As I have already written at the beginning of this review, what surprises in Smugglers' run is a graphic engine able to show without any pop up or slowdown issue all the territory that surrounds your car up to the extreme horizon. From this point of view, this game is superior to another off-road racing game for Ps2, Wild Wild Racing. The colors are bright and also the care reserved to the sky shows the great job done by the developers. Overall however, graphics in Smugglers' Run don't surprise too much. Perhaps for problems in the management of the memory, the developers have inserted a limited number of textures. For this reason the vast levels appear rather monotonous and they don't fascinate like those seen in Midnight Club: Street Racing, which withdraw the city of New York.
The worst thing in the graphics of Smugglers' Run is the scarce care used for the various vehicles, that appear decidedly flat. More than once, playing this game, I have had the feeling that those on the screen where small radio-controlled car and not powerful off-road vehicles. On the bodies there are no traces of light effects; forget the illuminated dashboards of Ridge Racer V or the reflections on the cars' bodies. All the special effects that should have added a touch of realism have been realized in a not very convincing way. For instance, the snow that lifts in small clouds behind the vehicle in the Snow level is terribly unnatural. Details like this give this game a 32-bit look that really doesn't fit a 128-bit console.
In defence of the developers it is necessary to remember that all the launch titles have had a brief period of development. Seeing what they have been able to do with the gigantic environments managed in real time by their graphic engine, I'm pretty sure we'll have see great thing in the future from the Angel Studios.

In every racing game there must be a voice that comments your competition. In Smugglers' Run there is a woman at the microphone of your gang's radio, called, obviously, Radio Girl (oh my god....another fanciful name....hmmm). After all, her joking tone could have been amusing, if her vocabulary was not so limited. The music of Smugglers' Run will not impress the player and it remembers the one of Midnight Club: Street Racer. In this other title from the Angel Studios anyhow, it really fits the atmosphere of the game.

Smugglers' Run has been developed with care by the Angel Studios and the various missions are an attempt to give a good Replay Value to this title. The game is surely amusing, but after you have completed the main mode (you'll need about ten hours to get rid of it), it will hardly come to your mind to play again this game. Smugglers' Run is in fact repetitive and predictable, especially because of the bad artificial intelligence of the police officers and of the other smugglers. Anyhow, the two player mode is a good reason to play this game more than once.