Mario Kart 7: 3DS

A new Nintendo platform can only mean one thing - a new version of Mario Kart is inevitably on the way. So far that's proven a good thing, as the series that pioneered the kart-racing genre has continued to dominate it. Mario Kart 7 for the 3DS marks the newest entry in this longstanding franchise. With a handful of incredible innovations added to the formula, especially in the online department, MK7 easily earns its place alongside its predecessors.

For those new to the series, you choose a character from a roster of Mushroom Kingdom personalities, then race across a variety of tracks to claim victory. You start with eight choices (Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yoshi and so on), and you unlock eight more by earning first place in all of the cups in 150cc, the most difficult mode.

Getting first in 150cc can prove a daunting task at times, and I liked that the game actually made me work to unlock the secret characters. Still, I was disappointed at the size of the final roster. The last entry, Mario Kart Wii, boasted 25 playable characters. I expected the same-to-more from MK7, but had to settle for only 17 this time around. Gone are Waluigi, Funky Kong and the babies, as well as many others. Though the game does add a few new faces (check out the video review for a peek at the full roster), it's too bad these came at the expense of losing past racers.

Most of the play options should look familiar to Mario Kart fans. Grand Prix tasks you with racing through the eight different cups, four new ones and four made up of retro courses from past games. The new courses are well-designed and quite memorable. Music Park, presumably a nod to Wii Music, has you zooming across keyboards and dodging giant music notes on your way to the finish line. DK Jungle, designed by Retro Studios, harkens back to Donkey Kong Country Returns. And the new Rainbow Road certainly lives up to its namesake - providing a long, turbulent trip full of giant moons and gyrating tracks to work around.

The inclusion of gliders and underwater segments - a first for the series - vary the standard racing fare and add new twists to the retro tracks. The glider, if handled just right, can float you ahead of other players to gain a lead, and some hidden underwater sections provide key places to stock up on coins and items. Speaking of coins, these bad boys are finally back, a great throwback to the original Super Mario Kart for SNES that adds an extra layer of strategy. You can grab up to 10 of them during a race, increasing your max speed and giving your racer a brief boost. Collecting coins also unlocks new kart parts. Soda Jet with Standard wheels and a Flower Glider? Earn enough coins and this cool creation can be yours to slide across the finish line with.

But these additions aren't limited to the new tracks alone. The retro courses have a new spin as well, which should come as a welcome surprise for longtime fans of the series. You can now go underwater in Koopa Beach from Mario Kart 64 or glide through certain segments of Maple Treeway from Mario Kart Wii. It's cool seeing these familiar places given a fresh coat of paint and some new tricks. The return of the unlockable Mirror Mode - which lets you race on a flipped version of any track - further helps shake things up and extends the life of Grand Prix mode.

The most surprisingly well-executed innovation comes from pairing the system's gyroscope controls with a first person perspective. You can switch to this mode at any time by pressing up on the D-Pad, pressing down to return to traditional controls. Doing so throws you into your racer's perspective and allows you to control your kart by tilting the system side-to-side. It's shocking how well it works. Though I doubt I'd ever exclusively use this method, it's an absolute blast to switch into on occasion - upping the excitement and forcing you to view and consider each track in a brand new way. You can even elect to use the circle pad instead of the gyro controls, so you can enjoy the shifted perspective without sacrificing traditional controls. This feature never much appealed to me in theory, but in practice I find it one of the most impressive additions Mario Kart 7 offers.

A few new items have also been added to the mix. The Fire Flower lets you throw fire balls at your opponents, causing them to briefly spin out. The Tanooki Tail lets you whack items and nearby players - you have to get pretty close, but it's insanely rewarding when you actually pull it off and put the smackdown on a racer trying to catch up to you. The Lucky 7 gives you a set of seven items to use as you see fit - a Blooper, a Green Shell, a Red Shell, etc. One slip on a banana or bump from a daring opponent and they're all gone though, making it more balanced than you would think.

These new items fit in nicely, and make for some amusing situations on the road. Of course, the inherent Mario Kart problem of item balance persists. I've held first for an entire race only to lose it at the end thanks to a Blue Shell followed by another Blue Shell, then capped off with a Blooper. No joke. If you play long enough, these occurrences are inevitable, not to mention terribly frustrating. Still, it's this randomness that allows for the daring comebacks and feverish dashes back to first that make Mario Kart such a thrill to play. The occasional unfair loss is just something MK players must deal with as part of the price of admission to this otherwise masterful racing experience.

Racing isn't the only option on the table, of course. Balloon Battle returns as well, but with some key differences. Instead of racing to take out all three of your opponent's balloons before they get yours, you must simply take out as many balloons as possible before the timer runs out. Though I enjoyed this mode, I honestly prefer the traditional set-up, which feels more immediate since you only have three balloons to go on and are in a race for survival. Coin Runners, first introduced in Mario Kart Wii, also makes a comeback. It's similar to Balloon Battle, though it puts you in a timed race to nab as many coins as you can instead. It's a welcome inclusion, and makes up for the somewhat disappointing changes to Balloon Battle.

Single player certainly pulls its weight - though the loss of Mario Kart DS's Mission Mode is criminal - but by far the strongest part of Mario Kart 7 has to be the multiplayer. As usual, you have the option to challenge friends locally or via Wi-Fi. The game also supports Download Play if your buddies don't have their own copy on hand. But it's the online that proves truly impressive. Each player is assigned a VR rating based on how they've fared in past races. This score allows the game to match them with players of a similar skill level. This should help bridge the gap between karting newcomers and veterans, allowing everyone to improve their game without having to incur too much shame along the way. The ability to immediately reface strangers you just raced against, or to quickly and easily jump in with past rivals or buddies from your 3DS friends list, further makes racing online a smoother and more straightforward process than ever before.

And then there are the communities, where things get really exciting. You can now create custom groups and share them with friends and strangers. You can choose to have a Mushroom-only Grand Prix Mirror race or a Shell-only Coin Runner - whatever your karting heart desires. I had a great time coming up with tons of communities and challenging others to play by my rules. The only downside to this otherwise incredible innovation is that the customization could have been taken even further to allow you to specifically turn on or off any item (a la the Super Smash Bros. series). As it is, though, it's still tons of fun to toy with, and the options on offer really complement the Mario Kart experience. As a whole, MK7 represents the best example of online in any Nintendo game to date, and I can't wait to see how the communities unfold and evolve once the game releases to the general public.

Connectivity between other Mario Kart racers is further strengthened by MK7's StreetPass functionality. This allows you to view the profile, stats and VR rating of any fellow karter you pass on the streets. You can even acquire ghost data from them and try to destroy their best times. It's a charming addition, and I greatly enjoyed trying to collect more coins than my opponents and reading their profile message and "title," which the game assigns based on your play style. My boyfriend, for instance, is apparently a Shell Shark. You think you know a guy.

As for the visuals, the 32 courses each provide plenty of eye candy for karters to gape at as they zoom from race to race. The character models are well-done, with smooth animations bringing these iconic Mushroom Kingdom personalities to life. The game provides one of the better examples of 3DS graphics, though perhaps not quite up to par with the recently released Super Mario 3D Land. The 3D effect is subtler as well, perfectly lending itself to the genre. It achieves added depth without putting so much emphasis on the 3D that it gets in the way during a heated race.


Closing Comments
Mario Kart 7 marks yet another return to Nintendo’s kart-racing franchise. Though the character roster should have been larger, and a cheap blue shell can still screw up an otherwise perfect race, MK7 still offers enough innovation to keep this old formula feeling fresh. With memorable new tracks, well implemented gyro controls, the triumphant return of coins and a handful of new modes, Mario Kart 7 is full of win. The game also marks a huge leap forward for Nintendo’s approach to online multiplayer, providing an experience that surpasses any of the company’s other games to date. Overall it’s a well-polished experience that fans of the kart-racing genre - or of the Mushroom Kingdom - should not hesitate to pick up.

by Audrey Drake

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Posted in: Racing

Nail'd: PS3

Nail'd is an arcade-style off-road racer with a focus on speed and chaos over realistic physics. Straight away, Nail'd seems a little dated. From the name to its style, it screams "X-Games circa 2003," when dudes were screaming about sick air while "DOING THE DEW BRO." But in reality, Nail'd actually goes further back from a design perspective, calling on memories of games like Off-road Thunder and other arcade rally racers in the late '80s and '90s. Those games eschewed complication in favor of immediate, in-your-face gratification because they had to; they were competing for your quarters 90 seconds at a time. However, it's 2010. Arcades are dead, consoles are king, depth is expected, and Nail'd just can't keep up with the pack.

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The setup is simple enough. The meat of the game is in its career mode, where you can race an ATV or MX bike through several leagues and courses in a quest to win the Nail'd championship. Most races require you to finish three laps around a course, though occasionally, Nail'd mixes things up, whether it's by adding "mutators" to races (which add quirks such as infinite boost or no collision with other drivers), or through stunt challenges, where you're judged on your completion time and the "tricks" you pull off. I put tricks in quotes because there isn't much in the way of finesse here. Something as simple as landing successfully from a jump can be a trick, as is passing through flaming gates or running other racers off the track. There's also multiplayer racing for up to 12 players online.

Nail'd isn't about tight turn ratios or drifting or any other piece of racer jargon you've heard this year. The challenge in Nail'd is intended to come from finding the most insane, fastest route possible by boosting through busy courses while avoiding getting, well, nailed by other racers on ATVs or dirtbikes. There are times when it almost comes together too -- running off a ramp in the air at about a thousand miles an hour and weaving in between hot air balloons, or threading through giant wind turbines is admittedly cool. The physics in Nail'd aren't realistic, at all. Instead, you always have more or less complete control of your bike or ATV, leading to the aforementioned turbine-dodging and other crazy moments of in-air maneuvering and taking turns without slowing down at all.

Unfortunately, my desire to experiment and find routes and really push the courses was knocked out of me by the wreck and respawn system, which would be a player friendly feature, if it worked. As intended, respawning will keep you going instead of stranding you if you take a wrong turn. Instead, I'd often find myself in mid-air, positioning myself to land on a spot marked as the course below, only to explode when the game decided I wasn't in an approved area and killed me. There's no indication of what's cool or what isn't here. It's all learned the hard way, and it kills the game's momentum.

There are also strange forces at play that will cause wrecks with seemingly little provocation or reason, and times when the respawn mechanic won't kick in when it seems like it should. If I'm driving with all four wheels on the ground toward a ramp, why did I explode as my tires left the mud and hit the metal? If the slightest deviation from the course into the brush on the sides will cause my vehicle to explode, why will the game let me get stuck on a random piece of geometry and force me to sit in place, motionless, for precious seconds? Why go off the beaten path if the game is going to kill me for it?

Nail'd's main failing is that its primary idea just doesn't work that well. The physics that lend themselves to mid-air adjustment are far too lenient on the ground. There's an initial rush to take every course at maximum speed all the time, but it drains the need for strategy or much skill during races. Weird as it sounds, the fun in a racing game comes from dealing with a vehicle's physical limitations -- knowing what they are, testing them, etc. None of that's the case in Nail'd, and races usually end up feeling lifeless as a result. Even Nail'd's multiplayer lacks much excitement. I was winning most of my races and still didn't feel any real accomplishment. The courses did more to beat my competitors than I did.

Polish developer Techland's previous games (both Call of Juarez titles, for example) have been marked by a distinctive sense of personality that's helped to compensate for the otherwise rough edges of their presentation, but Nail'd comes up short. Instead of an appreciable identity, Nail'd instead thrusts forward with extreme sports clichés that would seem old years ago, which goes double for the soundtrack. Some fairly generic jock metal is joined by licensed tracks that have been making the rounds for longer than this game has likely been in development. I love Queens of the Stone Age, but can we please get a song other than "3's and 7's" for a change? And why is there a six-year-old Slipknot song here?

Closing Comments
You can see some fun poking out here and there in Nail’d. The in-air physics work largely as advertised and add some excitement, but the game still feels surprisingly boring most of the time. Without the benefit of exploration for new routes or any meaningful challenge to vehicle handling though, Nail'd gets tedious fast and stays there.

 

by: Arthur Gies

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Posted in: Racing

Sonic Free Riders Kinect

Microsoft's Kinect is here and right out the gate there are a bunch of games to choose from, many of which are the more family-friendly fare. Sonic Free Riders is definitely not one of the casual kiddie games, which may put some people off. But if players are willing to put the effort into learning the controls and enjoy pretending like they're on a hoverboard, then it's one of the more exciting launch titles for Kinect. Sonic Free Riders is a hoverboard racing game that has seen entries on the Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, and Playstation 2 in the past. Players race around closed circuit tracks launching off ramps, attacking each other with weapons, grinding, gliding, and boosting.

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The basic plot for Sonic Free Riders goes something like: "Sonic and pals are straight chilling, but then the Babylon Rogues, a group of wack birds, start steppin' and Sonic has to utilize the power of Extreme Gear (a hoverboard) to teach those fools some respect." Somewhere along the way Dr. Eggman shows up and the Chaos Emeralds play in to the mix somehow, but the game is mostly just about this organized hoverboard competition. Disappointingly, the cutscenes are all talking head conversations. However, all of it is voice acted by a brand new cast. There are some key changes with this, as Tails finally sounds like a boy, and Jet manages to sound more annoying than ever (which I guess is fine because he's a jerk).

Players control the board by standing with their feet parallel to the screen, like they're on a snowboard. Bending at the waist makes the board turn. This is honestly what takes the most amount of time to perfect because my body naturally wanted me to turn like I was riding a snowboard. Players can activate boost by kicking their leg out like they're on a skateboard. Crouching and jumping straight into the air makes the rider do tricks off the jumps. Each weapon has a specific motion control as well. The bomb is thrown like a football, the bowling ball is bowled, etc. Rings are scattered on the course, and as players collect them their board will level up, increasing in speed as the race progresses. Getting hit with weapons causes players to lose some rings, which can level down the board.

Sonic Free Riders also features bikes, which players control by standing facing the screen and holding their arms out like they're gripping handlebars. Kicking out still activates boost and all the items control the same. I found the bikes to be tiring on my arms, but on the plus side I was totally able to play the game while sitting on a stool.

The motion controls all worked just fine as long as I was doing exactly what I needed to. Simple things like not throwing with the same arm that the on screen character was using would cause it not to work. It was a bit frustrating at first, like having a game tell me I didn't press the X button in quite the right way. But once I got into the groove and retrained myself to play the game the way it was telling me to, it all became a lot more fluid and easy. I've played the previous Sonic Riders games, and this is definitely the most fun I've had with the series. It brought back fond memories of playing Top Skater in the arcades.

Free Riders' story mode is broken up in a variety of missions. Each team has their own set of missions, though they're all very similar to each other. They're sort of extended tutorials. Players learn the various skills the rider has before building up to full races. It's broken up in a way that works for this game. Instead of just doing race after race I got to do more specific challenges between them, like collecting rings, or using the special moves.

One area where the motion controls don't work is the menu. Trying to maneuver through its screens is far more difficult than it needs to be. Thankfully, Free Riders' voice commands work surprisingly well. Players simply say "Free Race" to select that. It's fine for most parts of the menu (though memorizing the names of all the courses, riders, and gear parts is a bit much to ask).

As players progress through the missions they earn some new boards and gear parts, and also earn rings which can be used to purchase additional items. The boards all have their strengths and weaknesses, but it's the gear parts which make Sonic Free Riders interesting. Each board has two slots, and whichever side of the board is facing forward is the gear part that's activated. These can be anything from skills that let the player grind on rails to a shield that pulls in rings to a power-up that gives the player big air on jumps. Choosing which gear part to use changed how I played the game.

Each of the 16 tracks has numerous shortcuts and secrets, so there are multiple strategies to perfect. They're all well designed, they feel unique, and they're all large and vibrant. There's a lot going on onscreen, from dolphins jumping over the track to temples collapsing, and the game runs beautifully without any slowdown.

All these strategies come into play in the multiplayer mode. Whether it's local split screen or online, players need to know these tracks and have a strategy in mind if they want to win. The co-op modes are even more dependent on players knowing the game well. Tag mode, which links two player's board together, is an interesting synchronized exercise. If both players are actually in sync they can pull off come cool moves and the mode is really satisfying. If they aren't, then it feels like a bumbling mess, with the characters bumping into each other and getting their butts kicked.

Closing Comments
Sonic Free Riders is, ultimately, a fairly standard racer that works well for Kinect. Pretending that you're on a hoverboard is actually a lot of fun. The tracks are well designed, the level of board customization makes the game more robust than many racers, and the numerous multiplayer modes keep the game entertaining past the main missions. It's not amazing, but it's definitely one of the games you should get to round out your Kinect collection.

 

by: Jack DeVries

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Posted in: Racing

Gran Turismo 5: PS3

For Polyphony, it's all about the detail. Take one of Gran Turismo 5's premium cars to a night-time Kyoto in the Photo Travel Mode and you'll see where those six years since the last installment proper have gone; they're in the light refracting across the headlights, in the reflections that glisten across the perfectly sculpted bodywork and in the rivets and nuts that are each perfectly placed and painstakingly rendered. Forget photo-realism; catch it from the right angle and Gran Turismo 5 looks better than the real thing.

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Get behind the wheel and that same attention to detail shines just as brightly, earning Gran Turismo 5 its billing as 'The Real Driving Simulator' and then some. Forza Motorsport 3's strength lay in its cornering as you struggle against its tire deformation system and Need for Speed Shift is about the experience at the redline as you hit maximum velocity. Gran Turismo's genius is in its braking zones. It's here that GT5's fantastic physics show their worth.

That's violently clear from the first moment you go under the hood and flesh out the Nissan Silvia, Toyota Corolla or whatever other vanilla Japanese car you choose as your first ride. Hit the anchors and it's likely to fishtail widely as it struggles to lose the kind of speed that the car was never designed for, leaving you flailing into the corner and thinking to yourself that the supercharger you just strapped on may well have been a step too far.

Move up the power band and the challenge will rise in tandem; stopping a vintage Dodge Challenger for Monza's first chicane can prove a herculean task, and Gran Turismo adds some little flourishes to bring that home. The screen judders as the weight of the car shifts forward and the tires begin to skim along the tarmac like a well-thrown pebble across a pond, making it a challenge in itself just to spot the turn-in point and apex. Get into the corner and the physics won't let up, and by threading the V8's power through too eagerly you can feel the chassis protesting that you're pushing it that little bit too far.

Introduce a few of Gran Turismo 5's new features and then it gets really interesting. Take a race-spec Toyota Castrol Toms Supra 97 around a rain-slicked Le Mans and it's like nothing you've ever seen as you rip down the Mulsanne head-first into a wall of spray, the lone windscreen wiper whipping fruitlessly across the slim window of your faultlessly modelled cockpit.

All wonderfully accurate, and for those who like wrestling with untamed machinery impossibly exhilarating. But others may understandably find it all a little daunting. Thankfully Polyphony has had the foresight to open up its superlative handling model to all-comers, and Gran Turismo 5 is more approachable than its predecessors thanks to some all-new assists that can make hurling around a pedigree GT car as carefree as driving one of the all-new karts.

With its handling model proudly restoring Gran Turismo upon the driving throne, it's now easier than ever to fall in love with its exhaustive garage - and this time out there's a lot to fall for. From the nimble karts with their willingness to be hurled around to the brace of contemporary WRC cars that simply demand to be thrown about, it's a list that's as long as it is lust-worthy. But as ever it's just as easy to develop an unlikely love affair with those less than spectacular starting steeds, tuning them to within an inch of their lives until they're near un-drivable beasts.

Customisation options, however, are limited, especially in the wake of Forza 3's more comprehensive efforts. Beneath the skin it's detailed enough with several layers of upgrades that can be applied, (although, strangely, it's no longer possible to upgrade a car's brakes) but beyond that there's little else that can be done; paint jobs are limited to either the body or wheels while bodywork options are few across both the standard and the premium cars.

Within Gran Turismo 5's 1,000 plus garage, there's a clear divide. Some 200 of the cars are given the premium treatment, and these examples are often achingly beautiful, a fact that's heart-stoppingly clear in the game's photo mode. Here it's easy to get carried away, pausing a replay then toying with the shutter speed and aperture, spending more time gawping at the cars than actually driving them.

It's a level of care that hasn't been extended to the standard cars that form the bulk of Gran Turismo 5's car list. While they're far from unattractive, their PlayStation 2 heritage shows, with textures looking flat and comparatively lifeless, and the omission of a cockpit view and a blunted damage model gives them a distinctly second class flavor. Thankfully it's not something that's notable in the heat of a high-speed battle, but when the game does show its standard class cars up close the difference can be jarring; edges are ragged and shadows sit uncomfortably, making them look awkward alongside their more polished brethren.

It's part of a visual inconsistency that runs throughout the game. At times, Gran Turismo 5 is genuinely jaw-dropping – indeed, it can be the kind of game that makes you want to drop your controller and grab some random passer-by just to show them what marvels it's capable of. Madrid and Rome's street tracks are, like the returning London track introduced in Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, uncanny recreations of their inspiration, and while Indianapolis and Daytona don't have the same dazzle they're told with a comparable authenticity.

Elsewhere, though, it's a sometimes uninspiring bunch. It's fair enough that the all-new Top Gear test track doesn't tickle the eyeballs – it is, after all, drawn from a featureless aerodrome sat bang in the middle of England's featureless Surrey – but the fictional Cape Ring displays a disappointing failure of imagination on Polyphony's part. It's a labyrinth run through a desperately bland landscape that's only salvaged by its intriguing variety of corners.

It feels like a primer for the nondescript tracks churned out by the Course Maker, which rather than being an editor of any kind would more amply be described as a track generator. There's little control to the Course Maker's output beyond a set of seemingly arbitrary parameters, and anyone hoping to recreate their favourite stretch of tarmac will likely be left feeling deflated. Still, it's a novel way to extend a track list which is already generous, even if the results are largely dull and lifeless.

Gran Turismo 5's frontend is equally uninspired, though it's enlivened by the typical Japanese eccentricity lent by a sprinkling of light jazz piano. An epic 8GB install slims down the bloated loading screens (opt out of this and – quite smartly – the game will install content as you play through it) though they still outstay their welcome, while menus are over elaborate and ill-designed. That's not too much of a problem in the single player offering but it's something that does its best at obscuring an otherwise solid online offering.

Racing online, once you get to it, is perfectly stable, handling up to sixteen cars with few issues. Options are admittedly limited with no way to deviate from straight-up racing, but when the handling's as good as Gran Turismo 5's it's hard to find complaint. It also has room for a few quirks of its own - there's an option to allow false starts, which can lend those first moments on the grid a unique tension, while a player wall that can host updates of up to 140 characters shows that Polyphony has at least one eye on wider online social developments.

There are other positives too. Separate online rooms can be created, allowing you to mine deep and set up different experiences from a 30 lap race around Le Mans with no assists to a simple two-lap blast around the Autumn Ring. It's sad, then, that it's all wrapped up in a muddled menu system that utilises a code system that's archaic and far from user-friendly, displaying an ignorance of recent developments throughout the racing genre.

And that's an accusation that can sadly be levelled squarely at Gran Turismo 5's overall single-player offering. Once more it's a lifeless grind through a series of races where it's more often than not simply a case of having the right machinery beneath you rather than a test of any real driving skill. It's enlivened by some special events where the dead-eyed likenesses of NASCAR's Jeff Gordon and the voice of WRC star Sebastien Loeb will guide you through their respective disciplines, but ultimately it's a shame that Polyphony didn't take the opportunity to revise a formula that was already feeling stale six years ago.

The fleshing out of B-Spec adds little. Here you're not behind the wheel but watching from afar, handing out instructions to one of a team of A.I drivers you can develop over time. It's all about maintaining pace and in turn maintaining the driver's physical and mental stamina, but with no option to speed up time it's your own stamina that's likely to go first.

At least the races, which utilize Gran Turismo's typically brilliant replay facilities alongside a generous ream of telemetry, are pretty to look at, and the A.I is itself convincing. Unfortunately the same can't be said when it's yourself in charge, and A-Spec's races aren't helped by the return of the series' now trademark zombie A.I. Any tweaks that have been made are hard to decipher as by and large your fellow racers will pay little attention to your on-track maneuvers, often braking at inexplicable moments and turning what should be a high-octane contest into a comic bout of very expensive bumper cars.

And like bumper cars they're likely to bounce off each other with little consequence. The inclusion of damage is so slight as to be insignificant, and even the most violent of crashes will only result in a polygon shifting slightly ajar. There's an unconvincing lack of weight to the big on-track collisions, and as before in Gran Turismo games it does much to break the immersion its handling model does so well to establish. A shame, as drive into a wall hard and long enough (though you'll have to attack it with the ferocity and persistence of a dog on heat) and the damage model will slowly begin to expose itself – something it will more readily do, we hope, after a future patch.

Closing Comments
Gran Turismo 5 is a 10/10 simulator wrapped up in a 5/10 game – driving is as exhilarating as anything that’s gone before, and slavish obsession with the minutiae of many of its cars ensure it's an encyclopaedia of automotive delights. Its brilliance on the track, however is matched by its sloppiness off of it, and there’s a lack of polish that would at one time have seemed sacrilegious to the series. Ultimately its driving wins out to ensure that it’s still a great game, but it leaves that nagging doubt; this could have been a masterpiece were it not for the fact that Polyphony was so absorbed with the detail that it took its eye off the ball.

by: Martin Robinson

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Posted in: Racing

Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit: PC

Like all the best video game locations, Seacrest County is a completely ridiculous place. The roads are universally pristine and peppered with awesome shortcuts. The national parks are gloriously free of gigantic RVs. And when people decide to break traffic laws, they do it at 200mph in exotic supercars. If that sounds like a slice of heaven pie to you, then you're going to want to check out Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit, a reboot of Electronic Arts' cops-and-speeders driving series from veteran developer Criterion Games.

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You might recognize the Criterion name from such over-the-top virtual driving experiences as Burnout: Paradise, the 2008 open-world racer that placed a premium on high speed and crazy crashes. Criterion has brought its amped-up aesthetic to the Need For Speed series, and the result is a slick and surprisingly focused driving experience that's positively bathed in adrenaline.

The concept of Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit could have been dreamed up at a middle-school boy's sleepover party. What if there was a place where both cops and the illegal street racers drove Lamborghinis, Mercedes, Bentleys, Porches and other drool-worthy marques around a gigantic network of roads at supremely high rates of speed? Oh, and wouldn't it be sweet if they could crash into each other and drop spike strips and call in helicopters and run each other off the road? And when you crash into someone, it should drop into ultra-slow motion and give you a ton of points!

What I love about Hot Pursuit is that it completely embraces that spirit of adolescent madness and just runs with it. There is no wedged-in storyline here. You can play as a cop or a racer, and you increase your rank or wanted level as you run people off the road, drift around corners, drive into oncoming traffic (as a racer), and generally behave like a motoring maniac. Along the way, you'll earn Bounty to unlock new cars, expand your arsenal of weapons/gadgets and open new sections of the Seacrest County map. The more you drive, crash, smash and win, the more cool stuff you get. It's simple, and it works.

This is no racing sim, but the cars do have their own distinct personalities. The Bentley Supersports, for example, is basically a tank with leather seats. But it handles surprisingly well, making it a great choice for Pursuit events where the goal as a cop is to smash racers into submission. If you're entering an Interceptor event where it's just you against a single wily racer who's liable to pull constant U-turns and shortcut maneuvers, you're better off in something light and agile, like the brilliant Pagani Zonda Cinque.

Hot Pursuit isn't a car collecting game. Although you unlock vehicles as you progress, there's no real garage to speak of. The focus is on driving these cars, not upgrading, tweaking or painting them. But that's OK because the list of vehicles in Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit reads like a multi-billionaire's Christmas list. The Bugatti Veyron, McLaren F1, Lamborghini LP 670-4 SuperVeloce, Mercedes SLS AMG, Nissan GT-R SpecV and Porsche Panamera are all here. And that's just a sampling.

Criterion has created a racing landscape that feels alive. Traffic (all licensed vehicles) comes and goes, aircraft fly by as you're driving, weather effects are realistic and dramatic, and the buildings along the roads just seem, well, real. Hop into Freedrive mode, and you can hop into any car you've unlocked and just tool around the entirety of Seacrest County. As you motor along, weather will come and go, the sun will rise and set, and the world will just sort of roll along.

Freedrive doesn't affect your career, so all the damage you do to your car will just slide right off (if you choose). It's a great mode for taking perfectly-staged screenshots of your car in action. Unfortunately, there's no way to access the Seacrest County overmap while in Freedrive mode, so you'll have to rely on your smallish mini-map to explore the landscape. It's a bit of a frustration in an otherwise nice addition. Another frustration -- the PC version of Hot Pursuit has no mouse support. Not a huge deal, but if you were planning on playing with a mouse and keyboard, well, you're going to have to stick with the keyboard. A game controller is really the way to go, though, and the PC version of Hot Pursuit worked swimmingly with an Xbox 360 gamepad.

But most of your time will probably be spent in the Career mode. Unlike Criterion's last effort, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit isn't an open-world game. You won't be driving around randomly in your race car or cop car waiting for something to happen or triggering it from your vehicle. Hot Pursuit's single-player mode is far more focused than Burnout: Paradise. In order to start off an event, you'll choose a marker on a map of Seacrest County and bring up a list of available events. Choose one that strikes your fancy, and you'll be taken into that event after a brief (and skippable) cutscene. And there's no decision to be made up front about which side you'd rather be on – you can alternate between cop and racer events at will.

These events are the meat and potatoes of Hot Pursuit. As a racer, you'll have access to a handful of different basic event types, all of which involve you trying to get from one place to another faster than everyone else. Sometimes you'll be chased by a cop or two; other times you'll just be up against other racers. And if you need a break from the intensity of those events, there are also time trials that are just you and the clock. As a cop, your main goal is to shut down these illegal street races

One of the linchpins of the Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit gameplay is the arsenal of weapons and gadgets. As a cop, you'll have access to spike strips, helicopters, EMP blasts and roadblocks. Each has a different purpose: spikes are good for taking out the fools behind you, EMPs are for those in front, helicopters can track suspects who are far ahead or off-road (in addition to dropping spikes of their own), and roadblocks are nasty far-ahead speed traps.

Racers can also deploy spikes and EMPs, but instead of roadblocks and choppers, they have turbo (blazingly fast) and a jammer, which shuts down everyone else's weapons for a spell, negates pending EMP blasts and blocks out cops' radar/mini-map. It's a devastating little device when used correctly.

The good news is, all these weapons are fun to use and none end up feeling too overpowered. The downside is that the weapon mix ends up being what differentiates many of the later events. Because there are a limited number of chase event types, these events become mainly about permutations of weapons and conditions (nighttime with only EMPs and Roadblocks, rain with only Helicopters and Spike strips, etc.). Because of this, event fatigue can set in after a while. Once you've tried every event type with every imaginable weapon mix, things do get a bit monotonous. Sure, there are time trials and car previews to do, but isn't the whole point of Hot Pursuit to crash into things, not to avoid them?

But that's where Autolog comes in.

It may not have a sexy name, but Hot Pursuit's new competition engine is one of the coolest additions to game design in a long time. In the world of online-connected gaming, there is a small fraction of the population that actually expects to rank at the top of a global leaderboard for any given game. If you're like me, when you post a hot personal lap time in a racer like Forza 3 or Grid, you hop over to the leaderboards to find out where you stack up. And then you instantly realize how much you suck. But then, to make yourself feel better, you toggle over to see where you compare to your friends. There's bound to be someone crappier than you, right?

Hot Pursuit's Autolog takes that idea and boils it completely down to this idea: The only thing that really matters, in terms of player-on-player competition, is how you compare to people you know or people you come to know while playing the game. But Hot Pursuit doesn't just bury that data in a stats menu somewhere. The Autolog system takes your friends list and makes it central to the experience. From the launch screen, Hot Pursuit is telling you how you're stacking up, what your friends are doing, and who's achieved what rank. With a quick click on the Wall, you can see a stream of information about what your friends are up to in the single-player game, from times they've posted in events to pictures they've taken of the cars they've unlocked.

The Wall is a collection of posts from your friends, things they've chosen to share. But there's also an Autolog Recommends function that's constantly gathering info about your friends accomplishments and sharing them with you, daring you to step up. If someone on your list beats your dearly held time in your favorite event, Autolog Recommends will track it and tell you so. Click on one of these messages, and you'll jump straight to that event. If you end up reclaiming your place on the podium, a message will pop up asking you if you want to post your news to the Wall. You can even customize your message so you're newly-owned friend will see your trash-talk.

In addition to the single-player career mode and the Autolog overlay, Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit also has a full online multiplayer mode that allows up to eight players to team up and compete in cop and racer events. The mix of weapons allows for some real strategy online – coordinate as cops to drop spike strips ahead and then have those at the back fire EMPs. It's tough to avoid spikes when you're drifting out of control for a few seconds. Whereas Autolog provides a way to compete with your friends at everyone's leisure, the competitive online multiplayer brings everyone together for a head-to-head battle. The party system is intuitive and smooth, and you continue to build your Bounty with everything you do online. There's no split-screen multiplayer. But I played several sessions of couch-based Hot Pursuit with my fellow IGN editors, and we had a blast passing the controller back and forth. Also on: X360, PS3

Closing Comments
Need For Speed: Hot Pursuit is pure over-the-top driving entertainment. The cars and environments are gorgeous, the crashes are spectacular, and the new Autolog feature breathes new life into the time-honored tradition of video game competition among friends. The single-player races can become somewhat repetitive and there are some presentation issues, but overall, Hot Pursuit is a blast. If you’re looking for a high-octane racer that grabs on tight but doesn’t take itself too seriously, give this one a shot.

by: Ryan Geddes

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Posted in: Racing

Test Drive Unlimited 2: PC

I wanted to love Test Drive Unlimited 2. I really did. It lets you live the life of a pro racer on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza. It combines traditional racing with an open-world, always-online (except when it's not) multiplayer setup that makes it easy to interact with others. You can even buy property on the island, decorate said property, and show off your exotic car collection to your friends. Doesn't it all sound fantastic? The ideas that went into Test Drive Unlimited 2 are appealing in every way, but the execution is completely off. This open-world driving experience is riddled with problems and even the driving itself is far from perfect.

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At the start of Test Drive, you're a down-on-your-luck valet who just got fired for sleeping on the job. But for some reason, the rich gal who got you fired decides to hire you as a temporary chauffer. Her wager: if you get her to a studio taping she has to attend, you can enter Solar Crown -- a luxurious racing competition that takes place across Ibiza.

Spoilers: you enter the competition and join the ranks of the Solar Crown pro racers. Go you!

These opening cutscenes serve two purposes: they introduce you to Test Drive's story, and they illustrate just how atrocious the character models are. Although driving is the most important aspect of Test Drive, the characters look and animate poorly. These antiquated models "come to life" with some bad voice acting, too. The voice clips will annoy at first and then grow to intolerable levels as they're repeated constantly.

Ugly character models and bad voice acting are just a few of the many shortcomings found in Test Drive Unlimited 2. On the console versions, Test Drive crashed when I tried to change the paint job in my new apartment. Environments popped-in when I drove across the island. My car quite literally dropped into the ocean when I was nowhere near water.

You might not come across these issues, but Test Drive was clearly designed with console gamers in mind. Some of the 360 button prompts weren't even removed in the PC interface, and playing with a keyboard is extremely uncomfortable. Fortunately, the visuals are sharper on the PC version and there are sliders for graphical settings in the options menu.

If you're the kind of gamer who can tolerate technical issues, you'll be more likely to appreciate the ideas in Test Drive. You can drive almost anywhere in Ibiza, buy and customize new cars, help random strangers for cash, and interact with other players cruising around the island. As you play, you level up meters that gauge your progression in four separate categories: Competition, Discovery, Collection, and Social. Leveling these aspects of your character enhances your Global level, and earning new levels unlocks new content in the game like avatar customization options, car upgrades, and more.

But this freedom to explore and enjoy Ibiza (and later Hawaii) is limited. Drive to a remote corner of the island, and you often can't do anything once you get there. Your character can only leave the car at predetermined points, and there's no environmental interaction or objectives besides taking photographs and finding hidden car wrecks. With such a massive island to explore, I wish there was more I could do on it.

When it comes to the actual driving, there are just as many conflicting issues. I respect the game's attempt to bridge the gap between arcade-style racing and realistic simulation controls. But ultimately the cars in Test Drive lack the visceral quality that real vehicles possess. I didn't feel like I was driving a powerful machine; I felt like I was controlling a toy.

Gameplay problems aside, there are technical issues that spoiled my experience. There were several occasions where, at the start of a single-player race, my opponents would suddenly spawn ahead of my car and speed off. I'd call that an unfair advantage. I was also frustrated with how Test Drive handles the "return to road" feature that can be activated if you find yourself too far off course. I've missed critical checkpoints thanks to that feature.

Not all is without hope. Test Drive Unlimited 2's multiplayer functionality is intriguing and, when it works, fun. At one point as I drove through a city I saw a small group of players (all sporting supercars) driving around together. That's awesome. I also appreciate the ability to instantly challenge any player just by flashing my lights at them. You can even bet your own virtual money on the outcome.

The problem here is that the Test Drive servers have been problematic since launch. All three versions of the game seem to be experiencing issues, which is disappointing. The online stability could improve with patching, but my heart goes out to the folks who were ready to play right after launch and couldn't.

"It's a shame" should be the motto for Test Drive Unlimited 2. On paper, this is the kind of experience I'd love to play. The amount of road to explore and the amount of competitions to enter make me froth at the mouth. But the awful characters, bland driving and the general lack of polish keep Test Drive from being the definitive "racer-lifestyle emulator" it set out to be.

Closing Comments
Test Drive Unlimited 2 had promise, but the final product didn't come together for this online racer. I'm a fan of games that give you control of your character's life (see: buying houses, decorating, pimping sweet rides), but the driving is missing the raw energy it needs to stay interesting and the rest of the experience is bug-ridden.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Racing

MX vs. ATV Alive: X360

Out of all the game types, racing games are some of the most skill-intensive experiences you can find. Not only do you need to learn the basic handling of your vehicle, but you also need to know the layout of the course, your location on the track, and the locations of the other racers. Motocross is an even more extreme example, as your rider's body plays just as important a role as the bike itself. These are some of the reasons why I like motocross games, including MX vs. ATV Alive. Like the MX vs. ATV games before it, Alive puts you out on the dirt in aggressive, high-speed competitions. You'll race across sprawling canyons and thick forests, all while managing your bike and rider's position. The racing itself is fun, but the overall experience is hurt by a number of technical quirks and a course unlock structure that feels more like a bad role-playing game than a racer.

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During play, I opted to disengage the rider assists so I could be in total control, and I stuck with riding the motocross bikes because they're more fun and easier to handle than the ATVs. Regardless of your choice, you'll need to think about where you are on the track at all times, as a great deal of the MX vs. ATV Alive experience is about maintaining your speed while traversing tight turns and hitting jumps.

To do this, you need to be mindful of your bike and your rider. With the right stick, you control the Rider Reflex system, which modifies your rider's posture and weight to assist with turns. It can also be used to save you from a costly wreck, or help boost you off of jumps. This is where your skill level comes in, and it also adds to the fun in a major way.

One of my biggest complaints when it comes to MX vs. ATV Alive's gameplay is the reset system, which is meant to get you back on the track in the unfortunate event that you go careening off the road. Ideally, you should be able to tap one button at any time to reset your rider, but MX vs. ATV handles rider resetting poorly.

You can only get back into the action by holding both bumpers and clicking in both sticks. Even then, this command only causes your rider to bail out, and you then need to wait for the actually reset to occur. It's a slow, clunky system that can cost you precious seconds in a close race.

The events in MX vs. ATV Alive are spread across a number of different track types. There are 12 national tracks (longer races), four short tracks, and two free ride areas (three, if you count the downloadable James Stewart Compound). I wasn't interested in the short tracks because they were, as the name suggests, short. All the national tracks, however, are great and make for exhilarating events. I just wish there were more than 12.

The most baffling thing about MX vs. ATV Alive is its unlock structure. When you first boot it up, you only have two national tracks to choose from. You can't play any others until you reach level 10 (your rider earns experience for completing events). In short, you'll need to race the same events repeatedly just to get at more tracks. The next course unlock happens at level 25, which takes a long time to reach.

For those that want to shell out extra money, you can pay to unlock everything from the start (including all the vehicles). This presents you with a horrible choice: you can laboriously compete in events to expand your experience, or you can pay to access content you should already have. There's just no reason why unlocks couldn't have happened more frequently.

Closing Comments
When it comes to racing, MX vs. ATV Alive is fun and calls for serious skill. The reset mechanics are aggravating, but I generally had a great time both on and offline.

Unfortunately, most of the content here is imprisoned by a nonsensical unlock structure that requires immense repetition to get at. The only alternative is to pay extra money to unlock everything at once. Furthermore, with no tournaments in place, every event here is a single race and not a series.

MX vs. ATV Alive is plenty of fun, but not nearly as complete or polished as other racers released during this generation.

by: Ryan Clements

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Posted in: Racing

Dirt 3: PC

There's a good chance I'll never hurtle down the backroads of Finland at more than 100 mph in a BMW Z4. To be honest, I'd be terrified to cross into triple digits on roads so narrow. But to be able to experience such a feat in a safe environment is divine. Dirt 3 delivers this power, reminding rally nuts what a fun ride this series is. The driving in Dirt 3 feels tight and responsive, and the six tuning options return to balance out any terrain type. Driving through Finland, Michigan, Norway, LA, Kenya, and Monaco feels superb. Cars respond effectively to the slightest control touches and the need for tight braking stands out. Every slide from gravel onto tarmac or

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snow feels significant and the variations require extreme concentration. When competitors kick a spray of snow onto the windshield, the effect is appropriately chaotic. The addition of rain, snow, and nighttime driving is not simply cosmetic – headlights are required, wipers stay busy, and tires are tested.

On the event side, Dirt 3's choices keep coming. Not only has rally returned to the forefront in event selection, entire disciplines can be minimized if they don't hold your interest. Don't get me wrong, every discipline has been expanded, but rally keeps the highest event count. The main tour is split into four seasons, but as the podiums add up, six discipline-specific tours emerge, pushing the total race count to even higher numbers. The locations, track variations, and event types make this a ride that lasts a long time. And with so many time-specific events, repeating races is a surefire path to longevity.

Codemasters made an odd choice with car collections. Money's been thrown out the window and cars are automatically sent over by teams and sponsors through leveling up. It feels as though nothing's been accomplished when the garage is full of random new cars I didn't specifically choose. Also, the newest cars provide the greatest driving bonuses, so choosing anything less will lead to earning fewer points. My favorite cars gathered cobwebs for this very reason.

Regardless of their organization, the full set of cars is impressive. Dirt 3 reaches across all decades of rally racing giving the option to pull vehicles dating back to the sixties. Driving older cars, like the Fiat 131 Abarth, is a stark contrast to the feel of souped-up Trailblazer cars.

Dirt 3 is the best looking Dirt game to date. Watching sunsets and sliding through puddles in the rain is stunning, at both high and low speeds. Details like background fireworks and pedestrians scrambling out of the way are a nice touch in a world that feels alive, even in the remotest locations. Car bodies collect dust and snow buildup, and the shiny gleam of rain on the windshield sets the tone of a muddy race.

There are several adjustments to smooth the experience on a high-end computer. From ultra-detailed graphic settings to racing wheel calibration and force feedback, the PC allows the most hardcore rigs to experience the game at its greatest.

Dirt 3's sound stands out. Not just in the roar of engines, but also in the details. From the trackside fan shout-outs to the crunch of packing snow, the details are what make the soundscape superb throughout. The impact of a bad drift or a head-on collision smacks you in the gut.

In Dirt 3, triangles are the design center of the menu presentation. These unfolding shapes reveal events, seasons, tours and freeplay options. Animated cars spit out bundles of triangles from the tires, and the look is spot-on, keeping in tradition with the unique, beautiful menu aesthetic the series is known for.

There's no longer an RV that travels around the world stopping at different events as in Dirt 2. Instead, you begin as a professional driver just signed by an agent. This disembodied agent's voice provides advice and direction through the game's insane number of events. A mechanic and fan manager also help discuss car setups and how to make the most out of the community. Unfortunately these voices are bland and ultimately forgettable. The false positivity they provide through thick and thin is grating, when it's really just the racing that matters. The fan manager constantly suggests uploading clips to YouTube, even when the footage isn't compelling.

Race replays are lacking in Dirt 3. While I mentioned YouTube uploads, the clips are limited to thirty seconds, meaning one can't show the world their flawless, five-mile Kenya run. Replays also can't be saved, so unless you upload a small clip online, all records are lost. It'd be nice to get a second shot at seeing old footage, and not just in tiny increments.

Taking the race online opens up additional options that aren't found in single player. The new Jam Session Party Modes provide capture the flag and tag-style events that are great in short bursts, but grow tiresome after too many rounds. Serious racers can tackle time trials and leaderboards, force cockpit views in hardcore mode, and even compete with up to eight people in Gymkhana as ghosts sliding through each other. These options are robust, so long after season four concludes, online keeps players racing.

Closing Comments
In Dirt 3 a few scratches tarnish an otherwise impeccable product. It’s a superb racing experience and shouldn’t be missed. While the agent isn’t the best leader through the tour, and the garage is limited in its operation, the solid gameplay, variety of tracks and events, and overall fun factor make this a terrific game.

by: Peter Eykemans

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Posted in: Racing

TrackMania: Build to Race

The Nintendo Wii in 2011. Wow, ok. What you got for us, third party developers? TrackMania: Build to Race, a racing game that has been delayed for years? Yeah, ok, this look cool, let's do it. TrackMania has been around as a free-to-play PC game for years, and even got a decent port to the Nintendo DS in 2009. The series is all about rapid fire races, putting you on short, but crazy tracks filled with jumps, loops, and corkscrews. The other racers are ghosts, so there's no bumping or sideswiping – it's just you against the clock.

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There are three modes, all with a huge chunk of content. The normal Race mode alone has nearly 120 races. There's also a Platform mode that challenges you to just complete an evil course without falling off the edges. The third mode, Puzzle, requires you to complete tracks using the game's track building tools. All three modes are fun for different reasons and the brevity of each mission allows you to jump between them as you see fit.

While TrackMania seems like a casual, kid-friendly racing game, it gets hard as balls pretty fast. As you progress in the game you need to earn more medals to unlock courses, requiring you to replay some races to get better times. Getting Gold (or even Silver) on some of these races can be a nightmare. Platform mode is even worse, punishing you right out the gate. I like a hard game, but the difficulty curve shoots up way too early.

The game's Track Builder stands out as its coolest feature. By playing through the single player races you earn pieces that can be used to build your own custom tracks. The track builder is cool, giving the game a Hot Wheels vibe that I really like (unlike the recent Hot Wheels games which are terrible).

It's a shame that TrackMania looks so dated. This game wouldn't have looked good in 2008 either, but now it's really ugly. Textures should not be bland and ugly for a game where not a lot is happening on screen. And the music is just bad. I appreciate that each track type has a different style, but the synthetic, boring sounds do nothing to get me excited about racing.

For the Wii version, TrackMania's developer included an online mode (a feature notably missing from the DS version). You can play split-screen with up to four people, and the online mode supports six. As much as I'd like to praise the online mode, I couldn't find a single person online to play with. I can't fault the game for nobody playing online, but it's something you should consider if online play is a deciding factor. That said, the local multiplayer is plenty fun for playing on your created tracks with friends (I recommend TrackMania as a game to play while drinking with buddies).

Closing Comments
TrackMania: Build to Race is a fun, different racing game. The gameplay is fast and addicting and there's a lot to do. It does get frustratingly difficult, and I wish it looked better, but it's still a game that racing fans should check out. For those of you that want this kind of game online, go check out the PC version, where people are still playing competitively.

by: Jack DeVries

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Posted in: Racing

MotorStorm Apocalypse: PS3

MotorStorm's been one of Sony's stalwarts for the PlayStation 3 and it's one of the first of the first-party games to reach the three game milestone on this generation of hardware. It's a landmark moment, in its own way, and one that developer Evolution has celebrated by forcing a major rethink upon its anarchic racing series. MotorStorm's always been about offering messy thrills over the more refined action of some of its arcade racing brothers. That much hasn't changed - chaos is at the core of MotorStorm Apocalypse and it's a game that takes more pleasure than most in pulverising the player. If anything, it's a game that's more about the destruction wrought than the racing offered, something that's at the very heart of this particular outing.

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Apocalypse brings MotorStorm's world literally crashing to its feet, but in doing so it brings Evolution's formula to a natural conclusion. Here, chaos reigns. A thinly disguised San Francisco hosts the MotorStorm tour and it's fast turning to rubble. With the city reduced to cascading concrete and tumbling skyscrapers the challenge now comes from the environment as much as it does your fellow racers.

Racing games and storylines go together like slugs and salt, but Apocalypse has a crack at getting the two to play nice. Evolution has wrangled an excellent sense of progression with its single-player Festival mode, though that doesn't come from the animated cutscenes that thread through each of the three different riders' stories - these are best watched with one hand over your eyes, the other furiously stabbing the start button in an attempt to skip through these atrocities.

Its real achievement is in giving every race a sense of context. Each rider's story takes place over three days and each offers different perspectives on the tale of a city that's eating itself in increasingly spectacular fashion. There's a defined start, middle and end, with each story bookended with mad dashes to and from the MotorStorm carrier.

And while its cutscenes aren't exactly Oscar-winning material, at least the action itself is comparable to some of Hollywood's more explosive moments. When things blow up in MotorStorm Apocalypse – which they'll do frequently – they do so in style and with an often jaw-dropping sense of scale.

The level of devastation is phenomenal and what's really impressive is how Evolution destroys an entire city without ever breaking a sweat. Even as bridges buckle and buildings collide the frame rate remains smooth, and the amount the game throws on to the screen is an incredible achievement in itself – and one that's amplified brilliantly for those fortunate enough to play the game in 3D, a feature that Evolution manages to wring more out of than much of its competition.

MotorStorm Apocalypse can be a victim of its own ambition, though. With every effort evidently placed on making the decaying city the star, the vehicles themselves suffer a little. MotorStorm's never been a game about precision handling and the fast and loose nature of its garage goes hand-in-hand with the nature of its racing, but there's still a lot to be desired in the way that they feel.

New additions like the hot hatch and muscle car are executed with a certain amount of purpose, and both are satisfyingly sturdy in their cornering, but when it moves over to two wheels it's a little less convincing. The superbike and chopper both feel disappointingly flimsy, and the riders never seem to really be part of the action around them.

Such problems are easy to forget in the bustle of the pack, though, and the multi-class racing is as frenetic as ever. The boost system's been refined for the better, with the overheat bar now cooling down when the player is airborne, and it adds a new layer of strategy and a little order to the otherwise chaotic racing. MotorStorm Apocalypse is still, however, a game that can be frequently brutal.

Even at their most serene the MotorStorm games have often been cruel mistresses, and that's true more than ever before in Apocalypse. With so much track furniture falling from the skies it's all too easy to get inadvertently snagged on the backdrop, and its enthusiasm for destroying your vehicle can become tiresome and more than a little frustrating.

The fellow racers' generosity helps ease the pain, but the rubber-banding can be overplayed, especially in the earlier races where it seems impossible not to win. These problems iron themselves out over time though. With a little familiarity the courses become less treacherous and as the game progresses the AI puts up more of a fight, even if the difference between vehicle classes seems muted in comparison to previous games.

These problems all but disappear in the multiplayer and the chaos that blights the single-player can make for a brilliantly anarchic experience when shared. Online racing is backed up by a Call of Duty-like perks system that's well thought out, although server problems that have blighted the game since launch make it hard to enjoy them properly.

Thankfully MotorStorm's offline multiplayer is in a class of its own and it helps that it's a class with depressingly low attendance these days. It's a welcome reminder of how much fun four-player splitscreen can be and it's another feather for Evolution's technical cap. The game remains steady even when it's asked to render its chaos four times over, ensuring that this is Apocalypse's standout mode.

Closing Comments
MotorStorm Apocalypse’s shift to the end of the world helps distil the very essence of what this series is about. Racing through the rubble is unpredictable and thrilling, but some of the rougher edges have also been amplified. Its ambition can push the game beyond the limits of frustration, though it also gives rise to some spectacular moments that help make this an experience that, while flawed, is brilliantly unique.

by: Martin Robinson

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Posted in: Racing

Shift 2 Unleashed

Shift 2 Unleashed is out to scare you. Its cars scream at you with the ferocity of a drill sergeant, and they hurl you about with all the aggression of a dog that's just had a boot planted between its hind legs. Visceral doesn't even begin to cover it; driving a car in this game is a full-on sensory assault. It's a world away from the heavy yet gentle drifts of Hot Pursuit, the last game to crawl from Need for Speed's bustling garage. Slightly Mad Studios' heritage would have you believe that this is a sim, as would the pre-release hype, but don't believe a word of it – this is as exaggerated a take on driving as any on the series.

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The wild handling from the first game has been reined somewhat, but it's still more about terrifying the driver than providing a smooth and stable ride, the cars lunging around with alarming violence. It's often more survival horror than driving sim and it's an approach that works, to an extent.

During the all-new night races tracks such as Spa Francorchamps are as packed full of scares as Dead Space's Ishimura; Pouhon, a fast left kink that can be taken flat by the very brave, is as frightening as the most savage of necromorphs when it leaps out of the dark at the last possible moment.

Such thrills are aided by the added layer of immersion lent by the addition of the helmet cam, a small but welcome revolution within the racing genre. It's a first-person perspective that does more than put you in the driving seat; it provides a genuine driver's eye view. Here the screen's lined by the helmet's lining, and the camera will actively tilt towards corner apexes.

Other games let you be the car, in much the same way that some first-person shooters let you play as a disembodied gun. Shift 2 Unleashed, with its innovative new perspective, can lay claim to being the first game to actually let you be the driver, a feature that works for better and for worse.

Thanks to the driver's eye view, Shift 2 Unleashed provides the most thrilling experience available in the genre. The excellent audio visual feeds into this; the cars growl with purpose and they're finely modelled too. Even better is the gory evisceration that waits at the end of a high-speed crash, with the cars shedding doors, bonnets and wheels with violent conviction.

What it isn't, however – and here's where the likes of Gran Turismo and Forza steal a march on it – is reliable or consistently satisfying in its action. While the addition of an Elite handling model certainly points Shift 2 Unleashed in the right direction there's still an uneasy lightness to the car's behaviour, and even once accustomed to their more sensitive ways they're still prone to providing some nasty shocks.

The same can be said of Shift 2 Unleashed's AI cars. They're on the whole a smart bunch and are capable of putting up a fight more convincing than that seen in other racers; they'll defend their line and jostle for position in a manner that's fun to engage with.

Too often though, tailing drivers will disregard you at a corner, sending you face first into the nearest gravel trap. When you're several laps deep in a key race it's hard to find the funny side and moments like this make you wish for the rewind feature that's been creeping into other racing games.

It's saved by the fact that more often than not you're racing friends thanks to the inclusion of Autolog, the feature pioneered by Hot Pursuit that compiles online times on an advanced leaderboard that provides a thread through Shift 2 Unleashed's reams of content.

It's arguably not as neat a fit here as it was in Hot Pursuit – the spread of vehicles and the ability to dive under their hoods to upgrade them necessitates a performance index that can muddy the results – but it's still a compelling feature that's backed up by a strong online suite, with Driver Duel Championships fleshing out the staple races for up to twelve players.

XP is earned both online and off, and thankfully the original Shift's often convoluted system has been streamlined. It works much better as a result and the worlds of racing and RPG here make easy bedfellows. Points are earned for mastering corners, swift starts and clean overtakes among other things, gifting a sense of achievement that can help grind away at the game's rougher edges.

Levelling up unlocks new events and earns new cars, and as ever there's a certain amount of satisfaction to be had in taking a standard road-going car and turning it into a thoroughbred racing machine. Indeed, the level of customisation excuses Shift 2 Unleashed's relatively paltry slim car list.

It also displays a judicious eye in its selection that's shared by the track list, which is bolstered by some fine rarities. Dijon-Prenois, the French circuit that hosted one of motor racing's finest duels, deserves special mention, and Shift 2 Unleashed's unique handling finds a perfect home amidst the tracks undulating sweeps.

Closing Comments
Shift 2 Unleashed's a violent and immersive racer that recreates the driving experience like no other game on the market. In doing so it builds well on the first Shift's foundations, benefiting from Slightly Mad Studios' more refined touch and the inclusion of Autolog, but its handling is still too loose and its steps forward too small for it to truly beat Gran Turismo and Forza – although it does enough to ensure that it's pulled ever closer.

by: Martin Robinson

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Posted in: Racing