You have your Sims, Populous, and other esoteric games that have reached a moderate level of success but Stunt Island is in a world of its own. Whether that's good or not is dependent on whether the player is open enough to play such a open ended game. Stunt Island (SI) has borrowed elements from other genres. Essentially, SI is your chance to make stunts in the movies. In the game, you are required to check out some stunt gigs for cash. From that point on you are required to perform various stunts. Most of these stunts are stunts done through vehicles and they can range from biplanes to cars. One stunt has you fly through a barn with your biplane. Another stunt has you flying through a bridge's cable lines. For the most part you will be doing the bidding of the director by doing Stunt X at a certain amount of time and perform specific stunts and feats. The games graphics are very dated. You'd be hard pressed to try playing this game again. It may not even be possible considering the speed of computers of today. Even if you were able to slow down the computer via emulation, 320x200 resolution on a HD monitor is a bit hard to swallow. On a lighter note, most of the fun comes from just controlling the vehicles. The explosions and pyrotechnics were very weak which contributes to a much lesser impressive stunt. They're mostly comprised of messy bitmaps that hardly resemble fire or smoke. There were games that debuted during Stunt Island's time that have done explosions alot better (i.e. X-Wing) Just like the graphics, the sound has its quirks and mundane effects. After a couple of attempts trying to accomplish the given stunt, you will find yourself annoyed with the director's shout to "cut". Also, if you're tired of doing what the director says you can actually do your own action sequences and record it yourself. You can even position each of the cameras to take the shot. What's exciting is that you can literally create a movie with your stuns and even put your own voice if you want to. These replay features are also utilized on the modes of play when you are working your magic with the director. Despite these nice features and original styles of play, the features are extremely hard to use and if you don't have the instructions, good luck. Trying to figure out the game for yourself is a terrible chore. Even with the instructions, the game is extremely cumbersome. Trying to manage the your cameras and, the tape's timeline, etc. is more of a nuisance than a challenge. Occasionally, the cameras don't even work and there are even times where the stunt is executed beautifully but the cameras did not get the best shots of the stunt. Overall, Stunt Island is a game worth trying out considering its originality but I would not recommend it for anyone's collection except for nostalgic reasons. The problem lies in its execution. radcastro.com
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