Most people think of Excite Bike on the NES when they were the word Excite with Nintendo, but a truck series? It intrigued people and had the potential to be as addictive as Excite Bike all those years ago. Being a launch title on the Wii, just like Excite Bike was for NES, it had a lot of hardcore Nintendo fans excited. Insane speeds, jumps, stunts, smashing? Was this Excite Bike evolved for the next generation?
The short answer is no, and the long answer is God, no, but it does have some good merits. While not really resembling anything Excite Bike-related, not even a track editor, it has its name and name only. Excite Truck pits generic monster trucks against each other and equally generic tracks turboing and drifting around corners to rack up as many stars as you can. This includes jumping through rings, morphing terrain, and getting invincibility power-ups. Sounds exciting, and it is quite thrilling, but it’s all flash and no substance.
The entire game is controlled with just the Wii remote on its side and you steer by turning the remote. The controls right off the bat are way too sensitive and this is especially noticeable once you are going at mach speeds and on cars that don’t have a high grip rating. I crashed into trees and went off course numerous times, but thankfully if you mash the 2 buttons fast enough you can hop back on track with a boost. Another underlying issue is the track design isn’t built for these insane speeds. It’s like they finished building the tracks and then decided to make the cars faster. A lot of times I would be a top speed-boosting through jumps only to jump farther than the turn or overshoot things. When you’re going this fast you shouldn’t have to hold back on the boost, it defeats the purpose. I’m not going to strategically manage my boost as most arcade games don’t do this. It feels like they were trying to make the player compensate for their mistake by letting you go too fast.
The speed and squirreling of the cars lead to missed pick-up items such as the terrain morphs (they add a jump in front of your or lower you down to the water to cool your boost meter) or the invincibility pick up are too small to hit when going at insane speeds. It just feels so unbalanced and not playtested enough. I constantly missed these things unless I slowed down to a crawl, and thankfully the AI is brain dead and incredibly easy as even in my worst races I still made first. There’s just too much to do in this game on the track at these speeds. I don’t want to do 360s in the air, I don’t want to morph the terrain. I want well-built, memorable tracks with insane jumps and better physics.
This leads me to more problems. The lack of content and just the overall meh feeling of everything. The tracks are some of the most generic I have ever seen. Just random turns and jumps with dirt and trees splattered around. I can’t tell one track from the next, and the visuals are so bad (even for Wii standards) that you won’t care. Awful aliasing and flat textures are just everywhere. Outside of the 25 races in the main event, there are challenges that have you racing through gates or flying through rings. Not very exciting honestly. After the first cup was finished I saw all there was that this game offered and it wasn’t much. This is one of the most generic and plain racers on the Wii and it shouldn’t carry the Excite name at all.
Overall, Excite Truck is a game with an awesome sense of speed, and after about 10 races it all wears off. Horrible track design, generic presentation, lack of content, and just too much speed for tracks not designed for it. I never felt completely in control of a race or my car no matter how good I was at it. A track editor would have been nice to make better ones than the developers provided, and there’s no online play. At best, it’s a filler launch title that I would have been mad to pay $50 for. It’s just like eating a small bag of potato chips. It’s fun during the 10 minutes it takes to eat them then you toss the bag and forget all about it.
While I’ve played the arcade original, there were many Spy Hunter games released when I grew up and all of them were terrible. This version is no exception as somehow it doesn’t translate to 3D very well.
With the power of the Vita, and being a launch title, I figured Spy Hunter could finally be done right, but boy was I wrong. The game starts out by taking a photo of you for your license and throwing you out onto the street with four weapons. Each weapon is assigned to a face button and I started out with a flashbang, flamethrower, machine gun, and shocker. As I drove along I was ambushed by generic-looking cars that rammed me, some that dumped explosive barrels, and some that had machine guns. The action itself was quite dull with little going for it as the game already looks extremely ugly and boring.
Even with new upgrades and morphing into a boat things did not get any more interesting. Driving the car feels like sliding on ice and crashes are uninteresting. For a game that is supposed to be so high octane, it doesn’t feel that way at all. The story is also pointless and pretty stupid as there are no established characters or reasons as to why you are doing anything in the game.
If only the game looked better and felt more polished I feel it could have been something. As it is, this feels like a beta or an incomplete game. Physics is awful, the weapons seem cool but the results are uninteresting, and then when you repeat this a dozen times it’s enough to make your brain melt. I can’t recommend this game even to hardcore racing or action fans. This isn’t even worth a bargain bin purchase because there are other bargain bin games worth buying instead.
Gameloft and I don’t really get along. They used to release good Java mobile games back in the day, but after smartphones took off they released nothing but free-to-play or pay-to-win garbage. Sadly, this leaked over into handhelds a few times and the Vita was no exception. Injection is a dumbed-down port of Asphalt 6: Adrenaline for mobile phones. A mobile game directly ported to a handheld isn’t the best of ideas and this game proves why.
With all of the pay-to-win aspects taken out of Asphalt, this is a rare opportunity to see how the game would play if all microtransactions and other cancer-riddled stuff is stripped out. On the surface, it’s a reasonably accessible and playable racing game with licensed cars, more like a low-budget PS2 title. The tracks are boring but work, with boost icons and jumps. The purpose of the game is to boost your way through the track as much as you can and take shortcuts. Once you fill your boost meter you can go into Adrenaline mode which allows you to easily knock cars off the road Burnout style and zoom ahead. I found the cars all pretty much handle the same, drifting is awful, and the whole game feels stiff and poorly made.
That’s not to say there’s zero fun in the game, it does work and is a nice mindless racer for fans of the series or anyone wanting a bargain bin racer on the Vita. Gameloft is not a genius when it comes to handhelds as they don’t work like mobile phones. Outside of career mode, you can race with other people (no one was even playing during launch don’t worry) and there are typical event types to participate in such as elimination, time trial, and various others that have been done to death.
Injection is ugly, stiff, boring, and a slightly upgraded port of a mobile game that was already over a year old before the Vita was released. If you exhausted all your other racing options on Vita then go for this dead last.
This was a decent year for racers as the two behemoths went toe-to-toe for the first time in years. Racers from nearly every series came out this year, but somehow didn’t quite make the splash we had hoped.
Forza Motorsport 7
The best racer is all about passion for the sport, and that’s whether it’s an arcade or simulator racer. Forza 7 put so much love and time into their cars, tracks, physics, and graphics that you almost felt it pass through the controller and into you. While all the runner-ups were well made and fun, you just didn’t quite feel the passion that Turn 10 has for motorsports.
I’m not much of a kart racing fan because the games tend to be too simple and easy, but Transformed really knocks it out of the park. The last Sonic kart racer was just okay, it had a slow pace and it just wasn’t designed very well. This game really surprised me with its excellent graphics and track design and character selection.
The obvious is Sega mascots such as Sonic, Amy, Shadow, Robotnik, Alex Kidd, and various others. While any of these guys outside of Sonic aren’t well known, it is nice to see them here. PC users get exclusive characters such as Football Manager (I know), Team Fortress, and Shogun (I know…I know). Not exactly amazing characters you would want in a kart racer, but oh well. When you start your first race you will immediately see how much better this game is. The handling is so much more fluid and the races just flow. What really sells the game are the tracks that change mid-race and are able to transform into flying and nautical vehicle. Each character has three different vehicles and it just feels great. They all handle differently so it makes you stay on your toes. The track design is amazing. There are hazards everywhere and the weapons are really cool. The tracks are featured from various games like Sonic’s Green Hill Zone, and Samba De Amigo’s crazy LSD track. These levels are fun, but I just wish there were more.
The weapons vary from iceballs, twisters, remote cars that explode, rockets, blowfish, and various other crazy weapons. You pick up the question mark capsules to find them, but you will find an All-Stars weapon that will make you really powerful and fast. Your car transforms and it just looks really cool. Along the way, you can pick up coins that are used in other modes’ load screens in a slot machine to acquire boosts and other items. I just found the game to be very pleasing to play, but not in a single player. Easy was too easy, and the medium was too hard, and hard was impossible. The AI is really bad, but people play kart racing games for the multiplayer anyway which is where all the fun is to be had in this game. Unlike the last game, PC gamers get online multiplayer.
The graphics are really nice with bright vibrant colors, great-looking textures, and some really amazing lighting effects. Of course, the PC gets the best treatment and it looks way better than the last game. As you play the game you will eventually find tracks that become your favorite and find which character you prefer. The dynamically changing tracks just add that much more fun to the game. Hitting speed boosts, finding weapons, and avoiding track hazards is so much fun and the sense of speed is incredible.
I just wish there was a bit more still, while there is more content than the last game, I feel something is just missing. Maybe if the AI wasn’t so bad the single-player would be more fun, but I found myself getting bored with it. The only reason to constantly come back is multiplayer. There is a licensed feature that allows you to add up to three stickers that you earned, but I felt this was completely useless and something put in for little kids. However, as it stands it doesn’t add anything significantly new to the genre or pushes it forward which is what it needs. While it may not reinvent the wheel it just makes it bigger and louder.
What makes a good driving game? The best visuals, physics, modes, and fun cars to drive. It is all like a synchronized dance and all has to flow together.
Criterion are geniuses for a reason. The masterminds behind the Burnout franchise, EA game them the keys to Need for Speed and have made two great games already. Most Wanted is just slick, fast, and streamlined. The game is so much fun that you will never feel bored. There are a lot of fun modes and Autolog can’t be topped. The game also looks fantastic on Vita and PC. Transformed came in a close second, but just doesn’t feel as slick as Most Wanted.
There are hundreds of thousands of games out there, but only a few hundred are considered masterpieces or classics. These are my personal top ten. I know it’s to everyone’s taste, but you can’t deny that these games are great. I have played hundreds in my 20 years of gaming, I have played through three generations of consoles, so at least I can speak on experience. I will try to be non-biased and even address some flaws in the games I pick because I have no problem with that. Flaws are flaws, and not a single game is perfect. There are more that are my favorite, but I would have to make a top 50 list.
This was one of the first games I had ever played at 2 years old. It helped introduce me to the gaming world and I just fell in love with the fast speed and intense gameplay. StH2 had some of the best level designs out of any game in the series and one of the best soundtracks to date. I remember never being able to actually beat the game because it was too long and too hard. I could never get past the factory level with all the grey orbs floating around Robotnik. I had to beat it many years later using an emulator and quick saves, but I still enjoyed it every time I played the game. I think I actually ruined my cartridge from taking it in and out of the Genesis so many times.
In fact, I even remember my first Genesis for Christmas of 1992. The copy of StH2 it came with kept freezing up in the system, so my mom took it back to Circuit City to exchange it. I remember throwing a tantrum because no matter how many times I blew the cartridge it kept freezing after pressing Start. The series has fallen off the deep end in the past ten years, but nothing can ruin the memories of this classic gem.
9. Gran Turismo
This game changed everything for me when it came to cars. My very first racing simulator actually made me think about every turn and what car I had to choose. I always played arcade racers before because consoles didn’t really have the power yet for realistic physics and graphics. I actually learned some things from this game like how to recognize cars on the street, and basic ways on how cars operate. I was sitting in front of my TV at 8 years old tuning my car and adjusting things like camber angle, toe angle, stabilizers, sway bars and gear ratios like a champ. I then followed the series all the way to Gran Turismo 5 today and have witnessed one of the greatest evolutions in gaming history.
I remember the skepticism from PC gamers because of the greatness and expectations from System Shock 2. I didn’t have a PC capable of playing any major games throughout my early gaming years. My computer didn’t even run Flash very well, so I solely relied on consoles. BioShock’s narrative and atmosphere made a huge impact on me and the gaming industry as a whole. The first time seeing a Big Daddy and Little Sister was just shocking. You felt trapped in this underwater utopia, but you were also memorized by how it could have been accomplished in such an early time period. The game just worked so well and felt different from the standard military shooters at the time. BioShock 2 was too similar to the first game and just didn’t make the same impact.
The second game was so much better than the first because it created a whole new world and a much more likable character Ezio is one of gaming’s most familiar faces and the game itself was revolutionary for its time. A huge open world in a historically accurate Rome, Italy was just unheard of. There was so much attention to detail that you had to sit back and just take it all in. The characters were likable, and the story was memorable with a deep and tangled political plot. The game was also violent with a fighting system never before seen in an action/adventure game. This game was almost perfect in so many ways that the rest of the games have yet to capture.
6. Syphon Filter
Syphon Filter was criticized a lot for ripping off Metal Gear Solid plot-wise. The game had unique characters, a memorable plot, and some of the best-level designs ever seen for its time. The stealth was perfectly executed and had some memorable moments. I have played this game numerous times and was actually my first-ever third-person shooter. I remember how confusing the game was because I didn’t understand how shooters worked. I was so used to platformers, adventure games, and puzzle games. After playing this game I felt like I was part of the grown-up crowd. The other two games on the PS1 were just as good but not as memorable as the first game. This has grown to be one of my favorite games of all time just due to the wonderful memories I have had.
I used to beat the game once a week using the one-shot-kill code then again without it. I memorized every enemy, and how to get every kill without being seen in stealth missions. I even went as far as replaying certain dialog scenes because they were just that cool. Syphon Filter is a mostly underappreciated game because of the lack of releases the series has seen. The last game came out three years ago on the PSP, but thankfully Syphon Filter 4 was announced for PS3.
5. God of War
God of War changed my way of thinking about action/adventure games. I remember driving to K-Mart to buy my copy after reading reviews and hearing the game blow up on forums. I didn’t really expect much other than Greek mythology-themed Devil May Cry. I was dead wrong. The game had one of the most thrilling and epic combat systems ever created. I never really even knew what quick time events were until God of War made them cool and did them right. It added a whole new layer of depth and connection to the combat that has never really been done before. The huge boss fights, gorgeous (at the time) visuals, and unabashed nudity and sexuality that few games dare tread. God of War still impresses to this day and with each iteration in the now 5 game series. Kratos is also one of the most memorable and recognizable characters to date. Make sure to pick up God of War Collection and God of War Origins Collection if you missed out on those four awesome games while waiting for God of War: Ascension.
Gears of War changed my mind on shooters the way God of War did for action games. The gameplay was just so different from your standard shooter. It was heavy-hitting, atmospheric, and featured some of the most memorable characters and stories to date. For a futuristic military shooter that’s a huge achievement. The weapons were memorable, it was perfectly balanced, and everything had a dark crunchy hit to it. The game was nearly perfect, and the graphics were out of this world at the time. I remember this being the first next-generation game I ever played when I got my first Xbox 360 for Christmas of 2006. Each of the three games in the series is amazing, but nothing compares to when I first played the first game. It wowed me like no other, and Gears of War is one of the few games I have played multiple times.
3.Guitar Hero
Sure this series along with Rock Band single-handedly killed the band instrument rhythm genre, but nothing compares to the first Guitar Hero. This game is the reason why I currently own and play the guitar today. Pulling off complicated riffs, solos, and chords with the then high-tech guitar controller was like magic. I spent dozen upon dozens of hours replaying songs and getting high scores. Sure it cost a lot, but it was well worth it to me. While the songs weren’t originals they were masterfully re-created and the guitar controller responded perfectly. The games later in the series lost sight of the value of mastering songs and just start pumping them out uncontrollably after GH3. This game redefined the rhythm genre and took the entire world by storm. Most people nowadays never played the first game, and they were missing out on a lot.
This was the first game I spent over 100 hours on. The world was so rich and fantastic that I felt like I was playing in one of my favorite fantasy novels. The lore, characters, quests, and loot were just so addictive and engrossing I couldn’t put it down. I remember one play session going on for 12 hours when no other game has kept me in front of the TV for that long. The expansion pack was even more amazing, and the graphics blew me away. Of course, there were a lot of technical problems, and the PC version was better, but I sure had a ton of fun with this game. Skyrimis just as good, but it didn’t wow me like Oblivion did because this was my first Elder Scrolls game. To be honest I picked this up for $60 expecting not to like it much and I was dead wrong. Anyone who has just played Skyrim needs to go back and play this. It revolutionized the action RPG genre in my eyes and a lot of games have tried to copy it to this day.
1.Mortal Kombat
Yes, I am talking about the 1992 Sega Genesis/Arcade classic. This is my favorite video game series of all time and this is because it was the first video game I ever played. I remember my cousin babysitting me and seeing him control these characters on-screen at 2 years old. I remember seeing him pull off Scorpion’s mask and burn a character. It was something I saw before, and soon enough I was mastering the controls and beating him at 2 years old. I never knew how to pull off a fatality until years later when the internet became more mainstream, but I loved beating this game constantly. To date, I own almost every game in the series on several different platforms and have pre-ordered every recent game since 2004’s Deception. I don’t think I have played a game more than Mortal Kombat, but I still enjoy Japanese fighters. I find Mortal Kombat more accessible with more interesting characters and a story because they aren’t cliché and generic like most Japanese fighters tend to feel. There’s a whole giant story behind each and every character and they are all unique.
Wipeout is one of the longest-running racing series out there debuting on the original PlayStation and has spanned every PlayStation console ever since. 2048 is the first Wipeout on the Vita, so what would a PlayStation console launch be like without a Wipeout title? 2048 doesn’t really do much to change the series which it desperately needs, so that is probably the worst part about the game. This, overall, is a very solid Wipeout game.
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Everyone mainly looks forward to how far a Wipeout game can push a console. The game looks amazing on the Vita with a great sense of speed. Wipeout is known for a wide variety of event types and 2048 delivers there too. There’s a time attack, zone events, and a new combat-type event. I don’t know why this wasn’t in any previous Wipeouts, but you just go around destroying as many vehicles are you can and earn points. Zone events return where the car accelerates on its own and you just have to survive. I wish there were more original event types, but what’s here works fine and there are a lot of them.
The vehicle classes are fun and the speed ramps up pretty quick in this version. B to A has a huge difference, but some fans may turn their nose up at the thought. I preferred this, but don’t worry there are plenty of vehicles to unlock and use so you can fine-tune your play style just the way you want. There are plenty of unique tracks that look great and are designed well. My major complaint is that there aren’t any new weapons. The same quake, rocket, missile, mines, etc. are still present and haven’t ever changed.
Multiplayer is where the most fun is at, but this time there is Wi-Fi so you can play online. A huge complaint I have is that the load times are just absolutely atrocious. There have been patches since release to shorten them, but they are still pretty long and need to be cut down even more. If you can look past these issues then 2048 is the best racer on the Vita right now. The game controls very well thanks to the actual analog stick so PSP fans will notice smoother controls this time around. If you own the PS3 Wipeout you can do Cross-Play which is fun and makes you feel like you got your money’s worth.
Overall, longtime fans may either hate this game or love it depending on how you feel about the series as it stands today. It really needs some renovation with new weapons, event types, and maybe some customization? 2048 is stunning to look at on the Vita but suffers some seriously long load times in a turn.
Need for Speed has taken many different directions, but the mid to late 2000s were the worst for the series. ProStreet is probably the worst NFS I have played, and I can’t really recommend this to even hardcore fans. The game has good customization options and varied event types, but after a couple dozen races you will be bored.
Races consist of earning a certain amount of points to “Dominate the Day”. These events range from Drifts, Drags, Grip, Time Attack, and Sector Shootout. Sector Shootout is where you have a track divided into sections and you must get the fastest times in those to win. Grip races are straight-up races, and the rest is history. Out of these events, the Drags are the best because you need to heat up your tires before racing. You can only win by getting perfect shifts, but after you get NOS upgrades the drags become really easy. There are 1/4 mile and 1/2 mile drags, but I would have liked to see 3/4 and 1 mile drags as well. All the other races are pretty boring, and drifting in the game feels like dragging an 18-wheeler through the dirt. No matter what car you use drifting never feels right, and is a huge pain to pull off.
The game was one of the first NFS games that used real-time damage which is supposed to affect the way the car drives but really doesn’t. You can get light and heavy damage, but I never really noticed much of a hit in performance. If you damage your car you have to repair it before the next race, but you can use cash or repair markers that you earn. My biggest issue with these “Race Days” is that if you quit in the middle you have to restart the whole thing. This drove me nuts because I couldn’t go upgrade my car and come back.
Upgrading your cars is pretty fun because there are a lot of options for both performance and cosmetics. You can fine-tune your car as well, but there is a quick upgrade option for impatient people. You can only have certain cars for certain event types, but you can only save customizations as blueprints. This allows you to have multiple looks and load-outs for your cars. I found that cash is given very slowly and parts are very expensive so you won’t be upgrading very often which is a huge bummer.
Lastly, the game is just monotonous. After about a couple dozen races you will feel fed up with the same tired races over and over again. The physics feel too weighty, and most cars feel the same no matter how you upgrade them. The whole game is really unbalanced and poorly designed. The game doesn’t even officially support the Game for Windows controller, and just shows keyboard buttons instead. I just gave up about halfway through because some races were always easy no matter who you did, and some were extremely difficult no matter how good you were. The visuals are decent, but not anything to write home about. The announcer is just extremely annoying to listen to with his stoner one-liners and he just blabbers on about nonsense.
Overall, ProStreet wasn’t very good when it came out and isn’t 5 years later. There were, and still are, better racing games out there. I can’t really recommend this game unless you like monotony and repetitive nonsense. ProStreet is half-broken and highly unbalanced. As it stands, this is probably the worst NFS out there right now.
The DiRT series has come a long way from the Colin McRae Rally series and has been around for over 15 years. Codemasters has always pushed the latest hardware for the best physics and graphics possible and DiRT 3 is no exception. Not much has changed from DiRT 2 besides a visual, physics, car roster, and track upgrade. The core gameplay is pretty much the same. This time around the visual aesthetics steer away from the street gang style of art and move onto a weird psychedelic thing about triangles…don’t ask me.
The main attraction here is the new Gymkhana events which are all about tricks. Doing donuts, spins, getting air, drifting, and all the fun stuff you can’t do on the track. Pull out into a third-person view (it’s not really possible in the first person) and tear around the area trying to rack up a certain amount of points, beat a speed run, or smash into a certain amount of objects. It’s all great fun but takes a lot of time to master. The cars can be squirrely because of how powerful they are and learning when to time each trick takes hours. You will get frustrated early on but keep at it because once you unlock the Battersea Compound to complete 80 missions you will master it there.
All the other event types are back such as Rally Cross, Rally, Land Rush, Trailblazer, etc. My biggest gripe is that there aren’t any new event types besides Gymkhana. The repetitive nature sets in at about the halfway point in the tour because of the lack of events and tracks. All these events are loads of fun, but most people probably won’t finish the tour due to the fact that it’s the same as DiRT 2. What does help is the new weather system which gives us snow, blizzards, heavy rain, and more night races really help? It helps give some variety to the tracks, but you will spend a good $30 buying the new tracks and cars which are a major rip-off and not worth it.
The physics has improved and felt a little less floaty or too heavy. Of course, you can always tune your car if you don’t like the way it drives, but we still can’t customize them, and they even took away the little dash toys to show off the physics engine. I really want to customize my cars, but at least there is a bigger variety in them and you unlock them at a faster rate. The graphics are phenomenal and PC users get treated to some DirectX 11 features such as better lighting, shadows, and blur effects. It’s very light so don’t expect a huge difference, but it lets us PC gamers know we get a little extra.
I also wish those stupid announcers would shut up like they wouldn’t in DiRT 2. They are more annoying now than ever and I really hate the hip menus Codemasters is doing. What happened to the slick simple menu of DiRT 1? Besides this, the online modes are fun and not much different from the past two games except for the addition of Gymkhana. If you loved DiRT 2 pick this up, but newcomers will be amazed at all the greatness.
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