Game Reviews

SITE MUSIC- "CONTRA"(NES)- STAGE 1

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CONTENTS:

1. NEED FOR SPEED (NFS) HOT PURSUIT 2
2. BURNOUT
3. 18-WHEELER: AMERICAN PRO TRUCKER
4. BURNOUT 2: POINT OF IMPACT
5. NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED
6. NFS UNDERGROUND 2 (Next Page)

AND... MY FIRST EVER ACCESSORY REVIEW:
1. LOGITECH SPEED FORCE WHEEL (Next Page)


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1. NEED FOR SPEED HOT PURSUIT 2


10/05/02:

REVIEW:


Does anyone remember the old NEED FOR SPEED games? Well, I do. They used to be exclusive to PC, and were not exactly works of art. Well, now the series has come to the Nintendo Gamecube, and while it was good on PC, it is even better than before.

I've rented the game over the past weekend, and, it has been the first review I have been motivated enough to write! If you like racing games in general, you will enjoy this game. If you like racing sims (simulations*), you will love this game. Even if you don't like racing at all, you will love this game.

GAMEPLAY:
Two words: VERY FUN. One Word: ADDICTIVE. Those three words sum up the gameplay of this game. If you buy this game, I promise you that you wont hate it, even if you hate racing games. Smooth control, nice handling, and great fun is what this game is all about(and also winning, of course)
- 10/10

GRAPHICS:
The graphics aren't the greatest, but they get the job done. But, they really dont matter because you'll be flying by the scenery at speeds of 100+! (my top speed was 200 MPH!) The graphics are a good use of the gamecube's power, but not great. But, like I said, it doesnt matter when you are speeding by at up to 200 MPH.
- 8.5/10

SOUND:
You will not have ANY problems with the sound. There is nice, clear sound throughout the game with songs you probably never heard before. That doesn't mean the songs are bad, they are just very unusual. The only way you wouldn't like them is if you hate [new] rock music.
- 9/10

LASTING APPEAL:
I've been addicted to this game for the past three days, and I will be addicted to it for a long time. This game has so many extra things to unlock, you wont know where to start. You build up points by completing races in HOT PURSUIT or CHAMPIONSHIP modes, and in single races. You get extra points for eluding cops. You can then use those points to buy a LARGE (and i mean LARGE!) variety of cars, tracks, and cop cars to practice for the other modes. And, you cant truly "beat" the game until you have bought everything.
- 10/10

APPROX. PLAY TIME:
To completely beat the game, I am estimating about 75+ hours for the average gamer. Yes, it will take a LONG time.


OVERALL -------------------------------------------------- 9.1/10

*Simulation racing game (Like NFS HP 2 ^ ): More realistic handling than arcade.**

**Arcade racing game (Like BURNOUT -- review on that soon):
More realistic Physics, allows for more realistic crashes.


Phew, that was fun. MORE ON OTHER GAMES SOON!


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2. BURNOUT


03/24/03:

REVIEW:


It took me 4 months but it's finally time to do another review!

I was so anxious when I heard about BURNOUT for Gamecube. I downloaded practically every movie on IGN.COM! (my favorite games website) When i finally got it, i just played the single race mode for about a month to get used to it, and it was a lot of fun! Then one day when one of my friends came over, we played Championship Mode and beat every race.(It took about 3 hours) And so I come to the REVIEW--

Overall it is a very fast racing game. It has nice scenery and great, realistic crashes. The goal, as in every racing game, is to win. The AI cars drive very realistically and they have 3 difficulty settings (easy, medium, hard), except in championship mode where they are just on hard. There is a BOOST METER which is filled by barely missing cars, going the 'wrong way', and drifting, or sliding. once that Happens press R and dont crash for about 10 seconds and you will have successfully completed a BURNOUT, hence the name.

GAMEPLAY:
It is probably the best and most realistic arcade racer ever made! (as of Summer '02) Enough Said.
- 10/10

GRAPHICS:
Great graphics and great speed. A winning combination! An extra cool touch in this game is when you are "Burning out" a Motion Blur Effect is added.
- 9.5

SOUND:
I dont really have much to say. The sound is clear, crisp, and it mutes itself (gradually) when you're "Burning out" so you can focus on your car and on not crashing. There are songs in this game that I think match the courses very well.
- 10/10

LASTING APPEAL: Not too much. Once you beat the championship theres really no initiative to keep playing. If 'crazy' crashes are attemted (flipping over fences, big car jams or pile-ups, etc.), they usually don't work. There are no other modes besides straight-forward racing and 'Freeride', which is really boring because there are no civilian cars in it. The only purpose of that is for 'Street Racing' (just uninhibited speed)
-5/10

APPROX. PLAY TIME: 5-10 hours for the average gamer. 2 hours for practice, 3 hours for Championship. Up to 10 hours because sometimes the opponents seem to 'boomerang' back (EX: you burning out for half the course and then crashing and the opponents almost instantly pass you).

OVERALL: If this game had been longer and/or had more courses, modes, and cars it would get an overall close to or perfect 10. But, unfortunately, it doesn't have
those things.--------------------------------------------- 8/10


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3. 18-WHEELER: AMERICAN PRO TRUCKER

7/09/03:

GAMEPLAY:
One Word: BAD. I think this is the worst racing game I have ever played! The controls are very wierd and don't work very well.R=go, L=brake, B=reverse, A=shift (between high and low) Y=useless horn, x=change between a crowded cockpit view and a 3rd person view with the truck blocking half the screen, control stick=steer(duh). thise might sound ok but in the reverse the camera switches to the front is what really screws it up! There are 4 modes- Arcade(race) with 4 levels, parking with 4 levels, 3-lap race with 4 levels, and a 2 player mode i didn't even bother to try. The arcade mode has an idiodic rival you have to beat but he is easy. The time limit is whats hard. Usually it is only possible to finish with a few seconds left. The parking mode is nearly inpossible unless you try more times than you will want to, and the 3lap race is way too easy and gives way, way too much time.
- 4/10

Graphics:
Nothing special here except nice sun glare and lighting.
- 6/10

Sound:
Once again, nothing special. In fact, I didn't even really notice it.
- 5/10

Lasting appeal:
None. The game can be beaten in 10 minutes and the other modes are pointless and boring.
-1/10

Play Time:
1-30 minutes. I played for about 15. Trust Me, If you don't get bored of this game in 30 minutes, you have MAJOR problems. (or else you just have no life or nothing better to do, which would also be quite sad)
- 1/10

Overall:
You'd be better off doing nothing for half an hour than waste your money and time on this pointless game.
-----------------------------------------------------------3/10

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Actually, the one thing that game ^ is good for, is that it makes this game \/ seem EVEN BETTER!

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4. Burnout 2: Point of impact

7/09/03:

Take everything from Burnout, improve it, and you have Burnout 2!

Gameplay:
One word: Awesome!!! I can't stress that enough! First of all, just like the first one, it has insane speed! There is one mode and all the cars from BURNOUT 1 (about 10) to start out with and 5 modes that can be unlocked (3 of those modes have multiplayer!) First, Driver's Ed, then Championship, Single race, Crash, Pursuit, and Custom Series Championship. (If you want to see more about these innovative and entertaining modes, go to IGN's review at http://cube.ign.com/articles/392/392014p1.html)
- 10/10

Graphics:
Very Preety! is all I can say. Very detailed everything (or, Everything is very detailed).
-9/10

Sound:
LOUD AND CLEAR! And this time instead of muting during a Burnout, It INTENSIFIES!!! Great soundssuck you even deeper into the game.
- 10/10

Lasting Appeal:
Almost endless. With all of the modes, I could be hooked for life! Perfect difficulty level-- Challenging enough for racing pros like me :-), but easy (and fun) enough for someone who's never touched a video game before.
- 10/10

Play time:
I'd imagine you could fly through the Championships inless than a few hours, but where's the fun in that?! With all of the modes, pre-loaded records to beat, and multplayer,it should add up to 50 houyrs or more!
10/10

OVERALL:
GREATEST RACING GAME EVER! Only thing it's missing is customizeable crash replays from the first one (but they probably ran out of room because of all the unlockables in this game), and also Online would be nice for BURNOUT 3!
-9.9/10

...And IGN should be murdered for giving this an 8.5!!(j/k)

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6. NEED FOR SPEED MOST WANTED

2/26/06:

You might want to wait for Need for speed Most Wanted 2... or get Underground 2 for like 20 bucks.

Gameplay:
This game was supposed to be a combination of NFS Hot Pursuit 2 and Need for speed Underground 2. Unfortunately, it isn't.

The "underground" part of the game -tuning, customizing, etc- is in full swing here. There is a wide range of customization options, just like UG2. Where the game falls short, however, is in the "Hot pursuit" section of the game. The cops are EXTREMELY dumb, and unbalanced.

In hot pursuit 2, cops used tactics such as road blocks, spike strips, and exploding gas canisters. The cops used them in an evenly spaced out fashion. Moreover, if you went through them, your car would react realistically. If you went over spikes, your tires possed and you were busted. If you went in between two cars in a roadblock, you got through, while if you ran straight into one, you got stuck. Gas canisters caused your car to fly up into the air.

In Most wanted, cops magically appear and dissapear, often in groups of 3-5. There are ONLY roadblocks, and they occur very randomly. In a challenge where the objective was to drive through 2 roadblocks, I played for a good 15 minutes, and to what avail?? NO ROADBLOCKS! So, I just quit. Then, while in a regular pursuit, I went through about 5 roadblocks withint the course of three minutes.

The cops are easily confused near the beginning of the pursuit, and often lost within 15 seconds. About 5-10 minutes in, they are almost IMPOSSIBLE to lose. You will lose them, hide, and just as the "cool down" meter is almost full, 5 will magically appear 50 yards up the road. The only reason this causes probnlems is that the pursuits are an INTEGRAL part of the game. TO progress up the "blacklist" yopu will need to get hundreds, even thousands of pursuit points (whatever they're called) to get to each person on the blacklist. During a pursuit, you get 100 pursuit points about every 10 seconds. So, it takes FOREVER. And itf you are trying to extend a pursuit to get more points, it's almost impossible to end the pursuit, for the reasons stated before.

There is a "gamebreaker" that you can use by pressing X, which allows you to slow down time, but the physics are different in slow time and you usually come out of it in a lateral slide. I haven't found any use for it yet.

Now, the good points...
The physics are more realistic, but still not perfect. You will slide and spin your tires when starting a race, you will feel the car slow down while turning. The camera even sooms in a bit to give the impression of slowing down. The car slides more on grassy areas.

Occasionaly, though, The car will hit a sidewalk and go up on two wheels for 5-10 seconds, shich can make or break a race.

With each person you beat on the blacklist, you get two tokens, where you can choose from three '?' markers (which give you the opponents'car, a get out of jail pass, or other good stuff), a performance upgrade, a visual upgrade, or a parts upgrade. That adds some uncertainty to things, which is always good.

The dumbed-down cops really dumb-down the score.
- 7/10

Graphics:
The same as all the other NFS games. Thankfully, the environments are very varied this time, ranging from a boardwalk on the coast, to winding mountain roads, to inner-city.

Decent, but the Gamcube can do better. (lust look at Resident Evil 4 or Legend of Zelda: Twilight princess to see what I mean)
-8/10

Sound:
A normal mishmash EA soundtrack. It has techno(-ish), rock, [c]rap, and a mixture of the three. You can turn off the ones you don't like. But there are only 26 song tracks to start with, which is dissapointing.

Sound effects are good.

- 8/10

Lasting Appeal:
Not too much. There are really only two modes. Race (and variations of it) and Pursuit. The game can get VERY repeditive.

Go to safe house, race, pursuit. Repeat 6 times. Spend an extra half hour (or more) in a pursuit, then struggle get away from it.

Repeat 15 times. (for the 15 blacklist racers)

The modes are Circuit, Sprint, Tollbooth (basically just like an racing game in the arcade- with time limits and checkpoints) and speedtrap (fastest speed at 4 checkpoints wins).

Drag racing is still terrible (and boring).

And Drift is taken out, which is really dumb, because these more realistic physics would be perfect for it.
- 7/10

(Continued on Next page

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