Now this was a game real ones know 🙏

27 Comments

  1. To this day, I have no idea what you were supposed to do in this game. It was one a friend of mine had when we were kids, so while we played it quite a few times when I went over all we did was drive around pointlessly.

    Mind you, think back I don’t think he was the sharpest tool in the box, because he also had GTA San Andreas and all he ever did was jump on the bike then cause trouble.

    Eventually I noticed the letters on the mini map, he couldn’t explain why they were there so I went and looked, then the game began.

  2. PseudoImmortall

    Wow just hit me with nostalgia why don’t you

  3. AnimeGokuSolos

    I guess I can see where they got smuggler run in GTA online

  4. For some reason this cover art, I instantly thought of Dune

  5. Jedibri81

    I remember seeing this game everywhere back then, but I never got around to playing it

  6. OrangeYawn

    Yes this game felt so next level lol. 

    It just felt fun to drive around in. Had this and the second one and ATV Off-road Fury.

  7. Sneaky_Snake666

    I used to love this game! The physics were so much fun. Does anyone have a recommendation for a similar modern game?

  8. sagsag19

    This and Midnight Club are what made me want a ps2 so bad. I had every magazine with these games in it. I would stare at screenshots and read guides. As a kid I hit the yellow pages all the time calling around looking for ps2 stock. My brother and I ended up getting an xbox for christmas and I have never played either game to this day.

  9. ElizabethDane

    I’m so glad to read these other comments after all this time and realise it wasn’t just me. I never once did whatever the hell you were supposed to actually do in this game, I have no idea what the aim was, but I loved just driving around for hours on end trying to get up hillsides and jumping off things. That said, I was smoking a lot of weed at the time. A whole lot of weed.

  10. EmptyCupOfWater

    This game came included with a lot of PS2s back in the day. I bet everyone from that era played it at least once and then never played it again. I used love it, it’s cemented a lifelong love of off-road racing games

  11. ComprehensiveArt7725

    Was just thinkin bout this today

  12. Azrael-XIII

    You know how when you used to get a console for Christmas/birthday you would usually get whatever the “big game” was at the time and then a few “random games”? This was one of the best of those “random” games for me when I got my PS2 (the only better “random” game was when I got Chronicles of Riddick with my Xbox a few years later)

  13. I remember you could try to run over people in this and they would sometimes say “No Mas”. I got more fun out of that than I probably should have.

  14. Huge-Blacksmith2419

    The only thing I ever did in that game was drive aimlessly around the desert map. It was so much fun.

  15. Sizzer1323

    Idk if this or if there even was a second one but my brother and I played the heck out of it.
    We used the rolling bombs to catapult us on the highest places lmao

  16. itislupus89

    My favorite thing about this game. Was the broken physics. The sports car if you went fast enough and flipped the vehicle would start to fly upwards. Presumably because the games attempts to keep the vehicle grounded at speed wasnt programmed right. And was just pointed down relative to the orientation of the car rather than an absolute down.

  17. Ssgt-Doom

    I played the hell out of Smugglers run 2, never had the first game. Might have to, “search” and see if I can find it to give it a go.

  18. Troldann

    When this game came out, a friend and I were running a crappy Star Wars fan site called Smugglers’ Run and had smugglersrun.com and we hoped they’d make an offer on the domain.

    They didn’t.

  19. MurdochMostFoul

    Obscure fact: First game that had a Soundtrack, from an underground dance label.

    Guidance Records out of Chicago. Quality tunes. At the time, not widely known.

    I am an old DJ, with many Guidance Records. So when I bought a PS2 for my little brother, I had like, 30 Guidance releases, at the time….and I could hear him playing this from another room, went in and sure enough, I freaked out, confused and unable to reconcile, the fact that a game had an underground classic on the Soundtrack…..”That’s Troublemakers?” (3 x Vinyl) 48th rarest record I own according to Discogs….What the fuck? I said to my Little Brother.

    I thought to myself, “it can’t be” and burst out….”It is” But it still It didn’t equate, back then anyway?

    It was a distinct mellow housey acid jazz track called “Groover Is Back” I was speechless..then another Troublemakers track played, “Electrologe” and I was losing my shit.

    Then I heard an A:XUS/Abacus/Austin Bascom tune playing during the briefings with the chick, and I knew something was most definitely up, and investigated further…

    As it turned out, after hearing every track in the game, the entire soundtrack consisted of records I owned on vinyl…all deeply underground, way back then.

    I may be one, of only a few people in the world, had that happen to them? Have played Smuggler’s Run, and was a DJ, who firstly recognised, but then, who owned nearly every single track (still do) on vinyl. ..Blew my mind. Still does.

    The Synchronicity was strong that day. Still is? I saw this thread?

    See?

    Loved the game.

  20. SkeletonSwoon

    I never had a PS2, but I vividly remember this game from the time I’d spend in the Costco gaming aisle where I’d just read the backs of video games lol. There were always so many copies of this, and I wanted to play it so bad!

  21. Revolution64

    I had the game cube version of this. It had fantastic multiplayer modes. One of the best off road racers of that generation.

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