Tag Archives: motorstorm apocalypse

Ridge Racer Unbounded Review

Posted on by

Namco should be slapped on their botties for letting what could have been a tremendous title go to waste and with good reason sent to their room for the rest of the month.

One question deserves to be continually asked: Why oh why would you give away a game with so much history and so much of a following and allow it to be utterly ruined? It is the equivalent of having a million pound winning lottery ticket and giving it away to an alcoholic.

Imagine this: you have an incredible franchise that you develop over the years. Sure, it may not be realistic enough to warrant the title ‘A Driving Simulator’ but hey, it is a fun arcade racer, the graphics are top notch, the speed and the flavour of racing is such that you build a world-wide following of fans that stay with you over three generations of consoles. At the last hurdle, maybe time is the issue or resources either way you allow another developer to step in and as such they drop the ball, next thing you know it is 3 nill to your opponents…

I really wanted this game to be good, I really did. So much so that when I read some of the other reviews on the game I refused to believe them. When one of my friends pointed out that the key to the game is about learning how to use the ‘Drift Button’ effectively. Inside I jumped for joy; maybe it was a whole misunderstanding for the other reviewers but now, two whole days later, I realised he was under the same deluded self deception as me. You see, gamers like us who grew up on the whole Ridge Racer series just don’t want to believe their beloved franchise is in the pan. But trust me, for this game it is; it is in the pan with a little bit of extra virgin oil and under a high heat.

I’ve always said that I would put the boot in when it came to crap titles but the only thing that is worse in this world than a crap game is an expensive crap game. Oh and this game is crap with more crappy pieces than a crappy bits lunch box meal made by a crappy deep fried chicken chop shop that is crap. You see I wouldn’t enjoy this game if it came as a PSN cheap download – the fact that it costs £40 is plain pathetic and a waste of money. I actually owe it to gamers to stop them going out there and buying this tosh.

Where do I start? Ridge Racer Unbounded tries to bring in core elements of Split/Second and Burnout series to the franchise of old. By itself this should not be a nail in the coffin. Like Split/Second you can open up shortcuts around the track by filling a power meter which generates by sliding and tailing other racers you can use this power in one of four ways; to provide a quick boost, open up shortcuts, smash into your opponents or create explosions. Unlike Split/Second however, you don’t trigger the explosions or shortcuts remotely: you smash into them to explode them or open them up. The problem here is in the execution. Question: When is a shortcut not a shortcut? When you take it and more often than not it puts you behind the competitors…duh… It’s an idea that sounds pants on paper and in reality is pants to see. Practically all shortcuts I have seen besides looking good, offer very little else. The explosions are nothing to write home about and have none of that ‘Ream-ability’ factor seen in Split/Second.

Secondly is control. Ridge Racer has always been renowned for its pick up and play capability. It is an arcade racer; mistime your brake and you don’t always screw up or end up in a wall. Unbounded follows this legacy; in fact most of the walls are destructible, which to its credit is a nice touch, but rather than keeping with the common traits of the genre i.e. gas, brake, boost, what we have here is an addition in the form of a ‘slide button’ that is supposed to allow you powerslide round corners. You see, if you hit the brake, handbrake, or hit a wall you lose a lot of speed but if you power-slide you lose just a little bit of speed but go into a wide angle slide in which you will hit the wall anyway. Makes sense doesn’t it? I thought so. Adding to this is that your opponents never make mistakes – the AI difficulty is incredible and there are no options to change it – this all means you will be sitting there for a long time playing the same tracks again and again just to qualify one race. Now some of you might be forgiven for thinking ‘I bet you he is just having a moan because he is not good at racing games’ but the reality is I have played and completed most of this game’s competitors and it is their qualities that make this game pale in comparison.

Graphics is average. Split/Second (a game that is almost a year and a half old) and Motorstorm Apocalypse easily outdoes this title in terms of quality and execution and even with Unbounded’s exploding walls or vehicles it brings nothing that hasn’t been seen or done better elsewhere. And what happened to the 3D? Is this yet another title that had dropped the notion of 3D gaming?

Music is poor. A classic element of Ridge Racer was the banging tracks and cheesy voice over. Thankfully the voice over is gone but where are the tracks? A host of Japanese unknowns and a couple of drum and bass tracks are all you get for your money. My gosh, that is such a wasted opportunity; Namco could have done remixes from the whole of the franchise, even SSX had tracks you knew or could dance to. This is just a really appalling effort.

To be fair to Bugbear, they have tried to introduce variety into the game and franchise but I don’t think they really spoke to the fans, or truly had a grasp of what made the original games so much fun. The only thing I could say I liked was the game’s much-hyped track editor. After all who wouldn’t want to build a Ridge Racer track from scratch? I found it flexible and easy to use, putting together a decent course in a very short space of time which was great, obviously, but the underlying problems that affect the racing on the ‘actual’ tracks still applied. Ho-Hum…

My Verdict

Ridge Racer Unbounded is nothing but a shame and a waste of money. I simply cannot recommend a game when I know there are superior, cheaper alternatives out there. Even if you find it out on your travels as a cheapie, avoid like the plague. You have been warned.

2 out of 10

DRIVER: San Francisco Game Review

Posted on by

I don’t know about you but when I first heard about Driver:San Francisco I was almost bi-polar about it. I mean; the last Driver game was awful in so many ways – things could only get better on third generation hardware. However, on the other hand, I had heard that they were going to do some mad ‘supernatural’ thing with Tanner, having him ‘jump about’ from ‘body to body’ at will. Now hands up who actually thinks that, that is going to work? Er…yeah…me neither.

So begins another entry into the Driver Franchise and perhaps the most outrageous premise in computer game history seen in a decade. Man, I would have loved to have been at the developers table at Ubisoft when they thrashed that idea out; I am guessing that they would have been more raised eyebrows than a Roger Moore convention. Yet for some insane reason it got the go ahead and here we are, Driver:San Francisco is a reality that has had gamers raving. But is it as good as they say?

Well I might as well cut to the chase and blatantly say DRIVER: San Francisco is not a ‘10/10’, a ‘gaming masterpiece’ or a ‘must buy’ like a lot of reviewers are/were saying and I don’t care what anybody says the multiplayer is never going to be a ‘Call of Duty killer’ but as far as a single player driving game goes it does hold up to provide an enjoyable race experience. Once you get past the aforementioned ludicrous storyline and clichéd scripting the only negative thing you are left with is the terrible handling of the vehicles. Yes – Burnout, Split-Second, Need for Speed, even Motorstorm Apocalypse fare better when it comes to the handling of the incredibly weighted vehicles of Driver which sporadically felt like I was steering a tank at times through quick drying cement.

Other than those ‘facets of joy’ though everything else is largely excellent; San Francisco is a beautifully glossy, detailed vista and the whole jump into another person’s head idea – called ‘Shift’ despite being an absurd idea actually works quite well; thrusting you into the mainstream driving, racing, chasing and crashing scenarios with ease.

Now hands up if you want to know more on this whole ‘shift’ thing? Thought you did. Well, fortunately (or unfortunately depending on how you look at it) the first 60 minutes of game play is taken up with the storyline and ‘mere reasons’ to justify the plot. John Tanner the undercover cop from the main game has finally tracked down his long time nemesis Charles Jericho. In an attempt to take him down he is forced into a near fatal collision and ends up in a coma. This means the vast majority of the game takes place in Tanner’s head and in which he continues to track his nemesis down; mind jumping from person to person in order to get close enough to stop Jericho once and for all.

Just in case you couldn’t tell – I had huge doubts about the whole ‘shift thing’ but in play I found what it brings is some real immediacy to the proceedings and a kind of ‘cocky but coolness’. What it also gives is options; trying to chase down a target? Hey why not just jump into a bus driver coming in the other direction – he-he laugh out loud as you say ‘any more fares’. What’s more every crash, every explosion happens in beautiful slo-mo so there is always a reason to do it; the game delights in bringing you thought out destruction.

Being a sandbox game there is a fair bit of exploration to be had and as typical for this type game alongside the main missions you have a plethora of side missions. However fortunately Driver: San Francisco has the least boring side missions I have seen this year besides perhaps those seen in LA: Noire. One such mission sees you jumping into the body of a young weedy chap, nervous as anything about his driving test. Do you think the idea is to help him pass? Nope…the idea is to put the fear of the devil into the test instructor by driving as insanely as possible.

Other than this though for most of the time you have standard Driver fare; follow this car, get to x in x amount of time, come first in this race, smash this car etc. Of all of these though the most exciting is shaking off the police and it has to be said that for all of the faults synonymous with driver of the past, one of the things that they have got right here is the police AI. No longer can you shake off the police by just bombing it down a road or even driving into oncoming traffic, they really do keep up the pressure and you have to be good to get away from them.

Longevities is sadly not a strong point of this game; the whole title taking me just over 6 hours to get through resulting in an ending hardly inspired enough for me. Although completing the game opened up some challenges and online multiplayer which in all honesty was not too bad and I am sure enough people went out there to buy this so there is hardly going to be a drought online. There are issues with balancing out gameplay between players of different ability so my advice is be the best you can be before you go online or else you will lose…a lot. Quite controversially I read the developer stating in interviews that no DLC (Download Content) has been planned which is an incredible shame.

My Verdict

Despite my initial concerns about the whole shift thing I do have to say it brings a level of originality, even if it makes serves to make the script clichéd and downright weird I would be lying if I said that I did not enjoy this game. I am hoping that further patches will be released to improve the atrocious handling and fix balancing issues because once those issues are resolved the game will go from great to being fantastic. At the moment I would say whilst it is a great purchase it is far from essential and for some hardcore gamers I would even say wait until it comes down in price before giving it a long hard look.

8.0 / 10

 

How does this game compare to others in its genre?

This is a hard one as although there are other racing games, none have the ‘shift’ feature and so are not the same and can’t be compared.

Equal to: Need for Speed – Hot Pursuit (only just)

Better than:  Burnout Paradise

Worse than: None

Motorstorm Apocalypse – Gaming Review

Posted on by

Imagine a post apocalyptic cityscape, perhaps akin to that seen in ‘Fist of the North Star’ or ‘2012’ and as desolate as that seen in ‘I am Legend’. You get the idea – broken glass, skyscrapers leaning vehemently on edge, a feeling of total dread, the lingering question ‘what on earth happened here’ filling your thoughts. Suddenly an earth shattering roar of engines fill the air, first one, then two, then you in your vehicle enter into sight. Hearing the rumble of another earth tremor on the way you hammer home your pedal to the floor and hit the nitrous oxide switch so you can enter onto a ramp that will leap you over a chasm of destruction.

Scenes like this are pretty common in Motorstorm Apocalypse; the newest edition to the Motorstorm franchise. From the moment you get past the somewhat lengthy installation and see the first introduction you realise that developer Evolution Studios wanted to bring something new and dynamic to the table. It is clear that they had had enough of the deserts, mud tracks and palm trees of their first two titles and now just wanted to mix things up a little which basically equates to just ‘destroying things’ because that is exactly what happens, oh and by ‘destroy things’ I mean a little thing by the name of earth…well a city…but can you blame me for capitalising on the dramatic moment?

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then the makers of Split Second should be well pleased; after all this is the very style of genre that they created therefore is the only other title that this can be compared to. However as great as Split Second is, it has been out for a quite a while now, players have been round the block a few times with it and are looking for something new. Thank the heavens Motorstorm is still a PS3 exclusive franchise. As the saying goes – Ha-ha-hee-hee Xbox owners.

Whereas Split Second allowed players to initiate the explosions that tear apart rivals, Motorstorm flings you into cataclysmic events where in every track the world is literally pulling itself apart. Hence tracks change from dramatically from lap to lap, buildings fall from the sky, earthquakes will rip open gaping chasms, and in a world where an ever more erratic population create civil unrest, the police are pushed into controlling the crowds with ever more questionable methods. Sounds a tad familiar? Well Sony thought so, enough to push back the release date significantly after the recent world catastrophes of late. Is this game art imitating life or life imitating art? You decide. In reality it is a tragedy and one’s thoughts can only go out to the families affected – some of which were Sony’s own developers.

The story behind Motorstorm is told this time through a series of gritty motion comics. In it we join the ‘Stormers’. These are a group of nutcases who have a lot in common with ‘Storm chasers’ but rather than chasing storms for perhaps scientific purposes this group are have actually heard about the impending disasters and are actually hoping that the unpredictable and inhospitable conditions will create the ultimate racing experience.

Enter then three lunatics…erm…I mean racers taking part in the Motorstorm festival: Mash; a rookie racer who managed to stow away on the festival’s ship. Tyler; a hard edged racer who likes to gamble on his races and is also member of a racing fraternity called the ‘Brotherhood’. Finally there is Big Dog; a veteran racer who just doesn’t give a damn.

In festival mode these three characters represent the game’s three difficulty levels; first you will play as Mash, then Tyler and finally Big Dog. Their cut scenes will show you how their stories intertwine. In festival mode you can’t choose which vehicle to use for each race, which is a shame but what this does mean is that you’re given a great introduction to the various types of vehicles on offer, and the different handling that each provides. Each character too has their own racing style; for example Mash who is an amateur racer has vehicles with a lower top speed but a higher grip, whereas Tyler tends to opt for Muscle cars with a higher power range and a lower grip meaning that you really have to squeeze that break to power-slide around corners in order to make it through.

There are a larger number of vehicles to play with in this title compared to previous offerings ranging from small dirt bikes and ATVs, right through to big rigs and monster trucks. New additions include super bikes, hot hatches, super cars and rally cars all of which have their own strengths and weaknesses. Bikes are quick and light and so can reach areas that larger vehicles can’t, but they can’t take much punishment from other opponents and are easily wrecked, while the trucks are slow but resistant to damage. As typical of Motorstorm there are multiple routes to the finish line and which route you take will depend largely on what you are driving and whom you are facing off against.

Sad to say but the handling in this game is nowhere near as good as that seen in Split-Second with the bike being especially twitchy; so twitchy in fact, that at slow speeds you will almost want to throw the joypad at the screen in disgust. However games players shouldn’t be deterred, for this title more than makes up it in terms of pure destructive mayhem.

There are nine different race environments, on which there is a base of 33 tracks featuring different disasters. These all feature a number of critical disaster moments that really do give each race a thrilling adrenaline rush, or will make your jaw drop; one out of the two. The ‘Skyline’ track is especially worthy of note as it sees you racing on top of skyscrapers in the middle of an earthquake and as some buildings fall they actually form or change the layout of track and may I impart a word or two of caution: don’t you dare miss that jump. Nevertheless, for all of its credit it does come at a price in terms of graphical finesse; this title is just a whole lot weaker graphically than that seen in Pacific Rift where there was shadows and realistic convulsive lighting effects.

However, This could be seen as a minor criticism as it does deliver and does so without a hint of slow down or motion blurring in order to achieve its aim of making you say ‘Wow’ and ‘Did you just see that?’

As typical of Motorstorm, this game is about how and when to use your boost. Rather than other titles where you are rewarded with it by driving into oncoming traffic for example, in this game you have it from the start. However, it overheats quite quickly and too much boost in one go will cause your vehicle to explode into a rolling ball of flames. Taking your finger off the boost button allows it to cool down as does driving through water. Boost can also be used to ram opponents off the road, but compared to other takedown systems such as Need for Speed Hot Pursuit this is a rather disappointing effort with little, if any thought gone into creating cut-scenes of your opponents spinning out of control.

I was pleased to see an enhanced game system and improved AI opponents. In previous Motorstorm games they would just be plain unfair and some would say that in a sense the whole franchise has been built on the whole ‘love to hate’ nature of the game. You could be in 1st place one moment, crash and end up in 15th all on the final lap. Those moments are gone, or are at least few and far between and I say that this is a good thing especially as owing to the nature of the game the likelihood is that you will crash and crash often, thus they wisely have made the re-spawn rate very quick and brought the AI level down a notch or two. This doesn’t mean your opponents are stupid, far from it, using shortcuts and boosts to keep you on your toes and the different characters give you a great introduction to the game and its mechanics.

What really provides strength in this title is the wealth of options for both online and offline play. In addition to Festival mode you later unlock Hardcore Festival in Wreakreation mode, which lets you replay the race against super-aggressive opponents. There are also Time Attack modes, with results which appear on global leaderboards; allowing you to compete for the best time with others online. Wreakreation also has the now standard Quick Race mode, letting you race a circuit with the vehicle of your choice. You can also select from three different racing types: standard races; and elimination; where the racer in the last position is periodically destroyed. There is also Chase, where you must maintain a certain distance between yourself and the race leader. Other options include managing the AI difficulty, number of laps, and whether disaster incidents take place. But honestly – would you really want to turn it off?

Quick races can be played locally with up to three other players via split-screen which makes a welcome return in this title and is something I think developers of late have long forgotten. So what if there is slightly less detail when you play split-screen? What I want is to be able to get my mates round crack open a beer and beat them in person rather than arranging to meet them online or having to play against some unknown individual who may even try and get to know me. This brings back the social element to gaming.

Online there is a really nice Perks system that lets you choose from a selection of three power-ups to use in a race. These include Swift Return, which gives you a quicker respawn to the track; Critical, which allows you to hold your boost for longer; and Cheap Shot, which lets you ram people using less of your boost. Each race awards you with chips, a form of experience points, which increases your driver level which in turn unlocks new perks. You can also unlock new player icons, driver avatars, and parts for cars, which you can use to customise your favourite ride for online races. I found that any customisation was purely visual, so no matter what I added, my vehicle performed the same. This is a bit of a let down especially when potentially it could offer the gamer so much and would have brought something new to the table.

If you’re one of those people lucky enough to own a 3D screen, well let me tell you that you’re in for a treat. As many of you may well know, I have had an issue with so called 3D games for quite some time now; and my argument has been that there is nowhere near enough content to warrant buying one. This is one of those games that could very nearly change my mind. I was lucky enough to play this on a 3D screen and although there was a marked drop in the resolution I was totally stunned by what I saw. Driving on the skyline track now literally brings an explosion of rubble down around you, water and mud which before would land on the screen and trickle down now appears to whiz past your face. This all creates a rare experience of fear and dread that I haven’t experienced in quite sometime. To be honest I had to play the game again because I felt sad when I completed it and the roller-coaster ride came to an end.

This is one of those rare instances where I would say 3D really enhances the experience, making each race even more that intense than it already is. Perhaps it is little wonder really, as this game was designed in 3D the same way a 3D movie is made for 3D; not like a 2D movie which has the 3D makeover bits added afterwards. If you check the history books, Sony did this same feat years back when they introduced Gran Turismo to the world at a time when many gamers thought racing games had had their day and thought the PS One was done for. Not so said Sony. I am as awestruck now as I was back then.

My Final Verdict –
Motorstorm Apocalypse is a joy ride of epidemic proportions. It’s fun to play, has jaw-dropping visuals and provides perhaps some of the most intense racing experiences seen on the PlayStation 3 of late. It does have a number of shortcomings that let it down, but these negatives are far outweighed by positives that this title has to offer. With the plethora of content and great multiplayer options Motorstorm Apocalypse is an incredible game that just needs to be played. In short I think it will go down a storm.

9.2 / 10

How does this game compare to others in its genre?

This is really hard as the only other game in its genre is Split Second, so the only other comparable game genre are those with big jumps and big air –

Equal to: Split-second

Better than: Nail’d, Pure, Motorstorm and Motorstorm – Pacific Rift