Amazon.com: Wreckless: Xbox: Video Games

107 Reviews

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(16)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(23)

Average Customer Review

3.1 out of 5 stars (107 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Rent before you buy, February 9, 2002

By	Mikey (Houston, TX) - See all my reviews

This game was not my cup of tea. I quickly got bored within 15 minutes of playing this game. Yes, the graphics are amazing (as advertised) but I found the gameplay shallow and plain boring. The good thing is that the levels are huge and filled with pedestrians, carts, buildings and traffic. Unfortunately, due to the timed mission-driven nature of the game, you never get to fully explore (which is what made GTA3 so amazing) the city. Also, unlike GTA3, you are not free to get out of your car and roam about. The basic gameplay is to crash into enemy cars/trucks/carts/etc. Surprisingly, the car physics is more sim than arcade. Personally I would have much prefered racing the streets of Hong Kong against other cars rather than chasing bad guys so I can ram them to death.

I got pretty excited about this game 2 months ago when I saw a preview video but it's been a disappointment. I strongly recommend a rental before shelling out $50.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A let down, March 10, 2002

By	Ash1138 "www.myspace.com/ash1138" (Centennial, CO United States) - See all my reviews

Of all the post-release Xbox games to come out, this is the one that I (and probably everyone else) have looked forward to the most. I bought it without a second thought when I finally saw it on the rack at the store.

Unfortunately I didn't have the review that I am writing now to give me a second thought. Perhaps this will help you.

Let me start with what is great about the game. No doubt about it the graphics are it. They are absolutely just as amazing as all the hype has made them out to be. And the replays... The replays are designed so well that combined with the graphics you could be fooled into thinking you are watching a care chase from your favorite action movie. Unfortunately that's about all the game does really well.

What the game does poorly is appeal to non-hardcore gamers. This game is not for the casual gamer. This game is hard. It's challenging because the missions are tough but difficulty in controlling your vehicle increases the difficulty tenfold. What's really frustrating is you have a vehicle that can crash through just about anything in the game from mailboxes to city buses but if you touch a wall your car sticks to it like glue. The streets are often extremely narrow and intersections are usually not noticable until you've already passed them. This makes navigating the city an agrivating experience most of the time.

Hardcore gamers may be able to beat all the missions (20 in all) but their complaint will more likely be that the game is too short (each mission takes aproximately two minutes to complete). Casual gamers will find much more longevity in the game as they play the same mission over and over again until they finally put the game away and never play again.

This is one of those games that you want to like so bad it hurts. The concept is already proven in the classic and extremely underappreciated Dreamcast game Super Runabout (which has inferior graphics but superior gameplay), but the execution in this game is really lacking.

Buy this game if you want something to show off your Xbox's graphical capabilities. Even the most stubborn Playstation loyalist will have to admit that there is no way in hell that the PS2 could ever look near this good. Or buy this game if you are a hardcore gamer who is up to the challenge. You'll definately like the game much more if you can actually complete the missions.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Super Runabout for the XBOX, February 24, 2002

By	AMM "adrian_m" (New England, United States) - See all my reviews

On a totally aesthetic level, you'd be hard-pressed to find a prettier game on ANY gaming system. The XBOX's much-touted GPU really shows its stuff off in Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions with real-time reflections, bump-mapping everywhere and intense city streets. Never before have the streets of Hong Kong been modeled in such detail! Much of what you see can be demolished, from the Dim Sum stands, to fences, to oncoming traffic! Watching the people running for their lives in the streets is both fun and realistic! You can't run them over though.

Now that I've gotten the graphics out of the way, let me explain how the game plays. Sadly, playability-wise, Wreckless really doesn't hold a candle to its beautful graphics. Why you ask? Because it's just a Super Runabout (Sega Dreamcast) clone with far better graphics and effects. You're basically given a series of missions to complete (mostly ramming enemy vehicles until their energy bar runs out)with a variety of cars that seem to handle like they were constructed out of tin foil. It's painfully easy to spin out or flip over, which is bad news since all the missions are timed. Sometimes a legitimate hit on a Yakuza car will send you flipping around, bouncing off innocent cars in the traffic in a chain-reaction method, costing you both time and your sanity. If you flip your car over, be prepared to lose several seconds while the game gives you a new car. Also, the game clock keeps ticking while you're in an elevator or taking snapshots...these are basically cut scenes in which you have no control, yet you still lose time! Bad game design!! Sometimes the actual goal of the mission is rather vague and relies too much on trial and error...this is most evident in the stage where you have to take out 4 Dim Sum stands going only by 4 camera snapshots and a pretty useless hot/cold tracking meter. Considering that the city you're driving in is pretty large, this is by no means an easy task. It seems like you can play the same missions over again and wind up with different results...luck has a lot to do with your success in the game. The AI is not very forgiving and the lucky aspect just reeks of poor game design.

Having trouble with a particular mission? Too bad. You're going to have to play through it over and over until it's beaten! There's no way to skip any of the tough missions.

Wreckless has been highly praised by practically every game magazine I've read and I am wondering why this is. The nice graphics? The special effects? There's definitely nothing new in this game and I find it to be a bit on the frustrating side. Am I sorry for buying it? Not at all...it's fun for a mindless gaming session, but will I be bothered to play through it over and over again to finally beat it? Probably not.

Note to developers...this is a prime example of "pretty graphics and eye candy do not make a great game...gameplay is the all important aspect of any video game."