Lights! Camera! Action!

Throughout the years there have been many great directors - Hitchcock, Keaton, Snyder, to name but three. The films they create have an instantly recognisable quality and the action in their films is legendary. But what of the little guy? The fellow who would gladly risk his own life to get that shot of the car exploding in mid-air? The stand-in for Cary Grant who dangled so precariously from (the mock-up of) Mount Rushmore? Action movies would be so dull and lifeless without these paragons of personal pain we call stuntmen (and women…)

Based on this premise, Paradigm Entertainment's stunning Stuntman sequel roars onto the PS3 and brings with it a whole lot of fun! Placing you into the role of one such Stuntman, Ignition sees you starting your career in the movie 'Aftershock', which is about a volcano erupting and destroying a small mountain village, a lá Dante's Peak. It's all very clichéd and this gives Ignition a humorous tongue-in-cheek feel. Aftershock is split into six scenes and each has you performing some mad-dash driving and hitting on-screen cues to pull off the right stunt at the right time (or not, as the case may be!) For example, in one of the early scenes you must race your four-wheel-drive truck down a mountain, jumping ravines, crashing through traffic and it ends with you leaping onto a bridge, crashing through the support beams and landing with only a few feet to spare. From the minute the director yells "Action!" to the second the level ends, you're left breathless as you frantically try to negotiate each part of the level to get maximum points and complete the scene.

Throughout each scene your stunt co-ordinator issues commands that you need to perform in a short time before that stunt is missed and you 'strike' out. Strike out too many times in a level and they'll need to call a costly reshoot - and the director won't be best pleased! Commands are varied and might call for you to 'gap' some cars (pass between them at speed), jump a lava stream or slide under trucks on your motorbike. Sometimes it can be difficult to see exactly what it is you're supposed to do and where on the level the stunt is, which does sometimes affect game play a little, but Ignition seems to be a little about skill, and a little about trial and error. Indeed, oftentimes you will need to restart a level a few times to get that perfect run and get massive amounts of points. This is called 'stringing a scene' and as long as you keep performing combo stunts within two seconds of each other, including optional stunts like passing close to an object or drifting around corners, you can even strike out a couple of times and still get that elusive five star rating. Things aren't left completely to guesswork though; at the beginning of a scene you're shown an in-depth analysis of the scene and your stunt co-ordinator tells you exactly what you're supposed to be doing. You can also perform rehearsals for tricky techniques that you're required to use.

Once you complete all the scenes in a given movie, you're awarded with a trailer for that movie, which shows your stunts in the context of the film, along with some ridiculously cheeky digs at some famous movies. The fact that the trailer actually shows the stunt the way you performed it is a nice touch and makes Ignition a bit more personally rewarding than some other games.

There are six movies to complete, ranging from 'A-Whooping and A-Hollering II', a Dukes of Hazzard style flick directed by a Jackass-style character, which is the sequel to a film in the first game, and Strike Force Omega, an action flick about futuristic battles for WMDs. Each has its own unique trailer and, although you won't need to spend hours on end playing through Ignition to unlock them all, getting maximum points on each scene is something that adds a great deal of replay value. There are little rewards for getting a certain number of points on each scene, like a colour customiser to change your vehicle's paintwork, Stunt Award nominations, new vehicles to use in multiplayer and items to use in the game's construction mode.

That's right! If you do get bored with the single or multiplayer modes, you can become a virtual builder to create your own arenas, filled with ramps, obstacles, ravines, crates of chickens and anything else you like. This editor is easy to use and in a few moments you can be flying high over your custom creation, or crashing into those hay bales you forgot to move! There's also an option to play your levels against friends, either online or offline, and a puzzle mode that requires you to build arenas in a certain way to achieve objectives. You can also take on odd-jobs to earn points and stunt for commercials in a mode that gives even more play time to Ignition.

As fun as the single player campaign is, it's the multiplayer modes that give Ignition that winning edge. Three different modes: Stunt Tourney, BackLot battle and BackLot race are available (again, with online and offline support) and can be played on any of the unlocked tracks from the single player mode. Stunt Tourney is a turn-based battle for points. Each player needs to finish levels from the single player game without striking out or otherwise failing. The game awards points in the same way as in single player, and the player with the most points at the end of all the rounds is the winner. BackLot Race is rather self explanatory: players compete to finish before their opponents in any of the unlocked levels. You can gain nitro boosts by performing stunts around the level and other things, like bashing each other to pieces! There are some frantic races to be had, and I have spent many an hour playing this mode alone!

Finally, BackLot battle sees you competing against each other to complete stunts in the levels. Once a player has completed a stunt, it disappears and can't be completed again, so a battle to get to and complete each stunt ensues. However, if you bash a player then you steal all their points! Whoever has the most points at the end of the round wins. Each multiplayer mode in Ignition seems to have been designed for maximum enjoyment and it really is a delight to play this wonderful game against friends.

Everything about Stuntman: Ignition, from the cars to the environments, is highly polished and looks superb. The vehicle designs range from simple motorbikes to monster-truck tractors and each one is beautifully realised. Ignition looks as good as any other driving game on the market today, but the explosions, gunfire and destructible vehicles set it apart from standard racers. Likewise, the ambient soundtrack, which includes Bluegrass, Rock and Chase music, adds a subtle, yet effective atmosphere to proceedings. Directors shout commands and spout little phrases about the movie, pedestrians flee in panic as you race by and the graphics and sound combine to immerse you fully into the world. It's not realistic by any stretch of the imagination, but then it was never designed to be: it's hilarious arcade tomfoolery of the highest calibre, and it shows!

It's been a long time since I've had as much fun playing a videogame as I've had playing Stuntman: Ignition. It's furiously fast, awesomely addictive and gives rise to some fantastic multiplayer grudges! Ignition could well become to driving games what Bullit's chase scene is to driving films. In an over-saturated market of arcade racers, Ignition's brazen subversion of the rules puts it head and shoulders above its realistic cousins, both in terms of playability and originality. - those looking for a diversion from the standard 'point A to point B' games will be hard pressed to find a funnier, faster or more addictive game than this.

Reviewed by John Barnes for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).