Some things are just way better when paired up with its complementary soul mate: macaroni and cheese, tightly-stretched white T-shirts and cold water, alcohol and regret. And then there’s the combination that deserves a game release every year on every video game platform for the rest of time: guns and cars.
Vehicular combat with ranged firearms and explosives isn’t the beginning of a theme, but the end of a discussion in which speed and explosions are your talking points. I suppose there’s always the problem of trying to come up with new premises to explain why you’d need to strap guns to a car and then drive it really fast, but then, you don’t need to be subtle in this particular situation.
Vigilante 8 comes from a long pedigree of vehicular combat games, and none more so than Twisted Metal, a game that had debuted three years before Vigilante 8 and by this point in time had already moved on to its second sequel*. However, the legacy that will forever define Vigilante 8 is that it’s the same game as Twisted Metal.
Games sharing the same genre are bound to share similarities, and even if they don’t distinguish themselves clearly enough, there should be something new brought to the table to make this new release relevant in some game play or context.
Sadly, since they’re the same game in terms of design, gameplay and controls, it comes down to the superficial shell that distinguishes Vigilante 8, and that shell is the 70’s.
The 70’s had some great cars to use in this game, and it had some good music that could help provide a mood. However, the decision to go full 70’s never comes off as anything but some marketing gimmick.
Players need more. We want stylistic choices that make a game more fun to play, not to make it easier to sell. If you’re going to pick an era, then pick one that facilitates crazy fun. We want a car combat game styled during the 50’s so we get to race hot rods while hurling Molotov cocktails at our opponents (the way Grease should have ended, really). We want a car combat game styled during the 20’s so we get to race Model T-Ford with Tommy guns strapped to them.
Any choice made towards the development of a video game—whether it makes the game crazier, weirder, or less acceptable to the public—should be for the only reason of making the game more enjoyable for the player, and that means more fun. That might seem very selfish of me as a gamer, and that also begs the question of what “fun” should be, but it doesn’t excuse the fact that gamers are sometimes treated as stupid consumers who are liable to buy anything just because of a glossy exterior.
I still want a 70’s car combat game, except this time it’s a closed-track racing game that pits pink Cadillacs driven by the pimps facing off against the air-brushed vans of the rockers. Although a full armament would eventually be unlocked, a main part of the game would be switchblade duels contested upon the hoods of the racing cars.
With that much funk and rock, it’d be another perfect match. Not to fit my musical tastes, mind you, but to accompany the sight of explosions, therefore making for a better game experience.
*Twisted Metal III, which judging by its name had also ditched Arabic numerals for Roman
How far I got in half an hour: I managed to finish the storyline for the FBI agent
The good: it’s just like Twisted Metal
The bad: it’s just like Twisted Metal
Would I play this game again once this year is over: I would, but there are four Twisted Metal games and a spin-off on this platform
Days so far in the Year of the Play-a-DayStation: 12
Play-a-Daystation 