the title Vigilante 12, referring to the game's additional four characters compared to eight characters in its predecessor. A school bus was featured in the game during development, but Activision expected to replace it with a prison bus because of "sensitivity to violence". The Nintendo 64 version had production issues in its development, moving the release date to January, then February 2000. Printed media Brady Games released an official strategy guide on December 6, 1999. Written by Bart Farkas, the guide features all character information, walkthroughs, and cheat codes for all three releases of the game. In addition, Chaos! Comics joined forces with Activision to release a Second Offense comic book. The comic further details plot elements that were barely tackled in the game, such as the aftermath of the Stanford University heist and Nina's rescue of Boogie. Although there was a preview issue, the series did not advance after issue #1. Reception The PlayStation and Dreamcast versions received "favorable" reviews, while the Nintendo 64 version received "average" reviews, according to the review aggregation website GameRankings. IGN said that the PlayStation version has improved in terms of car and environment variety, the physics engine, and gameplay, but the missions seem trite, adding that the game also bested Twisted Metal 4. Joe Fielder of GameSpot lauded the same console version's upgrade system and the variety of songs in the game soundtrack, but was not as approving of the "aggravated" physics model and the graphics, which are just the same as the first game. However, Greg Orlando of NextGen summed up the review of the Dreamcast version in just three words: "We take offense". In Japan, where the PlayStation version was localized and published by Syscom under the name on February 24, 2000, followed by the Dreamcast version on March 23, Famitsu gave it a score of 29 out of 40 for the former, and 25 out of 40 for the latter. Despite positive reviews, Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense failed to sell well against its competitor, Twisted Metal 4. In October 2000, Activision declined to comment on a report that it had no plans to continue the series on the PlayStation 2 or any other new consoles. References External links 1999 video games Activision games Alternate history video games Cancelled Game Boy Advance games Luxoflux games Multiplayer and single-player video games Nintendo 64 games Dreamcast games PlayStation (console) games Vehicular combat games