Gaming Target - PlayStation 2: Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory

Written by Chris Reiter on September 19, 2001

Updated Look: Breakin' the law! Breakin' the law!

The PlayStation 2 started out with an amount of titles that any person would've been satisfied with. Well, almost. Some of the finer games at the launch were two driving games from the publishing company Rockstar. Smuggler's Run was one of the two. And now the return of the game is coming back in full throttle. So hang on, as Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory comes to stores this October for an overall better ride than before.

Smuggler's Run, the previous game, introduced a new concept to driving. It was a driving game where you, as a smuggler, were to accept missions while driving across countryside cliffs, icy mountain peaks, and desert terrain, as you had to smuggle goods like it was nobody else's business. The first game was thought to be one of the hardest driving games anyone's ever seen. Although that was true to an extent, the second game should bring a better, smoother feel without the repetitive nonsense that the first game held true.

New to the game are two entirely fresh environments to scratch your tires over. Afghanistan and Vietnam will be the primary locations of the game. These two new areas -- Afghanistan being a warlike, desert area and Vietnam made mostly of forest -- will also have a few effects that the last game did not. Certain weather effect enhancements have been added into the game to make you feel as if you're already part of a smuggling ring. Fog, for example, can be visible, but also as realistically annoying as weather effects can have on a person in life. The time of day will change through areas as well, as sometimes you may have to drive in genuinely sunny snowfields, or complete and utter darkness through a desert terrain's night sky. When darkness falls, you'll be able to drive on through a level with the cooler features like night vision. Such improvements like these and others will add variety and fun to the mix. In total, you'll have to tread across 36 different missions with a diversity of 17 different vehicles in a completely different -- but not all that different -- story mode.

Last year, Smuggler's Run came off with an awesome set of in-game graphic quality. This year, though, you'll be treated to vaster and more unique areas of play. As I've already stated before, you can now drive through levels of forest and war. In these hazardous environments there will be valleys of land to cover where your mission objectives will take place in different sections of the map. Your vehicle will be able to drive up hills, and right down them (and sometimes off of them) with no slow downs or anything. It'll be like driving in real life...only a hell of a lot more entertaining. You can literally mess up the environments as much as your heart desires. Trees, animals, and people will all be test subjects for smothering your vehicle's front and backside. But hitting things isn't all, as you'll also need to dodge cops and rival gangs as they pursue you through different types of a level's objectives.

Specific detail yet again is being paid close attention to as in the way vehicles react to a rushed ride down a mountaintop. Car parts can break away as you've got to shake off enemies of different kinds. The detail in how your car reacts is quite impressive as it can also break down right in the middle of an operation. Your truck will smoke, your truck will break, your truck will eliminate (including itself). If the first game's environments weren't much fun for you when hitting deer, people, and slamming into other automobiles, then another factor to add to the thrill be in avoiding obstacles on level by level basis. Sometimes you may have to drive through a minefield -- literally. Other times you may just have to stick to the basis of delivering explosive packages that can now actually fall off of the back of your truck. Damn: video game driving made real!

While the last game had an average of around 10 missions per area to complete through three different areas (desert, ice, and mountains), your mission this time, if you choose to accept it, will be to team up with a gang leader as he'll direct your five finger discount goals at about the same likeliness. Just like how you were able to follow a description of the area and objectives in the last game, you'll now witness cut scenes, as the story further progresses. Movies of real life actors posing as your teammates will also take place, and in them, further show you what's going on in the smuggling world. I feel that these FMV scenarios are an overall better deal than the last game where an exasperating woman would blab to you what's the low down, both in game and out. Basically, the game's missions will feel a lot less like they're chores and more like they're something you'd actually want to accomplish.

The vehicles, too, are getting a revamp. Your rides will consist of 17 different formatted platforms on wheels. A number of them being a Super Buggy; an off-road, fast and lightweight vehicle, an ATV Monster; small in size, large in speed, a D-5 Hondo; a fairly stable jeep, tough enough to last through several areas, a Grenadier; one giant military vehicle that's able to shake off the law quicker than O.J. Simpson, a Special Du Monde; a rally car equipped best when racing, a Baja Truck; one of the more powerful small sized trucks used best for racing, a Dakar Special; it's an SUV that's well balanced in some speed, but dignifies itself when climbing tough mountain tops, and lastly a Kavostov; it's like driving a really fast tank (imagine the possibilities). With the multiplicity of wheels to take advantage of, there's also the fact that remains that one particular vehicle is always better than another one. For example, small trucks will always drive faster than bigger ones, and vice versa. You'd need a standard truck type to climb up top certain heights while an ATV for instance can speed across the desert in a quicker time. Each one of them will use a turbo boost feature, for when those multitudes of enemies are giving you the lockdown. A variety of other features like smokescreens, oil slicks, and rear-deployed barrel bombs are going to make the driving experience feel like a James Bond movie. Enemy AI is going to become easier than before. Since the last game was by far too repetitive and almost impossible, it seems the developers Angel Studios, have reworked problems out so that rival gangs and the law will drive more believable rather than last year's terrible jab.

As for driving fans with a whining sibling who also wants to get a turn playing the game, there's no need to worry. Two player games in Smuggler's Run 2 can be just as recreational as if you were playing against the computer itself. Games like Capture the Flag; pair up with computer AI against a friend to see who delivers the goods the most times, and two player racing will return. A new multiplayer game has been added, as in it, you are able to "bomb tag" other drivers. Perhaps this mode will use the rear deployed bomb feature. Whatever the new mini-game may be about, to go along with the others, Smuggler's Run 2: Hostile Territory will surely be a great game for you and a friend!