In recent years, Hollywood has been learning just how useful computer animation can be.  Not only has Pixar consistently hit it big with its CG movies, but "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" and "Journey to the Center of the Earth" have also shown that movies can depict almost anything imaginable.  One thing that hasn't been replaced yet, however, is the stuntman.  Even today, you still need people who are crazy enough to jump through windows and drive fast cars through crowded city streets so movies like "The Dark Knight" or "Die Hard" can be made.  In 2002, Infogrames tried to bring the exciting life of the stuntman into the realm of interactive entertainment with Stuntman for the PS2.  The game found its crowd and did well enough to warrant a renewed contract for the next generation with Stuntman: Ignition.

Stuntman: Ignition is a bit of an odd duck in the modern age of gaming.  While Nintendo was trying to open up the gaming market to a whole new spectrum of people, Stuntman: Ignition was taking a different, rocky, spike-studded path — through a volcano. 

Despite technically being a racing game, there's very little actual racing present in the game.  The biggest challenge is simply staying on course and following directions as they rush by faster and faster.  The game has a lot more in common with Ikaruga, with its heavy emphasis on precise maneuvering and perfect timing, than it does with racing titles like Gran Turismo or Need for Speed.

The main goal of the game is to complete all of the movie scenes available to you while making it look as death-defying and spectacular as possible.  Stuntman: Ignition is broken up into six scenes for every knock-off "movie" being produced, and each scene has you taking your vehicle through a tightly coordinated set of director stunts.  These can be anything from jumps and wheelies to skids and turbo-boosts.  You're allowed up to five misses before the director gives up on the scene entirely and asks you to "reshoot," or replay the level from the beginning.  There are no checkpoints, but you have infinite continues and retries.

That's the meat and potatoes of Stuntman: Ignition, and even though it may sound like a cakewalk on paper, it's more of a long and sticky trek through a marsh.  As you unlock harder levels, you'll find yourself controlling huge semis, fire trucks, dirt bikes and other specialized vehicles on every terrain from gravel to ice.  It's kind of a relief because if the title consisted entirely of a quick run with the same cars through a few dozen levels, it'd be over almost as soon as you popped in the game disc.

While the game still features the classic Stuntman frustration at its core, it's been significantly lightened up since its first incarnation.  It's still a challenge, but the timing boxes are just a bit wider, the skids are just a smidge smoother, and every level has an "easy mode" that you can enable to give you more chances to make it through.  This cuts the points you earn in half, but if you really just want to move on to the next scene, or you want to get a better view of the level without failing, it's just a click away. 

The career mode flows smoothly and is really a credit to the game.  You'll still never be entirely prepared for a level before you start it, but your stunt coordinator and director give you a few pointers at the beginning of each stage to help you tackle the most difficult stunts.  Additionally, each movie feels like it brings something new to the equation, whether it's new stunts, different terrain or new vehicles.  The game could easily skate by on this mode alone, with its satirical Hollywood parody dialogue and its snappy, speedy instant-replay gameplay.

This mode also won't last you very long either, no matter how many times you have to reshoot.  It simply doesn't take that much skill to make it all the way through.  What will keep you coming back is trying to kick up all your scores to five-star ratings.  The only way to do this is to create a never-ending stream of stunts in each run-through, a process known as "stringing it."  Some levels are harder than others, but when you manage it, you'll feel it in your clenched teeth.  In order to pull it off, you have to spend the entirety of the stage running your car through skids and narrowly avoiding obstacles in your path, all while keeping up with the standard set of director stunts.  It's an exhilarating challenge to be sure, and one that makes Stuntman: Ignition well worth the money.

The graphics are also top-notch for a PS2 title.  All of the cars are shiny and smooth, the backgrounds are lively and finely textured, and there's not a moment of slowdown in the entire explosion-laden game.  It's really an impressive thing to see the PS2, a 10-year-old console, chugging away and trying to keep up with its bigger, stronger competition.

Unfortunately, Stuntman: Ignition suffers from overcompensation.  It feels like the designers knew their campaign mode was too short and decided they had to fit in new and exciting modes to complement what was already there.  Long story short: They shouldn't have.

The level-creation tool is simple and adequate, but two other adjectives fit it just as well: boring and pointless.  The selection of objects is pretty impressive once you've unlocked all of them, but they seem kind of useless when you realize how worthless the modes are.  The free-for-all mode, which allows you to play your created levels, is devoid of the choreographed action, although that was the thing that kept the stunt-driving interesting.  Without that, you're basically doing donuts in an empty parking lot.

Even the constructor challenges don't do much to salvage the level-creation mode.  What constructor challenges do is give you marks where you can set up director stunts, and then pull them all off within 30 seconds.  While it should have restored some purpose to the creation mode, the marks are simply sloppy and poorly programmed.  It has a hard time recognizing when you've pulled off the director stunts, and it doesn't seem to quite know which nearby props are assigned to the stunts in the first place.  It's practically unplayable.

The other additional modes are exclusively multiplayer, although Stuntman: Ignition will let you start them without multiple people for some inexplicable reason.  The game offers three "multiclash" options.  The first one, Backlot Battle, is just a test to see who can earn the most points and pull off the most stunts in a set number of laps around a course.  You can also steal some points and try to ram your opponents into the walls to destroy their string, but that's all the interaction you're allowed.  The second mode, Backlot Race, plays identically to the first, but the winner is determined by whoever crosses the finish line first.  Of course, you'll still be stunting around to increase your boost, but it's a much less strategic mode.  Finally, there is a tournament mode, which plays like a lengthy Backlot Battle, only you're forced to pass around the same controller and play without interacting at all. 

These options are good for a round or two of fun, but they may have meant something if you weren't forced into a split-screen view for all of the competitive modes.  It might have benefitted from the online capabilities of its next-gen cousin, but as is, it all feels pretty worthless.  Still, the career carries the weight of these other modes quite handily.

Stuntman: Ignition is a niche game meant for niche gamers.  This title really isn't for anyone who's prone to violent outbursts when he loses a fighting game or misses a note in Guitar Hero, but it's still a lot more accessible than it could have been.  It would have been nice if the extra modes were more polished and exciting, but for those who don't mind endless repetition and an old-school gaming philosophy, the Stuntman franchise is still a perfect fit. 

Score: 7.0/10