,2, 3 or 4, Carmageddon, or Interstate ‘76. And that more or less typifies the new V8 experience. Any enjoyment you’ll have from playing this game will come not from the game itself but from reminiscing about the times you spent with either the original title or one of the many other car combat clones. But after that honeymoon is over you’ll wake up and wonder what this game is doing on your hard drive.
Final Score: C-
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