Vigilante 8
 |
Vigilante 8 is a vehicular combat video game released in 1998 for the PlayStation, Nintendo 64, and Game Boy Color. It is a spinoff of the PC game Interstate '76, and features several concepts (auto-vigilantes, the 1970s time frame, and specific fictional vehicle companies) carried over from that title. Vigilante 8 was developed with a team of only five people (Peter Morawiec, Adrian Stephens, David Goodrich, Jeremy Engleman, and Edward Toth), a seemingly impossibly small team size for developing a PlayStation game, when most development teams for such a console ranged around 20–30 people in the 1990s. A sequel was produced, titled Vigilante 8: Second Offense, released for the PlayStation, Dreamcast, and Nintendo 64.
A third game in the Vigilante 8 series was announced for PlayStation 2 early in the system's life cycle, but no further information or game was ever released. The developer of the two Vigilante 8 games, Luxoflux, produced a game very similar to Vigilante 8 using the Star Wars licence (and the Vigilante 8 game engine), titled Star Wars: Demolition, and has since produced the Grand Theft Auto-inspired True Crime: Streets of LA.
A remake for the Xbox 360 is being created by Isopod Labs, an independent company formed by the founders of Luxoflux, and is set to be released the summer of 2007 for Xbox Live.[1]
Vigilante 8 is also very similar to the Twisted Metal series, but with improved graphics and more realistic physics. Vigilante 8 and Vigilante 8: Second Offense were innovative in the degree of level interaction, weapon design and combo systems.[citation needed] Second Offense also allowed the players to upgrade their vehicles with some notable physical changes. It should also be noted that, in the Playstation version of the game, you may switch the Vigilante 8 disc with any audio CD to replace the game's soundtrack; the game will continue to play without the game disc. Interestingly, when this game is inserted into a computer's disc drive, the CDDB music CD entry for it is Mariah Carey's 1997 album Butterfly.
Synopsis
The game's storyline is built around an alternate history, in which there was a worldwide oil crisis in the 1970s and the U.S. was on the verge of an economic breakdown. Strikes, riots and crime were rampant, and all available law enforcement were brought to the cities leaving the outlands vulnerable.
A foreign multinational oil consortium, Oil Monopoly Alliance Regime (OMAR), was determined to monopolize the world oil trade. The U.S. was the last country that stood in their way and they were prepared to go to any length to bring the U.S. to its knees.
OMAR hired Sid Burn, a professional terrorist, to push the U.S. economy over the edge. Sid began to organize his troops in the remote areas of the southwest. Calling themselves the "Coyotes," they began to target oil refineries, commercial installations and other vital industry throughout the region.
With the law enforcement in the cities, some desperate civilians began to take the law into their own hands. Led by a trucker named Convoy and referred to simply as the "Vigilantes," this oddball group soon became a major hindrance to Sid.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government, feeling more vulnerable than ever, was intensifying its research and development of a new military arsenal. The most advanced weaponry, rumored to be based on UFO technology, was located at Site-4, a secret facility at Papoose Lake. This information was not lost on Sid, and the Coyotes ambushed the facility. However the Vigilantes unexpectedly appeared to stop them and as a result, both parties found themselves in possession of the world's most advanced weaponry.
What followed were no ordinary skirmishes. Auto clashes ensued all over the land, from Colorado's Rockies to California's farmlands, only to culminate in a battle like no other. To this day the events which took place are only a matter of speculation.
Weapons
The game includes a variety of weapons, most of which are picked up during gameplay. Every vehicle is equipped with the Mosquito Machine Gun by default (which is relatively weak on its own, but has infinite ammunition). There are also several weapons that any player can pick up off of the battlefield:
- Interceptor Missiles
- Bull's Eye Rockets
- Roadkill Mines
- Sky Hammer Mortars
- Bruiser Cannon
Each of these five weapons has two unique combos that can be performed by pressing a number of directions on the controller, followed by the machine gun button. These combos use varying amounts of ammunition, but are always either more powerful than a regular shot or have another useful effect (such as creating a decoy using two interceptor missiles). In addition to these weapons and combos, each character/vehicle also has its own "special" weapon that can be acquired; for example, the Clydesdale has a lightning rod that can make lightning strike any target on the map, and the Palamino has a "death ray."
Characters
Vigilantes
- Chassey Blue
- Slick Clyde
- Sheila
- John Torque
- Convoy (LOCKED)
- Dave (LOCKED)
Coyotes
- Houston 3
- Loki
- Boogie
- Beeswax
- Molo (LOCKED)
- Sid Burns (LOCKED)
Bonus Character
- Y the Alien (LOCKED)
External Links
http://www.luxoflux.com - Official Site