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Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions Preview
Stephen Leyton
01/11/2002
Porting one of the most visually striking Xbox games to the Playstation2 has given Travellers Tales the chance to improve the game immensely...
Faced with the daunting prospect of porting the visually impressive Xbox title Wreckless, to the Playstation2 must have caused a few sleepless nights for the admittedly technically astute guys at Travellers Tales.
Whilst the original provided good instant enjoyment, it suffered incredibly from a lack of depth and longevity, issues that Travellers Tales have decided to correct for the PS2. Although the game remains visually close to the Xbox version in terms of overall geometry and action, it lacks the special effects that made the original stand out from the crowd. However the PS2 version is shaping up to be the better game because of a number of distinct gameplay changes.
Once again the game offers you two different routes through the game in the shape of choosing between the bundling duo of Ho and Chang, and a police duo named The Flying Dragons. However thatās where the similarity ends, whereas the Xbox version simply had you completing each of the ten missions in order, the PS2 version lets you attempt any of these in the order you choose. All of the missions are now available to choose in easy and hard, the difference being a sub-objective that youāve got to complete in order to gain gold, get gold in both and you unlock the bonus for that stage. The sub-objectives range from knocking over a set amount of objects to ramming a number of cars; theyāre not particularly linked to the game and feel āstuck-onā, however they certainly add to the long-term appeal of the game, an area that crippled the Xbox original. Onto the actual game where thereās also a number of improvements. Your car now comes equipped with a number of missiles to spice up the action and lessen the tedium of ramming car after car off the road, whilst you can also activate a Max Payne styled slowdown when you need to be specific. Another change that we noticed and canāt remember seeing in the Xbox original is that you can now knock down pedestrians, unlike the death-defying ones featured in the original. Itās amazing how much these little changes add to the game; Wreckless always was a fun game to play and these add to that immensely, when the action is getting frantic thereās nothing like sending a missile into the fray and watching the results, whilst the slow down allows you to have a time of tranquillity when everything else around you is going crazy.
Although itās great to see a multiplayer mode included, the varying modes are likely to surprise you. Obviously due to technical limitations, there are no split-screen or typical race modes. Instead the action occurs on one screen and revolves around trying to escape from the other in a similar manner to the classic Micro Machines. There are a variety of different modes to dress it up, for example the Speedy Bus mode sees one player controlling a bus that canāt drop below 50 KPH, whilst the other player controls an armoured van trying to knock a path clear for the bus. In total there are seven different modes that are all built around the same āescapeā game dynamic, they provide quite an amount of amusement and itās good to see that a developer has thought and developed around the limitations rather then trying a sloppy split-screen mode.
Visually there were always going to be compromises, but weāre impressed by how close Wreckless on the PS2 looks to the Xbox original. Thereās still the trademark immense action that was the biggest feature of the original; posts go flying, cars shoot around all over the place, pedestrians dive about hysterically, all of this without any slowdown. The car models have been downgraded severely although itās hard to notice at the manic pace that the game runs at and they do sport a nice reflection effect, but unfortunately the excellent damage system looks to have been removed. The special filters and particle effects have also fallen by the wayside, but the game doesnāt really suffer because of it.
