Tom is an expert in all things Fortnite or the latest RPG release, but is probably spending too much time on the latest EA FC game.
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I loved my time playing Stuntman Hollywood at Summer Game Fest. The movie scene recreation is an incredible idea, and the driving feels like a true modernization of the games I couldn’t put down as a kid.
At Gamescom, I went hands-on with the game again, playing five new levels across the likes of Fast and Furious and Jurassic Park. Since I knew how the game played going in, I didn’t need to focus on getting to grips with the mechanics and trying to understand how close I could get to the obstacles I was tasked with narrowly missing. What I learned instead is that Stuntman Hollywood is the ultimate game for high-score chasers. I couldn’t put the game down; I needed to beat my previous score.
The levels in my preview session were all really short – a couple of minutes each, maximum. You’re racing at breakneck speed past parked cars, through collapsing buildings, and alongside scampering raptors in the jungle. It’s breathless stuff, where you need to pull off a trick of some kind every few seconds.
That means it’s nigh-on impossible to do well the first time you attempt a scene. I lost count of the number of times I drove through the red target on a trick because I didn’t see it coming or didn’t pull off the previous one quite as accurately as I needed to. To do well, you need to have a decent picture in your head of the layout of the scene before you start it. That allows you to prepare for a tricky part before it arrives, taking a jump at a different angle, or drifting a little slower to give you the space to make the next trick.
After a few attempts, you start to get the hang of things, prioritizing nailing the toughest parts of a scene. Then, all you want to do is keep improving your score. You’re awarded a rating on a twenty-point star scale upon a scene’s completion, which is determined by the speed you complete it and how accurate you are in every trick. If you get the green rating when drifting, jumping, or getting close to objects every single time, your score will be boosted. Miss one entirely, or hit the red target, and your score will take a hit. The more familiar you are with the sequence of tricks, the more likely you are to get green and boost your rating. That loop of trying to learn the scene and improve your score is the core of Stuntman Hollywood, and more effective than it is in most racing games.
That’s in part down to how good the game feels, but also due to the game’s variety. The scenes aren’t just instances of repeated tricks with different movie skins. For example, while you’ll be drifting around crumbling roads in Fast and Furious scenes, you’ll be back-flipping over muddy hills in Jurassic Park levels. That means that grinding for a ten out of ten score on one level doesn’t make the next level feel boring. What I’ve played kept things fresh, and I hope that continues into the full game.
I expect the Stuntman community to blossom into a competitive one, where everyone fights for the best score you can get on each level. Hollywood isn’t a racing game where you win once and progress; it pushes you to go again to try and improve – multiple takes, if you will. That’ll give the reboot more depth beyond the simple stages, which it certainly needs.
I can’t wait to see what other movies and scenes make up Stuntman Hollywood’s career mode, but I know I’m going to have endless fun score chasing on the scenes I’ve already played across my two previews.