The original Stuntman on the PlayStation 2 was almost universally despised. The game forced you to repeat the same course over and over until you did it perfectly, resulting in quick frustration and tedium. But somewhere under the hood there were a few decent ideas, marred by the annoying gameplay. Ignition has taken that backdrop and built a great racing engine to drive it. The developers also dropped the difficulty and improved the graphics, creating a more well-rounded experience. The developer successfully overhauls the old trial-and-error gameplay from the original, and implements great driving controls and pretty graphics that make for an exciting experience on over-the-top movie set locations.

You play the role of a stuntman, contracted to perform driving sequences for movies, commercials, and stunt shows. In the career mode, you'll be issued to drive in exploding-volcano escapes, weapons-filled spy chase scenes, and more. Each movie requires you to perform six scenes in a variety of vehicles. The scenes are laid out on race courses with a multitude of obstacles, and you're tasked to follow the director's lead while maintaining positioning and point scoring. The stunt coordinator will notify you of the next point you have to hit, be it side-swiping a picnic bench or hitting a helicopter mid-air off a jump, but there are a lot of things to do in each scene, especially later ones, which means it'll take a few tries just to get the course layout down. Thankfully, you can miss up to five stunts, so it won't take too long to complete the course and move on. You can also turn on easy mode for any scene, which allows for more mistakes, but reduces your score by half.

Don't be fooled, this game is considerably better than its predecessor.

Freedom is opened up between stunts where you try to drive as wild as possible without crashing to maintain a point-scoring string. Fans of Project Gotham Racing's Kudos scoring system will enjoy Stuntman's method, as many of the basics are the same. The variety of stunts includes smashing boxes, driving dangerously close to objects, and drifting around oncoming traffic to keep your chain alive. Stringing an entire scene is the ultimate goal, made achievable by an abundance of burning cars and other wreckage scattered across each course to help you maintain your chain. In each scene, you can get one to four stars depending on point totals, but only a perfect string will get you five. This system works well in the game, and gives the driving more freedom and spontaneity in how you link together each trick.

Ignition is rife with features, from going for five stars on all the career courses, to constructor mode, to online multiplayer. Multiplayer consists of free-form races on maps from the career mode, but here, high placement is non-essential and points are everything. You can also steal points from other players by positioning yourself to finish or continue their string. The multiplayer is serviceable, if not long-lasting or deep.

More interesting is the constructor mode, which deals you a blank slate and the unlockables you've earned to create your own course. All vehicles, objects, and set pieces are unlocked over the course of the career. You can choose to take the constructor challenge or build and ride freely. The constructor challenge gives you a set of stunts you need to complete and forces you to design the map around them. It's a neat idea, but just throwing a bunch of ramps and jumps onto a track and seeing how much airtime you can get is more entertaining. As mentioned before, it's fun to watch things crash in this game, so goofing around in constructor mode is a great way to kill a few minutes when you're tired of career or multiplayer.

This time around, all the vehicles are fun to drive and very responsive. Playable vehicles include bikes, buses, standard cars, hovercrafts, monster trucks, and everything in between. The controls are easy to handle and drift-heavy, meaning quick repositioning maneuvers are routine with practice. You won't feel like you missed a point because of control issues; you'll have missed because of positioning. The extremely smooth controls leads to a quality and highly playable gaming experience, so the prospect of repeating courses is a tolerable one.

When a bike crashes, it's a sight to be seen.

Also spruced-up in this sequel are the visuals. Ignition is also available for PS2, but you wouldn't know it looking only at the 360 version. The vistas some of the scenes are shot on are stunning, from overlooking a burning city as lava spews down the mountain all around you, to being high in the snowy peaks of a secret spy base. Everything looks crisp, even if it lacks the visual complexity of hundreds of car models or realistic locations that other racing games show off. In a sickly GTA-way, watching your stunt driver have terrible crashes is comical, especially when using a bike. Sudden impacts will cause the rag doll physics to kick in as the rider's body is launched from the bike, usually headlong into a car or wall. Motion blur, heat waves, and other special effects making this game pop off the screen. The frame rate rarely drops, and aliasing and bad textures are nearly nonexistent. One unfortunate omission from the original is your own footage from the movie trailers. Before, each trailer spliced in your actual driving to make it seem more authentic; this time, it's just a pre-rendered clip. Stuntman won't win any awards for graphics, but the solid presentation will leave you completely satisfied with the experience.

On the audio side, Ignition is just as solid. Each movie has its own unique director that gives you an overlay of the film beforehand, usually in a comically clichéd voice. The stunt coordinator isn't as lively as the film directors, but he does a good job keeping you focused. Other voices, such as the cheers and exclamations from members of the set after a great run, are humorous and suited to the game as well. Explosions, drift turns, and engine roar are your general fair, accentuated by fittingly epic music.

Ignition successfully reinvents the series, making the game more accessible while retaining and expanding upon the great ideas in the original. The points system is challenging and enjoyable, and the arcade-like driving physics keep the game light-hearted, even on your umpteenth attempt at stringing a course. The graphics and sound are a step up from most multi-generation titles, and the cohesiveness of the package just gives off the feeling that the developers really cared. Don't let the name steer you away - Stuntman: Ignition is a great arcade driving game, loaded with extra modes and features to keep you busy for a long time.