Double S.T.E.A.L: The Second Clash has the same reckless vehicular smashing action of the first game, but this time set in the American city of Chicago. Missions can have varied objectives such as destroying a number of Yakuza targets or getting to a point in the city while being hounded by Yakuza cars. Missions have far more generous time limits compared to the first game, but they are also now rated, and earning a high rating on a mission with a quick time can unlock Extra Missions and cars. Most cars can earn multiple turbo boosts by destroying property and traffic, and if the boost bar is maxed out then it will be expelled all at once and stop time as well. The free mode of the PlayStation 2 and GameCube versions of Wreckless makes a return, allowing Madoka and Mei to drive around the city without worrying about objectives or time limits. Boxes of car parts can be found hidden around Chicago, and for every five boxes found a new car will be unlocked. Extra Missions can be found as well that have non-Yakuza related objectives, such as winning a dirt race, reaching checkpoints, or delivering pizza in time.
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Originally posted here: https://cultclassiccornervideogames.wordpress.com/2021/11/21/double-s-t-e-a-l-the-second-clash-2005-xbox-review/
The plot description contains slight spoilers for the first game (ENG: “Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions”, JP: “Double S.T.E.A.L.”), but they are minor.
After arresting Tiger Takagi and loosening the grip of the Yakuza on Hong Kong, the Dragons of the Hong Kong Police Force fly to America to hand off Tiget Takagi to the CIA. But not even 5 minutes after landing in Chicago, the Yakuza gang working in the USA break Tiger Takagi out of police custody, allowing Tiger Takagi to wreak chaos throughout the city of Chicago. It’s up to the Dragons to reign in Tiger Takagi and the Yakuza before it’s too late.
I don’t think there is even 5 minutes of cutscene total throughout the game. But it’s not like it matters much since the gameplay is the thing holding this game together.
I guess that the first game didn’t do too well outside of Japan, because ‘The Second Clash’ stayed in it’s home country of Japan. And on top of that, this game remained an exclusive to the original Xbox unlike the first game. And considering that the original Xbox wasn’t flying of the shelves like the PlayStation 2 and GameCube were in Japan unlike it was in the Western countries, I guess it was doomed to obscurity, even in it’s own country.
But despite the fact that it’s a game exclusive to Japan the game is entirely in English. And I don’t just mean the game has English menus and subtitles, but the whole thing is dubbed in English, which means that anyone from an English speaking country could play though this game with ease. Maybe the original game sold well enough in English speaking countries that the company developing or it publishing it thought that it could sell just as well enough in those countries, but pulled out at the last minute because it didn’t sell quite enough to justify the release. I didn’t even know that this game existed until I was doing some research on the first game for my review. And if you were a fan of the original outside of Japan, you probably wouldn’t have know that a sequel would have even came out because of the different name. Also, that cover isn’t exactly an eye catcher.
The most amusing thing about the English voice acting is that Tiger Takagi, the bad guy, is voiced by someone from the UK, in a game set entirely in Chicago, playing a member of the Yakuza, who was previously working in Hong Kong. It’s the most mismatched accent and I wouldn’t change it because of just how perfectly silly it is.
But the most obvious, and best, change to the game is that it automatically saves all of your progress the moment that you complete a mission. I still don’t know why this wasn’t a feature in the Xbox version of the first game. I didn’t expect it in the PlayStation 2 and GameCube ports because those use Memory Cards, but the original version was developed for a console with a permanent hard drive, which means you could save any time.
The driving feels much better this time around. While the cars can still feel a little too ‘bouncy’, for a lack of a better word, for my liking, it feels like it was refined from the fist one, making it feel much better. It also help that the roads are wider, allowing the cars to make wide turns without making you feel like you’re about to hit into a wall every time you make a turn around a corner. Although, there was still the odd moment when I crash and my cars still ended up bouncing around like a pinball, which is still annoying, but it didn’t happen often, and was still be amusing in it’s own way. There are still a few times where you have to drive on tighter spaces, and while it isn’t as tedious as it was in the previous entry in the series, it’s probably still the worst part of the game.
Most of the cars now have a turbo boost that lets you catch up to your objective if you’re falling behind. You can earn extra turbo boosts by destroying propery and traffic, most of which get knocked around as you’re car is the unstoppable force looking for an immovable object. It’s pretty fun watching a tiny car make a giant bus, or even a train, fly off into the distance. But when the booster bar is maxed out however, then it will be expelled out all at once and time stops briefly.
‘Second Clash’ also toned back some of the graphical effects from the original Xbox version of the game, which is good because that version of the game, despite still being the best looking out of all the versions of the game, went wild with the bloom and particle effects. It’s still pretty good looking ang gets across the look and feel of Chicago, even if it’s not the most accurate portrayal of the city. A couple of the areas feel a little barren, but I’d still prefer that than the developers feeling the need to shove as much stuff as they can into the game. And to top it all off the game can run in 720p at 60 fps, which is pretty nice considering just how good the game looks.
Just like the first game, you’re tasked with completing a series of missions where you stop the Yakuza from causing chaos across the city, but instead of Hong Kong, it’s Chicago. Objectives can range from destroying cars, such as Yakuza members chasing someone or a group of people performing an illegal street race, or you having to get something from ‘Point A’ to ‘Point B’ without being hit too many times. It does feel varied enough that it doesn’t get too tedious or repetitive.
Missions have fare more generous time limits compared to the first game, but almost to compensate for that, each mission now has a rating, and earning a high rating on a mission can unlock extra mission in the free roam mod and extra cars. The game even came with leaderboards so you can see how well you did compared to other people. They don’t work any more, obviously, but it’s a neat feature to see in the game.
And surprisingly, the free roam mode from the PS2 and CGN versions make a return for sequel on the Xbox, which is nice to see. But instead of just being able to drive around the city having to make up your own fun or just to admire the look of the game, you can now do extra missions that are unlocked when you get a good enough rating in a Story Mission. These extra missions can include racing in a dirt race, reaching all of the checkpoints as quickly as possible, or as something simple as delivering a pizza.
Plus there are hidden car parts scattered around the city in free roam that you can find, and for every 5 car parts you collect, you unlock a car. There’s no way to choose which car that you want to unlock first, they just unlock in a specific order. You can also unlock cars by completing the story missions.
Some of these unlockable cars include various sports cars, muscle cars, a monster truck, a toy car, and even a tank that lets you fire the barrel, which is not only fun to use in the free roam mode, but cut down the time of a few missions where you have to take out Yakuza cars from roughly 2 and a 1/2 minutes to about 10 seconds.
Is Double S.T.E.A.L.: The Second Clash worth tracking down and buying? Only if you’re an avid collector of retro video games. While I did have a lot of fun with it, it would be hard to justify to someone to not only drop the money on both buying and importing the game but having to import a Japanese Xbox. There are other means to get it, but that's a whole other level of being able to play the game. I would still recommend it, even if it's to a select few who would actually go out of there way to play it.
The plot description contains slight spoilers for the first game (ENG: “Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions”, JP: “Double S.T.E.A.L.”), but they are minor.
After arresting Tiger Takagi and loosening the grip of the Yakuza on Hong Kong, the Dragons of the Hong Kong Police Force fly to America to hand off Tiget Takagi to the CIA. But not even 5 minutes after landing in Chicago, the Yakuza gang working in the USA break Tiger Takagi out of police custody, allowing Tiger Takagi to wreak chaos throughout the city of Chicago. It’s up to the Dragons to reign in Tiger Takagi and the Yakuza before it’s too late.
I don’t think there is even 5 minutes of cutscene total throughout the game. But it’s not like it matters much since the gameplay is the thing holding this game together.
I guess that the first game didn’t do too well outside of Japan, because ‘The Second Clash’ stayed in it’s home country of Japan. And on top of that, this game remained an exclusive to the original Xbox unlike the first game. And considering that the original Xbox wasn’t flying of the shelves like the PlayStation 2 and GameCube were in Japan unlike it was in the Western countries, I guess it was doomed to obscurity, even in it’s own country.
But despite the fact that it’s a game exclusive to Japan the game is entirely in English. And I don’t just mean the game has English menus and subtitles, but the whole thing is dubbed in English, which means that anyone from an English speaking country could play though this game with ease. Maybe the original game sold well enough in English speaking countries that the company developing or it publishing it thought that it could sell just as well enough in those countries, but pulled out at the last minute because it didn’t sell quite enough to justify the release. I didn’t even know that this game existed until I was doing some research on the first game for my review. And if you were a fan of the original outside of Japan, you probably wouldn’t have know that a sequel would have even came out because of the different name. Also, that cover isn’t exactly an eye catcher.
The most amusing thing about the English voice acting is that Tiger Takagi, the bad guy, is voiced by someone from the UK, in a game set entirely in Chicago, playing a member of the Yakuza, who was previously working in Hong Kong. It’s the most mismatched accent and I wouldn’t change it because of just how perfectly silly it is.
But the most obvious, and best, change to the game is that it automatically saves all of your progress the moment that you complete a mission. I still don’t know why this wasn’t a feature in the Xbox version of the first game. I didn’t expect it in the PlayStation 2 and GameCube ports because those use Memory Cards, but the original version was developed for a console with a permanent hard drive, which means you could save any time.
The driving feels much better this time around. While the cars can still feel a little too ‘bouncy’, for a lack of a better word, for my liking, it feels like it was refined from the fist one, making it feel much better. It also help that the roads are wider, allowing the cars to make wide turns without making you feel like you’re about to hit into a wall every time you make a turn around a corner. Although, there was still the odd moment when I crash and my cars still ended up bouncing around like a pinball, which is still annoying, but it didn’t happen often, and was still be amusing in it’s own way. There are still a few times where you have to drive on tighter spaces, and while it isn’t as tedious as it was in the previous entry in the series, it’s probably still the worst part of the game.
Most of the cars now have a turbo boost that lets you catch up to your objective if you’re falling behind. You can earn extra turbo boosts by destroying propery and traffic, most of which get knocked around as you’re car is the unstoppable force looking for an immovable object. It’s pretty fun watching a tiny car make a giant bus, or even a train, fly off into the distance. But when the booster bar is maxed out however, then it will be expelled out all at once and time stops briefly.
‘Second Clash’ also toned back some of the graphical effects from the original Xbox version of the game, which is good because that version of the game, despite still being the best looking out of all the versions of the game, went wild with the bloom and particle effects. It’s still pretty good looking ang gets across the look and feel of Chicago, even if it’s not the most accurate portrayal of the city. A couple of the areas feel a little barren, but I’d still prefer that than the developers feeling the need to shove as much stuff as they can into the game. And to top it all off the game can run in 720p at 60 fps, which is pretty nice considering just how good the game looks.
Just like the first game, you’re tasked with completing a series of missions where you stop the Yakuza from causing chaos across the city, but instead of Hong Kong, it’s Chicago. Objectives can range from destroying cars, such as Yakuza members chasing someone or a group of people performing an illegal street race, or you having to get something from ‘Point A’ to ‘Point B’ without being hit too many times. It does feel varied enough that it doesn’t get too tedious or repetitive.
Missions have fare more generous time limits compared to the first game, but almost to compensate for that, each mission now has a rating, and earning a high rating on a mission can unlock extra mission in the free roam mod and extra cars. The game even came with leaderboards so you can see how well you did compared to other people. They don’t work any more, obviously, but it’s a neat feature to see in the game.
And surprisingly, the free roam mode from the PS2 and CGN versions make a return for sequel on the Xbox, which is nice to see. But instead of just being able to drive around the city having to make up your own fun or just to admire the look of the game, you can now do extra missions that are unlocked when you get a good enough rating in a Story Mission. These extra missions can include racing in a dirt race, reaching all of the checkpoints as quickly as possible, or as something simple as delivering a pizza.
Plus there are hidden car parts scattered around the city in free roam that you can find, and for every 5 car parts you collect, you unlock a car. There’s no way to choose which car that you want to unlock first, they just unlock in a specific order. You can also unlock cars by completing the story missions.
Some of these unlockable cars include various sports cars, muscle cars, a monster truck, a toy car, and even a tank that lets you fire the barrel, which is not only fun to use in the free roam mode, but cut down the time of a few missions where you have to take out Yakuza cars from roughly 2 and a 1/2 minutes to about 10 seconds.
Is Double S.T.E.A.L.: The Second Clash worth tracking down and buying? Only if you’re an avid collector of retro video games. While I did have a lot of fun with it, it would be hard to justify to someone to not only drop the money on both buying and importing the game but having to import a Japanese Xbox. There are other means to get it, but that's a whole other level of being able to play the game. I would still recommend it, even if it's to a select few who would actually go out of there way to play it.
a bit of a hidden, English-capable yet Japan-exclusive gem on the Xbox, with full 720p output support and fantastic graphics, and significant improvements in gameplay and polish over its predecessor (Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions in the west) - presumably never released in the west due to rubbing up too closely with the Xbox 360's launch