John Linneman talked me into tracking down a copy of Double S.T.E.A.L. The Second Clash, the weirdly rare Japan-only Xbox exclusive sequel to what we knew in the west as Wreckless: The Yakuza Missions.
Shame, too, because it's entirely in English. I've yet to see a single kana of any kind in here, except on the case.
This came out a couple months before the Xbox 360 launched, and it puts a lot of early 360 titles to shame. It's so impressive. Particularly with this new HDMI mod on my main Xbox. 💚
And all the impressive technical stuff is happening, somehow, at native 720p in 16x9, with a relatively stable framerate. And like most original Xbox games, it's got a an excellent 5.1 Dolby Digital mix, which, paired with the widescreen HD visuals means it plays very nicely with a modern home theater setup.
Thankfully it's also just a much better version of Wreckless. These cars control like cars, as opposed to squirrelly, wiggling machines of chaos. Second Clash feels almost like a mission mode for Burnout 3: Takedown.
