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[Poor Mobile Port Leaves A lot To Be Desired]

1

TalkBack / CarX Highway Racing (Switch) Review

« on: March 24, 2024, 06:29:18 PM »

Poor Mobile Port Leaves A lot To Be Desired

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/66711/carx-highway-racing-switch-review

The conversion from mobile to console is a precarious one. When going from a freemium platform to a straight paid experience there are fundamental changes in the game structure that have to be added or subtracted, but there should also be some added incentive to opt purely for the premium play experience. The conundrum that publishers often face is whether they spend extra time investing in the several-years-old IP to refresh it for a new outlet or do they simply port the product sans in-game purchases and let it be. What does a 2024 release on the Nintendo Switch?

The opening is nearly exactly the same on console as it is on mobile (IOS). You, the player, are a driver with a notorious reputation and you are called in by a friend to help her escape pursuers that she is investigating. The opening art has you looking like Memphis Raines getting into his Eleanor Mustang GT500KR (but the game doesn't actually license the names so all car nomenclature is made up) and takes off for the chase. The chase ends when you reach the set goal post and you come in first. That doesn’t feel like much of a chase now does it? After the secondary chase, you have “Lost” your tail and now you are assisting in an investigation into a street racing team that is stealing cars (sounds like a movie plot with multiple sequels). For some reason, you no longer have the Mustang and must buy a new lower end vehicle to start with and off you go to infiltrate the crime family and expose them.

All racing “stages” are point to point regardless of the race type (eg. timed, chase, duel etc.) in a linear highway path. This game is not open world and there are no diverging paths. Your main obstacles will be traffic in both your and on-coming lanes along with the performance of your vehicle relative to the opponents. The enemy AI will attempt to ram you and knock you off the road if you are too close and traffic AI is fairly static, they don’t seem to attempt lane changes. If you attempt a race multiple times (in case of a loss) you will find that the traffic pattern and enemy AI is almost always doing the same thing depending on your actions. In one particular race, I noted that the same enemy SUV tipped over at the same point in the race 9 times out of 10. In this way, this console port still feels very much derived from a mobile game and rings rather hollow given the potential for police pursuits as cops do appear in specific races but rarely provide extra challenge.  On a linear game map, you must complete the races in a section to complete a chapter.

As you move from one chapter to the next, the car levels become higher and more difficult to face off with in a previous level car. What makes absolutely no sense at all is that if you were to race a class 1 car fully modded out in a challenge with class 2 cars, the race is near impossible. If you buy a class 2 car, with no modifications, (meaning its stats are well below the previously owned modified class 1 vehicle) suddenly the race is win-able. Then there is the way the game classifies the vehicles. Despite their real world resemblance, the performance and ranking of the cars is perplexing. The DMC Delorian clone is somehow a class 3 car along with the Evolution 9 and Holden Maloo lookalikes but the BMW M3 wanna be and ‘not’ MK 7 VW Golf GTI are class 1 vehicles. The Elenore Mustang copycat is a class 2 car for some reason here when it should be a 3.

The vehicle progression system is easy and predictable. As you win money for races, it is necessary to feed the vehicle upgrades to keep it competitive within its own class. Suspension and chassis upgrades do seem to affect handling and cornering around long bends of highway. The brake button feels superfluous as I haven't found myself really using it. Braking just causes the AI to slingshot past you and I don’t really see AI using it either. Most of the highway obstacles must simply be dodged and lifting off the gas around long bends seems to suffice.   The controls feel very light and a tad imprecise with the Switch joy cons. The “tap the screen” scheme for left and right with the gas as always being “on” felt more natural on the mobile version.

The presentation also leaves something to be desired. The story is told through stills with dialogue that seems to have been translated from another language as some of the grammar is odd and the typos are very noticeable. Car X Highway was a straight port from the mobile game and it shows. The character avatars all look like movie star knockoffs. Finn looks like Baby Driver, Olivia looks like Michelle Rodriguez, David looks like JCVD, Winston is a dead ringer for D'onofrio's Kingpin and Sander looks like Vin Diesel with a mustache. Not that any of that is bad but it is clear where the game’s inspiration comes from.

In game, the graphics themselves are fine, perfect in-fact for the lower powered Nintendo Switch. The vehicle textures look good, the background dynamics are solid with little popup and the buildings on the side as you pass them look just fine. The sound design is certainly one of the strong points here. The funky guitar riffs and looping techno tracks on the stage menu are toe tappingly good. The fervor of the drum and bass soundtrack during the races keeps you inspired. The roar of the engines and the sound of nitrous are a little generic but acceptable given that it was originally a mobile game, they do the job well. When working together, the racing sounds and visuals are great! Now if only the races themselves had a little more depth and the road more nuance in structure.

The customizations of the vehicles are plentiful. Performance upgrades abound combined with body kits and paint gives you a lot of visualization to play with. The additional game modes such as free roam or challenge modes give you an escape from the campaign story mode which is a nice change. Day and night racing times also add some variety to the backdrop. There is even a police mode which gives the game an almost “Hot pursuit” feel. To this end, every vehicle has a police car skin to turn the races in a hunt down.

Car X Highway racing feels like a missed opportunity to give us an enhanced experience of the mobile game and a bigger miss on giving us an American “Wangan Midnight”. While the music and graphics hold up, the plot and game play are just too thin for a console release. Other mobile ports like Gear.Club unlimited feel better polished and the races feel more satisfying. Even some of CarX technologies other releases such as CarX street give more driving depth. With so many other racing games on offer within the Nintendo Switch Library, it is difficult to stand out. CarX highway attempts to give us something a little different than the market standard in racing games and for 10 bucks, it's not a bad buy but I would be looking at a few better polished titles first.

[Bite sized sim racer for the beginner F1 enthusiast]

2

TalkBack / New Star GP (Switch) Review

« on: March 07, 2024, 11:59:15 AM »

Bite sized sim racer for the beginner F1 enthusiast

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/66514/new-star-gp-switch-review

It's 1992, I’m 12 years old, and I have a pocket full of quarters as I walk into Diversions arcade in Chicago. I weave past Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter 2 headed for the racing games. Virtua Racing has a bit of a line but still, I put my quarter up, waiting to take a seat at one of the coolest racing games of the time. I can only imagine that the development team at New Star Games have had similar fond memories of the sit-down arcade racers of old. The polygonal aesthetic and feel of games like Daytona USA and Cruis’n USA have long shaped my love for racing games, and it seems like that nostalgic feeling is returning to a Switch near you in the form of New Star GP.

New Star GP is the retro arcade Formula-style racing game that not only pays homage to games like Virtua Racing but brings a simplified, bite-sized take on the Formula 1 sim. The term “sim” is used loosely as the game play itself leans extremely towards an arcade experience but adds on sim-like pieces such as fuel and tire management. The pit stops make the player engage in the refueling process and give you the option of switching out tires with a different compound to strategize future pit stops. There is also a crew to manage. If one doesn't pay attention to the team, they may become unhappy and it will affect their work. If that wasn't enough, there is varying weather to play through, so a set of wet tires are available to you when things get damp. You’ll need to stay aware of your current situation as well as that racing line. If you mess up a turn or crash out, there is always the handy rewind feature that allows you to back the last few seconds up and try it again.

The game features a career mode and an arcade championship. The arcade championship allows you to pick vehicles that range in design from the 1980s to current day as well as choose your team and then sets you off on a series of races that take you on an international tour. Championship mode does away with some of the sim aspects such as fuel and tire management and allows you to focus purely on the racing. The career mode runs you through several seasons and generations of tracks and Formula racing vehicles. In career mode, for each location, you can choose from the main GP, an elimination race, and a timed checkpoint run. Each event awards you cash for car upgrades and team staff, which you will need in order to remain competitive with the AI drivers. Managing the team members is a big part of your overall strategy.  By spending time with them or giving them bonuses, perks like faster refueling time and more money from winning events become available.

When it comes to managing the car, you can use your money to develop your vehicle in career mode just like a sim racer. You can pay to upgrade things like aero, engine, suspension, transmission, and braking. Interestingly enough, you can also license tech from other manufacturers (just like a real racing team) but the performance bonuses are not permanent when leasing. On track, the car handles very arcade-like with a few sim foibles like tire wear and wet or hot roads that can affect handling. The sense of speed is there, but it won’t feel as real as F1 20xx or Gran Turismo, which is fine for the presentation style. In the hot seat, you can choose several different camera views. If you are feeling “simmy,” you can opt for the driver cockpit view or you can flip to a chase cam, near-helicopter overhead view or a drone-like chase cam. New Star GP offers you the ability to see the optimal drive line just like other race games to help keep you on track, and in addition to the aforementioned rewind, you also have a boost button for an ERS-like burst of speed to aid in passing. The in-race AI is very aggressive and occasionally intelligent and at other times overly aggressive and psychotic. They will do their best to defend their position when threatened with an overtake, but their maneuvers at times would warrant a serious investigation from the FIA race stewards. Luckily, you won't have to suffer the abuse for long as races are only 4 to 6 laps in length depending on the track. While there are 10 teams in total, there is only one racer per team instead of the customary two, which cuts down on the mid-race slog of having to wind through AI drivers.

Having talked about how much this is a Formula 1 type game, it is very much that but without the licensing and branding. Racing team and part company names are symbolic to real teams and manufacturers such as Bellini engines being an analog for Ferrar or Parbo brakes being a stand-in for Brembo. Drivers also bear some resemblance to historic racers of old such as Ayrton Serafine and Niki Laube being present in the ‘80s decade. These are fun little Easter eggs to spot during play through and at times had me wondering “who's that driver-mon?!”

Graphically, the game is very Virtua Racing with smoother textures and more details. Shadows of overhead planes and flocks of birds fly by in realistic fashion. When bad weather rolls in, the sky becomes cloudy and gray. Rain pours down in a torrent, pooling up mini lakes on the track whilst strikes of lightning illuminate the darkened skies. The complete visual package is a total   retro feel with 2020ish pizazz. Audiowise, the cars sound like high-revving, low-displacement beasts as one would expect from a Formula type racing game. Other sound effects such as overhead airplanes and the pitter patter of rain all feel organic and real.The music is purposely synth-heavy and has a 16-bit vibe to add to the nostalgia factor.

Overall, New Star GP is a fun, bite-sized racing game that avoids some of the overly in-depth portions of the F1 series and skims the surface of team and car management to give you some control, all while keeping it simple and enjoyable. If you are someone like me who really likes the idea of multi-season sim racing but tires of the constant car development, juggling of team staff and 60-lap races, New Star GP is the game for you. It’s easy to pick up and put down, especially with the much shorter races it features, and it doesn’t require a wheel and racing seat to get the most out of it. New Star GP is an unconventional mix of arcade and sim and even though that may turn off some of the more dedicated sim geeks, I highly recommend it for casual race fans. That said hardcore racers should still find plenty to like here with its upgrade system and fuel/tire management scheme during the career mode. New Star GP is not a replacement for a Formula 1 game and it's not exactly a Sega arcade hardware racer, but it is a damn fine tribute. Is that your quarter?

[Motorbike racing for the detailed-oriented fan.]

3

TalkBack / RiMS Racing (Switch) Review

« on: October 04, 2021, 01:31:41 PM »

Motorbike racing for the detailed-oriented fan.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/58583/rims-racing-switch-review

As an American petrolhead, I have a love of all things mechanica. However, motorbikes have been a bit of a blindspot for me. I certainly can appreciate the high-revving nature of small displacement engines running at full tilt. As far as video games go, Road Rash for Sega Genesis and its follow ups represent my favorite motorcycle based franchise, but regrettably I haven't played much else until I picked up RiMS Racing. RiMS Racing from Raceward Studio is more than just a motorcycle racer; it’s a sim that seriously sweats the small stuff but curiously leaves a few things amiss.

Much like other sim or sim-like racers (think Project Cars 1 and 2), this is a game where the producers really want you to experience the physics of motorbike racing. There is a brief tutorial that gets you acquainted with the controls, but it does not go far enough. While there are training sessions that can be unlocked as you progress through the game, I feel like they do not prepare new players for things like high-speed cornering or front versus rear braking. I found myself unable to corner at the same speed as the AI at its default difficulty level. Since this is a sim, there is a lot of physics involved, especially with how long it takes the rider to lean from one side of the bike to the other when shooting from corner to corner in quick succession, which can make or break your lap. The heft of the rider can be felt in the controls almost to the detriment of the player because of the game mechanics.

This sim competes directly with the likes of the Moto GP series in which you are given complete control over your bike setup, perhaps a little too much control. You can adjust some settings on the fly in the motorcycle status check window, but going through the menus while in a race can be infuriating. Before a race, it is certainly a great idea to choose a tire and suspension configuration that is optimized for the track you are on as well as the various weather conditions, but RiMS goes a little further. Starting with a list of manufacturers including Suzuki, Ducati, BMW, Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Aprilla and Agusta MV, and one bike from each company on offer, the pool isn’t very large. However, the massive catalog of aftermarket parts dwarfs most car sim racers.

During a career run, you can use your money won from events to purchase and install these parts and I do mean, YOU install them. Once you have selected your part, brake pads for example, you are presented with a sort of quick time event where you must remove the caliper cover and unsecure and remove the old brake pad using controls as prompted.  Then you must apply the new brake pad and then secure the caliper using the analog stick and bottom prompts as presented in the opposite order. For every new part you install, you must wrench it yourself and it is possible to replace nearly every part on the bike with almost (some parts are bike specific) any of the 500+ parts at your disposal when the old parts wear out. Some may enjoy this; others will find it unnecessarily tedious, especially when it comes to having to manage your inventory.

Once you have obsessed over your bike’s setup, it is time to put it out on the track, and here is where things begin to falter.  In a race against nine other racers, the frame rate drops precipitously and all of the track detail becomes jagged and pixely. While other ports look pretty good, the Switch hardware underperforms and looks almost reminiscent of a PlayStation 2 title. The changeable perspective is nice to have and the first-person and helmet views are pretty good, but visibility of corners becomes a problem when trying to see the track from the first-person view. Also as mentioned before, when leaving the game in its default setup, things like cornering at any kind of speed are extremely difficult, while the CPU riders have no problem whatsoever carrying on at near full speed around the bends with their rider kneeling deep into the turn. Meanwhile, I understeer like a yacht into the wild green yonder, incurring a time penalty for my “shortcut.” Honestly, the game is better played at a lower difficulty with the physics toned down a bit. As well, there is the problem of the dumbed-down AI constantly knocking into you, which creates some hilarious far off shots of you flying off your bike in ragdoll fashion. The AI, when tinkered with, goes from ridiculously quick to slow and a bit idiotic.

The music itself keeps the game lively with exclusive EDM tracks from The Bloody Beatroots. The motorcycle engine sounds come off as genuine and realistic. Playing with headphones or on a TV with an excellent sound system is highly recommended to be able to fully enjoy the audio. When not in motion, the graphics themselves are fine. The up-close view of the bikes and upgradable mechanical parts are also well detailed. In addition, it’s worth noting that the 10 real world tracks from Silverstone to Nürburgring Grandprix are here in all of their simulated glory. Everything surrounding the actual racing itself is top notch; it's just the game’s performance on the Nintendo Switch that lets down the package.

After following my own advice and turning the sim knob from 11 down to 5, RiMS Racing becomes an enjoyable simulation racer for those who really want to wrench their bikes down to the last detail. The parts catalog is incredible, and the immersion factor is interesting if you are the kind of person who enjoys doing the work at your own pit stops during a race. The graphical downgrade on the Switch casts a pale shadow on what is otherwise a solid yet difficult game with occasional obtuse vehicle handling. If you are a bike-racing enthusiast and don’t mind a challenge in its single race, career or online play modes, this game is for you. Casual bikers (myself included) need not apply.

[Taking place centuries before Grand Theft Auto.]

4

TalkBack / Rustler (Switch) Review

« on: September 08, 2021, 11:13:45 AM »

Taking place centuries before Grand Theft Auto.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/58305/rustler-switch-review

When I was a lad of 17, I was introduced to a PC game called Grand Theft Auto, an overhead romp of violence and larceny that punched its way into the hearts of millions of             Gamers, while also drawing the ire of parents and censors alike the world over. The title would spawn many clones and copycats as well as multiple sequels of its own, thus reshaping the landscape of video games. Over the years, the series evolved into a 3D, hi-resolution cacophony of love making and carnage, culminating in the current online frag fest that has become GTA Online. Now, nearly 24 years later, Jutsu Games is returning to this idea with a back to basics approach. In describing their top-down 2D game Rustler, the developer quotes: “Classic GTA-gameplay gets a medieval makeover.” Yes, this is Grand Pilfer Equestrian.

You start out as a medieval dude named Guy, who wakes up mid-morning from a drunken haze. Your opening mission\tutorial is a fist fight with an angry pedestrian who has taken umbrage with you for placing a cow on his roof. After the initial fisticuffs, you head on over to your employer in all of your hungover glory and are given your first job of the day: steal a horse. Once the horse is procured, you have to head on over to the body sho… err, horse re-outfitting barn to throw off the law-enforcing knights who would be on the lookout for the stolen beast. Things only become more shady from there as you are eventually enticed to raise money to illegally participate in a knight’s tournament to win the hand of a fair maiden. To this end, you will “horsejack” ordinary citizens, execute local ruffians, assassinate knights, bully people to attend church mass, and then extort the tithe out of them in this overhead action-adventure.

Rustler is definitely not a game that takes itself too seriously, as several blatant anachronisms are strewn about the kingdom in the form of wall graffiti, red and blue strobing police knights, and beat boxing bards for hire. Also, some of the dialog and slang would feel at home in a game that takes place in the 1980s rather than the 1480s, especially with all of the Monty Python references. Even the game’s soundtrack is fairly modern for a Ye Olde knight in the kingdom slums atmosphere, but that doesn’t detract from the experience. All of this plays out to an amusing juxtapositional atmosphere that clearly highlights the game’s objective in offering a homage\parody of the GTA series.  

Rustler’s graphics are pretty darn good, vastly improving on the source material. The lighting is of special note as shadows are cast fairly accurately for everything and the cobblestone detail of the town that surrounds the castle grounds is nicely rendered. Sound and design work together very well here; traffic noise of horseshoes clopping their way down the street also fills the air to good effect. Standing on the corner of a random street gives you a sense of a bustling town.  Horse and carriage lanes are well traveled by horse riders transporting goods, people are tossing human waste out of their windows, sidewalks are populated with sneezing and coughing pedestrians probably dying of consumption, and the bricked corridors are, for some reason, filled with the echoed ravings of some tortured soul probably being crushed to death in an Iron Maiden (EXCELLENT! *Air guitar*).

Rustler plays like GTA1 and 2 almost to a tee. There is a simple control scheme for attacking, switching weapons, mounting a horse, dash/flipping, and running. However, you have a stamina bar that is depleted by some of these actions. What isn’t like the original GTA is that, as you complete missions and gain experience, you gain skill points that can be applied to a skill tree. The skill tree is pretty easy to understand as there are four columns of skill types: close combat, ranged combat, horse riding, and social skills. These upgraded skills make missions and causing a general ruckus much easier. There are also some environmental interactions unique to this medieval setting, like the ability to grab and toss the aforementioned human waste at pursuing law enforcement to slow them down. The difficulty depends on how much chaos you create. If you are not careful during a mission, you could wind up with 10 difficult-to-shake horseback knights chasing you all along the watchtowers. Luckily, if you hit a mission point while they are in pursuit, they drop all interest and disappear.

Taking a tried and true formula and putting its own spin on it, Rustler makes for a fun and rejuvenated experience. Its anachronistic irreverence keeps it in the spirit of the source with “maximum ridiculosity.” Like the original GTA experience, however, it's not perfect. Overly aggressive AI and somewhat repetitive fetch missions can make the game feel like a slog at times. It can be more fun to ditch the mission at hand and just don the Grim Reaper outfit, scaring farmers across the countryside and attempting to reap souls. It would be even more fun to be able to torture the serfs and peasants with a friend but alas this is a single-player title. Rustler is certainly an enjoyable nostalgic trip back in time for those who are old enough to remember it. Many younger gamers of the Halo and Fornite generation may not be able to appreciate it, but they won’t know what they are missing out on.

[Another driving-themed party game enters the fray.]

5

TalkBack / Crash Drive 3 (Switch) Review

« on: July 10, 2021, 10:52:51 PM »

Another driving-themed party game enters the fray.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/57807/crash-drive-3-switch-review

In a world where automotive based games are dominated by either the sim or arcade racer experience, there is a little space in between where the odd ones out find their niche. The most popular examples are the Mario Kart series and Rocket League, which choose the experience and fun of competition and gameplay over the nuances of the vehicles themselves. There are others out there that look to buck the typical automotive-based video game trends such as physics and mechanic sims, which turn to aspects of vehicular manipulation to help us pass the time. In the vein of the multiplayer experience, we have Crash Drive 3 from M2H, which looks to steal some of that party game lightning that kart racers seem to have bottled.

Where Mario Kart and Rocket League give you a set of controlled and closed off course environments, Crash Drive 3 places you in an open area with a set of ramps, natural jumps and obstacles with which to perform various tricks and feats. This open setup feels very Gymkana- like in flow and layout. There are five different world environments to play in; however, all except the first have to be unlocked during play. There is no story or true end objective, and you have two modes, offline and online. In each mode, you are given a set of timed challenges roughly every 30 seconds. Once an event begins, you will have an arrow over your vehicle that points you to the objective. The events include a checkpoint race, object tag, coin collecting, cops and robbers, and high score stunt driving, to name a few. Some events such as cops and robbers are only available in online play. In offline mode, there is no AI to compete against; it’s just you and the environment playing the available challenges that pop up.

During offline play, the game feels a little sparse in spite of ramps being everywhere.  I was less interested in the random events than I was trying to find the green rings located around various jumps that you need to hit to unlock the next environment. This seems to be the only way to move to another “world.”  Once you hit all the required rings, you have to find the exit to the realm you’re in, which is usually indicated by signs.  Once you find the exit, you drive through a tunnel and need to pay a toll fee to open the lock. Money is earned through doing tricks and winning events. Money can also buy you different vehicles which can be upgraded in the garage. That said, Crash Drive 3 offers little sense of in-game accomplishment beyond moving to the next environment and buying different looking vehicles. I'd like to see some sort of daily/weekly/regional leaderboard, custom titles over the cars or even more customization of the vehicles themselves.

Online mode is where this game is meant to shine. In a given instance, you are in the arena with around 10 other online players and when an event begins, it is a mad dash to complete the mission. The online only event, King, places a crown over someone's vehicle and every one has to chase that player to steal the crown. Whoever holds the crown the longest wins. Cops and Robbers is another online only event. In this game, half of the online players are cops who have to catch the robbers, the other half are robbers who have to collect gold bars. When the cops tag the robbers, they become cops and must chase down the rest of the robbers. The multiplayer madness is fast paced, grin inducing, and the meat of the game.

There are 47 different vehicles to unlock with in-game cash. There are also differences in the vehicle types according to weight class; light, medium, and heavy. Each vehicle has a feeling of heft to its controls, but the loosey goosey physics do little to inspire predictability of a vehicle's momentum at all times; it does fit the tone of the game, though. The weight does change how well you can perform certain tricks or how much damage you do in something like the Beach Ball challenge, so some vehicles are better for certain events than others.  Thus far, it seems that mostly cosmetic changes can be made with little performance tweaks to be had, which is fine for a game like this.

The controls in Crash Drive 3 are your basic litany of gas, break and nitrous. There is an e-brake to perform tight u-turns and to assist in a drift. The right stick moves the in-game camera POV, and you will need to adjust this frequently as u-turns rarely realign the camera for you in a timely manner, which can result in missed jumps or collectibles. Jumps can be difficult to line up due to the combination of controls and environment. The starter area, the arctic, forces players to manage the handicap of ice, snow and a partially frozen lake. I like the idea of being able to go under the ice into the water but due to the ice's fixed nature, you cannot simply "Kool-Aid man" your way out. You have to find a break in the ice with enough ramp or clear path to exit. The dev team thought of this as well as there are signs underwater that lead you to exit points of the lake. Someone must have realized that it was a bit difficult to get your bearings, going underwater just slows down the pace of the game unnecessarily and serves as a point of frustration as it can cause you to lose an event if you fall in.

Without a doubt, I can appreciate another party game entry for the speed demon in all of us.  In single player mode, it is sparse; it needs multiplayer to be fun, and online mode delivers the goods. On the other side, with games like Mario Kart and Rocket League you can find yourself with some AI opposition to make things interesting when riding solo. While online play is the focus of Crash Drive 3, the offline mode could stand to be more engaging. All in all, Crash Drive 3 continues its tradition of open-area multiplayer madness by offering more vehicles and more game types than its previous entries. A more in-depth single player mode with AI competition would be a very welcome addition, though.

[The Gran Turismo of overlanding, maybe.]

6

TalkBack / SnowRunner (Switch) Review

« on: June 26, 2021, 07:45:45 AM »

The Gran Turismo of overlanding, maybe.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/57680/snowrunner-switch-review

I consider myself to be a video game and car enthusiast, and it's a wonderful thing when those two worlds collide. Series like Gran Turismo, Project Cars, and Assetto Corsa have been a boon to the modern petrol head, but what if you craved something a little less urban?  I dove into SnowRunner with a double whammy. I have never played any form of truck sim nor did I expect to find one since I went into this review completely blind. I expected Snow Runners to be something like Big Mutha Truckers or Monster Truck Madness, but I was way off.

SnowRunner puts you in the seat of something with 4-wheel drive, gives you a little direction as to your goal, and sends you off you into the wild woodlands of yonder.  In career mode, you start in a Chevy Avalanche, looking to deliver goods to repair a bridge somewhere in northern Michigan. Your first job is to find a tower to reveal more of the map (is that you Ubisoft?) so you can see what resources you have. Your vehicle starts with the parking brake on in some soft dirt in rear wheel drive mode. First things first: you must release the parking brake manually, then you apply some foot to the throttle. It will become apparent that your car is struggling just a bit with the terrain. At this point, the game advises you to manually shift into All Wheel drive and low gear. Once that part of the tutorial is done, you can mark your map to the tower and follow the path. The starting Michigan area will throw lots of challenges in your path such as blocked roads, trails that have rivers running through them and dirt that becomes mud, which will force you to manually engage the differential lock.

These challenges will slow you down and probably stop you completely. I learned quickly that this isn't a game that you power through with any sort of real speed; the terrain won’t allow it. It is far too easy to become stuck in the mud or river requiring you to attach a winch to the nearest tree and pull yourself out. Fortunately, the physics are done very well for this laborious setting. The trucks will fishtail on slippery surfaces, and the controls reflect the heft of each vehicle. Applying throttle in regular gear only results in wheel spin when entrenched in muck; it's only when you shift to low gear that your truck can gain traction. Given these facts, you are required to be patient and thoughtful as to how you approach each obstacle. If your car takes too much damage and you fail a mission, you are pretty much stuck until you reset the stage. You better get used to restarting stages as trial and error is a huge part of SnowRunner.

Speaking of error, I spent more time stuck in the mud than a three-legged pig. I used the winch so many times that I felt like I was trapped in an ambitious but rubbish episode of Top Gear. It is so easy to get stuck in the mud if you are not paying attention, just like in real life. That's where this game shines: the physics model and environment are very well thought out and feel solid. As the road changes, you can feel the grip under the truck change. If you stop in the mud, your vehicle will start to sink. The sounds from the trucks are convincing enough as are some of the sound effects from the surrounding environment, such as the rushing river water or the sound of rubber struggling for traction as you crawl through sand.

As time passes, the sun sets, making it a little more difficult to traverse the paths. You have to manually activate your headlights to see what's ahead. My problem was, it took a few minutes of wandering around in the dark before the game prompted me with the key combo to activate them. If you wade too deep into the water, your vehicle will stall and its game over. If you take a wrong approach angle, your vehicle will flip and flex its damage model muscle, also resulting in a game over. Choosing an end point on the map does not always highlight your path and only gives you a general direction. This game does not like to hold your hand.

Outside of the campaign mode is the challenge mode that places you in several scenarios with different objectives that range from traversing a swamp to finding your way through a forest with no map. No matter the mode, even on normal difficulty, this game is not for greenhorns or casual drivers. As the name implies, there is some snow to navigate through, as well as some rock crawling to be done, and none of it is simple. SnowRunner is as close to "The Real Truck Simulator" I have ever seen that doesn't include 18 wheels and an oversized trailer. From manually having to hitch short trailers and the option to manually load your cargo with a crane, this is an overlander enthusiast's dream.

It's not perfect, thoug, as noticeable jank crops up from time to time. I have had bits of gate collapse near me that I had made no contact with. Heck, I could park next to a picket fence of a suburban house and honk the truck's horn to make it fall over. The objectives can be a little frustrating. For example, in the first career job, you have to get metal beams and wood to build a bridge. If you grab the wood before the metal and go to the bridge, it won't let you drop it off. The game makes you reset the mission and grab the metal first. Also, opting to rescue your car from being stuck puts you back at the beginning of the challenge. It's not so much a rescue option as it is a full reset without selecting restart, which is rather annoying.

Annoyances aside, SnowRunner is a great non-18-wheeler truck driving simulator. Its steep learning curve takes patience and determination to overcome. It’s clear that this game is aimed at a very specific clientele. If you like a good challenge and overlanding is your kind of thing, Snow Runners is for you. If you like to romp through the countryside at full tilt with little consequence to your vehicle, stick to Forza Horizon.

[A straight-laced, 2-for-1, RPG punch.]

7

TalkBack / Saviors of Sapphire Wings/Stranger of Sword City Revisited (Switch) Review

« on: March 16, 2021, 11:30:00 AM »

A straight-laced, 2-for-1, RPG punch.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/56575/saviors-of-sapphire-wingsstranger-of-sword-city-revisited-switch-review

Nippon Ichi Software or NIS is a team of veteran game makers who love giving us RPGs. Their output runs the gamut from tactics strategy battlers like the Disgaea series to questionable fanservice dungeon crawlers like Dungeon Travelers and Demon’s Gaze that have enough scant of the clad to make you shout “I FOUND THE HENTAI!!” However, it isn’t all just Pretties and Prinnies at NIS. In their most recent release, NIS is giving us a couple of straight-laced releases as a two for one offering on Nintendo Switch: Saviors of Sapphire Wings and Stranger of Sword City Revisited, with the former being the main feature. Having never played either title before, I had to see if there was a specific order in which to approach them or if they were even related, the answers are no, and kind of. Since there is a lot to cover with two games in hand, this will be more of a general overview review that I will try to keep as spoiler free as possible.

Starting with the main course, Saviors of Sapphire Wings was originally released in 2019 as a Japan-only game called Blue-Winged Chevalier for the PSVita. From the outset, you are placed in the midst of an endgame situation in the enemy’s citadel. It's the scattered remains of your team versus the ultimate demon creature that is about to end the world as we know it. You get your first taste of the turn-based battle goodness here, and after the scenario plays out, you are sent to a “build your character” screen where you can change the look of your character and allocate stats and skills. If you have played any of the Wizardry series games, the character building scheme will feel familiar.  Once you have crafted your avatar, you awaken in a field and are thrust into a tutorial battle. The game is pretty standard RPG fare; you are introduced to your fighting options, like attack, defend, skill, spell, item, or run. Afterward the character build, the story progresses to a local town, and here is where the plot picks up and off you go into a valley full of goblins.

The game is a dungeon crawler to the max, set in a fantasy Wizards-and-Warriors-type world with anime- based character models. Through a first-person view, the player moves through a maze full of random encounters with monster art that would look at home on a Magic the Gathering card.  If you have forgotten your dungeon crawler 101, in an enemy encounter, battles have multiple planes: a front row and back row for each party. A mage can cast spells hitting almost anyone in battle but a knight can’t swing his sword from the back row nor attack monsters that are in the back row of an enemy team unless they have a long range weapon like a spear. As a battle progresses, monsters will shift planes between turns which can require a change in strategy. When it comes to getting around, automapping is a nice feature to have as you trundle your way through the ever-bewildering areas and even nicer is the automove feature, select a point on the map and your party will move there automatically, if you have been there already. This is a very handy tool for when you get turned around and confused as to where you are headed. Also you can save the game anywhere, so save and save often or you may regret it!

As you add party members, there will be opportunities in a conversation to build your relationship with your team, similar to the Persona series. A stronger relationship yields better bonuses and faster EXP growth for your party members. Most of the battles are random except for specific areas that mark encounters on a map (like a boss fight or lured monster). Each monster you run across has some sort of elemental weakness to exploit in the turn based battle. As the story progresses, more characters join your team, and each person has their own motivation for shacking up with your party but the prize in everyone's eyes is to end the clash between good and evil and save the world, thus fulfilling destiny.

The dialogue between characters is written decently well and the interactions come naturally as events take place, but you can also summon party members to your chambers to have a chat. The chat function is especially useful when a person has low morale. A Person's morale drops when they die in battle or are constantly sitting around with low health, low morale affects performance and how well they execute their battle instructions, so there is some upkeep of the characters to be done during the game. Saviors of the Sapphire Wings is a great headliner here in a genre that tends to be low volume. It stands out in presentation and is a great example of a first-person dungeon crawler that isn’t overly represented on the Nintendo Switch.

The second course of the RPG meal is Stranger of Sword City Revisited, a game that was already localized on Xbox One in 2016 and another first-person dungeon crawler in the same vein as Saviors of Sapphire Wings. Just like Saviors, Strangers has you build your character by choosing race, job class, and perks. Sorting through the avatar choices, I saw modern design avatars with headphones and contemporary clothes, but as you scroll on through you get more samurai fantasy type models and eventually some of the same character designs that were an option in the previous game. This made me do a bit of a double-take. Once you finish your character build, the story begins. As the lone survivor of a plane crash, you awake in a dusty dungeon where you are greeted by an old wizard. You make your way out of a maze to be confronted by a demonic creature among the wreckage of your plane and are introduced to a secondary female hero clad in a japanese high school uniform with armored up limbs who saves you from the jaws of death. After a series of random encounter battles, you are guided to a town that resembles a post-apocalyptic set piece from Shin Megami Tensei.  Speaking of which, the random monsters you encounter are straight from Saviors of Sapphire Wings. These two RPGs are as connected as Shin Megami Tensei is to the Persona and Devil Summoner series. Lots of common elements (such as spell and monster design) connect with stories set in a different time and place, and then completely unrelated characters for some new flavor. As such, these games can be played in any order.

So for comparison, the art style in Stranger is a little bit less cell-shaded anime and more hand-painted anime. The backgrounds and settings feel more solid and contemporary versus the hand-drawn medieval setting of Saviors, but that's not where the deviations stop. In Stranger of Sword City, there is a recovery system that incorporates a character's age. If a person is injured or fallen, they are hospitalized and must be removed from your party, with younger party members recovering faster than older ones. In Saviors, as soon as you exit a maze, your party is recovered.  In Stranger, you can create your party members in addition to the six or so that are in the character pool of varying job classes. In Saviors, you obtain party members organically through the story, although you can modify them for race and job as they join.

The combat UI and presentation vary between the two titles as well. Stranger of Sword City fills the screen with your party members against the colorful environment backdrops and painstakingly detailed enemies. Saviors has similar, if not as grand, backgrounds that put your characters faces in the HP/MP containers at the bottom while featuring the same cast of enemies, albeit drawn a little differently. The menu system has some depth to it, yet is learnable in Saviors, but it's a mess in Stranger. They tried to make it look beautiful and intricate but ended up making it difficult to navigate.  Then there is the added challenge factor of only being able to save in designated places in Stranger. The games also incorporate different dungeon action schemes. In Saviors, you can set bait for monsters, leave and come back to a battle that yields a chest. In Stranger, there is a hide and ambush mechanic that also yields treasure chests. Both encounters work similarly, though. There is a leader enemy who, if not defeated in a set number of turns, will abscond with the chest and leave you with nothing. One more thing, the automap and autotravel feature from Saviors is in Stranger as well.

Both games feature rich orchestral and piano-laden soundtracks that set the mood for spell-casting, sword-swinging heroics. They also feature mostly the same sound effects pool and on-screen attack effects. Spoken audio for both games is Japanese only with English text, but the voice acting is clear and convincing. Both games also feature a home base that acts mostly as a quest hub for main and side quests and a place to buy, sell and otherwise organize your storage.

These two games are obviously cut from the same cloth, but that's not a bad thing; combining them makes sense. You are getting two solid dungeon crawlers in a neat package, and each title plays just differently enough to keep it interesting. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and as such, my gripes are different for each. Saviors of Sapphire Wings needs to be a little more clear about how to complete the side quests as the clear conditions can be a little ambiguous.  Stranger of Sword City Revisited makes you manually level up your characters when they reach the required experience. If you don't, they will sit at the same level until you do something about it in the character menu, and the game doesn't remind you. Also in the fast-paced world of MMOs, MOBAs, and survival shooters, this game will feel extremely slow for some. Minor nit picks aside, I highly recommend this RPG combo for any dungeon crawler aficionado and its price tag isn’t a major ask for a pair of RPGs that will consume 50 to 60 hours a piece. Although certainly not for the casual gamer, this NIS-published duo has very nearly hit the mark for its target audience. So rejoice NIS faithful, for Saviors and Strangers is here to roll for bonus stats and take names, and it's brought its 20-sided die.

[An RTS that is more expected and not that engrossing.]

8

TalkBack / The Unexpected Quest (Switch) Review

« on: February 18, 2021, 09:53:33 AM »

An RTS that is more expected and not that engrossing.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/56313/the-unexpected-quest-switch-review

In a world of Minecraft clones and ambitious open-world resource-management item-crafting survival games, it is easy to let the little real-time-strategy entries like The Unexpected Journey from publisher Rionix slip by. The Unexpected Journey is the epitome of the genre in its execution. You may not have heard of it, but Herzog Zwei (available on Switch in the Sega Ages series) helped the RTS genre build a foundation for decades of games to come. Later the Warcraft series would propel the RTS genre into a spiraling menagerie of point-and-click resource management games that eventually evolved into MOBAs. To paraphrase Richard Hammond, just as most metal can trace its roots to Led Zeppelin, most resource management questing games can trace their heritage back to Herzog Zwei.

The Unexpected Journey opens up with your crew washed up on a beach for a quick and convenient tutorial. After the initial quest, you progress to a town that is under siege by a few zombies, where you build structures that start small and eventually size up into barracks and archer ranges to train knights and archers to fight monsters. The major downfall here is that there are designated places to build on. You have little control of the real estate.  Each chapter map you progress to has its own scenarios that you have to manage your crew through and find the right path to the end goal. Every map has multiple quests and every little barrier requires a specific amount of resources to overcome. You can also build additional types of units such as mages and clerics. These units have to do battle with zombies, barbarians, and elemental-type creatures.

Using the Switch in a handheld fashion to play a point-and-click RTS takes some getting used to, especially if you are a victim of the dreaded Joy-Con drift. It would be nice to have been able to take advantage of a touch screen instead of being stuck with Joy-Con. You can use the right stick to traverse the map and the left one for point-and-click commands. The X button takes you to your item inventory. Omitting the touch screen for controls seems like a missed opportunity. The game’s slower-than-standard RTS pace is probably due to the control scheme. Large scale battles would not be feasible using the control sticks. In lieu of speedy gameplay, this opts for quick smaller skirmishes with only one-on-one fights seeming possible.

The graphics are very 2000s nostalgic with a slightly updated look. It looks and sounds like a Blizzard release from that era. The overhead view of a standard RTS is present with small-ish figures executing their commands with simple animations. It is easy to lose your workers against the backdrop though as they tend to blend in. The in-between story animations look fine and the chapter stages are a well laid out maze of obstacles, but very linear with a single exit point. The buildings you can erect look quite at home in the world you traverse but again, where you place them is not really up to you unfortunately.

The Unexpected Quest is unexpectedly short with only eight chapters and no variance offered upon replay. It is a decent time-waster of an RTS, but it is far from deeply engaging or exciting. Limited controls, the inability to place buildings where you want and one-on-one unit battles put a damper on the experience. This is not the game that will take the place of Warcraft as it feels like it never quite takes the training wheels off and there are better RTS experiences to be had, making this really only good for newcomers to the genre who need a gentle, simple pace.

[This is old mindless violence, but it's fun old mindless violence with some style.]

9

TalkBack / No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Switch) Review

« on: December 28, 2020, 01:13:09 PM »

This is old mindless violence, but it's fun old mindless violence with some style.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55815/no-more-heroes-2-desperate-struggle-switch-review

Violent action slashers are plentiful in the modern age, even hiding behind Nintendo's family friendly facade. So it surprises me that developers are still digging in the crates like so much ‘90s hip hop and bringing back a game with a small cult following. The developer Grasshopper Manufacture had enough faith in its fan base to resurrect the No More Heroes series on Switch with the forthcoming No More Heroes 3 (ETA 2021). The second entry, subtitled Desperate Struggle, was released back in 2010 to positive reviews yet tepid profits. Now, it is back on the Nintendo Switch to try to recoup its investments and take names.

No More Heroes 2 puts you back in the saddle of the anti-hero Travis Touchdown, who is one half Nero from Devil May Cry and one half Duke Nukem. The story takes place some three years after the events of the first game and past events have caught up to our “No More Hero.” Once again, Travis is on the path to become the top assassin in a ranked tournament, but this time it's personal. Oh and there are more assassins. The story is driven by some very noir-inspired cut scenes with exposition from a scantily clad woman in a room behind glass like a peepshow. As you progress, more is revealed, as if the woman is extolling the exploits of the protagonist as you play the game itself. While the story is not exactly intriguing, it is a tale of Tarantino-style revenge with lots of crude humor mixed with adult language and visuals. This is not a family-friendly experience.

The meat of the gameplay is very formulaic hack and slash as you go from one scenario to the next. With the lightsaber-style weapon, you have a hard attack and a fast attack combined with the ability to punch and kick, with combos leading up to a finishing move. You have a health meter (in the form of a large heart) and an ecstasy meter that, when filled, allows you to transform into a tiger and rip through enemies like paper. Each scenario is played in the form of a contained mini-map full of enemies that you must cull your way through on the way to the boss assassin. The bosses are clever and unique characters in a Metal Gear-esaue manner. This opens up the battles to be somewhat different than the regular enemies constantly thrown at you. The first game had a very sparse open world that felt useless and empty. The second game improves on this by replacing it with a map-type hub in which you can select your missions and do side jobs for cash in the form of 8-bit NES-looking mini games. Oddly, I found the mini-games a little more enjoyable than the main game itself. You can deliver pizzas on a scooter, which is reminiscent of the game Hang-On. The bug extermination and sewer pipe games are also more engaging than they had any right to be. Most surprisingly however, the Berry Jerry 5 bullet-hell shooter video game in Travis’s hotel room is borderline addictive. The self improvement mini-games at the gym proved to be a little frustrating and easy to fail. For events that you have to waste in-game money for, they are best avoided as much as possible. Still, with many side jobs to choose from, there is a good amount to do in this game outside of the bloody business that is being the top assassin.

Despite the hardware upgrade from the Wii to the Switch, No More Heroes 2 is not that more visually impressive than its previous release, with only a few minor texture improvements.  The controls have been revamped for mobile handheld playing and works well for the fast-paced action and button mashing. The camera issue from the previous release is still a bit of a problem as I often had to re-adjust the camera manually, but being able to lock on to an opponent helps keep things fluid. The sound design is good; the music does a great job of driving the action on screen and kept me tapping my toes while slicing and dicing through foes. The mini-games pull off the chip-tune 8-bit soundtrack to match the vibe. The voice acting is good, though the lines are certainly Last Action Hero-type cheesy. The overall experience comes together as a slightly above-average action slasher that certainly feels last generation but charms with throwback gimmicks and immature crass adult theme.

With a sequel in the pipeline, it makes a sort of sense to port the older entries to the Switch with minimal tweaking (and investment) to ramp up the hype of the next numbered release. If you are a fan of over-the-top violent sword swinging, inappropriate humor, and cleavage shots, this is the game for you.  For a casual gamer who isn't necessarily all in on the carnage, this would probably be a pass. However, it’s a solid mindless distraction for the over 20 crowd. No More Heroes 2 certainly fills a niche that is typically left void in the realm of Nintendo.