The creators of the PS2 game, Stuntman, also made the brilliant PSX game Driver. In Stuntman you play, unsurprisingly, a stuntman car driver working on several movies. In Driver, you're a getaway driver for the mob. Despite the different backgrounds, the two share some similarities: you're always driving somewhere, you have specific goals to complete, and you often have to fail several times and restart to complete those goals as required. Unlike Driver, however, Stuntman gets around the unrealistic restarts by calling them successive takes to get the stunt right for a movie.

Unfortunately, I can't really recommend Stuntman as much as Driver. Which isn't to say it isn't fun: just that it's not nearly as rewarding as Driver was and (other than that nightmare bank pickup mission that drove me to the brink of madness) has far more design mistakes.

Before getting into the poor bits, let me mention what I really do like about Stuntman. First of all, it's got the kind of richness of graphics that Driver always cried out for. Driving between gigantic falling chimneys and whipping through a white forest on a snowmobile, Stuntman manages to convey a sense of depth and speed that surpasses most any driving game I've ever played. Driving controls are tight, as one expects, and offer the option to use the analog buttons or right analog stick for accelerator/brake. The music, though repetitive after a dozen takes, is fitting and professionally made for each movie, enhancing the theme. And the final trailer for each completed movie, featuring actual clips from your final takes of the stunts, is exceptionally well produced.

Yet, as good as those bits are, and as rewarding as a finished movie can be, there are some shortfalls drove me to distraction. First, a consistent gripe that I have with games is the inability to configure the controller precisely as you want it. Stuntman offers exactly ONE configuration, and if you don't like it, then tough. I prefer putting the accelerator and brake in different places, depending on the type of driving I'm doing in a game, and Stuntman was made more difficult for me because of this design choice. Also, I'd realy like to have seen a summary of how well you performed on a failed stunt before you had to restart. As made, the game deletes the readout of your stunt performance as soon as the stunt ends. You have no time to review where you did well, where you did poorly, and how far through the run you even made it.

On a similarly technical point, the load times are really are atrocious. To emphasize how awful it really can be, here's how a normal new stunt sequence goes: small video clip spooled off the disc, 15 seconds staring at a static screen, short non-interactive scene using the in-game engine, then another 15 seconds staring at the same static screen, and finally the stunt. (There's a 10-15 second wait to restart a stunt, too, so it doesn't get any better, although you don't have to sit through the first two video scenes first.) There is no good reason to have that first 15-second wait! While you're developing the game, just play it once using the in-game engine, video capture it, and make it spool just like the first clip. When load times are clearly a flaw you'd like to hide, you shouldn't miss opportunities like this to minimize them.

One obvious feature that should have been implemented was the option to do a slow drive through of the stunt route. I have to imagine that real stuntmen get this option, and it would have been natural to include it in this game. Yet, other than an extremely brief, undetailed explanation before each stunt, the first time you get the details of your run is when you do the first movie take, listening to the director giving you directions via radio. So, after going to great lengths to make the game quite a bit like a real stuntman's job, the designers chose to make the game extremely frustrating by leaving out a planning drive.

The stunts are unforgiving, at times, but some are extremely fun to ride. Unfortunately, some of the best fun is had after you've suffered through far too many load times. You've had one too many stunt direction given after you needed to hear it. And you've had one too many bad hits in a tight squeeze. I'm all about compulsive gaming, but this game just doesn't have the pay-off to make it worth it.