Genre: Party
Publisher: Red Mile Entertainment
Developer: Sidhe Interactive
Release Date: September 25, 2007

Reality TV is one of the most prolific trends in recent media. Ranging from game shows like "Survivor" to court shows like "Judge Judy," something about seeing real people instead of actors simply captured America's attention. One of the more unusual kinds of television to come from this trend is "pranking." Prank shows are built around doing insane pranks, usually to the horror and disgust of onlookers. While a few networks have attempted to create prank shows of their own, none have been as successful as MTV in this particular genre, with "The Tom Green Show," Ashton Kutcher's "Punk'd" and various others. While each has had its success, none of these shows has ever managed to reach the popularity of MTV's most successful entry, "Jackass."

Jackass: The Game puts you control of one of the many cast members of MTV's hit show. Your goal is to create seven episodes of Jackass antics to earn a specific budget amount. Of course, being Jackass, these episodes involve some of the most out-there, purely bizarre things known to mankind. For those unfamiliar with the concept of the show, "Jackass" revolves around a group of people who, obviously, make jackasses of themselves on TV. They do crazy things like roll down hills in barrels, cover themselves with elephant dung and run naked through stores. Jackass: The Game simply puts you in control of these fine gentlemen as they go about their activities.

Filming an episode of Jackass is fairly simple. Each level has four different "stunts" that the crew members can perform, ranging from the strange (racing down a mountain on a refrigerator) to the painful (seeing how many times you can stab a knife through someone's fingers) to just plain grotesque (eating raw eggs to fill up buckets with vomit). Completing these stunts earns money, and once a player has earned enough, that episode is complete, and he can start filming the next installment.

Stunts themselves are basically mini-games involving simplistic racing, pressing buttons in time to music, playing a game of golf or judging the distance for a catapult to shoot. Each of these games is generally controlled with two or three buttons at most, and can be learned in a matter of moments. Considering the concept, there is a surprising amount of variety to the mini-games, and even the few that repeat themselves tend to switch things up enough to keep them from feeling repetitive. While a few games suffer from frustrating control issues, guiding your Jackasses is a generally simple and comfortable task.

There are basically two kinds of stunts. The first kind places you in control of a Jackass and gives you a series of five goals to complete during the stunt. Goals can range from destroying a specific amount of property to collecting feces from the sewer, and each goal has a specific point value. The interesting thing about stunts is that it's usually impossible to complete all of them at one time. Some goals are impossible to complete without forgoing other stunts, particularly the "bail" oriented tasks. Players seeking to maximize their income will have to play through stages multiple times, and victory is not always the key to profit. The other kind of stunt is much simpler: Players are scored on the event and must simply meet a specific score in order to earn money. While these objectives are less complex, they're no less necessary in order to complete a worthy episode of Jackass.

One element that many of the stunts share is the "Bail Out" feature. At any time during a stunt, the performers can choose to bail out, quitting the stunt in a painful and sudden way. Whether this involves jumping off a moving car or being launched by a grenade depends on the specific stunt in question. Once a performer has bailed out, however, the stage isn't over; he starts suffering damage. Broken legs, punctured lungs and shattered spines quickly rack up as players are thrown around the stage until they mercifully come to a complete stop.

At the end of a bail out, the injuries are recorded, tallied up, and then the bill is added to the show's budget. While simple injuries, like broken limbs, are worth only a few hundred dollars, the really crippling stuff can earn upwards of $60,000, so figuring out a proper bail out can actually be more profitable than any of the goals offered. Be warned, however, that each stunt allows only one bail-out bonus, and it's always the highest that you make on that stunt, so injuries can't replace all of the money earned by the other Jackass antics.

Between filming episodes, Jackass: The Game also allows players to access more difficult versions of the stunts for use in Challenge Mode. While Challenge Mode isn't necessary to progress with the game, it has a few things that make it worth a player's time. It allows gamers to replay their favorite stunts in new and more exciting ways, and, like the main game, the Jackasses are paid for their pain and suffering. However, money earned in Challenge Mode doesn't go toward the budget, but instead into the player's pocket. That money can then be spent at the Jackass Store to purchase new outfits, concept art, and various other bonus items. However, a Challenge Mode game can't be unlocked until a player does exceptionally well at the same event in the game's main mode, so players will have to hone their Jackass skills to unlock every single one.

The other option the game offers is Multiplayer. While a large number of the Jackass: The Game events only involve a single player, some are built so that the whole crew can get in on the festivities. While there isn't quite as robust a selection as the single-player play mode, multiplayer isn't extra skimping on gameplay options, either.

Jackass: The Game does a surprisingly good job of bringing the look, feel and sound of "Jackass" to the PlayStation 2. All of the "Jackass" crew, including a few former members, is present and accounted for, including the voice talent. The major complaint I had with the preview build is that it lacked subtitles, and it was sometimes difficult to understand what exactly the characters were saying. However, this is a minor complaint at best, and one that could easily be fixed before the game hits later this month.

Jackass: The Game isn't for everyone. If you're the kind of person who rolls his eyes at some of Johnny Knoxville's more extreme antics, then this obviously isn't for you. However, if the wild and gross humor of the "Jackass" television show is your cup of tea, then Jackass: The Game is shaping up to be exactly the thing you've been waiting for. Combining the insanity of "Jackass" with the unrealistic world of video games allows the crew to perform insane new feats of Jackassery, and this September, they'll be going where no Jackass has gone before.