Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label games. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Elite Review: Burnout Paradise
Here's a confession: I fucking hate realism in video games. My fave sports game of all-time is still NBA Jam TE with the dunk-from-anywhere and always-on-fire cheat codes turned on. I'm crazy about shooters with unlimited ammo.
So there should be no surprise that given the choice between a real car simulator and an arcade racer I'll pick the arcade game every time (sorry, Gran Turismo).
For those not familiar with the Burnout series, it's basically a racing game where destruction of every kind is rewarded: taking out opponents during races gives you more boost (as do things like drifting around corners and taking your car off sweet jumps to do barrel rolls) and if you crash your wreck is rendered in painstakingly detailed slo-mo.
The goals of the game are simple: win events in different categories. You can straight up race, try a burning route (best time), smash as many cars off the road as possible, survive getting smashed or do a stunt run. These events take place in an open world filled with different scenery from mountain roads to congested highways.
I've loved all the games in the Burnout series and this one is probably the best so far. The gameplay is addicting - there are always new rewards waiting after every event you win - and even if you're not racing it's great just tooling around the different roads in the game.
The best part is that the original game is available right now at Future Shop for $20 as a "classic" game, and once you buy it you can download all sorts of free upgrades via XBOX Live, including a motorbike add-on. There's a lot of not free content too, and I've heard Critereon is planning on adding a whole other island to the Burnout Paradise world soon.
So if you're a fan of arcade racing games, you can't get anything better than this. I'd recommend it just so I can have some friends to race against!
So there should be no surprise that given the choice between a real car simulator and an arcade racer I'll pick the arcade game every time (sorry, Gran Turismo).
For those not familiar with the Burnout series, it's basically a racing game where destruction of every kind is rewarded: taking out opponents during races gives you more boost (as do things like drifting around corners and taking your car off sweet jumps to do barrel rolls) and if you crash your wreck is rendered in painstakingly detailed slo-mo.
The goals of the game are simple: win events in different categories. You can straight up race, try a burning route (best time), smash as many cars off the road as possible, survive getting smashed or do a stunt run. These events take place in an open world filled with different scenery from mountain roads to congested highways.
I've loved all the games in the Burnout series and this one is probably the best so far. The gameplay is addicting - there are always new rewards waiting after every event you win - and even if you're not racing it's great just tooling around the different roads in the game.
The best part is that the original game is available right now at Future Shop for $20 as a "classic" game, and once you buy it you can download all sorts of free upgrades via XBOX Live, including a motorbike add-on. There's a lot of not free content too, and I've heard Critereon is planning on adding a whole other island to the Burnout Paradise world soon.
So if you're a fan of arcade racing games, you can't get anything better than this. I'd recommend it just so I can have some friends to race against!
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Elite Review: Spore
Cpt Log: 62773.2
Here the quicky on Spore. I was excited for such a long time about this game when I first heard about it. I heard about it about a year before release. I got it the day of release. I stocked up on coke and snacks and was ready for however long it would take me to beat this game. I was bored of it within a Week.
Spore is game about creating and evolving life through several different stages beginning with Cell Stage and ending with Space Stage. I guess ending is not the right choice of word because this game will never end. Nevertheless, most will be bored with the game long before any kind of conclusion comes into the picture.I wait a long time for this game to come out and when I finally got my hands on a working copy, I felt awash with disappointment. Let us start from the beginning:
The first stage of the game is the Cell Stage. This is where you decide which planet and what type of organism you wish to create. From here on the game becomes repetitive while you wait, you eat, and you unlock various aspects that will evolve your newly created life form. The goal of this stage is to eventually develop a brain so you can progress to the next stage: Creature Stage.
In the second stage you've lost your sea legs and you'll never get them back. You are land bound from this point forward. The key word for this stage is tedious, the goal is to be either social or aggressive to other forms of life to unlock new attributes to evolve your species.....but you can also unlock those rewards for finding bone bits, so the whole process seems.....hmmmm......Tedious. Anyway, the goal in this stage is to gain DNA so you can advance to the next stage: Tribal Stage.
In the third stage, the game begins to mimic most real time strategies but on a simplistic scale. The key word for stage three is Annoying, the goal here is to socialize with the surrounding tribes by either becoming friendly, or the more fun choice, aggressive. That pretty much sums up this chapter as there isn't much to unlock....ie..clothing, buildings, weapons. Once you progress to stage four, most of your previous choices get tossed and you feel as all you've done thus far was for naught.
Let's move on to the Civilization Stage: This is the stage that most gamers will recognize as a typical RTS. Your goal is to either unite the world or conquer it, but conquering isn't much fun since the other cities are incredibly weak in comparison that this stage's key word is effortless. Even on hard. Just design some buildings, vehicles, and the land, conquer the world and move on to stage five: Space Stage.
You've finally reached the point where your creation can navigate the vacuum of space.....what is your reward? Some of the worst missions ever in any game, period. A planet is under siege and on the brink of extinction because of a global outbreak. Your mission is to eliminate a few animals to end the plague and save the world. You are not permitted to invade any other planet....the game has missed on all fronts, why put something fun in at this point? That game is open-ended, but all that means is more repetitiveness of the same tedious goals. The only positives I have for the game is the graphics and sound which were splendid, but with low replay value and a hype machine that was in full force, only to let us down, I can't rate it higher than a two.
All in all, FAIL.
2 Stars
Here the quicky on Spore. I was excited for such a long time about this game when I first heard about it. I heard about it about a year before release. I got it the day of release. I stocked up on coke and snacks and was ready for however long it would take me to beat this game. I was bored of it within a Week.
Spore is game about creating and evolving life through several different stages beginning with Cell Stage and ending with Space Stage. I guess ending is not the right choice of word because this game will never end. Nevertheless, most will be bored with the game long before any kind of conclusion comes into the picture.I wait a long time for this game to come out and when I finally got my hands on a working copy, I felt awash with disappointment. Let us start from the beginning:
The first stage of the game is the Cell Stage. This is where you decide which planet and what type of organism you wish to create. From here on the game becomes repetitive while you wait, you eat, and you unlock various aspects that will evolve your newly created life form. The goal of this stage is to eventually develop a brain so you can progress to the next stage: Creature Stage.
In the second stage you've lost your sea legs and you'll never get them back. You are land bound from this point forward. The key word for this stage is tedious, the goal is to be either social or aggressive to other forms of life to unlock new attributes to evolve your species.....but you can also unlock those rewards for finding bone bits, so the whole process seems.....hmmmm......Tedious. Anyway, the goal in this stage is to gain DNA so you can advance to the next stage: Tribal Stage.
In the third stage, the game begins to mimic most real time strategies but on a simplistic scale. The key word for stage three is Annoying, the goal here is to socialize with the surrounding tribes by either becoming friendly, or the more fun choice, aggressive. That pretty much sums up this chapter as there isn't much to unlock....ie..clothing, buildings, weapons. Once you progress to stage four, most of your previous choices get tossed and you feel as all you've done thus far was for naught.
Let's move on to the Civilization Stage: This is the stage that most gamers will recognize as a typical RTS. Your goal is to either unite the world or conquer it, but conquering isn't much fun since the other cities are incredibly weak in comparison that this stage's key word is effortless. Even on hard. Just design some buildings, vehicles, and the land, conquer the world and move on to stage five: Space Stage.
You've finally reached the point where your creation can navigate the vacuum of space.....what is your reward? Some of the worst missions ever in any game, period. A planet is under siege and on the brink of extinction because of a global outbreak. Your mission is to eliminate a few animals to end the plague and save the world. You are not permitted to invade any other planet....the game has missed on all fronts, why put something fun in at this point? That game is open-ended, but all that means is more repetitiveness of the same tedious goals. The only positives I have for the game is the graphics and sound which were splendid, but with low replay value and a hype machine that was in full force, only to let us down, I can't rate it higher than a two.
All in all, FAIL.
2 Stars
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