I have now received a PS3 for Christmas (better than those Wii and Xbox crappy turdboxes) and have spent a good part of the last 2 weeks playing various games, and will review most of them quickly here...
The PS3 is awesome!!
First Game up is my equal favourite: Need For Speed Undercover (NFS15)
THe NFS franchise has been around since the first DOS machines, and i've played or at least tried a good number of them. NFS 1, SE, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, and now 15 have all fell under my purvey (for those not familiar with the series, that means i haven't played NFS 2, Underground 2, Carbon Own The City, or ProStreet), but this new one throws them all into the dust. It is a similar concept to Most Wanted (in turn a development of the original Hot Pursuit) and its freakin awesome!
There is a complex story and plotline which you can choose to follow closely or just play and ignore 'Chase Linh's incessant commentary. Most of the game is either running away from other people in street races, or running away from cops in pursuits. Both are rewarding in their ways. Races will give you cash and move you forward in the world, but only pissing off cops can give you the full experience. Coming up with new and inventive ways to lose the cops while causing as much carnage as possible is an inimitable feeling.
The game is pretty simple. The physics are basic but well balanced between easily approachable and challenging to master. Car Damage is only cosmetic for most of the game, and getting cash allows you to buy new cars, get upgrades, new paint jobs etc.
The Graphics are truly incredible never slowing down, never glitching and mastering the camerawork, as well as the natural light, glinting off iridescent paint jobs, and all the tricky stuff. Sound is good, and effects are authentic, but the music soundtrack is disappointing. Bad Music, played too loud.
The game has a longevity going past its predecessors with Quick Race Modes, and the novelty of pissing off cops never wears off. By the end of the game, the cops even get 150,000 dollar Nissan GT-R's and multiple helicopters just to make it hard for you.
If you own a PS3 and are even vaguely interested in the racing genre, BUY IT! it won't disappoint... 10/10
Resistance 2
I never did play Resistance: Fall of Man, but who cares when the sequel is this good.
It follows the standard formula of alien FPS, but just makes it that bit better, that bit more addictive. The Story has you as part of the Human resistance, fighting mutated humans, known as Chimeras (in the real world, the word Chimera actually means someone who has two separate DNA strands in them. Freaky).
Controls are not my personal preference, but they work: Left Stick Movement, Right Stick Viewpoint. The controls are complex, but after the first level, they're intuitive as all hell. Targets are many and varied as are the ways of killing/butchering/murdering/incinerating/blowing up your enemies. The 'Secondary Fire' concept is great, and you have to learn to use it well. Note to self: Frag Grenade + Enemies = Chimera Soup! Then again, ever tried using a machine gun, let alone a grenade or a sniper rifle to shoot little flying robot thingies?! Those little silver buggers are seriously giving me the shits...
Sound is, well, i don't really know! It's far too intense to notice something minor like sound. Graphics are freakin impressive. My view is probably a little skewed by the fact that i've spent a long time playing really old games on my knocked around PS2. Ace Combat 4 from 2001 being played on a games machine from the year 2000, anyone?
Overall, a great game let down only by vague objectives and a lack of any sort of map. Neither flaw is fatal. 10/10
MotorStorm
A game so obviously aimed at immature petrolheads, it's shameful. A game whose primary objective is to go faster than everyone else, or just to take everyone else out. There is no denying it either. Why else have a button dedicated to elbowing the other guy off his bike?!
It is intense and it is mostly blindingly quick. It lacks the frenetic action of WipEout, but has its own form of combat. Contact. Shoving. Pushing. Grinding. Crushing. Attacking. Its all there.
The game still needs some element of racing prowess, especially as you go further into the game, but carnage is a pretty big part of it. Nothing can match launching a Big Rig off a ramp doing some ungodly speed, then coming down and landing on top of some poor dude on an ATV, crushing him instantly. Neither does pushing buggies off a cliff ever get old. Except when you're being pushed, then it gets old quicksmart.
Controls are simple, intuitive, responsive, and realistic, as are the effects of different vehicles, surfaces and viewpoints. The realism is even taken to the camera level, which gets splattered by mud or obscured by dust from any vehicles in front of you...
Sound is very good, good lineup of tracks, and you can even customise the music playlist. Visuals are truly stunning, especially the action-replays after you crash. There is one exception to this rule : Shadows. MotorStorm hasn't quite grasped the full shadows. For the most part, their only problem is a lack of definition, but when you're standing still on the grid, the shadows are truly disturbing. Shadows are meant to stay attached to whatever they are shadowing, not run off, swimming across the grid in a barely defined black hazy cloud...
Other than that, another great game for a great console, with only a couple of minor flaws:
1. Shadows
2. Short-term longevity is unquestionable, but there is a possibility of long-term repetition. Unlikely, but possible...
3. Some of the vehicle-track-weather-opponent match-ups are nigh on impossible. Sidewinder Gulch in a Big Rig against buggies in the rain??
Pacific Rift? I'll keep this one thanks very much... 9/10
Formula 1 Championship 2006
A game made for scary levels of realism, which isn't bad at all. It's a good game, just not a great one... One of this game's biggest flaws is the repetition. It focuses on realism and things like practices, qualifying, car setups, all the ancillary stuff which is unfortunately mind-numbingly boring. In Career mode, every GP starts with an 'hour' of Friday practice then two sessions of Saturday practice, then three qualifying sessions all for a 3- or 6-lap race. Staurday practice is the worst culprit, with one of those good-idea-at-the-time features, called Car Evolution. It involves the car and the computer working out what setup is best without you having to fiddle with it. The problem is that it also involves doing literally countless laps of the track with the net gain of all this crap being about 0.2 of a second per lap. Great, a bit over half a second over the course of a race. I did something like 32 laps of a single circuit for 0.6 of a second!
The quick race modes are a bit better, but there are still more problems though! Driving aids: There is almost no middle ground. You either have so many aids on that there's no point in you being there and driving basically involves holding down x and letting it do the rest, or you end up trying to drive a car that is bucking, heaving, spinning, crashing, locking, and generally making a huge nuisance of itself. Annoying. as. all. hell.
The driving experience if you do manage to find that middle ground is rewarding and challenging, and the quick race modes are definitely far more interesting than the mind-numbing Career modes.
Sound effects are good, music non-existent. The Controls are basic and responsive, but lack the technical depth one would expect of a title like this one. Graphics are good, but not impressive.
If some of these flaws were worked out, this would be a great game, but for the moment, it's just an average game...
6.5/10
Gran Turismo 5 : Prologue
A horrid disappointment. Disembodied physics, controls react like they're set in concrete, the sound is unrewarding, graphics good, if drab and conventional, racing uninteresting, no real arcade mode and a focus on development that just ruins the experience...
Enough said.
3.5/10
There you go, five games given either the big tick or a huge red stamp of disapproval...
