Racing games of 2008: The FAIL and the Awesome

When I don't make music, I like playing computer-games, racing games in particular, but with so many of them being released this year, which one is the best? I decided to find out. I decided to only mention three, because they're ones that are either incredibly bad or incredibly good. And for some reason, while reading reviews of them in IGN or whatever, the reviewers don't really seem to have the guts to tell people how incredibly bad some games actually are. The ones not mentioned here simply havn't gotten my attention or are just mediocre, that is, play them, they're probably okay, but nothing special.

NFS: UNDERCOVER

So I picked up need for speed undercover, hoping that it would be what it promised: The gameplay from carbon, ie cops reintroduced, with a lot better graphics, more cars, more mods for the cars etc. For those that don't know, earlier this year EA released NFS: Pro Street, which was a racing game, without cops or anything else that illegal. No one with a sound mind bought it of course. So EA panics, and throws toghether this pile of crap in like 6 months.

It was as I had feared: It is probably the worst pile of bug-ridden crap my computer has ever tried crunching away at. I have a quad core, with an ATI 4850 HD gfx card. 2 gigs of DDR3 memory. The framerates goes from 0.25-100 fps, completely randomly. How does it look then, I mean, you must think it looks gorgeos if such a powerful gaming rig can't do it. Answer: Nasty. The antialiasing code is the worst i've seen in years. In fact, I think the shaders were coded so badly the team probably couldn't test out the antialiasing. The most antialiasing they even let you use is 6x... 8x has been the standard maximum for years, I guess they don't want to show people what a useless GPU-hog the game really is.

So, at 6xAA, 1680x1050, with everything set to maximum:

(click for full size image)

Why this image? Because that's mostly what you're going to be looking at after 50% of the game when you need to go at 300 km/h and the fps all of a sudden goes from 20 to 0.25 and when the extreme stuttering and unresponsiveness is over, you see the opponents have gone past you, and you're going the wrong way.

I have a theory though:
The NFS-developer crew is notorious for coding bad AI, in carbon they introduced "catchup" which means that the opponents cars can break the laws of physics if you're ahead of them, in practice it means that they're driving at a speed of up to 200% of what's possible.
But they still suck so bad at driving, it wasn't hard anyway. So in this game they've done the following: You get to drive a shitty 50 hp car that handle like mule, and you race against hyper-tuned pagani zondas AND to make matters worse: The framerate-drops make it completely impossible.

So, what about the cars, the mods and all that? Nothing. There's something like two new cars. And the models look exactly the same as in PRO STREET. And the mods are the same as they've always been, but wait a minute... Why can't I lower my car anymore? And what happened to all the exhausts? There used to be like 20 and now there's only... 4?

Okay, but at least the driving must be good, no?
This is what makes this game even worse, which is increadible at this point. They've taken out all the fun game modes of NFS:carbon (no drift, togue or any other of the fun stuff left), replaced the physics with some shitty-action-movie-wannabe physics which are totally unflexible and then they go as far as to call it a revolutionary physics model. The random framerates makes the driving experience frustrating and completely shit.

Conclusion: Maybe in a couple of years when we have four 16-core processors, 32 gigs of ram, SSD-drives and 64 gigs of GFX mem, this game will be playable, but the graphics will still look like it was made in 2005. Promises alot but delivers nothing of value. I don't understand how the hell EA can expect people to dish out $60 on this...

Score: 0.0000000000000001/100

EA, fire your slacking developers NOW, and stop hyping shit that's not even on par with most indie developer efforts:


Why can't this guy just shut up? He shouldn't be all excited, he should commit seppuku for destroying EA's biggest racing forever. Oh and listen to the whole interview for some awesome bloopers.


Midnight Club LA

This game is... I don't know how to explain it to you. Hard doesn't really describe it well.
This is a game for masochistic people. It's extremely puninshing. There's nothing casual, ever. And, as if the racing wasn't hard enough, you're finances are constantly almost non-existant.
If you find this game easy, good for you, you're a freak, kill yourself.
When a game is made so that only someone who's completely wired up on amfetamines can have a remote shot at completing it, you start to wonder what the hell they're doing at the rockstar offices. If you want a comparison, easy in this game is as hard as the last boss on NFS:Carbon, blindfolded.

I can't really review this game because I can't play it for longer than ten minutes before I throw the controller into the TV. And I can't get you any screenshots because it's XBOX360/PS3 only (bribery by console manfacturers???) and I don't have a good camera.

The GFX are good though, nice cars, awesome customizations, which you can't afford. Not awesome, but good.

Oh, and the physics suck btw.

Conclusion: An acceptable racer that's ruined completely by an utterly frustrating difficulty level. Note that this isn't the same part of rockstar that makes the GTA franchise. They just share the name... and should be fired.

Score: 2/10


GRID:

For some reason I didn't hear about this game until a month or so ago. Which is okay, because I like nice suprises, even if they're a bit late. There is not much to say about grid, because it's so incredibly good it doesn't piss me off in any way really because:

• The cars are really accuratly modelled
• The damage model is the most realistic I've ever played.
• The enviroments are most beatiful i've ever seen in a racing game
• The graphics engine is extremely well coded, the shaders are the best i've seen in a car game so far, the antialiasing is superb etc etc and on my machine i get a very solid framerate of 80 fps with everything set on max.
• The sounds are incredibly good, not just some looping sample of an engine being played at different speeds, but what sound like multiple layers of actual engine sounds.
• The physics feel like a combination of the best of NFS: Carbon and Live for speed (the racing simulator) = AWESOME
• Every racing-mode I can think of and 10 more (exaggeration but you get the idea).

On the downside though, there's not really any customization to be done and there could have been more maps! But it doesn't really bother me very much, because I'm having too much fun.

Here are some pics, note that these were taken on the same machine as the ones from NFS:UC


Conclusion: Awesome game, has something for everyone who's into racing games.
This is what a racing game should be like, dispite it's almost non-existant flaws it still is a really fun experiences.

Score 9.9/10



FINAL CONCLUSION:
Avoid NFS:UC, PROSTREET and MC:LA at all costs, they're a waste of time, money and you'll just end up being pissed off and feeling robbed. GRID however, is an awesome game, which is probably quite fun, even if you're not into racing games.