Being a stuntman must be an interesting career move. How do you suddenly decide you’d like to get run over or blown up for a living? I can’t see a school’s careers advisor ticking the “Jackass wannabe” box on your form. Obviously there is the buzz knowing it’s you up on screen in the middle of the mayhem, rather then the multi-million pound star on the poster but still. Pain/possible death aren’t exactly the job perks I’d be looking for.

Reflections’ original Stuntman game took away all the risk and gave you the opportunity to have a bash at it yourself on the PS2 and, despite being flawed, was without a doubt an interesting idea. Ignition takes the core elements of this game and tweaks them to hopefully make them more accessible and most importantly fun.

Before the start of each level, your stunt co-ordinator provides a brief rundown of the main stunts you’ll be expected to carry out - after that you’re more or less on your own.

Successfully hitting the marks will increase your score and the main stunts can then be linked together with other smaller stunts, such as passing close to debris or sliding around a corner, further increasing your total. This is where players will need to be persistent if they want to get the elusive 5 star rating at the end of the level. I personally found this very, very difficult to achieve and felt a lot of the time the game was too unforgiving. That said there is the option of an easy mode but this significantly decreases your chances of obtaining a high score.

For a PS3 game the visuals aren’t that great and when things were particularly hectic on screen I did notice more than a little slow down, but on the bright side the explosions look impressive and watching a successful replay of a decent run does help lift the game somewhat.

An added surprise is the constructor mode, which allows you to create your own stunt sections with pieces of scenery and props you’ve unlocked in the single-player game. This is a fun if basic way of passing an hour or so and it’s a nice addition to the main game.

Stuntman: Ignition is one of those games, which will infuriate many but appeal to the same in equal measure. It’s sort of like the old school high score chasing games where story and characters are second to getting your name up at the top of the scoreboard, which is fine but for people with a short fuse like me, it can be a rocky road.