Be Excellent To Each Other

Anyone else got this? Finally got it today (technically yesterday, but Morrison's happily sold me a copy that produced the 'disc is unreadable' error immediately) and it's rather nice.

Think of it as a cross between GTAIV and Burnout Paradise, with a dash of Forza 2 and Midtown Madness. And some Test Drive Unlimited, I suppose.

GTA: Huge, realistic city with cops
Burny Pee: Lots of wild challenges
Midtown: Absolutely loads of traffic and pedestrians
Forza 2: Did I mention a huge roster of real licenced cars with customization and painting?



You, as a newcomer to the LA street racing scene, work your way up through the ranks by racing other people, building a reputation, buying better cars and upgrading them to be faster still.

It looks lovely - the city comes alive with traffic and pedestrians. When the rain came I was treated to the nicest 'wet streets' I've seen since SBK. My first encounter with the cops came midway through a race - I won the race but still had to shake them. The result was a huge chase across half the city. I managed to get onto the interstate but it was morning rush hour, prompting a tense struggle to gain ground through heavy traffic and then slip off at an exit and disappear back into the city streets. The short cutscenes give the game a more human face (compared to Burnout and Forza) without interfering in your fun.

I think this should appeal to a whole range of bezzies: we can paint our cars in obscene ways; the slower pace of the races means that a crash doesn't equate to watching the pack disappearing into the distance nor does it mean the game goes so fast it's unplayable; there's far, far fewer of the stunts that some folks struggle with.

Plus, most of us have all but finished Burny Pee, single and multiplayer.

The Good:
-a metric buttload of real, licenced cars - sports, exotic, muscle, luxury.
-bikes!
-police chases
-big, wide roads with less street furniture to make it hard to tell where to go next *glance in Burnout's direction*
-fun races
-boosty powerups that require skill and timing to use
-FULLY customizable controls
-weather/time of day cycle
-a lovely race editor

The Bad:
-fewer crazy stunts and jumps
-though the game has much better street lighting than Burnout, it's still sometimes hard to see stuff at night.
-the cops are a lot harder to shake than in GTA
-damage plays a larger role: crash and your car stays damaged for the rest of the race, though it doesn't seem to affect handling to heavily
-it takes a long time to earn money
-greater emphasis on straight races might feel repetitive to those who miss the red fuselage
-paintshop not as full-featured as Forza's

The Ugly:
-there's one section of the city that's like Temple Way in Bristol: so many underpasses, flyovers and ramps that's it's impossible to tell which way you should go to hit the next checkpoint
-"You know why I'm in first place? Cause you is a BUSTAH!"
-While there's no DJ Atomica, everyone (bar a few token foreigners) talks like him
-minimap and other popup messages (your phone) slightly hard to see in SD.

Note that so far I've yet to try some of the powerups apart from the nitro, and the bikes are a LONG way off. But so far, so very good.

There's a DLC due in January that features new cars and a map expansion.

It i sin the post from Play.

Huzzah! If anything, I hope it will tide us over until Simbin Super Race Pro GT Ultra Plus Champeen Edition.

I don't enjoy sim racers, and hated Sega Rally too. I wonder what racer games I enjoy. Ah, Burnout, that's it/ So is rthis Burntout#?

Dimrill is drunk/has a broken keyboard/has been drunk INTO his keyboard, breaking it.

It's probably closest to Burnout, but the races are checkpointy/time trially like GTA/Midtown.

Does it have a Dave? If it hadsn't got a Dave I probably won't like it.

I've got this, although I haven't opened it yet.

Ar eyou Dave?

Yes I am a Dave, so there will be a Dave in it.

Played a lot more this evening. Got a bike. They're almost, almost as nimble as those in Burnout. Doing wheelies and such requires the use of a 'shift weight' button (more on that in a second) but this also means you can shift your weight to the side to do an extra hard slidey turn... or don't push the button and turn as hard as you can without allowing it to slide. Interesting.

The shift weight button also allows you to spontaneously drive your car on two wheels. Just like Steve Gutenberg! Doing so not only looks wacky, but it prevents people behind from slipstreaming. This is VERY VERY IMPORTANT, as I shall now explain.

There's two types of boost, essentially. One is your nitro. You can increase your capacity for nitros by buying upgrades. These are refilled after every lap of a circuit race, or by driving through a gas station during a race. The other is 'SST', a fancy word for slipstreaming. Basically, if you can stay fairly close behind someone for long enough, a slipstream bar fills. Once it's full, hit the nitro button for a free 'slipstream' boost. The closer you are, the faster the bar fills. Neat. Unless they're on a bike, or do some funky two-wheel action to evade.

A word of advice - tempting though it is after so much Burnout, don't bind your nitro to 'A'... you might push A to a dialogue which deposits you back in the game... and immediately activate a precious nitro. D'oh!

There's also 'special abilities' - Aggro, which makes you invulnerable; EMP which disrupts electricity (and thus other vehicles' engines), Zone which is essentially bullet time, and Roar, which causes other cars to get out of your way. Aggro is the only one I've tried so far as it seems the most useful. The stated purpose is so that you can smash your opponents out of the way (think 'Solid Granite Car' in Carmageddon) but I've found it's far more useful as a 'ohshit' button. About to crash (particularly on a bike)? Hit Aggro and plow through that stopped traffic or bounce off that wall! So far as I can determine, you can only have one special ability at a time. It starts empty and charges up as you go... unless you hit stuff, in which case the charge decreases. Unless it's full, in which case you can hit stuff all you like and save it for when you need it.

There's a TDU-style race editor which is a joy to use, as in a stroke of genius you can either plot points on the map or... wow... drive along, clicking the left stick to drop checkpoints as you go!

The cops are a PAIN until you learn how to lose them. One achievement is to drive off as the cop walks over to give you a ticket, so I did this... and had a 20 minute chase. If you're lucky, you can outrun 'em on the freeways. If not, you need to twist and turn through the city and duck down alleyways and such to get out of their sight. And once there, stay there. The cops will also be called if you cause too much havoc, though you are warned of this through your scanner and can leave the area before a cruiser arrives to investigate. Something that GTA needed was a radar detector... and you have on here... so not only can you see cops (even unangered ones) on the minimap, but you can HEAR if they're in the area too.

The aforementioned alleyways are key, as in Burnout, to getting somewhere fast. Quite often the fastest route will involve several that cut across the middle of city blocks and link two otherwise parallel streets. They're shown on the map, though a few narrower ones can be hard to spot on an SD TV. You soon get used to finding them, and the fact that the tough looking gates or fences that block many are easily smashed. Likewise, the majority of corners are intended to be cut... some by quite a lot. You still have to be mindful of lamp posts and such, but otherwise you can shave a bit of time off on each bend and keep some speed by remembering to cut.

Because the game is 'only' a 12+, it avoids much of the need to be 'edgy', 'street' and 'gangsta' by not having any swearing. Yes, you'll still be called a 'bustah' and 'fool' and told you need more 'respect'... but by cutting out the swearing they've had to be a bit more creative with the dialogue. What's more surprising is that not everyone is an asshole who constantly berates you. Falling behind? Your opponent might mock, or they might offer a pointer. Gave up and hit the 'restart race' button? The other driver might well say you did pretty well regardless. I am astonished! 'Your character' (some guy of indeterminate age and origin) alternates between being an amusing foil to the other characters (fighting your corner well by returning their smacktalk with aplomb) and a total arse (people phone up to give advice to be met with a snide 'yeah, whatever, I know it all already'). Granted, some characters do ring too much to offer tips (Karol calls after every race or visit to the fucking map screen early on with a tip, and the phone obscures your minimap preventing you from seeing the arrow pointing you towards the other racer you just went into the map to select).

I got this for Christmas, and managed to play it last night for all of ten minutes before having to go to bed. It did seem good from the limited time I had with it, though.

Sounds pretty good but I doubt I'll be getting another racing game in between now and RacePro in Feb.

I was tempted by this when I saw it discounted last week...might be worth a punt.

I suppose it all depends whether you've played Burnout Paradise to death or not (I've sunk 65 hours into it). I wanted a new openworld arcade racer, and driving round Los Angeles in real cars appealed to me in a different way to Burnout.

I see Race Pro as our replacement for Forza 2, really (until Forza 3 comes out, anyway).

I wasn't over-enamoured with BurnyP really, so I suppose this might be a bit pointless for me. Also the Tim Westwoodness of it puts me off rather a lot. So looking forward to Race Pro though, more so than Forza 3, even.

Mine arrived this morning.

Where can one purchase a reliable hefty stick to beat to death every character in this game?

ProTip: set the steering sensitivity down to -5 in the options menu. I found it incredibly twitchy before doing this. Also, is the day/night cycle set to LA time or something? Last night when I played it was daytime, and now it's night...

Hideous product placement to ENRAGE our dear Sinister Agent: One achievement

I had a Midnight Club game on the PS2 which I loved until I hit a sudden, inexplicable increase in the difficulty that stopped my progress. As such, I am wary of this.

I can't run over pedestrians, they skip out of the way It's like a dream where you're having sex; you never quite get there.

Why are there pedestrians if you can't run them over?

It's incredibly apparent that Rockstar developers are gonkish cretins when it comes to selecting music for their games.

Because it's a racing game, not GTA. Los Angeles would seem a bit unrealistic without pedestrians, don't you think?

Fuck. Realism.

Make up your mind. You were moaning you couldn't run over the pedestrians. If it was realistic then you would be able to (and hellishly frustrating it would be too, if every time you were trying to race you ended up creaming someone into the pavement).

Fuck. Realism.

Fuck this striving for a realistic "game". If real life was so much fucking fun I wouldn't be playing a fucking game. Games should stop trying to be "real" or just like a film. You don't see any other entertainment media attempting to be something else. Our local adventure playground doesn't try to be a book.

But you're putting images of pedestrians in to make it look realistic, then ignoring them when it comes to the mechanics of the game. Seeing them there is realism. Smearing them all over the bonnet is fun.

It could also be something to do with the aforementioned certification.

Exactly. Hence it's better to not be able to run them over. Fun > Realism.

???

The mechanics of the game don't have anything to do with pedestrians. Next you'll be moaning you can't run over your pit crew in Forza.

If they're visible, they should be obstacles. You'd expect to collide with a lamppost if you hit it, right?

It's not like you go straight through them; they actively dive out of the way.

That's unrealistic. Americans would be too fat and slow to dive out of the way.

More - it's unentertaining. I want to see lung on my windscreen, goddammit. I want Midnight Club: Carmageddon.

Exactly. MCLA is all about ludicrous racing in a real-world city; it's not GTA crossed with Burnout (even if it looks like it).

An online Carmageddon would be fucking awesome. Something that requires more than just holding the right trigger until you drive a certain amount of distance.

When we played GTAIV races, did you arseholes actually spend your time driving down the sidewalk to flatten pedestrians, or did you concentrate on trying to win the race?

Mayhem. I was having fun.

It doesn't help that in this game I feel like Father Ted lying in bed listening to Father Fintonstack downstairs.

You can make a custom playlist, you know. Also, the music is approximately ten times better than that on GTA IV.

£18 on Play still.. my wallet is twitching.

EDIT -- hah, ordered Sadly the PlayTrade copy of Bully for £11 I was going to get sold out while I was going through the checkout. Never mind.

I can't believe that for a game which offers so much goodness you are dismissing it because of what amounts to part of the scenery. Suppose you could hit them? Then the thudding impacts would slow you down, you'd lose the race and then bitch about that instead.

For someone who plays so many games I struggle to convince myself this isn't just a wind-up.

And what's prevented you from playing your own music like you did in Burnout when you got sick of its soundtrack?

Of course it's a bloody windup. I dunno, you Yankee Doodles and your po-faced lack of humour

Pah. He missed out on SERIOUS ACHIEVEMENT POINTS (well, maybe 30 or so) this afternoon by not join myp and I for a little 'so what can we do in multiplayer, then?' action. The single-flag CTF mode is hilarious... whoever is carrying it can only go at maybe half their top speed, leading to hilarious driving of circles and frantic dodging of approaching rivals.

Look I've already ordered it, you can stop applying the thumbscrews now.

Another great little thing that makes you think, 'why hasn't anyone else done this before?' is that if you just hold the right trigger in a little way, it'll match the throttle to the speed limit of the road, so if the cops are around then you don't have to worry about them chasing you for speeding if you're trying to lay low.

I'm not. I'm saying that so far it smacks of Burnout Paradise, but nowhere near as good.

Personally I don't think it's much like BP at all, apart from the fact it's got cars in it.

I'll just shut up then. Carry on.