Activision come up with more of the same for fans of OTT automotive violence.
Martin Kitts

Having scored a respectable hit with last year's car combat game Vigilante 8, Activision's swift and inevitable sequel (which was well into development even before the original was released) has proved to be almost identical.

Second Offence has new weapons and vehicles, but it looks and plays very much like the original. The graphics might be slightly crisper but the characteristic texture effect, where distant objects are drawn as untextured models and are only coloured in when they get within a few metres of your car, has been retained. If you hadn't seen the title screen, you would do well to tell the two games apart.

As before, the object of the game is to wipe out all opposition in a series of open-air arenas. The single-player and co-op modes have additional mission objectives such as finding an object or destroying a particular target. The plot isn't involving enough to make you wonder why you're being asked to do whatever it is you're supposed to be doing, and the shallow thrills on offer are provided by the game's all-out violence and wild physics. It's all about pelting around in a souped-up '70s muscle car, shooting the hell out of everything that moves, and it's just as much fun as last year's
version.

The 12 levels are suitably inventive, featuring huge landmarks such as oil refineries and ski lifts. One even contains a space rocket launching platform, which fires your car into the stratosphere for no obvious reason, other than the fact that it's sure to make you chuckle the first time you see it happen.