Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Solid"

(+) wide open environments full of varied terrain and interactive elements; simple-yet-complex game-modes that are easy to pick up; nice creepy and mysterious vibe; very fluid frame rate

(-) one-player campaign has an inconsistent difficulty level; turning controls are jittery and interfere with the high speed driving; the arrow at the top of the screen should be reversed if it's supposed to guide you

Smuggler's Run Warzones is a mission-based driving game built with an attitude. You're basically working with gangs to transport drugs while avoiding the pursuit of the cops. You can choose from a different variety of vehicles, like cars, trucks, and ATV's to name a few, which have attributes in handling, defense, and speed that make a difference. All this action is heated with nit and grit, plenty of high speed chases and dangerous turns and cliffs, but luckily the experience can be pretty exciting if you can get past a few quirks.

The gameplay in the single player mode has a bit of variability, but all of it falls in one specific pattern: drive and avoid other opponents and cops to reach your destination. Some of the missions are based on gathering loot which can be seen through an array of yellow smoke, then taken to either the red or blue mark, depending on the team you're playing for. And an alternate mode is pretty much the same thing, but multiple pieces of cargo are scattered throughout, and yourself and your enemy have up to three team mates, so it adds competition. However, these missions can be frustrating because there are often a lot of pieces of cargo that need transporting, and it doesn't help that the cops can be annoyed and try and take you down. These missions are governed by a tag basis, which means if an enemy touches you, you lose the loot. And this specific mission followed a series of other missions that seemed like a cross between a causal challenge and a complete cake walk, so I definitely didn't have fun with that difficulty spike.

In team based events, usually one player is meant to attend to driving the contraband to the destination, while the team members do nothing else but ram the opposing leader. The artificial intelligence is very sharp witted and bloodthirsty. They will very frequently stalk you and knock you flat off your wheels. This can be occasionally obnoxious when you're very serious about taking the loot to your destination, but it can also be very humorous and exciting for multiplayer sessions.

In addition there are other game modes in the story mode, such as check-point races. Now Midnight Club had the same thing, but its a relief to see that Smuggler's Run handled them much, much better. This is because the environments are very wide open and easy to navigate through. The terrain is varied through which location you happen to pick, whether it's Vietnam, United States, and Russia. Each are has a unique look and feel and plenty of roads, bumps, cliffs, and hills. There are also day and night variations as well as water and snow on the ground, causing a slight change in vehicle handling. But not only are these areas open spaced, they're also huge. It will take you at least ten minutes to pass through the entire perimeter of each level, which while it's certainly nice for exploration its kind of odd considering the entire levels are actually ten-fold bigger than they should be for the game's missions.

The game's interface is likely to keep some enthusiasts sucked in for some time. From the minute you start at the menus everything seems to be put under some classified case express, meaning you'll feel like you're doing something you shouldn't do but have to. Like working as an undercover agent.

The game is under control for the most part, but there is room for improvement. A mission driving game is thought to be a simple one to pick up on, and the game does have its basic hold A to accelerate and turn the joystick to steer. But the problem is, the average speed of all the action is very aggressively fast, and the turning is even faster. This isn't a problem most of the time, but when you're carrying some loot you may need to circle your destination briefly because you turned too sharp. This wasn't a mistake or faulty programming, it seems intended, but still it's annoying nonetheless.

Warzones definitely looks better than it controls. While the car models look merely okay, the environments are very detailed and nice to look at. But most impressive, is a combination of the great feel of speed and a smooth frame rate. This is without a doubt one of the smoothest frame rates I have ever seen on the Gamecube. The cars drive and do jumps over the hills in a photo-realistic, almost a dream-like way. The sound fares almost as good, some of the music being good for a while but the loops in the song are way too small which means there's a lot of repetition, which can be a bother after playing for an extended sitting. But something that really adds to the creepy vibe of the game, is the intercom announcer. It sounds like a cocaine-addicted woman about 50, saying "Contraband Lost" or "Running Out Of Time", their usual voice for the in-game events. When you're in the right state of mind, it can even be funny.

One thing that seems really out of context and extremely unusual about Warzones, is the on-screen arrow which is supposed to help you find the contraband or checkpoint in the game. Because it seems reversed. The larger end is pointing in the direction you need to drive in, not the smaller end. This can be fine for seasoned players, but anyone who has never played a Smuggler's Run game may have a hard time adjusting to it.

Warzones also has a few production glitches, which don't hamper the game but they exist regardless. When playing multiplayer and both opposing teams drive into the abyss, the team mates for the opposing teams will follow and this will break the flow of the game. Which isn't a problem if you're into that sort of thing. And also some levels have landmine explosions, which sometimes when activated they can cause your vehicle to trudge through the air like Mario in Super Mario Galaxy! No joke! So if you were already having some laughs out of watching your puny ATV get scrambled by a load of heavy weighted trucks, you'll sprain something by the time you hit air after a landmine explosion and possibly pop something in your gut after you collapse to the ground in laughter.

It may be held back just a bit by some control issues, but Smuggler's Run Warzones is without a doubt better than the sum of its parts. It offers some very straight forward and mature fun that has its own fair share of that "cool factor", and maybe it isn't ground breaking or amazing by any stretch of the definition, it proves that the Gamecube still has its own share of badass games, even if you have to look a little harder to find them.