Stuntman: Ignition Review (XB360)

Don't flip your car or wrap it around a telephone pole just yet. Instead, satisfy your lust for thrills with Stuntman Ignition, THQ's over the top action game that's full of daring escapes, terrifying leaps of faith and lots of meteorites. Just watch out for rogue cameramen. They have families to feed.

Ignition comes with six distinct movies, all of which mimic certain Hollywood films. Aftershock, for example, sees a town engulfed by the wrath of an angry volcano (Volcano, Dante's Peak). Another, Whoopin' and a Hollerin' II, has you avoiding the law, redneck style, ala The Dukes of Hazzard.

Each flick contains a series of challenges, all of which require you to complete various stunts in order to proceed. So basically hop into a dune buggy, truck, car and even a motorcycle, hit the tracks and take direction. As you drive, the director shouts orders, all of which appear on screen at specific locations. If, for instance, you need to jump a bridge, an icon pops up on the specific bridge. But you'll also ram cars, bust through billboards, sideswipe trucks and blow things up. If there's one thing this game has in spades, it's nonstop action.

It also comes with plenty of frustration, thanks to lots of trial and error. Screwing up one stunt can result in messing up the next three, and seeing as how unlocking later movies depends on the amount of points earned, you'll restart a ton. That doesn't necessarily hurt the game's appeal (plenty of great games demand restarts), but people with short fuses will likely explode after failing to hit the final jump and hearing the director call for a re-shoot, forcing them to start from the beginning.

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