Each weapon has 3 levels of attack, and you choose which variation of the attack you wish to fire by releasing the button when the meter lines up to the level of power that you want. Instead of pressing one of your three attack buttons, holding the button down charges a meter in your weapons HUD.

The effectiveness of these attacks varies wildly, but they are added upon by the main twist on the standard car-combat formula that V8 brings to the table: the ability to charge your attacks.

Each car also has a unique special attack that can also be picked up to take one of your slots, and these attacks include a sound wave that sends cars flying and a mini-tornado that whips assailants away from your car as you speed by. Each weapon that you grab mid-battle gets auto-assigned to one of these slots. You have 3 empty slots at your disposal for pick-up weapons, one assigned to each of the X, Y, and B buttons. The pick-up weapons include lock-on missiles, shotgun-like burst blasts, and a laser attack that reigns down from the sky. To gain new weapons and defensive items, you must drive around and run into the pick-up icons littered throughout the map. You can also damage and attempt to flip enemy vehicles by slamming into them as hard as you can, which can lead to some very fun moments. You start with only one ranged attack: a weak machine gun with unlimited ammo that overheats easily. You choose from one of 8 stylish characters - each with their own strengths, weakness, and special abilities - and are thrown into one of 5 creative arenas where you are tasked with taking out every other vehicle that is moving. The gameplay of Vigilante 8: Arcade revolves around the simple concept of vehicular deathmatches. Each character does feel and play differently, but instead of making each character fun to play for their own unique reasons, this instead makes some characters more annoying to utilize. The characters do have backstories, but these are told through lazily written text on the character select screen. After beating all of a character’s challenges, you will face a boss and unlock a bonus item if you win. The main single player mode is called Quest, and it’s nothing more than a set of 3 bot-matches for you to take on with each character.

V8 seems to be feature-loaded on paper, but these features are slightly less impressive when played. It is with this legacy tucked firmly in its belt that Isopod Labs, made up of several original team members from Luxoflux, has released a remake of the original Vigilante 8 on Xbox Live Arcade. The Luxoflux-developed Vigilante 8, released on the PlayStation and Nintendo 64 in 1998, managed to make quite a splash and crafted a solid fan base that still fondly remembers the game. The popularity of the Twisted Metal series in the late 90s spurred developers into coming up with their own brand of explosive car-combat mayhem.

Vigilante 8 arcade