BOOWY
7 Nov 2008, 04:44am
I won't be doing too many reviews because money's real tight right now. My brother bought this one.
Graphics - 9.0
It's a beautiful looking game for a racer. Cars are wonderfully detailed and when everything's in motion the city looks great too. I took a point off because this game, like so many others, has this fascination with making things dark even though there's daylight outside. Some roads are pitch black in broad daylight and that's absolutely ridiculous. You actually see better at night than you do during the day.
Gameplay - 6.5
I don't know what it is about this game, but it feels uninspired. There are definitely points coming off for absolutely retarded design decisions, like for example when you get a call on whatever device that is that creeps up on the bottom left of your screen. The thing completely covers your minimap and you get a call usually every time you fire up the game. So I set a waypoint on the GPS system to race someone or a hangout, and when I get out of the menu someone manages to call me every single time. Problem? I can't fucking see where I'm supposed to go with the picture of the device covering my minimap. What's worse, you might try and drive to the waypoint anyway and then end up getting caught by the cops, which you can't see because you're minimap is gone.
The cops give you a good chase every now and then early on, but I find that when you get better cars they get left in the dust rather easily. The actual racing itself is average. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing really special about it either. The AI is pretty good at finding their way through traffic and will usually not bump into you. The way the game chooses to mark your course on the streets is a little irritating, it'll put a yellow smoke flare usually at every turn with an arrow indicating where to turn, though the position of the smoke after awhile makes it obvious which way you're supposed to turn after you get used to it. My problem with it is that more than once the position of these flares makes it confusing on where to go next, like when I'm supposed to take an offramp while driving on the freeway and the flare is sitting right before the offramp while other times the flare is right on the offramp making it obvious that you need to go that way. On one occasion we were racing on some odd territory and the flare placement on a particular waypoint was sitting right against a wall that divided the surface into two, and I couldn't see that through the smoke and smashed right into it.
You get four powers eventually that you fill up as you're driving cleanly. I've only used AGRO and ROAR, but there's also one that slows down time and an EMP shock that disables vehicles or something like that. I think these things don't compliment the story very well. I mean it's hard to take shit seriously when your cars have 'powers'.
You can customize your cars in all sorts of ways, and this is something I've always liked Midnight Club for over the Need For Speed Underground series... the parts actually don't look completely ridiculous. There aren't many options but I think there's enough there to satisfy people. The vinyl system is quite deep, offering many layers for each side, the top and each bumper.
Oh yeah, and the game is hard as fuck too. Maybe not initially but when you're barreling through heavy traffic in a supercar with AI that rubberbands to you most of the time while there's much weaker rubberbanding when you're behind, it's frustrating.
Sound - 7.0
It sounds like a racer. Some cars are extremely quiet like the RX8 while others are loud and proud. The skidding and the engine sounds for the most part sound very realistic. The music is absolute horse shit, I think even people that like rap are going to laugh at this one.
Lasting Appeal - 6.0
It's a pretty long game from what I've played so far. I don't think the racing is varied enough to keep people interested unless you really like racing games. I can't comment on the online since I don't have it, but I'd imagine it would add some life to the game.
Overall: 7.0
Graphics - 9.0
It's a beautiful looking game for a racer. Cars are wonderfully detailed and when everything's in motion the city looks great too. I took a point off because this game, like so many others, has this fascination with making things dark even though there's daylight outside. Some roads are pitch black in broad daylight and that's absolutely ridiculous. You actually see better at night than you do during the day.
Gameplay - 6.5
I don't know what it is about this game, but it feels uninspired. There are definitely points coming off for absolutely retarded design decisions, like for example when you get a call on whatever device that is that creeps up on the bottom left of your screen. The thing completely covers your minimap and you get a call usually every time you fire up the game. So I set a waypoint on the GPS system to race someone or a hangout, and when I get out of the menu someone manages to call me every single time. Problem? I can't fucking see where I'm supposed to go with the picture of the device covering my minimap. What's worse, you might try and drive to the waypoint anyway and then end up getting caught by the cops, which you can't see because you're minimap is gone.
The cops give you a good chase every now and then early on, but I find that when you get better cars they get left in the dust rather easily. The actual racing itself is average. There's nothing wrong with it, but there's nothing really special about it either. The AI is pretty good at finding their way through traffic and will usually not bump into you. The way the game chooses to mark your course on the streets is a little irritating, it'll put a yellow smoke flare usually at every turn with an arrow indicating where to turn, though the position of the smoke after awhile makes it obvious which way you're supposed to turn after you get used to it. My problem with it is that more than once the position of these flares makes it confusing on where to go next, like when I'm supposed to take an offramp while driving on the freeway and the flare is sitting right before the offramp while other times the flare is right on the offramp making it obvious that you need to go that way. On one occasion we were racing on some odd territory and the flare placement on a particular waypoint was sitting right against a wall that divided the surface into two, and I couldn't see that through the smoke and smashed right into it.
You get four powers eventually that you fill up as you're driving cleanly. I've only used AGRO and ROAR, but there's also one that slows down time and an EMP shock that disables vehicles or something like that. I think these things don't compliment the story very well. I mean it's hard to take shit seriously when your cars have 'powers'.
You can customize your cars in all sorts of ways, and this is something I've always liked Midnight Club for over the Need For Speed Underground series... the parts actually don't look completely ridiculous. There aren't many options but I think there's enough there to satisfy people. The vinyl system is quite deep, offering many layers for each side, the top and each bumper.
Oh yeah, and the game is hard as fuck too. Maybe not initially but when you're barreling through heavy traffic in a supercar with AI that rubberbands to you most of the time while there's much weaker rubberbanding when you're behind, it's frustrating.
Sound - 7.0
It sounds like a racer. Some cars are extremely quiet like the RX8 while others are loud and proud. The skidding and the engine sounds for the most part sound very realistic. The music is absolute horse shit, I think even people that like rap are going to laugh at this one.
Lasting Appeal - 6.0
It's a pretty long game from what I've played so far. I don't think the racing is varied enough to keep people interested unless you really like racing games. I can't comment on the online since I don't have it, but I'd imagine it would add some life to the game.
Overall: 7.0