Category Archives: Racing Games

2012 Top Games Round-up

  January 10, 2013 - 12:14 pm | EA, Game Reviews, MMO, Musings, Other games, Racing Games, Retro, Wargaming.net, World of Tanks
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What a year it’s been. The world should have ended, but we’re still here and going strong. And in gaming it’s been quite a trip too, with the market ever shifting towards the casual online scene and small developers really hitting it big. The trend for Indie games making it up there against the AAA titles has continued, with the dare-to-try-something-different approach that was seen in the 90′s.

Since I’ve stopped playing all major MMORPGs, I’ve had a lot of time to test a huge range of games this year, so without further ado, here’s my Top Games of 2012, in both single player and online.

Single player:

Without a doubt the highlight of the year has to be FarCry 3. Improving leaps and bounds over FarCry 2 (which was a stunning game in its’ own rights), the new installment puts you on a beautiful island somewhere between Japan and Australia – with the signs of early civilization and the ravages of World War 2 apparent at every turn. You’re one of a group of fun-loving friends that gets kidnapped by drug manufacturers with the intent on holding you for ransom. You escape, and what follows is a tasty exploration through a well-sculpted world of big guns, bad guys, vicious animals and bewbies!

The story-line is intense, the game drips open-world and everything just works so well, no matter what your playing style. Anyway, a full review will be up soon, so just know that FarCry 3 is a masterpiece of graphics, gameplay, guns and rich characters. Oh, and the ending will make you scream and force you to play again, which isn’t a bad thing at all.

Honourable Mentions – Single Player:

Among the quirky Indie games available, two stand out for me: Kerbal Space Program and Game Dev Tycoon.

Kerbal Space Program (Still in Alpha, but good enough to play) is exactly what it sounds like. Design your own rocket ships to conquer the solar system. Sounds simple enough, but this game is closer to rocket science than anything I’ve seen before. My brother and I have been running challenges between ourselves, setting goals and seeing who can match them first, and as he put it: “Sometimes the difference between getting a sattelite into orbit and blowing up on the launch pad is one rivet – you have to respect the guys that do this for real.” It’s a great little simulator, really worth a shot.

I spotted Game Dev Tycoon on the Windows 8 marketplace and decided to give it a try during one bored day at work. An hour later I was scrabbling for my credit card and got the full version. The premise is simple: it’s about 25 years in the past, with home gaming just starting to gain momentum. You’re one guy trying to develop his own games and make a profit. Do well and your company grows, and so does the technology. The nice thing about the game is the fact that unlike 99.9% of the silly games on the marketplace these days, there are no microtransactions, there are no “Invite your friends to play otherwise you can’t get this crucial piece of kit”. If you have Windows 8, go check it out on the marketplace.

Online:

This was a tough one, with tons of games really vying for top spot, but in the end I had to go for World of Tanks. Yes, it was not released in 2012, but I think it has finally matured enough to be called a product. New tanks, new maps, and a host of new battle types has turned it from a grindfest into a thing of beauty. I’ve already reviewed WoT in a previous post, so have a look there for the full details.

Honourable Mention – Online:

I was fortunate enough to Alphatest War Thunder, and now that it’s on public beta I can actually write something about it. It goes on the same lines as World of Tanks – a World War 2 simulator with planes instead of tanks. Great game modes – you don’t just get to shoot the enemy, you actually have to complete objectives – and an all-round fun game. I think the only reason this didn’t get top spot for me this year is because it does still have its flaws – loading times are atrocious and the player base is still too small – if selecting the EU server, you tend to wait quite a few minutes before a game is ready for you, and you tend to play with the same group of people over and over again. If you select All servers, then queues are much faster but you’re shit out of luck communicating if you don’t speak Russian. With a bit more development (some artifacting does occasionally occur, as well as some physics glitches, but it’s improving) and a bigger fanbase, this game can be huge. Well worth the massive download.

Dishonourable mention:

Need for Speed – Most Wanted. OK, so Criterion has taken over from Black Box as the developers of the Need for Speed franchise now. Does that mean that they have to take one of their old titles, put in real cars instead of the fictional ones they used to use, take away half of the things that makes the Burnout series so good, and then call it a Need for Speed title? Fuck no!

The astonishing thing is the reviews by all of the top review sites – they all rave about it! How much did EA pay them? Yes, the franchise has been in decline in the last decade, losing out to the true simulators and the true arcade racers, while frantically bouncing between the two trying to find something that works, but I think they were actually on to something with The Run. Now instead they give us a watered-down version of Burnout Paradise and expect everyone to love it. The handling model is terrible (compared to older NFS titles, and to Burnout for that matter), on the PC the graphics are good for some parts and then awful for others, the Autovista 2 is counter-intuitive on PC (can’t say for the console versions) and the game modes are severely limited.

And then another thing – most of the last few Need for Speed titles have had some form of storyline – The Run actually had a captivating one, one that sucked you in and made every position you won or lost on your journey feel like it meant something. Most Wanted? Nope, it sucks. The Burnout series had some interesting game modes and a vast array of races. Most Wanted? An average of 5 races per car, limited game modes. At least the cars are nicely modeled.

Criterion, go make arcade racers like Burnout and leave Need for Speed to the publishers that can turn out games like the legendary Need for Speed: Porsche Unlimited. The original Most Wanted was a crappy title, this one was utter shite (Unless of course you haven’t played Burnout, in which case it’d probably be OK for you)

Need for Speed: The Run

  March 20, 2012 - 10:42 am | EA, Racing Games, Wall of Text
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There’s a ton of words that can be used to describe the new Need for Speed. If I had to choose one, it would be “frantic”. The latest installment in the franchise drops the track action that the last few have seen and kicks us back to the days of NFS 3, 4 and 5 – the good old days. It’s you, the car, and a long stretch of road.

You play Jack Rourke, who’s on the run from the mob (or something like that) and you get given an exit ticket by an old friend – race from San Francisco to New York in a Cannonball Run-type event. The stage is over 3000 miles, of which you see about 300 miles, still a mighty chunk of road to cover, and the speeds are insane. On the way you’ll have rivals trying to knock you out of the race, cops trying to catch you and that unknown mob trying to kill you. You start the game by escaping the mob and racing off in one of their cars, dodging bullets and SUVs. You then meet up with your friend, where the action really begins. Pick a car from the unlocked selection and hit the road.

The Run has no money system, no real manual tuning or upgrade system, instead going for a model of either stealing a car in the next tier or stopping at a gas station along the road and somehow having the ability to choose (and change the bodykit and paintwork) a new car. Changing vehicles is hardly ever an issue in single-player though – I managed to play the entire campaign using only the cars chosen at the mandatory changes in tier.

The cars and scenery are absolutely superbly crafted – with a price. The stunning scenery and lighting tends to slow the game down on both PC and Playstation, subtracting quite heavily from that feeling of speed. In the sections where everything goes smoothly though – it’s a beautiful thing. You almost feel sucked into the game, weaving through traffic like it’s real. The handling model is perfect for the game -yes it is arcadey, but then this is not a simulation. The Run is the closest you can legally get to taking an exotic car and blasting across the US coutryside. It’s fun and never tries to be anything other than fun. The storyline hints at seriousness but it’s soon forgotten as you get sucked into the next stretch of road, then the next, then the next.

Oh yes! The way the levels are loaded on top of each other is addictive. You don’t get much of a menu between screens – instead the next level loads as soon as you pass the finish line and the experience counter gets added. You have to force yourself to manually open the menu and press Quit. All sense of time seems to drift away as you push toward the next town.

Apart from the racing there are also a few interactive cutscenes – the usual rubbish where you have to mash buttons to jump fences, punch cops and sprint. In my opinion it doesn’t really add anything to the game and could just have been standard videos. The true gameplay comes in one of a handful of challenges – make up time between stages, pass X amount of other racers or beat an elite rival. The last stage in the single player campaign is an absolute humdinger which you absolutely HAVE to see, and also sets up events for a sequel.

To summarise a review that’s getting way too long – The Run is great fun. The multiplayer elements and challenges add a bit of replayability to the extremely short (4 or so hours) campaign. With this installment I believe that EA has returned to what made Need for Speed great all those years ago. It’s a pick up and blast game. No technical details to daunt you, just take your car and drive, drive, drive. It scores high on the graphic elements, barring the slowdown glitches. The music suits the scenery perfectly. The gameplay is spot-on for what it’s supposed to be. I score it 4 out of 5 – an almost perfect masterpiece, screw the other critics.

Driver: San Francisco play review.

  December 1, 2011 - 3:40 pm | Game Reviews, Other games, Racing Games
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I was a big fan of the original Driver. I played it when it was first released, as well as the second installment, which was a bit of a disappointment. While waiting for Driv3r I even resurrected an old PC to play the original again. Driv3r hit the markets and got my attention for a full 30 minutes before nausea and horror made me uninstall it in a hurry. I skipped Parallel Lines purely because I did not want to live through the torture again.

Then Driver: San Francisco came out and, against my better judgement, I got it.

Once you start with the actual game you immediately begin to realise that everything’s not quite what it seems. Things get even stranger when you realise that you’re not quite who or what you think you are. Then the crows arrive and things get really freaky. The story is well put together, something rare in what’s essentially just a driving game. The storyline evolves well as you play through, with nice features like “Previously on Driver: San Francisco” when you load a saved game. It really lets you feel like you’re watching a story instead of playing it.

The game’s starting (and for the rest of the game for that matter) cutscenes are well done. It really gives you insight into what’s going on, with a bit of mystery, grit and WTF thrown in. Graphically it’s superb, with that 70′s movie feel to it. The city itself is well laid out, with a good mixture of obstacles, interesting pieces of road and the occasional off-road adventure. Driving through the city you can clearly see the transition between beachfront property, dense urban areas, slums and countryside. The buildings, road width, traffic density and vehicle types all zone really well.

Also new to the game franchise is properly licensed cars, with a stunning array of 140 vehicles to unlock and purchase – including trucks, beetles, class B rally, vans, supercars and everyday runabouts. The handling is exceptional, probably the best I’ve experienced outside of a racing simulator. The cars all handle like you’d expect their real-world counterparts would if you were a pro driver, and the fact that they seem to do awesome slides, jumps and traffic weaves as if by telepathy gives you more time to concentrate on the various scenarios that the game puts you in. The “special abilities” like boost and ram also feel quite intuitive and seems a much better model than having every car fitted with NoS.

Shift mode - it changes everything

Then there’s the feature that makes this title stand out from all the others – the Shift mode. With Shift you can jump from car to car as you drive through the streets, and later even quickly shift to anywhere on the game map. This adds a new dimension to the missions you’ll be doing. While doing a race, will you concentrate on trying to get the best time, beating the opponents with skill and your special abilities, or will you jump into oncoming traffic and try to take out your opponents before they can cross the finish line? Shift really changes the game.

Shift out and you're greeted with a bird's view of the city.

Now for the bad, which isn’t really that bad to be honest. The story is extremely linear. You have no say in the direction, and the story only progresses on the successful completion of your main missions. On the other hand, this is a driving arcade game, so expecting RPG-like choices and outcomes may be a bit too much. The other thing is that the side missions quickly become stale, it’s a basic repetition of about 5 themes. The Driver and Movie side missions are quite fun though.

Since installing this game, I’ve managed to unlock and buy 138 of the 140 cars, and done about 80% of the Driver and Movie missions. I’ve also finished the main storyline, which was long enough to keep you interested without being so long as to bore you. Altogether I honestly enjoyed this game more than any others this year, hence it deserves a full 5 stars and my recommendation for arcade game of the year.

Street Legal Racing: Redline

  July 6, 2011 - 10:46 am | Game Reviews, Invictus, Oldschool, Other games, Racing Games, Retro
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Today’s review is on one of my old pets – you know the one, awesome to play with but it keeps crapping on your carpet and chewing your furniture. Street Legal Racing: Redline is that puppy. It’s the second in the Street Legal series by Invictus (a third is rumoured) and improves greatly on the inadequacies of the first one. Sadly it’s just as buggy as the first, requiring multiple patches almost as large as the game install before it’s anywhere close to being playable.

Back to the game itself: The premise is simple – you’re a newbie racer with a bit of cash in your pocket and you have to race your way to the top. You can afford something from the used-car dealer which you can then repair at a cost and start modifying. Don’t bother looking at the new car lot quite yet, this will be out of your reach for a while. Business as usual then, except that unlike most racers where you buy a car and then have limited upgrades available, Street Legal lets you customise your car to your heart’s content. You’ll be fitting each part yourself, tuning things like intake and exhaust cams, air-fuel mixtures, gear ratios and tyre pressure to your heart’s content. Most of the time is spent in the workshop, fiddling with different combinations of spares to try get that extra millisecond off your quarter mile time. The damage model is great too, hit a kerb at speed and your suspension will buckle, hit a tree and you’ve got some serious repairs to do.

The racing is simple. Exit your garage during the day and you’ll see other racers on your minimap, cruising around waiting for challenges. You agree upon a section of road and the stakes (Sort of like the outrun mode in Need for Speed) and you’re off. At night things heat up a little. You head toward the midnight racing location and then take part in organised 1/4-mile drags against ranked opponents for either cash or pink slips. As the power of your car increases it get’s a little harder to keep it in a straight line, resulting in spectacular crashes (and a huge repair bill) if you get it wrong. Build up your car, and your, prestige and you get to take part in the Race of Champions, a mountain circuit race with a grand prize of a new high-powered car.

The cars are loosely based upon real-world cars, with names like Shimutsibu instead of Mitsubishi, Baiern instead of BMW and Furrano as Ferrari. Each car can take a certain type of engine (4cyl, 6cyl, V8, etc) and a certain drive-train (FWD, RWD, 4WD), which can sometimes be modified to other types with special parts. The mod scene for this game is huge, with much more support than the game got from its actual developers, giving you access to many more cars, parts and accessories for the game. There are even community-made patches that greatly improves upon the playability of the game.

The game is still available to purchase, but you can probably find modded game files on the link above (Not that I condone such a thing of course!). If it wasn’t for the awesome customisation and damage model of this game, it wouldn’t have made any impact whatsoever, but the instability of the game engine (This thing crashes more than the Fins crash Escorts in the snow) stops it from being a true great. It has always been a budget title, being released by Activision Value, so don’t expect Need for Speed graphics and Toca handling. It’s just a fun drag-racing game that will keep you in the garage for hours.

Final verdict: 3 out of 5 MisGuilded Stars – A nice time-waster without being a waste of time.