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Need for Speed: The Run (PS3)
by aethys
There was a time when I was addicted to racing games. Racing games have always being exciting and fun as it gives the maximum adrenaline push of all video genres as you make your way past the finish line. It is a sense of achievement. So I could not resist the temptation pinching it (beg and borrow to be honest) it from a friend over a ... weekend.
EASE OF USE
The loading is a painfully slow. It takes over a minute to load at each of the levels. The result is that between every stage you can jump across to your fridge and grab a snack and still be sure that the game is yet to load. This is only true for single player mode.
The worse comes when you want to load multiplayer mode. This time is takes at least 5 to 7 minutes to load. That means now you could run down to your nearest corner shop to grab a snack and still be sure that the game would not have loaded. Sometimes it goes into sleep mode i.e. freezes and refuses to load.
When playing single player the awful experience of waiting for the game to load gets magnified by the fact that the game level loaded might not even last enough for you to finish your snacks while playing - it might get over in less than the time it took to load - exaggeration but it feels thus if the game has lasted for say double the time it took to load. I would have surely liked to have the game -length lasting longer, say a minimum of 7 minutes especially if it takes over a minute to load.
PHYSICS and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
It suffers from really botchy physics. There are occasional systems crashes which get worse in multiplayer mode where the player position gets pretentious due to loading lags.
The view modes - first person, third person and bonnet camera should depend on player's preference. The first two do. The bonnet camera can never be a player's preference unless the player wants to get dizzy by the end of the game. The camera bumps, jumps and moves from side to side mimicking the movement of the car which is just fine for a moment or so but is an irritant and health hazard if you would like to finish the race. Though this must be a graphics blotch but at this time the bonnet textures gets obliterated into a messy blurred smudge or worse outlined dots.
The Autolog innovation to track your progress against your social network friends does not do its job properly. It wastes a lot of time establishing connection without being of any great help otherwise.
The AI is not very intelligent after all. It does not sync well with the game concept that allows for far greater freedom to run your own race. The AI simply fixes itself to two points on the map - start and a finish and does not provide you with any degree of freedom.
GRAPHICS
Electronic Arts (EA) the company behind this game franchise usually does a very good job with graphics and it has not been a let-down though I wished it to be more stable coming from the drawing boards of such an accomplished game company.
The graphics are extravagant. The landscapes are of very high quality and it changes quickly as the vehicle races along its course. The combination of the arcade(y) feeling and highly geared simulation is simply exhilarating. The racer can feel his vehicle swirl from side to side as he manoeuvres it avoiding collision on way to the finish line. And if they do collide, the impact is doubly accentuated by extremely powerful visuals coming out of the Frostbite 2 engine which was also used for those stunning visuals of explosions in Battlefield 3.
The only glitch that I can think of is the frame rate dropping off at regular intervals but then this might be because of Physics blotch rather than something to do with graphics.
CONCEPT and STORYLINE
The race games generally do not lay emphasis on this aspect but Need for Speed - The Run Gallery is an exception. The concept of a cross country motor rally/race is exquisitely sound.
The concept is to race across the American highway from San Francisco to New York as you progress through your levels via Vegas and Detroit. That means that if you manage to complete all the levels than technically you would have reached New York passing through Vegas and Detroit. And you have 200 competitors to beat to get the first position.
Quite rare for race game, Need for Speed also has a storyline wedded into the US debt crisis juxtaposed with the time in American history when the mob (mafia) writ ran large. There is this guy, Jack Rourke, a nondescript driver indebted to the mob and the only way he could pay his debts is by winning a 3000 mile cross-America race against 200 other drivers.
GAMEPLAY
Carrying on from the storyline, it seems that I (Jack) had to negotiate my way to New York from San Francisco to win the American highway race and get 10 % of the $25 million prize money to pay of my debt to the mafia and save my skin. But then it dawns that what I have to do is to actually race my way through short levels from one city to another right till I reach New York provided I care to (or shall I say manage to) complete all levels or before game exhaustion kills you before the mafia does. The extremely short level puts you off and shuts off your desire to achieve the final objective. All that I am doing now is jumping from one snippet of a cross country motor race to another. Only words that springs for this sort of gameplay - utterly fragmented and disorderly.
The reason for such jerky gameplay is partially to do with the unnecessary effort to create a strong storyline. So the position achieved at each level determines your position at the next level - you cannot start anew at any of the levels. Jack has after all to pay his debt and save himself from the mob.
In order to advance the structured storyline to its logical conclusion the race levels itself are frequented with unnecessary events. It does more to break the flow of the player rather than add any impetus to the sordid storyline.
Either you need to outdo a number of competitors on course to the finish or outdo the clock to gain few seconds. Quite bizarrely if you fail against the clock you are back to square one at the start of your current level which by itself hinders the flow of the storyline. Which cross country race would allow you to go back and restart again?
There are other bizarre moments bordering on the ridiculous. I can pull up at a gas station and change cars midway through my race. Quite fine, not so questionable, maybe. As I am busy selecting my favourite car paint and right accessories, my competitors are also having a break (Kit-Kat or Starbuck's, I am not sure) i.e. they hardly move and I can go back and start my competition again. Never heard of a cross-country race where you force your competitor to wait for you to resume.
Also the tarmac changes from one level to another - never seen highways laid that way even in America.
The cinematic cut-scenes and QTEs have been added with just the precise intention to advance a storyline and draw on the characters emotions. However, these are obtrusive and very distractive. They just pop in your face and asks you to follow some on-screen instruction to leave you in the middle of the race to resume once gain.
This type of gameplay has however ensured a 5 hour runtime that becomes 10 hours if you include the challenge mode. It becomes repetitive by the end though I encountered some new variations every now and then.
BALANCE
The balance of the game is lop-sided heavily favouring the computer-generated cars. These competitor vehicles clock devilish speeds that are impossible to match. They also seems to wait for you to engineer overtake manoeuvres. Even on full boost very near to the finish line these monsters are capable of overtaking you with complete aplomb.
The lop-sidedness becomes more obvious when you encounter non-race vehicles whose sole purpose is to obstruct you suddenly. At first this gives an element of surprise but after few repetitions it becomes clear that they have been purposefully designed for such purpose.
The easy levels are designed to get you hooked but it becomes too easy and hence boring. On the other hand, hard levels are simply too tough to negotiate and you may be inclined to leave it frustrated. Honestly, I left it after a dozen tries on the first hard level so any level higher than this is out of my purview and is not covered in my review either.
Poor balance.
LONGEVITY
The novelty will wear of very quickly. I got over it on a weekend.
Sometimes it looks to be a fresh race game with a good concept and a reasonable storyline with brief visual thrills but the technical flaws coupled with repugnant story advancement the desire to play wears thin as the game progresses.
I do not think even my game maniac friend would have played it for days and so yielded easily when I begged to lend me the game. Maybe he wanted to get rid of it lest he would start playing it out of boredom.
MULTIPLAYER
This seems to be the plus point of this game. The graphics is great though the physics lead much to be desired. Then, as said earlier, the technical blotches diminish the quality of the multiplayer experience despite the neat concepts.
MUSIC/SOUND
Loopy and typically franchise sound effects.
FINAL WORD
Need for Speed: The Run Gallery does not live up to the high reputation built by the franchise. EA has bungled in its enthusiasm to offer something unique - a race game with an emotional narrative having a structured storyline. In my opinion, it is good in parts but has a long list of gameplay and technical weaknesses.
Also reviwed in Ciao Uk under same name and title
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Shift 2 - Unleashed (PS3)
by SWSt
From the earliest days of computers, I've always enjoyed racing games. Despite many improvements in graphics and sound, the superb Commodore 64 game Pitstop 2 from Epyx represents the zenith of the genre for me. It was an out-and-out racing game which rewarded skilful driving whilst introducing a small tactical element (the timing of pit ... stops to refuel and change tyres was critical) which added a surprising amount of dept to the turbo-charged fun.
Many modern racing games have lost sight of the fun element and are just so damn complicated, requiring the player to twiddle with tiny little settings to squeeze an extra percentage of performance out of their cars. This might be a realistic representation of motor racing but (for me), it's not a fun one: I just want to get in the car and race around tracks at ridiculous speeds.
Shift 2 Unleashed - part of the Need for Speed series - seems to recognise this and providing enough to satisfy those who like balls-out racing games, whilst also catering for those who like tinkering.
Right from the start, the game helps you just get racing, if that's what you want to do. You start off with a couple of practice laps and, depending on how well (or badly!) you do, the game will suggest some default settings that suit your driving style and ability. You can always go in later and change these settings to make the gamer easier or harder, but it's a good introduction to the game, ensuring that gamers of all abilities can enjoy it. From this point on, you can just start racing or start tinkering with your car to make it as fast and streamlined as possible.
If you are the type that likes to tinker, virtually every aspect of Shift 2 is customisable. As you earn money from racing, you can upgrade your car or buy a different model, alter the way the brakes or steering operates and so on. If you're so inclined, I'm led to believe that you can spend hours changing almost anything you can think of in order to make your car more efficient.
I say "I'm led to believe" because (if you haven't guessed by now) this is not really my cup of tea. It doesn't matter though because unlike Gran Turismo (where tweaking is an essential part of the game), you can just accept the default settings start racing and (apart from upgrading your car/parts) can ignore this side of things and just concentrate on having fun.
Graphics for Shift 2 might not push the PS3 to its limits, but they do their job. Presentation screens are well laid out and simple to navigate, whilst in-game graphics on the whole are very good. They are occasionally a little blocky (the people standing around on the starting grid at the beginning of the race look a little odd), but the cars and tracks look great, with a lot of nice little touches (brake lights on the cars in front light up as they slow down for corners) that really add to the atmosphere.
Crucially, there is a real illusion of speed. Trackside scenery and obstacles hurtle past and there is a real difference (as there should be!) between travelling at, say 60km/h and 130. The graphics don't suffer from any slowdown and everything looks fantastic as it whizzes by. True, the high speed nature of the game means it can sometimes be a little tricky to work out the lie of the road ahead, but this just adds to the game's realism. You'll often find you need several attempts at a track, gradually memorising its bends, before you come close to winning a race, but this is all part of the challenge and the learning curve is generally well balanced.
Sound is a little more disappointing. In-game speech is good and very clear, but nothing to really get excited about, whilst the songs that accompany each track are slightly repetitive and bland. The real disappointment, though, is the in-game effects, which are really limited. The throbbing, roaring sound of your engine is superb and sounds great and really makes you feel as though you are in charge of a powerful car. Sadly, apart from the vague cheering of the crowd or the occasional chatter of instructions over your radio, there's not much else.
One thing the game is not lacking is a long term challenge. There are dozens of tracks from across the world and competitions at several different skill levels for you to master. To progress, you need to get a podium finish in each race - often more difficult than it sounds and some tracks take a lot of practice. Each track also has additional challenges (such as lead for an entire lap or go through a whole race without any collisions), so even when you get a podium finish, there is still something to aim for. Thrown in online gaming (which I've not played, so can't comment on) and you have a title that will keep you entertained for many, many hours. The fact that you can just get in a car and start racing means that this is a game you will keep coming back to, to see if you can beat best lap times and so on and because it's just so much fun!
It's a real pity that there's no split screen two-player mode. Yes, you can play against up to 16 other players via a network, but racing against an opponent sitting in the same room as you is always better. There's nothing more satisfying than gradually catching up with a real-world opponent and racing past them laughing as you do so - doing that over a network is just not the same!
The single biggest issue that will determine whether you love or hate this game are the controls. The actual basic controls are pretty straightforward, but the handling of the car takes a little bit of getting used to. Although it Shift 2 remembers to be fun, it's not an arcade racer where you can hurl your car around corners at 200km/h and expect to emerge the other side unscathed. Take a corner too quickly, and you will smash into a barrier, leading to poor lap times and race positions. Too much speed can also cause your car to fishtail wildly, making it difficult to control and costing you precious seconds.
It's true that the controls initially feel incredibly twitchy and mastering them can take a bit of practice. Move the joystick just a fraction and it seems as though your car is veering wildly out of control. Indeed, on your first few games, it feels like a major achievement just to drive a few feet in a straight line, let alone take a corner successfully. The sensitive controls are a real issue in the short term. It took me a good few games before I began to feel comfortable with them, and even longer before I felt close to mastering them. This is seriously going to dampen some people's enthusiasm, and is a major potential stumbling block. With practice, you will actually find the controls give you an incredible amount of control over your car (particularly if you tweak the settings to suit your style), but a lot of people are likely to give up on the game before they ever reach this stage.
There's no getting away from the fact that your enjoyment Shift 2 Unleashed is going to boil down to the controls. If you can master these, then it's a cracking racing game that offers a massive long term challenge and lots of depth; an excellent balance between an out and out racer and a racing simulation. If you're not prepared to spend some time getting used to the twitchy controls, all you will see is an unplayable, uncontrollable game that looks good but plays like a drunken donkey on roller skates.
(c) Copyright SWSt 2012
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