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Great Game, Great Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: June 05, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game used for my Playstation 2 and was almost instantly glad that I did. It is very fun and addictive, especially with a friend. There are many creative characters and vehicles, and each one has its own special weapon and special traits. The graphics are very good too, better than a lot of other PS1 games. There are cool weapons and fun secret areas such as in one level a lighthouse that will shoot you up into the air to shoot and those still on the ground and to land right near them. There are also many cool features like the ability to hover. The only thing bad that I have to say about it is the ability to unlock new cars/characters. It is very difficult and I had a lot of trouble figuring it out. Which is too bad because there are many, many different vehicles from busses to rocket cars to motor cycles. Overall it is a very good game though, and the good parts of the game definately overpower the one flaw.

Game's Great, but where's Beezwax?

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 4
Date: October 13, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Oh, yeah, this game is truely great. There's even a feature that let's you play in the first Vigilante 8's tracks! All you have to do is play arcade, (whatever the mode is called, the one besides Quest mode) pause the game, open the console, (I know, it sounds stupid) and insert Vigilante 8 the first one! You should see a sign saying loading disk, (Don't get scared) then you should hear the soundtrack of the first one! Then, when it's done loading, (almost there!) open the console, and put the second one back in! Then quit to the main menu, and look at the tracks. You should see the first game's tracks are there! Anyway, this game is totally cool, the Hovercraft thing gets a little hard to control, but it's cool. Oh, yeah, try going to Arizona, and destroy the lookout tower. It's very funny and interesting. And last but not least, like I said, WHERE's BEEZWAX, MY FAVORITE CHARACTER???!!!!!!!!!

Signed: RedHawk48. GO COWBOYS! GO DESPERADOS! GO WHITE SOX!

If you like to blow stuff up, this is the game to buy!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: December 29, 1999
Author: Amazon User

My first venture into the car combat was the excellent TwistedMetal 2, a game I would still recommend to anyone who is a fan of thecar combat genre. It was a great game that really started the ball rolling for the car combat genre (Twisted Metal 1 aside). However, and unfortunately, when the title transferred to 989 Studios, a company normally capable of producing quality games, the title suffered and the light at the end of that dark tunnel was Vigilante 8. Last year Vigilante 8 emerged as the new king of car combat. With better graphics, a fun (if slightly unrealistic -- forgivable considering the premise) physics engine, great characters and a huge pile of advantages over it's competition.

This year's Vigilante 8: Second Offense outdoes itself. With more cars and boards, this game rules -- some characters and boards need to be unlocked of course, but that is standard fair for this type of game. Although only one weapon was added (a flame thrower), new combos for the old ones (on top of the originals) were added to the game (the multiple homing missile attack it especially nice). If those things aren't enough, there are even more secrets and an even greater destructibility to the boards offered. The graphics are only slightly improved and do have their glitches, but they are still great for all that is packed into this game and very rarely will any of the game's few glitches interfere with game play. I do recommend saving your game after each major accomplishment just in case. You can also customize the color of your vehicle and they undergo physical changes as you acquire power-ups. When you are done you will have 18 totally different vehicles than the ones you started with.

The game's one major downfall is that some of the missions make little sense and do not make their solutions apparent. It took me several rounds of either getting blown up or accidentally blowing up my enemies before I should have, to figure out some of the missions. They are simplistic enough, but not explained well. For anyone who likes to blow stuff up, this is the game to buy! A great game all around, I highly recommend it. Twisted Metal will never reclaim it's thrown. Welcome the new king to the thrown.

It's an average game

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 5 / 7
Date: November 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I have to admit the new vigalate 8 is a good game. It has neat features like hover. What makes the game more interesting with new stuff to add on to the car. It has good combos to blow up cars by hitting the same wepons more than once. The controls are quite easy to learn. But the way to get all the charaters in quest is annoying. But it's a challedge for you. What makes you want to keep playing it untill you get all the new charaters you can unlock in quest. It has upgrades you can get on your car from quest. But the upgrades only work on quest what a bummer. Also they aren't any really good cheats for this game unlike the first one. But I can't disagree with the other people say about this game. It is a fun game what can keep you playing. Plus they have new specail. But of course you think that's ovise if you played the first one. If their a new car they're is a new specail. It's a nice 3-d game also. But in some ways what I said earlier in this review makes the first one a better game. But over all Vigalate 8 2nd offense is a average game. What your whole family can play it's quite easy to play beacause of the controls. So buy it now if you haven't already for a low price ...!

In the immortal words of Ace. . .

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: October 24, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Loser! The cars in this game don't leave behind any dust, they bite the dust! It's no wonder that Activision didn't dare tie this game directly into Interstate '76. There is just no comparison to the classic game. I would love to compare this game but since Activision isn't doing that I won't either. Let's go down the list of Graphics, Control, Game Play, Sound/Music, and Fun Factor. That will give or take one star for each category.

Graphics: Where does one start on the graphics? As far as the level of detail and the amount of destruction available, it is indeed a very good game. Games of this nature tend to over simplified with little or no detail in the buildings and surrounding terrain. Activision programmers spent a lot of time on the details in the game, I wish they spent the same amount of time on the game's engine. The game engine plays like a first generation game. There is such an incredible amount of popping, crazing, stretching, and disappearing polygons, any good programmer should have never allowed this kind of thing to even leave his development PC. For those out of the loop I'll define the problems.

Popping- Terrain popping up out of no where. Programmers usually solve this with careful use of fog. Yes folks, that is the true use of fog. However fog in this game is under utilized. Almost like it was thrown in at the last minute.

Crazing/Stretching- This tends to be very similar. Various walls or architecture seems to twist or stretch into bizarre angles. If you have the game drive the car directly up against a vertical wall and you'll see it. The level with the lighthouse is a prime example.

Disappearing polygons- This is a serious no no in games. Drive to the edge of any arena until the car "bounces" if you can get the proper slope of land (about a 45 degree angle.) and the camera swings low enough, parts of the ground will disappear and be replaced by a livid blue (or red depending on the generation of PSX console or some other factor).

Control: Unfortunately, this game can't decide on Arcadian controls or Real World controls, so it attempts to do a half and half deal. The car's accelerates and steers like it's running through molasses, unless of course it floats, then it feels like it's skimming around on ice. In fact, control's so bad that I tend to get and use the hovercraft mode or the boat mode more often than not. The only major saving grace is that the controls are 100% configurable. I myself don't like the default uses for the buttons. Especially for my style of play which involves using my thumb to press two or three buttons at the same time. (Old School Mario Style if you will.)

Gameplay: Game play is frustrating at best. (Why is the "Arcade" mode listed before "Quest" mode?) The various modes of the game should be fun, but really, are more of a frustrating exercise in patience. Past experience tells me that arcade mode is a great way to "practice" the details of the game. In this case, it actually is set up that way. Hints and tips are handed to you before each battle. Cars can be limited in number and difficulty. And goals are clearly defined. However, actually doing all of this takes a bit of work. The number of "configuration" screens one must churn through is heart breaking. Whatever happened to a "simple" game session? And the enemies seem to be overly ruthless. Whereas quest mode seems to be the easiest of the modes, having blasted through 4 of the drivers in the first few hours of playing. I really didn't have much patience to even try the survival mode.

Sound/Music: I try not to review music or sound in games but in this case it will be the only whole star for this game. The music is indeed sweet to listen to. The tunes are strangely familiar, but I can't place my finger on it. It also appears that there is one song for each of the characters to play. The book lists 15 characters and I believe there are 15 songs. It's quite fun to try and match the songs to the characters. The music would have been a blast if they used real world 70's music but alas, the licensing would be too much. The only annoying sound effect is those stinkin' UFO's. Kind of makes me want to turn the CD into a UFO.

Fun Factor: Fun Factor can't get much lower. The only fun things here is the quest mode and two player mode. It's always nice to play ANY game with two players, especially one that lets us rag on it like it's Elevator Action (Waaay back in the NES days.) The quest mode is nice for those late night no-brainer sessions where your brain is too fried to think about anything else.

Sorry if this review is just as jumbled as the game itself. Watching the game world twist and spin in sickening ways scrambled my poor brain. The results?

Half a star for graphics but bad engine. No stars for the controls. No stars for game play. One star for music and sound. And half a star for the fun factor. That's all. Hope Activision's third attempt isn't a . . . dump.

A Great Sequel To A Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: April 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Vigilante 8:2nd Offense is a great game. It,like its prequel has great features that every gamer is looking for. You can play it for hours just playing the different combinations on arcade mode with different enemies, arenas,and your chracters! V82 also has great FMV's for each character, with tie-ins from the first one that veteran V8 players will enjoy. The good new features are the new flamethrower,great specials,power-ups that allow you to go over almost any terrain, music, and the awesome upgrade feature that allows you to get cool parts added to your ride, and eventually getting a new chassis for each car! The best feature that really sticks out is the great playability, with the different modes for single and multiplayer play. V82 is definitely a top 5 one of my favorite games.

A Blast From the Past.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 03, 2003
Author: Amazon User

VIGILANTE 8 2ND OFFENSE has a great quest mode that begins a few years after VIGILANTE 8. Two of the main "characters" from that film are involved in a freak "accident" caused by a bit of time travel. The Coyotes who were wiped out at the end of VIGILANTE 8 have returned to wreck havoc on the U.S. economy. The Vigilantes are resurrected and it's up to them to save the day.

The quest mode includes three sets of characters: the Vigilantes, the Coyotes, and the Drifters. In order to see all the scenes of the movie and fill in the story line, you have to beat each character and complete all objectives. The objectives are more difficult than in the original Vigilante 8 game and on the Drifters levels, they are plain absurd. The objective levels with the Drifters are the most difficult to meet and a hint would be to get the crazy stuff out of the way before going on to the more attainable goals.

Anyway, the graphics and controls are all improved from the original game. There are more vehicles, more weapons, and more options. Also, the soundtrack is a little more variable as well. The quest mode is the best thing about this game because you keep playing to unlock all the little movies to find out what happens. However, the two-player modes are a lot of fun to play, too. I really enjoyed playing VIGILANTE 8: 2ND OFFENSE and found it to be even much more fun than VIGILANTE 8.

Car combat at its finest

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 3
Date: December 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Vigilante 8 is good, but 2nd Offense is all that and much more than a bag of potato chips. Some of the new additions include the ability to score new chassis for your cars and wheel attachments that turn your car into a motorboat, a UFO, or a snowmobile. All the characters from the original are back (except 3), although they drive different cars and in most cases have different special weapons. Even Y the alien makes an appearance, this time disguised as a mysterious garbage man scavenging for parts to repair his damaged Luxo Saucer. Some of the new characters include a monkey disguised as an astronaut, a religious fanatic, a ninja, and a robotic cowboy. Every level is interactive to the core and you can rocket into space, cause nuclear explosions, compete in downhill sports and unleash a giant radioactive ant that goes on a rampage through Arizona.
What really sets the V8 series apart from other car combat games is the creative special weapons for each car. Unlike most CC games, the specials in this game are more than just different types of missiles. From spark-spewing disco balls to eagles that cause tornadoes to alien invasions, the specials in this game are all entertaining and fun to use. My personal favorite is the half track's "hades gate" weapon, which causes your car to literally go to hell and back, causing lots of damage during the return trip.
Overall, V8 is a blast to play and the best in its genre. Forget Twisted Metal Black - this is the true king of car combat.

My All Time Favorite...

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 4
Date: October 14, 2000
Author: Amazon User

This game is beyond words. It is 100x better than the first Vigilante game and is better than any other driving/shooting game out there. The music is awsome, what's better is that you can pop the game CD in your CD player and listin to the music (track 1 has no music). The graphics are good, sound is great and the gameplay is great too. I love to go through the missions and multiplayer trying to get the points needed to customize your car. I reccomend this to anyone who likes driving and/or shooting games.

The Original, But Better

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 7
Date: December 10, 1999
Author: Amazon User

If you liked to play the original V8, you'll love V8: 2nd Offence. This game is nothing more than the original with more cars and more options. Same graphics, same control, same music. The best new edition to the game are the objectives in Quest mode. This adds a new level to the game, because you must do more than just blow up other cars, like you do in Twisted Metal. Most of the objectives are the same, like collect 4 bombs, blow up the nuclear power plant, place the bombs around the blown-up power plant, and then destroy the other players. Another cool option are the upgrades. You collect icons when you blow up other cars, and these icons power up an area of your car, such as handling. There are also in game power ups, such as boat fins to drive over water, hover to drive over basically everything, and snow treads for better traction in winter levels. Other than these, it is the same game. So, if you want to save $ and buy the old version, all you'll be missing are some cool features added to the game to make it better. Either way, you win

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