Cruis'n'USA + Michael Bay = NFS The Run ?

The campaign puts the player in the shoes of Jack Rourke, a pro driver who’s landed in a debt with the mob he can’t repay.  Conveniently, long-time friend Sam Harper shows up just in time to inform Jack of a cross-country race spanning from San Francisco to New York.  She’s made money off of Jack’s racing before and with “The Run” holding a payout of $25 million, competing would be an inevitability.  She fesses up the $250k entry fee and the race begins.

Sadly, the game doesn’t become anymore elaborate than that as it delivers an underdeveloped tale, which Black Box ironically kept close to its chest until the game’s launch while touting its compelling story.  Though one shouldn’t be expecting Kojima-tier storytelling in an annual racer, the game shows passion for detail in other areas so it’s a shame that more attention has not been brought to its throwaway characters as the premise does sound provocative and intriguing.  Instead, we are treated to the highlighting of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models serving their expansive roles in the campaign.  And by expansive I mean filling up their cars with gas in a single scene.

This isn't a summary. It's Jack's entire bio.In a loading screen.

Right from the start, we can see that The Run puts emphasis on tension as its getting you from SF to NY first against 200+ drivers.  The game excludes any form of free roam or overworld to explore in as you aggressively push east across a wide variety of environments.  Some may be turned off by the idea but it certainly makes sense as aimlessly driving in a desert for fun would certainly kill any sense of urgency.  Races typically involve surpassing a few drivers at a time starting from #211 with the intent of making it to #1 by the time you reach the east coast.  Other times you will be on the road by yourself making up time by reaching checkpoints in an aggressive manner.  Throw in some cop chases and a few memorable action sequences and you have a game that is, while repetitive at times, intriguing to say the least.

A cross-country road trip would require serious diversity in landscape.  Thankfully, the environments in The Run are delivered with a sense of grand scale and lush detail, courtesy of the Frostbite 2 engine– the same engine that made its debut with Battlefield 3.  As it was designed with next-generation platforms in mind, some portions of the game such as select textures, vehicle interiors and character models will occasionally make lo-res appearances along with pop-ups in the console versions of the game, while PC enthusiasts will enjoy a higher fidelity The Run has to offer.  That is of course, assuming they have the necessary hardware to allow Frostbite 2 realize its full potential.

Breakneck speeds in the Rockies has SAFE written all over it.

Players will see themselves driving through a variety of locations, ranging from cities and deserts to mountains and canyons.  And for the first time in the series, all the levels are real world locations such as Las Vegas, Denver and Detroit.  Past NFS titles usually have a fair degree of diversity but none quite tackle the ambitious layouts of this installment.  And what better way to enjoy 3000 miles of asphalt than with 120+ vehicles to choose from.  Different from the past few titles is the fact that you don’t require money to obtain different rides.  Whenever the player is required to select a vehicle (which happens a few times throughout the story) they will be free to choose whichever set of wheels suit their taste.  That’s not to say that the game has all 120+ vehicles available from the get-go however, as several of the cars that are inaccessible have to be acquired through completing tasks in challenge and multiplayer modes.

The controls prove to be an attractive factor for both race purists as well as casual go-kart drivers as it attempts to blend the chaos of arcade style speed and havoc with the elegance of a simulation.  The end result is something that will allow the majority of players to enjoy the game’s interface as something that isn’t too difficult or too simple.  Continuing with the accessible approach, The Run grants players the ability to level up during time spent racing allowing them obtain perks such as nitrous, drifting and drafting abilities automatically without having to worry about maintenance on the vehicles of their choice.  While overall customizations, including aesthetic as well as performance tuning, are practically non-existent in this installment it keeps the pace of the action going forward.

Who needs Autosculpt when we got lens flare?

An awkward design choice is the fact that changing vehicles is done by stopping at a gas station.  In mid-race.  While the action stops as you make your selection, having to steer out of the way to pull in may hinder your position in the race.  Pair that with the occasional “out of bounds” driving that triggers a checkpoint reset even when you thought you were driving well within the road’s barriers and you may have a time or two where you’ll be banging your head against the wall due to what feels to be an absence of logic.  Thankfully the blow is softened as The Run’s inclusion of stock “resets” allows players to rewind their race to designated checkpoints giving them the luxury of refining their track time or if they just have bad luck and consistently crash their vehicles.  The only thing worse than losing a race is losing it when you were in 1st place the entire time.

While the streets have traffic conditions that make some areas seem more lively than others, the game still omits the inclusion of using pedestrians.  Chances are that it is a deliberate design choice so that players won’t have to worry about dragging a cadaver under their wheels in the middle of a race, however there are some locations where you’d expect heavy volume only to see the area in question appear lifeless.  Las Vegas Boulevard feels like a ghost town and the Holland Tunnel literally had two people in it; your opponent and you.  This would almost guarantee a chuckle out of a player who’s driven down those roads before, but to be fair that’s not to say that those places deserved to be identical to their real life counterparts.  After all, the game isn’t called “Need for Speed: The Jam”.

This...probably won't end well.

Autolog once again returns to help players not only keep track of their times but to constantly monitor the advances their friends make as well, encouraging players to replay segments in an attempt to hold down their position as 1st ranked.  Although the concept of Autolog promotes interaction with friends the actual multiplayer of The Run may have a few players wanting a little more.  When racing against others, players can have a roulette determine what bonuses the winning party might obtain, such as new cars or bonus XP, although the variety doesn’t go much further than the typical 16-player races.

In the end, Need for Speed: The Run is a good game that has a few things holding it back from being a great game.  It would be nice to see Black Box take a crack at “The Run 2″ and fix all the shortcomings of the first installment that will satisfy both single and multiplayer racers.  The engine is in place, the art direction is established and the vision is certainly clear.  Now throw in a compelling story mode that lasts longer than 3 hours with characters that aren’t one-dimensional and a robust online component and NFS will have an entry in the franchise that will be spoken of for quite some time.

Hope to see you again, Jack.

At Pax I ran into Adam Sessler and asked him what was his pick of the show was. He said there’s a small booth over by Capcom showing off a game called Warp. So I decided to see what Sessler actually likes and let’s say I was not disappointed.

Warp puts you in control of an alien with the ability to warp through objects within a reasonable distance. You use this ability to solve puzzles and travel distances (if you’re lazy). You can also use this ability to attack enemies by warping inside them and making them explode. You can also use this to go inside barrels to make make them explode as well knocking out enemies. I thought this game was going to be another standard cartoonish puzzle game until I made my first guard explode all over the walls. And it’s not a cheap explosion it’s a Cloverfield/Aliens Chestburster-esque explosion too.

You see not only is Warp a puzzle game it’s also a stealth action game similar to the original Metal Gear. The controls are simple there’s a crouch button to help you sneak, a button for your warp abilities and you wiggle the left stick to make stuff pop. The game play is simple enough for you to pick up in a few minutes and before you know it you’re already thinking of multiple ways to get through certain parts of the game. I did my play through without trying to kill everyone (you know to mix it up) but I did my fair share of murder. The alien has some skills that were not available in the demo so I look forward to what the other skills may be. From what I’ve played the controls are responsive and it’s easy to execute moves.

The graphics on this game are pretty solid. The alien lights up when he is at full power and functions like a hud, you can track your life and power status just by looking at him. The doctors and soldiers look generic but they’re supposed to since they are not the main character and you’re spending most of your time killing them. The camera angles are top down and you can move the camera out a bit to see what’s coming down a hallway or just to see what is next which is crucial in stealth games.

One of the main issues with the stealth genre is the enemy AI. I can imagine it’s hard to program a computer to respond like a human (it’s why the box worked so well in Metal Gear). This game keeps the AI. simple, if there is something rattling within the guards or scientists field of vision they will either investigate or call for help depending. Sometimes scientists lock things down and call for back up. While this wasn’t in the demo I am sure that it adds to the game’s tension.

This is off topic but related,a thing that smaller companies don’t do well is create merchandise for the game that is good and doesn’t suck. Usually at shows you get a bunch of t-shirts that don’t fit or some stuff that you are really not going to use ever. I was in for a treat when the people at the booth gave me a limited edition figurine of their main character. It’s much better than a t-shirt since you usually end up with a million of those at the show’s end.Now the only major issue is finding a place to put this bad boy in my collection back in NYC. The real question is to box or unbox that is the question.

Who knows this maybe the second puzzle game I sit down through.

Road Rash’s initial entry into the 32 bit generation wasn’t a thud, but wasn’t as memorable as the Sega Genesis entries. A couple of years went by without any new sequels, until mid 1999, when a series reboot was released called Road Rash 3D. With Road Rash taking an obvious overhaul to the franchise, has it added upon the established formula, or was it a failed reboot of a once great series?

Don't hold the attack button down, unless you want the other biker to magically steer to the other side nearly 99% of the time.

There’s two major overhauls going on here – the obvious visual shift to 3D models, and the overall in game mechanics. Unfortunately, neither were done properly. The controls in particular have turned from a functional and comfortable system, to one where you’ll be struggling to consistently stay on the road. The handling is so stiff, you’ll be asking if these are motorcycles or 18 wheeler trucks? If you veer off the road, even the power of Greyskull couldn’t get you back onto the road without an epic battle. It makes the game more aggravating than it should be. While not as devastating, the revised graphics are a mixed bag. Character models and the bikes themselves look overly bulky and animate poorly. The scenery does look good enough, with the grass fields having different shades of green and the trees and other buildings you come by looking pretty well detailed. You won’t feel like you’re driving a tight loop of backgrounds like previous titles. That is until you hit the town areas.

It seems like the only good thing about Road Rash 3D is the audio. The music fits in with the game perfectly, and every sound you hear matches perfectly with the action going on. It’s a shame everything else has fallen apart. Even the combat has regressed into a painful exercise of frustration and nonsense. If you go charging in after someone 4 seconds away, holding the attack button, they’ll ALWAYS manage to steer themselves to your other side, rendering your charged melee attack useless. It turns into a racing game with poor controls, nothing more.

Get used to seeing yourself careen out of control and literally fly off the handle.

You can definitely say that Road Rash would have needed some sort of upgrade to compliment the power and features of a new generation of consoles. Road Rash 3D tries to do this, but ultimately takes the series backwards. Overly stiff controls, terrible character models and a lack of engaging combat steers this game into the brick wall of mediocrity.

Rating: 4.6

Road Rash is a series of games that were well appreciated in the 16 bit era. Motorcycle racing through twisting and turning streets, where you can attack the opposing bikers with your fists, or steal their melee weapons for a longer ranged attack. With great audio and solid controls, Road Rash had a lot to be appreciated. Once the 32 bit era hit, the Road Rash series took its place in the library of the Sony PlayStation. The first title, simply called Road Rash, was the PSX debut of the series, staying true to its roots, with some audio and visual tweaks.

The use of backgrounds are quite reminiscent of The Flintstones - running on a tight loop.

Obvious changes were made to the visuals. There’s a lot more detail compared to the older games, although in some ways, not really. You don’t just race through open fields with sparse tree sightings, which all look the same. You have houses and buildings around you in some stages, which are repeated more than a Flintstones driving scene. The open world looks a lot better at least, with more color diversity and different looking trees. The bikers all look like poorly animated digitized characters, with two frames of animations on their attacks, and the vehicles become pixelated messes when they get really close. However when everything is combined and the game is moving, you have that sense of speed and when stuff gets chaotic, that adrenaline rush that has you gripping the controller tight and sitting at the edge of your seat. The laughable cut scenes after a win/loss/arrest are so useless, yet good for a chuckle at how absurd the come off as. Overall, for an early PS1 title, it looks barely passable, but does look a bit cleaner than the older titles on the 16 bit platform.

The controls do feel just a slight bit stiff when it comes to turning ever so slightly, but for the most part, attacking, accelerating and moving around functions properly and when you need it to. Just don’t get hit while turning, cause then you’ll more than likely come face first into a tree.

The biggest head scratching moment though, is why are the in game musical pieces somewhat generic (yet decent) songs, and the menus and title screen has actual rock music from various bands? Not only that, but that menu music would go great with the in game action. It makes no sense whatsoever. Also, there’s not a whole lot to do, so as fun as it gets, you really won’t find yourself rushing back right away.

Getting knocked off your bike by the cops almost always brings up the screen above.

The bottom line is for its first entry into the 32 bit world, Road Rash is a lot of fun, with some audio confusions and a few visual hiccups. It’s not a long or have a high amount of replay value, but for the time spent on it, you’ll at least be entertained and enjoy most of it.

Rating: 6.4

Hope to see you there.

Play-n-Trade (oft referred to as PNT) for those who are new is where we run our tournaments out of. Location is 137 E13th Street NY, NY.  That’s 13th street between 3rd and 4th avenues, for the directionally impaired.  Take the 4,5,6,N,Q,R,W,L to Union Square 14th St, or the L to 3rd Ave.

Big thanks to EA, head on over to Dantesinferno.com for more game info.

Army of Two helped usher in the new era of co-op gameplay. Unlike Resident Evil 5 or Kane & Lynch, the AI co-op gameplay was competent enough to play solo and not feel severely handicapped by a poorly coded partner that doesn’t hold up their end, other than occasional AI dragging quirks. For the most part, it was an enjoyable, single player or co-op, and definitely deserved to have a sequel released sooner than later. Less than two years later, we are given Army of Two: The 40th Day. While a couple of the features have been tweaked for the better, the rest of the title feels like it was in a 40 day development cycle.

The 40th Day’s shortcomings come from just about every facet. Visually, the lighting on your characters occasionally flickers around. When I’m in a dark area, devoid of any major light sources, panning my camera around sometimes lights up my character as if he was standing in the sun. On the flip side, when standing out in the sun with no shade around me,  Salem or Rios become shaded, as if they are hiding in a dark corner. While Salem and Rios do look exceptionally well detailed, and have plenty of color to them, the overall color palette throughout your adventure is quite drab, making the bulk of the world around you feel lifeless. Even with darker overtones for the game, that shouldn’t be an excuse to make your experience devoid of a better color selection. There’s one stage where it’s mostly gray colored environments, with red newspaper clippings on the ground and the walls, making it feel almost like a third person level of Mirror’s Edge. Throughout the beginning of the game, as well as some bits throughout, things are constantly blowing up and crashing down in the most implausible ways imaginable, sometimes to your advantage. Most of the time, it looks barely passable, though not only do you not get that adrenaline rush that you’d expect, but often times, the pieces of building falling down lack any sort of detail to it.

The moral decisions, a new addition to the series, feels like it was thrown in there, with no important impact to your actions, other than either a few buck in the proverbial wallet, or help gain certain achievements/trophies. You don’t feel like you’re benefiting anyone or anything by playing nice, and not accidentally killing a security guard, or intentionally killing a Bengal tiger. There’s even a moral choice involving an 8 year old boy and a sniper, which does create chatter about the incident a scene later, if you chose the negative choice, but it all feels more like a shock value that’s worth nothing. You’re asked about his whereabouts by the doctor that has you running around the hospital, and Salem says “never heard of him” and that was the end of it. It doesn’t outright affect the pace of the game, or even what lies ahead of you. The only reason I want to save hostages was to get a reward for each saved. There is no moral involve with any of these decisions – its a question of whether or not I want more money or not?

Rios is helping to drag Salem away from The 40th Day and back to 2008.

Then there are the bugs you sporadically stumble upon. The first one was not even an hour into the game. I had Feign Death right before a cut scene (unbeknown to me). When the cut scene was over, I am in a standing position, able to turn around 360 degrees, yet couldn’t aim, shoot, change weapons, grab aggro, nothing. I had to quit to the title screen and redo that portion all over. Can’t forget the couple of times where I had to “Push A” to help my partner push open a revolving door, and the game wouldn’t allow me, no matter where I stood. I couldn’t even get my partner to get off the door so I could initiate the action first. Then there’s random system lock ups throughout, which have happened to me several times on the first play-through alone. Nothing initiated it – I was just playing the game as usual. There’s an apparent lack of quality control with The 40th Day, and it hurts the overall package considerably.

The Versus multiplayer portion of The 40th Day is a complete throw away, offering nothing exciting, nor entertaining from any other third person online shooter. In fact, I’ve battled more against the crippling lag in most of the games I played than whatever skill sets my opponents may, or may not have had. When I do get into a lag free game, it would suddenly start to stutter more than Porky Pig in a speed reading contest. Whether you’re you have lag teleportation bouts or a smooth game going, it’s nothing special, nor worth investing any amount of your time on.

It’s not all negative with The 40th Day. The gameplay has been tightened up somewhat over the first installment. While your partner was competent in the first title, the sequel has your AI partner feeling a bit more natural. Setting him on an aggressive hold, he will lay a more efficient and stronger cover fire than he did in the previous game. On occasions, your partner will stutter in place when you want to advance the stage in some form, but it’s not a consistent thing. CPU AI is on a similar boat, evading grenades hurled at them, though not often enough, and never take an aggressive enough advancement towards your position. They use cover quite a bit, though leave themselves open for easy kills a little too frequently. Even when they don’t stand out in the open, it’s pretty entertaining to mow down droves of enemies, more so with a friend along side you, though thankfully the partner AI can definitely hold its own.

In regards to the A/V department, things have improved in certain aspects, but got worse in others. I already mentioned the drab, depressing color palette used in The 40th Day, though I have to admit that the visual quality of Salem and Rios is quite appreciated. Since I lack the ability to take proper screen caps, I have to search other web sites for screen shots to use. Unfortunately, most of the ones I ran into are not accurate in game images, and portray the visuals to be much better than they really are.

The multiplayer in The 40th Day has more choppiness than Vince Shlomi and a pound of vegetables.

The dialog between Rios and Salem, as well as most characters you encounter throughout the game, are less drivel fueled, namely in the cheesy one liner department. There are some in the game, notably completing the zoo level, with Salem muttering “Worse. Zoo. Ever.” right before you exit the stage. The quality of the voice acting, however, as well as the explosions, gun fire and so on, is good enough to help carry the game along without much eye rolling.

In the end though, is it even worth playing Army of Two: The 40th Day, with all the bugs and other annoyances littered across the game? If anything, it’s worth a rental, that’s for sure. When the bugs don’t bite down on you, and with or without a co-op partner, it’s a barely passable title to play through at least once, though memorable only because of the many shortcomings. As for a long term investment, if you have a buddy to play along side with, there’s a limited amount of extra replay value to be had, until you realize how remarkably bland the experience is. Give it a rental, just don’t put down $60 and expect anything you’ll be playing again a week after the fact.

Quickly, Salem! Put your mask down, before what hits the fan starts flying towards you!

Rating: 5.5