STUNTMAN: IGNITION TAKES TO PARIS STREETS
Burning Rubber with professionals - Don't try this at home!
Here at THQ-Games.com we love the smell of burnt rubber, blazing engines and stuntman sweat, so we headed over to Paris to see what happens when you give a group of stuntmen free reign to show off their skills.
First up, they set us a challenge. Do we have what it takes to be stuntmen? Having honed our own skills on Stuntman: Ignition, we gladly accepted the challenge. With knowing grins, they strapped us into a police car and we set off. "Hold on tight," said our driver, as we drove over a ramp, lifting the right-hand side of the car into the air. If you've never experienced driving a car on two wheels, you should be aware of two things: However much you are reassured, you will think the car is about to topple any second; and don't eat before you try it - your lunch will try to make a re-appearance when the car comes crashing back to the ground.
As we left the car, feeling a little shaken but happy to be back on solid ground, we were ushered into a waiting car. Ours was a getaway car for a bank robbery, with $1 million in the boot. At first we keep a slow pace, not wishing to draw attention. Suddenly, a police car comes into view and our driver kicks into action.
We increase our speed, heading straight for the car, only to powerslide past it at the last moment, as the policeman clocks our number plate and gives chase. Soon this becomes a high-speed pursuit and we're bumper-to-bumper with the police car. Before we know it, the car has raced ahead of us and is blocking us.
"He's trying to stop us here, but I think we can get away," our driver tells us, reassuringly. With that, he kicks into reverse gear, puts his foot down on the accelerator and performs a reverse 180. Great, we think, we're clear... until we check the rear-view mirror to see the police car perform the same manoeuvre, and it's catching up.
The chase continues and we're thrown around like rag-dolls as we try to lose the tail. Suddenly we're thrust hard to the side of the car as we perform a 360 degree spin on the rain-soaked road. It works - the police car speeds past us (avoiding a collision by mere millimetres) and we race off. Before long, though, the game is up. As good as our driver was, you can't outrun a police car for long - their driver blocked us in with a hair-raising powerslide in front of our car, forcing us to slam on the brakes and give ourselves up.
We survived the experience but did we have what it takes to be stuntmen? We were feeling confident, so our professional stuntmen decided to show us just how far you have to go to make it in the business.
As you can no doubt glean from these photos, our stuntmen weren't afraid to push the boundaries. Racing across the track, two police cars chased a getaway car, skimming each other by the narrowest of margins - a true master class of precision driving.
Well, we thought, we could do that - perhaps with a little training. Just then, as if to prove that our growing sense of bravado was, indeed, misplaced, the stuntmen decided to mix things up a bit... by smashing into each other at full speed, knocking each other's cars around the track as glass smashed, tyres popped and metal twisted in an orgy of automotive destruction.
The police cars finally got the better of the getaway driver, as they crunched into the car, sending it spinning out of control and grinding to a halt between them. As smoke rose from the battered engines, our stuntmen emerged from their vehicles with beaming grins and, amazingly, not so much as a dislocated finger between them.
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