I think I might have played the original Smuggler’s Run once on my friend’s PS2, but otherwise I had pretty much no idea what to expect with Warzones. I haven’t been keeping up with the game at all, but I had a $5 Blockbuster gift card burning a hole in my wallet, so that’s how it goes. So far I haven’t regretted choosing it from the rack.

The game basically puts you in the shoes of a wannabe smuggler. Presentation is way more than I would have expected; the menus are flashy and funny, and the FMV story scenes are quite good. I haven’t seen live-action FMV sequences since the early PSX days, but Smuggler’s Run does them in style. The actors are believable and the production is more than competent. Video quality is extremely dirty/grainy, and I have no idea whether that’s intentional or a result of compression for the GameCube disc. Either way, it fits the game’s style nicely, so no complaints here.

Smuggler’s Run: Warzones is essentially a point-to-point racing game with aggressive opponents and no defined track. You drive some dingy off-road vehicle towards a curiously levitating piece of contraband, then follow your radar to its drop-off point. Rinse and repeat. To spice things up, the police are usually on your tail, trying to trap you up against structures or just plain run you off. Some missions will also throw in rival smugglers, who will try to steal your contraband. They’re incredibly annoying. All you have to combat the Man and those other thieves are your driving skills and, once you unlock them, a couple of countermeasures. These range from speed boosts to jump jets to bombs and who knows what else.

Warzones is easy to pick up and play, and the first few missions are designed to teach you the basic gameplay concepts and controls. The learning curve is high but not too high, with one exception being the wild soccer-like competitions against rival smuggler gangs. These missions are set up almost exactly like a sports game; you even have a team with different assigned positions. Strategy comes into play, and the enemy AI is rather sneaky and feisty. The first mission of this type whipped my ass until I figured out what was going on, and even then I attribute victory partially to luck. The game could definitely ease you into these highly complex missions a little more slowly, because level progression is totally linear. If you don’t beat this mission, you don’t get any farther in the game.

Anyway, I did pass that mission and move on, and the game continues to be quite enjoyable, though always challenging. Control is a tad loose, but that’s understandable given the off-road environments and a generally unrealistic physics system. The visuals are smooth and clean (err...dirty), and I haven’t noticed any slowdown. Water effects are particularly nice, but I do wish the environments weren’t so sparse. The “jungles” of Vietnam look more like plains with palm trees. Aurally, the voices are all interesting and funny, and some of the music is pretty cool.

I’m just getting into Warzones, but so far the outlook is very good. Look for a full review soon.