Game Review (written by Wetwarev7) Added on: 01/18/2007
Stunt Island, while being an older game with ancient graphics and sound, is one of my favorite older games. Having spent hours and hours playing this, I can definitely say this is an excellent game.
The main idea behind Stunt Island is to film stunts (duh). You are in charge of a rather large island movie studio with several different locations with varying topography and sets. While the graphics are not on par with today’s standards, the game-play is way better then a more recent movie studio game - for one thing, you decide which props go where, how they move, how fast they move, which direction, etc. You also get to decide where the cameras go, how they move, etc...
Stunt Island is geared mostly around flying, and while the flight dynamics were a bit unrealistic, there are several craft which you can fly, such as the biplane, 707, hang glider, even the space shuttle! Other props (which you can set to move around as you wish) include pedestrians, cars, boats, other planes, and the like.
There are several canned missions (stunts) which you can perform right out of the box, such as flying an airplane upside down, over a train traveling the opposite direction, which I have to say was rather difficult due to timing (you had to pass over the train just at the right time or it would fail you), but was well worth the several attempts it took to get it right to see the 'scene' afterwards in the viewing room.
The best part of the game, though, is the ability to make your own movies and share them with your friends. The scene and prop setup is fairly straight forward, and has few limitations for it's time. The hardest part is getting the timing and cameras right where you want them, but at least you have the freedom to do these things. Also, you only get to fly one craft at a time, so you either have to time all the other craft correctly and fly your pattern just right or you can fly them one at a time, and splice it all together to make it look like several planes are in the scene. I would generally go for a mixture of the two.
After you've filmed all your scenes you can edit them and splice them together in the viewing room, and export your finished movie. If I remember correctly, adding the sounds to the clip was a bit campy, but you can add subtitles as well. I spent several days making my own little movie about an alien invasion, a five minute short film which I was very pleased with, having spent most of the time on the spectacular ending of an UFO chasing the space shuttle through a crowded metropolis.
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