GRID

Now I am not a big racing game fan but the hubby is and this is his new toy. We recently watched Speed Racer at the movies and this has gotten him back in the kick of wanting to play these types of games. Gary (hubby's name) used to play alot of the old school games like Wipeout and moved on to PC based games like Need For Speed, but hasn't played a racing game in a long time. And then GRID came out. He first noticed it from a YouTube video that he found here which is actually quite entertaining. It compares GRID with GT5.
Well back to the game. It looks beautiful. The graphics are well done and clean for the most part. The AI is pretty good too. Instead of the noraml static figures that make up the spectator crowd these guys will actually have reactions to what is happening For instance, when you run into the wall the specatators behind the wall will actually turn away and try to shield themselves from the collision. Pretty cool.
You have a pit crew that will talk to you during the race to let you know what is happening. They give you info like who the leader is, how far away from him you are, how close you are to at least making a podium stand, how badly you have damaged your car during wrecks and collisions, etc.
One of the bad things that Gary is having trouble with though is the controls. they seem to be quite touchy. We are unsure at this time if it is the game or just the controller he has but he is unable to control his speed. It seems to be go or no go with the gas pedal. The realistic yet annoying thing with the controls is that as you damage your car it will translate into how well your car handles. If you bend that wheel axle at all while driving then you will have a hell of time trying to finish the race and place.
GRID does have a pretty good physics engine though. Gary at one point when playing around with the game was doing donuts on the sandy part of the track and kicked a regular dust storm! Fun times. Also part of the physics engine would be the damage caused by crashes and collisions. There is no bouncing off and getting back into the game. Crashes and collisions cause real damage to your car, the track around you and the other cars that you are racing against. It makes the replay of the race look like you are almost watching the real thing.
Overall it is a real nice game. Like previous racing games you get a garage with cars to choose from for each race. With placing on the podium at each race that you participate in you earn access to upgrades to your vehicles. You will not find cutesy cars here either. These are real muscle machine type cars that have serious racing in mind. Gary is enjoying it and a happy husband makes me happy too! :)

Memory Mayhem

Okay here’s the deal. I finished GTA IV last weekend and a friend wanted to borrow it. So reluctantly I handed it over and moved on to my next cellophane wrapped game Lost Odyssey. I know I’m a little behind on this one but I’m a busy man goddammit and Niko needed me.

So I start playing and I absolutely love it. It’s an RPG much in the same vein as Final Fantasy and while I am not an uber otaku fuck fanboy of the series I do enjoy the games. The presentation reminds me a lot of FFX and the story is passable. The graphics are pretty good but slowdown is evident at some points. The dialogue is at times laughable; although, Jansen is the greatest comedic relief character to come out of an RPG since Morte in Planescape Torment.

And then I got my first memory and promptly started jabbing needles into my leg to make sure I wasn’t delusional. Let me explain.

You get a memory at certain points in the story when the amnesia ridden main character (because that’s fucking original) sees something that triggers his memory. Okay fair enough. Then you get the option to skip the memory or to look at it. I made the mistake of looking at the memory.

And I do mean look. I shit you not, music plays and pictures occasionally change in the background, but you “experience” the memory by reading the goddamn thing on the TV. READING!!! What the fuck? And to top it off the writing is melodramatic shit that was written by a 12 year old emo woe is me suicidal kid. ARGGH. And the fucking things thus far have absolutely nothing to do with the game’s story.

And then on top of that my screen is smallish in size and not high def so I find myself sitting two feet away from the damn thing squinting to make out letters and getting cancer of the eye. Bullshit.

This is the 21^st century and you couldn’t do voice? My goddamn computer speaks fluent Japanese and you can’t take the time to put this shitty writing to sound? (If anyone knows the setting in my control panel to make my computer stop talking to me in Japanese let me know.) This game is on the X-Box 360 and they couldn’t pull some guy out of the fucking mail room to V.O. these things? Your game is on 4 DVD’s for fucks sake. So it couldn’t be a space issue.

The only good fact about this shit is that they do let you skip the memories. And I use that feature frequently. Don’t get me wrong, I am enjoying the game. But this memory shit has got to improve or go.

So you Want to be a Model?

Peter Molyneux and Lionhead Studios are looking for art models. All you have to do is head out and take a picture of yourself and send it in. Just follow this link here and check it out.

Spore Creature Creator Going Live

EA has announced that the Spore Creature Creator will be released to the public on June 17th. This tool is of course not the full game but is designed to help hype the game as it nears it's September 7th release date. The game itself is in it's final testing and polishing phases.

The best part about the creature creator? It isn't useless. You can begin creating and sharing your creatures with friends in anticipation of the games arrival. Unfortunately it seems as though there will be two flavors of the creature creator. A free version which will contain about a quarter of the full capability of the game, and a pay version which will have the full capability of the game.

My only fear is that it will end up like Black and White did... great concept but boring execution.