Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions

It's always fun to explore the time in gaming when the same title could be made for two different consoles, resulting in two completely different games. Wreckless is one of these games that was used in graphics comparisons to show just how RIPPED the original Xbox was compared to the PS2 and Gamecube. The Xbox version of the game unquestionably looks better than the other versions from a graphical standpoint, going so far as to win over higher critic scores. In fairness, the Xbox version was also released first, making the PS2 version appear like a downgrade. Though, Wreckless is a game that requires a hands-on experience to understand its major gameplay problems.

To give the game some credit, it's an impressive visual showcase, especially for 2002 standards. Most of these cars have their own damage model, including some of the traffic cars. The lighting is pretty, and much of the environment is destructible. But that's about it. Even the shadows look a bit screwy. This is a Driver styled mission-based driving game, meaning you won't be racing against anything other than a time limit. Most of the time, you will be smashing into other cars, or getting from point a to point b without getting smashed into. Some of these levels include 'car platforming', which is a huge pain for reasons I'll mention later.

The first problem with the Xbox version is that the controls for this game are not listed anywhere. Not even in the booklet. It's a driving game, so you'd assume these controls would be intuitive, but there are some unconventional decisions that will leave you guessing, such as having the reverse button be its own separate face button instead of sharing it with the brake button like normal driving. I couldn't even tell you if the game has an e-brake button since the cars in this game are so slippery.

Queue problem number 2. The physics in this game are awful. The cars bounce around spectacularly, but beyond that, the acceleration is erratic, as is the handling. Cars will spin out beyond the player's expectations, as well as some bizarre acceleration boosts that seem to happen on sudden elevation changes. Also the cars get stuck in walls some times! As you might expect, trying to finish tight platforming levels with this physics model is annoying. Other signs of this game's lack of polish show up in its other aspects. Dialogue is repetitive and annoying. The traffic car hitboxes are too big, meaning you'll slam into many of them even when you shouldn't. The difficulty balance between missions is nonexistent, making some of them a cakewalk with more than enough time to spare, and others giving ridiculous requirements and short time limits. Keeping in mind I played the game on hard difficulty, but I'd imagine the skew in difficulty is the same on the easier mode.

Compared to Driver and GTA, the game is lacking in content. There are only 14 drivable cars, with 4 of them being 'secret'. To unlock a secret vehicle, you need to find it during a mission, bump into it, then finish the mission all under the same time limit. If you're looking to get the secret vehicle during the dump truck boss fight, good god damn luck. In total, there are only 20 missions in the entire game, which is tiny even when compared to Driver 2's 30+. During most of these missions, you will be ramming into black cars. Or otherwise, they will be ramming into you. Or they'll be ramming into a car you're supposed to protect. There appears to be a unfinished targeting system left in this game, which seems to have been implimented in the PS2 version. That version has missiles you can shoot at the enemy cars, which is a feature this Xbox version could have desperately used. The PS2 version has better indication of things in general, though I won't be able to tell you if it's actually better until I play it for myself. My intuition tells me it probably isn't.

Wreckless ends up becoming an obscure, annoyingly difficult game. Unlike the Driver series, however, you can't even brag about beating this one because nobody even knows what it is. It's not like the game rewards you any better, either, so you're better off skipping this one.