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By Midway Games for Playstation 2 |
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Plot: The game is surprisingly varied in its plot. Your overall goal is to stop Nostram but to do so, you have to work your way though the ranks of Nostram forces and counteract its operations around the world. For example, you must take out some communications trucks in France, destroy part of a base in England, and destroy prototype models of the Nostram version of your car, the Interceptor. Each mission has one primary objective, and 3-6 secondary objectives. Graphics: This game features the Playstation 2 graphics weve all come to know and love. Some nice graphical touches include some stunning scenery, excellent lighting, shadows, and reflections, and realistic looking cars, somewhat similar in graphics to Grand Turismo 3. Some other nice effects are the smoke from rockets and explosions, and the way the car bounces when it comes to a stop. I made it about halfway through the game, and unfortunately, it seems that the clipscenes are really short, and aside from the first one, all appear to be just brief clips of you speeding off in your car after a level completion. Sound: Normally I dont pay much attention to sound, but this game caught my attention. In game sound effects are fairly good, but what really caught my attention was the soundtrack. The soundtrack for this game was recorded in part by Saliva, including two new mixes of The Peter Gunn Theme. (The Peter Gunn Theme always rocks.) If you are a big Saliva fan, the game also includes unlockable behind the scenes footage, a Saliva music video, and more. Gameplay: A lot of work went into the gameplay style. The programmers went for a tradeoff in "real life physics" for ease of play, which means that it is very easy for one to pick up the game and be able to make the car do as one wishes. In short, it is but a moments work to master controlling the car. As for game mechanics themselves, successfully completing each level grants your car a new ability. You begin with just machine guns, then you get unguided missiles, guided missiles, upgrades in machine gun caliber (10mm, 15 mm, 25 mm), increased gun and missile capacity, and even halfway through, and upgraded car (this one is black, your first car is white) with better maneuverability, armor, and better turbos. To advance to then next level, you must complete the primary objective from the current mission. Also, each new level requires a certain number of access points. You get an access point for each completed mission objective, primary and secondary, which means that to advance very far, you will have to complete a lot more than just the primary objective of mission. Completion of all goals also unlocks the soundtrack for that level, and allows one to play the level in 2 player mode. If you beat all the objectives in under a certain time, you also unlock something special, but we were never able to do this, so no info there. Multiplayer mode has three versions: timed trial, ChickenHunter mode, and comsat mode. On times trial, you and your opponet race through a completed mission track (no badguys or anything) and try to get to the end first (just like a normal racing game). The catch is, both cars have whatever weapons theyve earned up to that point, and you can try to kill each other. If you die, you respawn, but it will cost you about 5 seconds. In ChickenHunter mode, it is the same thing, a race to the finish, but this time the person who wins is the one that runs over, shoots, or blows up the most chickens by the time either player crosses the finish line. Comsat mode is the same, except instead of chickens, you are collecting comsats, these blue floating orb things that apparently have no purpose anywhere in the game. Difficulty: From what Ive seen and heard, the game difficulty isnt that hard. In about 5 hours of gameplay, we were already halfway through, and other accounts Ive heard say the game goes by fairly quickly. Replay Value: Despite how one can beat the game fairly quickly, the game has many secrets to unlock, and it is just plain fun to replay a level. Multiplayer mode seems to be an afterthought, and the games seemed to be rather one-sided on who would win. Overall though, this is a game one might consider buying. Spiffyness: One really spiffy thing that I didnt mention is that this car can go on land and sea. If you ever go into the water, the car transforms like the car in Men in Black, and this jet engine pops out, and lets you zoom around the water. In the 1st level, a testing level, when the car does a jump and is about to land in the water, the games slows, and the camera slowly circle the car, and you can see it transform in slow-motion, then it hits the water, and the game seamlessly interfaces back to normal control. The new car you get halfway through the game also rates extra Spiffy(tm) Points. Overall: This is an excellent game, and from what Ive heard, a very good remake of the original. This game has an excellent control style and game engine. The only downside is that it is easy to beat, and multiplayer mode has a lot to be desired. Maybe they will fix it in the sequel. In my opinion, this game is very much worth renting, and if I had a Playstation 2 right now, Id probably go buy it. Anyway, thats my opinion, and thats it for this review. Possibly next month will be a review on Tetris (and the worldwide conspiracy behind it). Final Ratings:
Graphics: 8.9 Sound: 8.5 Gameplay: 9.3 Difficulty: 6.5 Replay: 8.5 Spiffyness: 8.5 Overall: 8.243
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