Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster (PSX)

Developer:

Radical

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Release Date:

2000

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Systems:

PlayStation

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This week on Ray Hardgrit's Super Adventures, I'm playing Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster on the original PlayStation! Hang on, that's not right, I'm sure the box called it Jackie Chan: Stuntmaster. Where'd this 's' come from? Is he the Stuntmaster or is Stuntmaster his?

There's no 's' anywhere in the US version, and in the UK it shows up in the game and the manual but not on the box. This is the opposite of important or interesting, but it's definitely weird.

Anyway, Stuntmaster was developed by Radical Entertainment Ltd (not to be confused with Ritual Entertainment), who also made games like Mario is Missing!, Power Piggs of the Dark Age and The Simpsons: Hit & Run. Sadly their days of making their own games ended in 2012 when Prototype 2 underperformed and now they just support other Activision studios. At least that's what Wikipedia told me.

But here's a fact for you that no one can nick from Wikipedia: this was one of the first PlayStation games I ever owned, because it came with my beautiful little second-hand PSOne. It's also the second Jackie Chan game I owned, after Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu on the NES, but they're far from the only games with his name on. There's a bunch of them on the MSX, there's a couple of surprisingly gory Mortal Kombat-inspired arcade fighters, there are two based on the Jackie Chan Adventures cartoon, and there's even two on the XaviXPORT console.

Wait, what the hell's a XaviXPORT?

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The XaviXPORT was apparently a fitness console released in 2004 designed to get people jumping around in front of the TV, with each game coming with its own special controller like a mat or boxing gloves. So it might look like a music player but it's actually more like a cheap Wii. It was one of the last consoles to use cartridges, which it needed because each game came with its own processor and sometimes another sensor for the motion controllers. The base system itself only had the brain of a NES, kind of, and was actually created by some of the same engineers.

This has nothing to do with Stuntmaster, I've just never heard of this thing until now and this might be my only chance to ever talk about it! I kind of want one as well, even though it would never ever get played. I like the shiny buttons.

Anyway, back to Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster. Or Jackie Chan: Stuntmaster if that's what you'd prefer to call it.

The title's not the only difference between the US and UK versions, as they've also got different loading screens for some reason. That’s the original US one on the left, and the European one on the right.

You might suspect that a certain event may have occurred between the NTSC and the PAL release that made the developers feel that a picture of the Twin Towers wasn’t an ideal thing to flash up on screen every time the game loaded a level, but that's apparently not the case. The internet says that the game came out in 2000 in both regions.

If I notice anything else different about the two versions I'll let you know, but I suspect this might be it. Well, except for the NTSC version running at 60hz and having a smaller image obviously. By the way, the screenshots below have been resized to fix the aspect ratio, because I couldn't think of a reason not to, but it's all done in the browser so if you want to admire the dithering you can click an image to see a sharp pixel-perfect shot.

The game starts with one of those pre-rendered intros that's been made to look like the in-engine graphics. I'm not sure we're supposed to be tricked into thinking it's real-time though, or else they wouldn't have put proper shadows on and anti-aliasing.

It seems that Jackie Chan's career as a movie star has hit a bit of a rough patch as he's currently working for his grandfather at the Speedy Dragon Courier Company. Or at least there's a guy called 'Jackie' working there with the actor's face painted onto his head.

The intro's being economical with its dialogue, but Jackie's told by his granddad that he's got an important package for him to deliver, and he wants it sent to... wait, does that say Vancouver? I thought we were in New York!

Man, if that's a subtle Rumble in the Bronx joke then they've found the right developers for the job here.

Anyway, Jackie promises to get the fragile package to the temple intact.

And then all the other packages fall out of the back of his truck onto him and presumably destroy it. The end.

Actually, the way they fell (and clipped into each other) makes me think they were all empty, and he's just delivering pre-assembled cardboard boxes.

One of his co-workers sees the accident, but unfortunately he's got giant slabs of meat for hands and can't do anything to help! Jackie and his grandfather had proper hands so I've no idea what happened to this guy.

Also it turns out that he's a spy for an evil supervillain, and he somehow calls him up to let him know about the package, despite the fact that those stumps at the end of his arms are both like a foot across and clearly too big for the delicate manipulation of tiny phone buttons.

The cutscene cuts to later that day, and it turns out that Jackie's gone to loaf around and stuff his face at a café, which is exactly what his grandfather told him not to do. It's not like the guy will ever find out though.

Oh no, his grandfather found out! He's hanging out in the back of a limo with some clowns... and now they're stealing Jackie's delivery truck!

Hang on, is this a kidnapping? I'm starting to think this might be a kidnapping.

Man, they've given Jackie some great expressions in this.

He spots what's going on outside and literally leaps into action, jumping onto a table and swinging off the light bulb as he races to the door. Though he's not in too much of a rush to tip the waitress on the way out.

Hang on, I recognise some of these posters.

Police Story 2, Project A... no wonder Jackie likes eating at this restaurant, the owners must worship him. Apparently the music playing here is from one of his many many albums as well.

The clown squad drive off in their limo, taking Jackie's delivery truck with them, so he's forced to improvise another way to chase them: riding a dumpster down an alley.

Well sometimes he’s riding it, sometimes he’s running along the wall in a desperate attempt to stay on; this clearly isn't one of his cleverer plans. It's really well animated though, despite the deliberately low-tech graphics. The game's definitely delivering on the 'stunt' part of its title.

He's eventually flung off into the street, which by some miracle turns out to be the exact street the limo was headed down! The delivery truck gets away, but the limo swerves to avoid him and crashes, forcing the occupants to escape on foot, with the kidnapped grandfather being carried away on the elephant-handed mutant's shoulder.

So now Jackie must follow them into the Danger Zone to get the package and save his grandfather! Screw all those other packages though I guess.

I wasn't lying about the Danger Zone by the way. For some reason Chinatown has a big warning sign on the road in front of it telling people not to enter. Because of all the video game goons in there that attack on sight I guess.

And that's the end of the intro.

That was a pretty decent cutscene I reckon. It's not quite on Final Fantasy IX's level of sophistication and spectacle, you're not going to find Coca-Cola ad on YouTube rendered with these models, featuring that slab-handed goon chasing a bottle cap down the streets of Vancouver New York, but it moves like a Jackie Chan movie and that's what you want. Plus it's skippable!

Alright here I am in the actual game... or maybe not?

This seems to be more like a hub that lets me walk around and chose my next stage, not that I have anywhere else to go but 'level 1' right now. I guess the clapperboard is showing how many lives I've got left, not what take I'm on. Seems unrealistic for a Jackie Chan film to let you have less than a hundred or so tries at a stunt, but I suppose it could be the number of attempts he can make before he ends up in hospital again.

I can save the game though! Shame it only gives me the one save slot per memory card, I hate it when games do that. I'm still annoyed that I never got to play Gran Turismo 3 on the family PlayStation 2 all those years ago because my brother used our only memory card.

There aren't any difficulty options in the menu, but I did find this handy controller config screen which saves me from having to write anything about the controls. But I will anyway, because I feel I should mention that the game was released late enough to support Dual Shock analogue sticks and the character's running around in relation to the camera instead of it having tank controls.

After messing around a bit in the empty hub I've figured out that I can run up walls and do a backflip off them, I can do a flying kick in the air, and I can charge the punch or kick button for a special move. I can also chain a series of three punches and kicks into a combo, and there's no need to worry about the timing as I just tap the buttons and wait for it to play out.

CHINATOWN - LEVEL 1

I was expecting some goons to be waiting for me at the start of stage 1, seeing as I have all these fighting moves, but it's starting me off with a bit of 2D platforming instead. The platforms are arranged two dimensionally I mean; I can walk around in full 3D (so I'm being careful not to jump diagonally).

Turns out that the stripy awnings work like a trampoline, giving me the height I need to swipe that red dragon head that's floating up there for no good reason. It's the logo of my delivery company so maybe it's part of some kind of marketing stunt, I dunno. Either way Jackie's happy he grabbed it, saying "Wow, this is my lucky day!" with a little too much emphasis on the word 'lucky'.

It really sounds like Jackie Chan himself doing the voices, which is good because it is. The dude also likes to sing if I leave the controller alone too long.

Hey there's a dude over there! I'm more interested in getting this second floating head though.

I found that I could push this dumpster, so I shoved it underneath and used it to get some extra height. That's 2/10 collected dragon heads so far and I haven't even punched anyone yet! Jackie seems pretty impressed, unless he was being sarcastic when he said "Wow, so special!" I'm just glad he doesn't have the same quip each time.

For some reason my dumpster antics seemed to anger the goon, who got off the wall with the intent to punch my face in, so I guess I'd better go beat him into unconsciousness or whatever.

I punched the dude with my special move and now he's stunned!

Sure took me a while though, as it turns out that when you stand there like an idiot holding a button down for a couple of seconds it gives the enemy an opening to punch you, which interrupts the move. That's where all my health went by the way, as I was too stubborn to give up and just hit him. Fortunately I found some floating milk inside that barrel, and that restored the health I’d lost. Bit weird that I reckon, how it was still fresh.

With the sole enemy out here in the alleyway dead the light above the door came on, inviting me inside. Not sure how Jackie knows this route is going to take him to the swiped package or his kidnapped granddad, but I may as well go in there. Nowhere else I can go.

The game came out four years after Resident Evil and I could tell how much more sophisticated PlayStation games had gotten by this point the moment I stepped through the door:

Resident Evil: Director's Cut (PSX)

Because there wasn't any loading! No slow unskippable screen-filling animation of a door swinging open into an inky void for me to sit through.

Also the game looks pretty great I reckon, as the art style suits the hardware's limitations, the polygons don't wobble anywhere near as much as you'd expect, and the animation's fantastic. Apparently Jackie Chan did motion capture for it, which is a little surprising considering how cartoony it is, but I can't argue with the results.

The music's catchy enough too, but it'll have to try a lot harder to supplant the theme to Jackie Chan's Action Kung Fu in my heart.

Inside the warehouse I found myself facing off against two enemies, but that's fine as one of them seems happy to hold back while I practice my counters on his friend.

It took me a while but I finally got the timing right and countered his punch with some kind of... martial arts move. I don't know what they're all called, I just know it looks cool when he flips a guy around and then kicks him in the gut. Sadly it's usually me that's getting violence'd because I'm always screwing around trying to be clever instead of just hitting the punch button three times.

I've stopped trying to use the strafe button at least, because I don't need it. It's basically a lock-on button that keeps me facing my target, but all my hits always connect just fine without it. Hitting R1 to do a dive roll comes in handy every now and again though.

Well that guy's not going to be in Jackie Chan: Stuntman 2. I'll have to be careful not to follow him down, as I'm not eager to learn whether I can survive the fall. Plus I'd have to jump on the crates again to get back up here.

The game can trace its ancestry back to Double Dragon, and it has the same kind of fixed camera view, side-scrolling levels and combat. I come across a bunch of dudes, hit them until they fall down, wait for them to get up and then knock them down again. Then I walk over and repeat the process with the next group. Except in this I can be walking down an alley deeper into the background, or climbing boxes to a walkway up at the roof, so it's not entirely about walking to the right.

Though if I walk over to the right side of this screen I'll be able to collect another one of those dragon heads, just sitting there on the path to the exit. I guess this one's a freebie.

Hey I've reached a short cutscene, and it's properly in-engine this time. There's a few things that give it away, like the lack of video compression and the way his fingers are painted on. Still got the same faces though and they still bring a smile to mine.

Incidentally, you should never do this stunt barehanded. Especially if there's electric lights hanging from the cable you're sliding down.

Ow, looks like he'll be pulling bits of glass out of his eyes for a while. He's just lucky that there was a pair of wooden barrels underneath to break his fall, and possibly his back.

I guess this stunt is the closest the game gets to a story interlude. Works for me; I mean the game's not called Storymaster. But hang on, Golden Fortune Bakery and Golden Dragon? I'm spotting a pattern here, especially as Jackie works for the Speedy Dragon Courier Company and eats at the Lucky Dragon Café.

Some more dudes turned up eager to be kicked in the face, so I did my best to oblige them and then continued to the right. Always to the right… except for that time I had to climb those boxes and go up.

Found another one for you: Golden Seafood.

Oh shit, things have suddenly got a bit Pepsiman as I'm having to dodge obstacles while being chased down the street by a truck! Wow, my mind went straight to Pepsiman instead of Sonic Adventure 2, that’s probably a bit weird.

This section wasn't all that challenging, I just had to make sure I didn't lose too much ground while I swerved to avoid crates and collect this floating dragon head. I’ve got 9 out of 10 of them now after this, so it's possible that I haven't missed any yet. Plus I still have all three of my lives, which is even more surprising.

Well it turns out that I was right next to the end of the level and that I had missed one of the dragon heads along the way. Two in fact, if there's a special golden dragon head too. Plus I only got a B grade for my fighting! That sucks, as I was really trying to throw in counters and special attacks in my fights. I even ran up a wall and backflipped off for absolutely no reason at one point!

I guess I should just be glad I didn't get graded on the time. In fact I'm glad there's no timer at all, because the way I was fighting it would've ran out.

Finishing the stage put me back on the hub screen and let me save again. Plus it turns out that I can walk right back into an old level to get the missing heads and improve my grade, but nah. I'm trying to rescue someone and chase after a package here!

In fact, now that I think about it, returning to a level hub when I'm meant to be chasing after people makes no sense at all, especially as I haven't gotten any new information about where they've gone. But I don't really care.

CHINATOWN – LEVEL 2

Oh c’mon, another truck chase? At least they went to the trouble of building and texturing a second truck model for it, when they could've easily gotten away with reusing the last one.

Afterwards I walked over to some groups of enemies and punched them. But it looked pretty much the same as the last time I punched enemies, so here's a screenshot of the next platforming interlude instead:

There's got to be something here that makes this bit more difficult than it looks because there's no way they're going to give me two dragon heads so easily.

Ah, the wooden platforms collapse once you've stepped on them, so you've only got the one chance to grab the dragon on the right. No point trying to jump up sloped rooftops, you just slide down them.

Right, now that the jumping's over it's back to punch, punch, punching people then. And sometimes kick, kick, kicking them.

Damn, this group of enemies is kick, kick, kicking my ass!

I'm just doing what I always do but they're the ones winning this time and I'm not sure why. Oh, maybe it's because they're attacking me together for a change. Well, the joke's on them as they also attacked a support beam and dropped a chunk of the roof on their own heads.

They won in the end, but that's fine because at least now I know what happens when you lose. I was sent to the loading screen, then found myself at the last checkpoint with one less life. Unfortunately the last checkpoint was the start of the truck chase, so I had to run for my life the second the loading finished.

Second time around I ignored them all waving me over and kept my distance, trying to get one to break from the pack and stray into my righteous punches, but they wouldn't take the bait. So I switched to a new plan: get in, kick ass, run away. I had more success with that tactic, especially when I found a second carton of health-restoring milk hidden in the barrel.

Once I'd beaten the first group more of them dropped in, but that's not all that unusual for this game. I had the calcium to weather their onslaught and repaid every punch they gave to me with interest.

Turns out this was the end of the level and I completed it with 7 dragon heads, a C grade and 2 lives left. So I'm getting worse! The rate I’m losing lives I’ll have none left by level 6. It's a shame that returning to the hub doesn’t give me a refill because I need lives to live.

CHINATOWN – LEVEL 3

I knew there was no way this was ever going to work because of the way the perspective changes as the camera follows Jackie around, but just for the hell of it I put a video clip into my automatic panorama software and this nightmare Day of the Tentacle-looking landscape came out the other side.

But it kind of shows off what a section of a level looks like, if you use your imagination.

What I had to do here was walk over to the left of the screen and then wall jump across to grab the stack of green crates. Once I pulled myself up I was able to leap right back off again to get the dragon head. Then I messed up the timing while I was bouncing on the two awnings and had to get back up onto the green crates again... and again.

I started to get real tired of jumping off that wall onto those crates after a while, but I got across to the fight on the balcony in the end.

They hid a bowl of rice inside the railing? Uh.. well I’m not going to say no, as these heal a lot more than milk does.

After beating all my assailants and helping myself to a snack I jumped across the gap... only to be met in mid-air by the other dude jumping the other way! I got a kick in before we both hit the ground, then used a charged kick to send him airborne again so I could kick him some more.

The dude made me wall jump onto those bloody crates and bounce across the awnings again, it's a damn shame I couldn't kill him twice.

Whoa, what the hell man? You can’t just drive a Lamborghini into the crates I’m jumping on, you’ll wreck your paintwork! The really tragic part of all this is that I didn’t actually make it onto the platform with the dragon head on it here. That means I’ve lost it now, forever, as the crates will never come back. Well, unless I get Jackie killed or replay the level anyway.

I'm also a bit disappointed that the sign doesn't say 'Golden Trading' or 'Long Dragon' or something like that. I guess that running joke ran out.

I’m gonna take out my frustrations on these two with a fish I found. Shame these weapons never last long before breaking because I think everyone here should get a turn.

By the way, there’s an extra life up there on the left, the first one I’ve found so far. Not that you can see it from down here. I had to get onto that platform on the right then jump diagonally over to the awning just to discover it exists. Or I could've just entered the room through the other door that's up there next to it, somehow. The game's very linear and straightforward but there are secrets to find.

Yet another truck level, except this time I’m they've put me on the top of it! Good thing he had all that practice with the dumpster in the intro. That doesn't really help me though, especially as I'm trying to time my jumps right with no depth perception.

I managed to collect the dragon head, but not without smashing into the sign as well and getting knocked on my ass just as the truck was heading into a tunnel. Jackie got back onto his feet in the nick of time, but it threw my timing off so I jumped at the wrong moment and went plummeting to the road. Actually I plummeted through the road into an infinite abyss, because I guess putting a ladder next to the tunnel entrance for me to climb up wouldn’t be challenging enough.

Fortunately the game saves checkpoints at the start of sequences like this so even though I have to repeat it all, I don’t have to repeat the rest of the level. I’m still a bit annoyed about losing a life to a single mistake though. It takes a lot more mistakes to lose in combat, it’s very disproportionate!

Turns out that the tunnel was the end of the level, so a little bit more stylish violence and I was done. But I got an A grade for my fighting this time and the game refilled my lives as a reward! I have no bloody idea how I pulled that off, but it’s definitely helpful.

Turns out that you can also be rewarded with a gold dragon head if you collect all the red dragon heads along the way. But you can pick up a gold dragon head during the level as well, so there's two to collect on each stage. What do you get for acquiring all 30 or so golden dragons? Apparently it's a bonus level plus a video clip of Jackie Chan talking about the game and doing the motion capture.

It's a lot of work just to watch a DVD bonus feature, but most games wouldn't even give you that so I can't complain.

I'd be complaining if I had to wear that mocap suit though. It looks like they've just unplugged him from the virtual reality cyberweb. It looks like he's just come off the set of a Johnny Mnemonic remake, where instead of storing data in his brain he just wears lots of hard drives. He looks like he's wearing Darth Vader's jogging gear.

CHINATOWN - BOSS FIGHT

I've reached a boss fight!

I was hoping that the game wouldn’t have any, but here were are. I was dropped in here immediately after level 3 without a cutscene to explain who this guy is or a chance to visit the hub and save. Which is a shame because I like saving. Especially when I’ve got my three lives back and I’m doing well. Well I was doing well.

The guy's health bar is a lot longer than mine so I decided to be clever and grab the saucepan to even the odds a little. He just smacked it out of my hand, picked it up himself and started beating the dints back out of it using my face! I have to keep racing off to attack the scenery in the hopes of finding another secret healing item to keep me in the fight.

I can't stray too far though, as the guy has a special attack where he stomps his foot and if my feet are touching floor when the shockwave hits me I get knocked on my ass. I need to keep him on screen to keep an eye out for it so that I know when to jump.

WATERFRONT – LEVEL 1

I defeated the boss and unlocked a whole new area! I have finally escaped Chinatown. Now I'm on the Waterfront levels, where everyone has a dodgy French accent and the platforming gets tricky.

Man, look at this crap it's got me doing now. I have to jump a gap, roll under the swinging crate, jump another gap, roll under a second crate, then jump again, and if I mess up the timing I'm knocked to the ground. I actually made it under both crates on my first try but the second crate was in the wrong position so I hit the roll button too late and carried on rolling right off the boxes. Doesn’t hurt much if I get hit, but it’s still annoying.

Oh no, I dodged the train at the last second but I've got him stuck on the bloody fence! Damn my lack of depth perception!

Trains are an instant kill just like the trucks. So's falling off those platforms down there and landing in the water, as it turns out Jackie can't swim... and that's how I accidentally threw away all my lives in quick succession. Well, as quick as I could manage with 15 seconds of loading each time (I eventually got out a stopwatch and timed it).

Oh well, I was pretty much ready to quit now anyway. I mean we'd be here forever if I wrote about every level.


CONCLUSION

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Jackie Chan's Stuntmaster is a side-scrolling beat 'em up. You scroll the screen to the side and you beat people up. There's a good set of moves to use but it's definitely closer to Streets of Rage than it is to Sleeping Dogs.

Though it's also got some surprisingly tricky platforming in there too at times. Sometimes it has you leaping around to get extra lives and floating dragon heads, but sometimes it's an effort just to make it to the exit. I think this actually helps a lot to fix one of my biggest complaints with the typical scrolling beat 'em up, which is that they get really repetitive. This actually has some variety to it, even if I've only found two kinds of enemies so far: dudes who punch bad and dudes who punch good. Plus I was also keeping myself entertained by trying (and usually failing) to pull off the more interesting moves in combat, like counters, throws, stun punches and backflip kicks that launch enemies into the air.

The developers didn't just stick Jackie Chan's name on the box and paint his face onto the character model, they also had him doing the motion capture and the result is that this is a surprisingly well animated PlayStation game. Like a proper Jackie Chan hero, the character's half dancer, half clown and half warrior and he's a joy to control. Well, as much as the frame rate allows at least. Despite the 3Dness of it, his punches pretty much always connected for me and I rarely misaligned his leaps.

It bothers me though that the punishment for messing up a stunt is sometimes so much more than the punishment for messing up the fight. If you're jumping over boxes with ground below you're fine, but if it's water down there, or you're hit by a truck, it's an instant fail and you're put back to the last checkpoint. The levels aren't that long so it's not having to replay them that's bothering me this time, it's the way you can throw away your precious and limited lives so so easily in certain sections. Also the loading times. Mostly the loading times.

Not that it punishes you all that much for running out of lives seeing as you can always reload your last save back at the hub, or choose to continue and get you lives reset to three without losing any progress in the other levels. Though this also broke the spell for me, and I found I had a sudden urge to turn it off and not play it again for a decade or two. This might explain why I never finished it, despite it being one of the first games I got for the system.

But I've always remembered the game fondly, partially because it's got so much charm to it. It doesn't look like a nasty jagged mess like PlayStation games can, so that helps, but there's also little things like the way Jackie starts singing when you leave him alone too long, or says something like "Where are you going?" or "Please don't leave me!" when you pause. The random goons talk too, commenting on how you don't usually see this kind of conviction in couriers, while you're smacking them around with a fish. It just a shame it doesn't have two player co-op, as that's usually the saving grace of games like this and could've really helped keep it interesting.

I only played 4 out of 15 levels, it might go to crap after this, but I found that what I played was decent enough and it's not even part of a genre I'm particularly keen on so it did well there. Plus it has some replay value as you can go return to stages to find more secrets. I very much like the game but I very much don't love it, so it can have a well earned 'Not Crap' badge:

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Thanks for reading my words, I always appreciate it. I also appreciate comments, so drop some thoughts into the box below if you're not too busy. You could even take a guess at what the next game will be.