Need for Speed Most Wanted
EA's long-running Need for Speed series took a trip underground a couple of years back when the developer refocused the game solely on illegal street racing. While the nighttime racing series was certainly successful, the lawless world was always missing one key factor: cops. This year's installment crawls back into the daylight. The actual racing hasn't changed too much, but the ever-present police make this game a whole lot more interesting.
The game's career mode starts out with a hilarious bang. You take on the role of a nameless, faceless new racer attempting to hit the scene in the city of Rockport. An underground ranking known as the Blacklist governs who can race who, and when. You almost immediately run into a punk named Razor, who's definitely the sort of dude that lives his life a quarter-mile at a time.
He's at the bottom of the list, but a few races later, he's sabotaged your ride and has won it from you in a race. Meanwhile, you're carted off to jail. Left with nothing but some mysterious help from a stranger named Mia, your task is to get back in the race game to work your way to the top of the Blacklist, which is now topped by Razor, who's using your old car to wipe out the competition.
Working your way up the Blacklist is a multistep progress. Before you can challenge the next Blacklist racer, you have to satisfy a list of requirements. You'll have to win a set number of race events. And you'll have to reach a set number of pursuit milestones and earn enough bounty by riling up the police. The cops hate street racers and will give chase when they see you rolling around the open city. You can also just jump right into a pursuit from a menu, too.
- The Good:
# Outstanding sound effects
# Sharp graphics
# Tones down some of the over-the-top product placement found in the previous NFS games
# Mindblowing full-motion video cutscenes.
- The Bad:
# Not enough mindblowing full-motion video cutscenes.
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World of Warcraft Review
Though massively multiplayer online role-playing games have been around for years, it has taken this long for the genre's breakthrough hit to finally emerge. Here is the online role-playing game you should play, no matter who you are.
This is because World of Warcraft brings out all the best aspects of this style of gaming, if not many of the best aspects of gaming in general. It also features many of the specific characteristics that have made Blizzard Entertainment's previous games so entertaining, memorable, long-lasting, and successful. Of course, the company's past track record did not guarantee that World of Warcraft could have turned out this well. Such high quality simply cannot be expected, nor should it be missed.
- The Good:
# High streamlined and conducive to short or long play sessions
# Exciting, action-packed combat
# Elegant, easy-to-use interface
# Excellent music and sound.
- The Bad:
# Player-versus-player elements not complete.
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GTA IV Reviews: An Exercise In Hyperbolism
Time for a Frankenreviewreview. Let me explain. Mark has his Frankenreview feature running like a well-oiled machine. Mike's GTA IV write-up is the only review of the game this site's ever going to need to write. So this isn't an exercise in reviewing GTA IV. Or in comparing the reviews of GTA IV. It's an exercise in reviewing the reviews of GTA IV. Or, to be more precise, the hyperbole. Because when a game gets 10/10, 100/100 and five stars across the board, you've gotta do something to break up the monotony, right?
Most major sites are accounted for: IGN, 1UP, Eurogamer...even CVG and Game Informer and have their takes on the game up and published (only GameSpot are missing...maybe their allocated reviewer quit?). All have scored the game between 95-100%. All are hyped about the game. But which is most hyped? Their scores cannot separate them, so let's take a look at their words.
- IGN
Notes: The first review, and at seven pages, the most tedious.
Moment Of Climax: "A "10" is not a score we give out very often. In fact, the last time we gave a 10 to a console game was Soul Calibur in 1999. A 10 doesn't mean a game is perfect — it means a game is pushing boundaries, expanding a genre, and doing many things to a level so far above and beyond its competitors that they overshadows any flaws. Certainly, GTA IV has some issues, the most noticeable being the occasional flaw in the cover system, but there are many more pieces of GTA IV that are better than anything I've seen from a game in the past decade. We don't give 10s often — just to games that merit the score."
My Score: Four knickers twisted out of a possible five. Banging on for seven pages would normally get you a perfect 5, but a costly cop-out at the end, with ass-covering justifications for their scoring system, cost them a knicker.
- 1UP
Notes: Nice, tight review. Covers all the bases.
Moment of Climax: "Fresh off the boat, [Niko's] an illegal immigrant pursuing the dual American dreams of quick money and mass multimedia consumption in the most vibrant, dynamic, and entertainment-packed playground in console videogame history: Liberty City."
My Score: Two twisted knickers out of five. That pasted line above aside, Crispin Boyer's review is - tragically for these purposes - fair and objective, calling out several of the game's flaws, and even closing off with [gasp] a suggestion to Rockstar on how they could improve the thing.
- Eurogamer
Notes: Exhibits the usual Eurogamer restraint, but I can't remember the last time a Eurogamer review ran to four pages. OK, three pages. Sorry Eurogamer!
Moment of Climax: "Almost everything you do in Liberty City would be good enough to drive its own game, and the best parts would be good enough to outrun the competition, but the reason it works so well is that Rockstar has made a game that requires no patience to play. This, as much as its usual coherency and the best script in the series, is what makes GTA IV the best openworld game yet, and why it will take something miraculous to rob it of game of the year status."
My Score: 3 twisted knickers. As I said, it's Eurogamer, so OMG BEST GAME EVAR!!!! was never going to be on the cards. Would have scored it a 2, but hedging bets on GOTY in April earned them an extra pair of entangled lady's drawers.
- CVG
Notes: An imperfect score? Something's wrong here...
Moment of Climax: "Should we judge the biggest game of the year as just that, a videogame, and pick holes in its evolution-not-revolution systems which don't exactly re-write the rules? Or should we look at GTA IV as a pure experience, where it wipes the floor with anything else on Xbox 360 and PS3?"
My Score: 2 knickers twisted out of a possible 5. They lose two just for giving it an imperfect score (the cheek of them!) Excitement takes a back seat to caution, as the CVG reviewer flirts between gushing over the experience and picking holes with the gameplay.
- Kotaku
Notes: Mike plays GTA IV. Mike reviews GTA IV.
Moment of Climax: "Sandbox-style, ultra-violent games like Grand Theft Auto aren't typically my thing, but GTA IV has made me a fan. A fanboy. Rockstar North has addressed virtually every single one of my personal hang ups about the series, crafting one of the most memorable experiences in gaming. We hate to gush, but it's just that good. Flawless? No. But it's about as close to a game can come to being perfect."
My Score: 3.5/5. Misses out on a higher score because we don't do scores. And because flaws are clearly identified. And that I know he's telling the truth when he says that previously, he wasn't a fanboy.
- GamePro
Notes: Before reading this, I thought Rockstar to be but men. Now I see they are Gods.
Moment of Climax: "GTA IV isn't just a game. It's a testament to the immense talent and take-no-prisoners mentality that has made Rockstar the company that it is today."
My Score: 4/5. A 1.5 page-long love letter to Rockstar is the highlight. The fact all game faults are condensed to half a paragraph on the fifth page also contributes to a great score.
- GameSpy
Notes: Odd. I could have sworn some of the most poorly-written sections of IGN's original review (the one up now reads a little differently to the one first posted) have found themselves cut-n-pasted into this one...
Moment of Climax: "It's not a stretch to say that, were this a film, some of the "performances" would be Oscar-worthy. Yes, we're aware that the characters aren't real people, but they are still better actors than many of the people in the yearly crop of summer blockbusters."
My Score: 4/5 twisted knickers. And they're all just for that comment.
- Game Informer
Notes: Probably the best of the lot. And by "best" I mean MOST EXCITED.
Moment of Climax: "Grand Theft Auto IV doesn't just raise the bar for the storied franchise; it completely changes the landscape of gaming. Once you play it, you won't look at video games the same way again."
My Score: 5/5. No, 6/5. It opens with "I now know how film critics felt after screening The Godfather". A perfect storm of hype, excitement and pants-wetting. Best review of the lot. No, best review ever.
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