Thursday, September 11, 2014

Well...

behold my first .gif
     The end of Summer was a pretty odd time for me to say the least, and some of that did indeed effect this blog.You (and by you I mean no one since I'm doubting anyone outside of unlucky googlers read anything on here)may recall me mentioning I recently got a new laptop on that day. Well after getting me through my last two years of high school AND my first year of college, that ol' netbook has finally kicked the bucket technically only a small part of the screen broke and its still usable, but I rather replace it before something like the hard drive ends up crashing). Within a week of that happening my Android phone ended up breaking, so I had to go back to my messed up but still usable iPhone. Yeah this is similar to back in 2011 when my laptop and PSP ended up breaking on the same day (The PSP I fixed a month later though).
     Speaking of handheld consoles, both my DS and PSP ended up getting screwed up this Summer. For some extremely stupid reason I ended up updating my PSP, which removed the custom firmware, thus making it impossible for me to play my ISOs. To make matters worse I had a friend of my Pandora Battery that thing way back in 2010, so I currently don't have the means to fix it. On the DS front my "Personal Media Player" (which I use to play ROM files) became corrupt after I tried to add another game onto it (something I haven't done since 2012). Maybe in light of all this I'll end up buying a 3DS since Smash Bros. is coming out soon.
me breaking the new rig in
     Aaaaaand speaking of buying new consoles I did something I would never of expected; I purchased another 360. Shocking I know considering how I've been pretty much counting the days til I got rid of this thing. Who knew that only 8 months without it would make me have a huge craving for some PDz (technically it was Fallout: New Vegas that made me really want it but eh). For the record this wont affect the games on my "list of 360" games thing that I will eventually end up finishing.
     Yeah updating this thing slowly isn't exactly a new thing. Going back to school isn't going to help it since I wont exactly feel like writing game reviews after I just typed out 4 easy but tedious essays. But at the same time I don't have any plans of just not posting here. I honestly do love reviewing games even when no one gives me feedback or anything. I love how I put everything together back in 2011 too, and despite how horrible I think (or rather know) my reviews were, they are still part a part of my life I don't want to forget. I also have a decent amount of incomplete reviews that I started mostly in 2011 that I do want to finish at some point. I'll either continue them as I would've then, or I'll do my modern style after whatever is already there to see how badly they clash.
     On a final note, this is my first post on my new laptop I got a week or so ago! Its a 15.6 inch Toshiba with Windows 8.1. On the bright side it runs great for an extremely reasonable $240.00. On the downside though its massive. I did want another one the size of my old one, but it would seem the netbook crowd is being phased out by tablets. That and laptops that size are either really cheap with low specs, or extremely overpriced. Anyway, hope my extremely small (and unknown) reader base enjoy some future posts that I will eventually get to!

Thursday, July 3, 2014

Top 3 Most Disappointing Xbox 360 Purchases

Probably what I did anytime I lost a receipt
     Disappointing purchases, we as consumers have all had them. It not that something is always bad, its more of just it wasn't what you expected, and thus you're annoyed you spent a certain amount of money on it. It make you want to tear your hair out, smash your laptop, rip a hole in the space time continuum and then eat a chicken taco (not necessarily in that order). Its not even that you bought something bad, hell you could still end up enjoying it, its just you wish you looked into it harder or you should've waited til it was on sale or something. Keep that in mind throughout this list as many games I post here I probably put a lot of time into and generally enjoyed, I just wasn't truly satisfied that I bought it.

#3: Turok

not an N64 classic sadly
      I've heard many people call this a terrible shooter, but honestly I disagree. I thought all in all it was a fair well rounded shooter with enough variety to help me make it all the way through til the final boss fight (which I never ended up beating). However; loose controls, a short campaign and frustrating difficulty made me feel upset over the $5 I spent on this game. I bought Rainbow Six: Vegas that very same day and it was disappointing transitioning between the games, epically since I had much higher hopes for Turok (since I assumed Vegas would end up being pretty much a first person GRAW). When I got this game, I had five FPSs in my 360 collection (excluding Rainbow Six). Turok sadly lacked the fluid shooting of COD: WAW, the open ended levels of Far Cry Instincs: Predator, the bot matches of Perfect Dark: Zero, and the simple fun of Soldier of Fortune: Payback. In the end it was a game I did almost complete, but I eventually lost interest in it once I got other games. I ended up gifting it to someone a year after I bought it. Sadly the person who got it didn't even give it a chance.

#2: Mirror's Edge

Proof of concept, nothing more
      This is another fairly controversial game when it came to reception. Many people believe its unique concept pushes past whatever flaw it may have. Other however feel the small package and limited gameplay hurt it too much for salvation. I'm closer to the later half of the group sadly. I bought this game during a "buy 2 get 1 free" sale on used games back in April of 2012. I wanted to do a semi-theme for some reason so I ended up buy three games with female main characters; this, FFX-2 and Resident Evil: Zero. I had extremely high hopes for this games, as I was growing sick of the slow, stereotypical first person action games I owned, and I was getting back into platformers, so I felt this game would be perfect. Hell even before I had a next gen console I saw commercials for this game and thought it looked amazing. Sadly all these good feelings were not meant to last. I honestly did have a good time with the game for a little bit, but after a while it sort of fell into a funk. The free running was far to linear and the combat was awful. I tried to compare it to Breakdown, a 2003 Xbox game that had a heavy focus on a realistic first person perspective, and honestly it didn't really stack up. I believe I just totally gave up at a section where you had to run up a building, since it was slow and not very exciting at all.

Special Hardware Mention

     "Sigh" I don't know what I was thinking buying this piece of crap. I was always worried I would get a Red Ring of Death the entire time I had my console, so in early Summer of 2013 I ended purchasing one of these cooling fans at a pawnshop for around $6. All this thing did was make my console louder than a freaking lawn mower. I even went online and found out these things actually increase the chances of getting a Red Ring by draining power from the console. Probably the most infamous moments with this thing was when I downloaded Assassin's Creed 2 in July of that year, and then Sleeping Dogs in January of 2014. The later was even funnier since I was playing my PS2 while it was downloading and I actually had to turn my TV up to hear my game!
     Also for an honorable mention we have a headset I purchased in December of 2011 for $14 at Radioshack. This was a third party one and for months it was pretty much useless since I didn't have Live Gold (or even a wireless adapter). When I finally got a wireless adapter, I was using it for the first time one a free Gold weekend playing Halo: Reach and GRAW. It worked perfectly fine that night (I even got yelled at by a 12 year old for singing). Flash forward to the next day and the thing didn't work at all. $14 and 7 months of waiting all for nothing.

#1: Stoked: Big Air Edition

The title was not how I felt
      Remember how I said most games on this list would be games I generally enjoyed? Yeah this one is the exception to that. I do want to make sure that I say its not really a BAD game, it was just not my things at all. This is a very sim based snowboarding game. So much so that I got bored with it very quickly and ran up to my Gamecube to play some more 1080 Avalanche. But the most disappointing thing about this game was that I ended up paying a disturbingly high $15 at Gamestop. Before this the most I spent on a game was $20, and that was because I bought it off of a friend (it was Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood). To make matters worse, the not much different regular version was only $5 and this version went down to $5 a few months later. So I ended up spending a decent amount on a game I didn't put more than 10 hours into. For the same price I could've afford up to four of the other games I eventually ended up adding to my collection. Again this was honestly not a bad game, and it even had some features I really liked (a pretty sweet soundtrack, nice graphics, open world mountains) but it was not at all what I expected. I almost ended up selling it in the Summer of 2012, but at the last minute I backed out. I did try to give it another try multiple times, but nothing made it better. That is why Stoked: Big Air Edition was the most disappointing game I bought for the Xbox 360.

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Number 9: Tomb Raider: Underworld

Finding the cover for this game was a pain
    Some might consider a game that I probably didn't put more than 15 or so hours into within the 3 years I owned it an odd choice for this top ten. Hell it even beat out the previous entry, which I have far more time put into. Probably the reason I didn't put too much time into this was because I got a shooter and a racing game the same time (along with three gamecube games). Pretty much every one of the other five games I purchased that day had more pick up and play value than Lara's adventure. But I'll get onto that later, here is the number nine spot.
     Tomb Raider: Underworld is an action adventure game released in 2008 on the 360, PS3 and PC (in more or less the same form) as well as the Wii, PS2, mobile phones and DS (which vary in faithfulness to the HD versions). It is the third game in the Crystal Dynamics reboot trilogy of the former PlayStation classic. Being a direct sequel to "Legend" the game picks off around where its predecessor left off. From there is plays off in a series of flashbacks (starting I believe two weeks before the into training mission). Basic gameplay elements include platforming through complex levels, puzzles, and combat.
its a balancing act deary
     This is a game in the franchise that time seems to have recently forgotten about. People will often think about the PS1 classics, Legends, and the 2013 reboot. This was the first strictly next gen installment into the series, and it seemed to have garnished mixed reviews due to its sort of half gen feel. By that I mean many elements feel "next gen" while others didn't exactly feel new, original, or fresh. Thankfully, Crystal Dynamics gave the players a backstory feature, so players who didn't get to Legend two years prior could know what going on. My biggest complaint about the game would have to be its glitches however. There seemed to be times where Lara would get stuck in an area and you would have to sort of jiggle the thumbstick to get her out. Hopefully that wouldn't happen over a huge ledge, or you'd be done for. An area I had no complaints on was the audio/video presentation. The graphics in this game were, and still are excellent to me. Beautiful complicated vistas are the game's specialty, and it makes sure you get a front row seat to the view. Character models are also wonderful, even if a little more dated than the environments. Your ears get some sweet candy as well, with film quality music and superb voice acting. Guns are loud and the creatures you fight sounds wonderfully convincing.
a vista not unlike this one
     I purchased this game in April of 2011. This was in the first batch of 360 games I bought outside of the two that came with my console. Its worth noting I bought these around 14 hours away from my hometown on a beautiful spring thunderstorm. Come to think of it, the memory of buying the game could almost be considered my best with it. Honestly this game seems to hold a place in my heart for the memory of that Summer, as it was pretty much felt like my last true childhood Summer. I remember getting home from one of my last days of Sophomore year and turning this game on, stuck at a part with a huge green and grey vista in front of Lara, not unlike the weather we were having that muggy June day. Had to stop playing for an hour to talk to a friend of mine on the phone.All these superficial memories may make it sound like I didn't enjoy the gameplay, but its quit the opposite. I've been dying to play this game ever since I got rid of my console, and I'm thinking of rebuying it on the PS3. Tomb Raider is one of those franchises I grew up with (which might be why, unlike many people, I have a hard time looking at Lara as a sex object) and getting this game resparked the interest in the franchise that I lost by playing Tomb Raider 4 on the Dreamcast (....just don't do it). Its a wonderful franchise, and its persistence is generally why Underworld is number 9 on this list.


Monday, June 30, 2014

Number 10: Fatal Inertia

Sonic and Knuckles in metal form
     The bottom of this list seemed to be the hardest position to figure out. In the end it came down to this game and the infamous Perfect Dark: Zero. What made me choose this Unreal powered futuristic racer was one simple question; which game gave me more satisfaction per amount of frustration. I came up with this solution by realizing that although I probably have sinked many more hours into PDZ (mostly due to the lovely bot matches) I generally enjoyed this game a lot more. Even though I never finished the career mode, I never had to stop a higher difficulty playthrough due to a damn bridge not loading (nice coding Rare).
     Fatal Inertia is a fairly basic futuristic racer. The gameplay relies heavily on combat, not unlike what is found in the popular wipeout series. A key separation between this and its contemporaries is the organic environments that can be an advantage and hindrance to your racing. There is also some nice customization features to be found in the four different types of ships, each of which have interesting sets of advantages and disadvantages.
reminds me of crimson skies
    "Fatally Average" is how IGN felt about this game, and personally I feel that may be a little harsh, but not by much. This was the first exclusive Xbox futuristic racer since 2002's disappointing "Quantom Redshift". Unlike that game however, this was not a Microsoft developed game, nor did it have former developers of wipeout on its team. Rather, it was made by "Koei", known for Dynasty Warriors,Dynasty Warriors, and Dynasty Warriors (thank you X-Play for that joke). Overall, the game was fortunate enough to avoid the big issue Redshift had, in that this game is actually playable throughout the entire experience. It also avoided Redshifts selling point in that the Audio/Video presentation isn't the best for the time. You can also tell the game clearly wasn't complete, as graphical pop-ins are extremely clear, glitches show up from time to time, and the controls clearly don't make use of the controller properly.
Magnet Cluster was always my personal favorite
     I purchased this game at Gamestop used for around $5 in late August of 2011. I also bought PDZ and Enchanted Arms that day (pretty nice variety I gotta say). One really sweet memory I had with this game was it being the first game I hooked up to an HDTV about a month after I bought it. I played on a 20in Standard Definition TV for the first 9 months of owning my 360 (though I did get to play on an HD one briefly in July of that year). Seeing the colors in this game flourish made me get a bit more respect for it. Of course, once I saw games with far more coats of polish at that LCD screen I saw the game for what it truly was, but even then it had its own charm. As I mentioned earlier, I never ended up unlocking everything in this game, as it was one of those "get into a groove for a few days and then put it down for a month or two" games for me. I remember getting into grooves around a year after I bought it and then in late winter of 2013. I believe it also ended up being the final game I ever played on my 360 before I sold it to Gamestop. All in all, I ended up having one good time with this mediocre but charming little racing game. 

Sunday, January 12, 2014

The end of an era: my Xbox 360 top 10

Despite what the title may have you believe, this is not a list made because of the recently released xbox one. In reality, the 360 I had since January of 2011 is finally reaching its last leg. So I figured why not do a top ten list of my favorite games I own (or extended borrowed) for the console? But then I thought "eh thats dull and boring" so I decided I was gonna do five top 3 lists after every couple of entries. Each game in the top ten will be a single post of its own while all three in the top threes will be a single post.

Here are the five top 3 lists I'll be doing:
  • Most Disappointing purchase
  • Ugliest and prettiest 
  • most unique
  • most unfinished
  • flat out worst
Now since I haven't played through every game released for the console, this  list will only be using the 50 or so games I own (or extended borrowed). Below is a list of every game that could make any of the lists!
  1. Prey
  2. Virtua Fighter 5
  3. Turning Point: Fall of Liberty
  4. Halo Reach
  5. Forza Motorsport 2
  6. Turok
  7. Stoked: Big Air Edition
  8. Halo 4
  9. Golden Axe: Beast Rider
  10. Prince of Persia
  11. Harms way
  12. Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood
  13. Happy Wars
  14. Rogue Warrior
  15. Duke Nukem Forever
  16. Enchanted Arms
  17. Alone in the Dark
  18. Hexic HD
  19. Fatal Inertia
  20. Pure
  21. SEGA Superstars Tennis
  22. Devil May Cry 4
  23. Kameo: Elements of Power
  24. Tomb Raider: Underworld
  25. Mirror's Edge
  26. Dead Rising 2: Case Zero
  27. Doritos Crash Course 2
  28. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  29. Lost Planet: Colonies Edition
  30. Borderlands
  31. L.A. Noire 
  32. Batman: Arkham City
  33. Rainbow Six: Vegas
  34. Assassin's Creed 2
  35. Project Gotham Racing 3
  36. Final Fantasy XIII
  37. Far Cry Instincts Predator 
  38. Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter
  39. Gears of War 2
  40. Perfect Dark: Zero
  41. Far Cry 2
  42. Call of Duty 3
  43. Fallout: New Vegas
  44. Call of Duty: World at war
  45. Soldier of Fortune: Payback
  46. Burnout: Paradise
  47. Sleeping Dogs
  48. Left 4 Dead
  49. F.E.A.R. Files
Expect #10 later tonight. Heres hoping I finish this list by the end of the month or so

Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Far Cry Instincts Predator (360) re-review

The original "HD Collection"
     Now anyone who has been on here before can clearly see that I've reviewed this exact game before (exactly 2 years ago this day to be precise). Well after all that time, I look back at that review and noticed how poorly written it was. This was both do to my refusal to review what the hell I just wrote, and the fact that at the time, I barely scratched the surface of the game while pretending I was an expert at it. Well as of now I have beaten both of the campaigns, used the map editor, and played multiplayer. I have seen everything this game has to offer me, and I have also played more games released around the same time. In other words, I can now give this game a fair review. Without further delay, here is my review of Far Cry Instincts Predator for the Xbox 360.
     Far Cry Instincts Predator (or FCIP as I'll be calling it throughout this review) is a 2006 FPS released for the Xbox 360 fairly early in its lifespan. The game in itself is a collection of two original Xbox games; Far Cry Instincts (Released in late 2005) and Far Cry Instincts Evolution (Released in 2006, on the same day as FCIP). Pretty much all the Ubisoft did was shove the two single player games, Evolution's multiplayer, and a few improvements into one disc. The factors basically equate to a game that has to be looked at as both what it is (pretty much an HD collection before those were even a thing) as compared to some of its competition at the time. Was this glorified last-gen game worth your time? I should gamers have just got Perfect Dark Zero or Ghost Recon: Advance Warfighter? Lets find out...

Presentation

     Well as far as presentation goes, the whole thing is pretty much identical to Evolution (which is to be expected as both of them were developed at the same time). The game doesn't even try to streamline the two campaigns despite taking place one after the other. I guess this was to allow fans who already beat the original one to go straight for the evolution one. This came to a problem when the game was first released however, as players couldn't go directly to the second campaign without either first beating the original, or using a cheat code. This has been corrected with a patch however, so as long as you have internet, you're fine.
     The plot is honestly surprisingly well thought out for an FPS. While its nothing really spacial, you can still tell the developers put some effort in making sure gamers want to know what goes on, and it makes sense. Basically you play as a sarcastic, lazy guy named Jack Carver. While driving a paying customer out to an island, his boat gets destroyed by mercenaries and he is forced to swim away dodging them. You eventually find an ear piece in which you talk to someone named Doyle who leads you through most of the game. You eventually get captured and injected with a substance that gives you animal like abilities. The entire first campaign is you slowly gaining your powers, while the evolution one, despite its name, doesn't exactly give you many new ones. Like I said, while its no award winning plot, it still outclasses far too many shooters of its time (and even today).

Graphics 

Multiplayer in action
 In terms of graphics, we have to look at the game in three separate parts; campaign 1 (Instincts), campaign 2 (Evolution) and multiplayer. Reason being each one honestly has noticeable differences. Lets start from the lowest, multiplayer.The multiplayer graphics really pull back the draw distance (thus making some custom maps a bit difficult to pull off). The background are far lower rez than in single player. Finally the lighting has less of a pop than the single player game. All these changes were made to promise a steady framerate, and thats exactly where this area succeeds. Throughout online, I have never had an issue with lag of any kind, and in multiplayer, that is what really counts. Bravo Ubisoft!
Instincts in action
     Next in line is the original campaign, Instincts. Since this game was originally developed for the original Xbox, Crytek had the powerful but dated hardware to work with. In other words, outside of beefing up the draw distance and resolution, it looks exactly the same as it did.This means you're gonna see some funny looking trees, plastic people, and some occasionally low resolution textures. While it doesn't really look extremely bad, people weren't gonna wow their friends who owned last gen consoles at the time with this part.
Evolution in action
     Finally we have the cream of the crop, Evolution Campaign. This one was made with the next gen hardware in mind, thus making it a much better looking game. the lighting is far more pronounced, the textures (excluding the end of the game) are higher resolution, and the weapons have a real shine to them.While the graphics here would honestly have a hard time stacking up to the likes of Kameo, Project Gotham Racing 3, or even Oddworld: Stranger's Wrath on the original xbox, they still hold their own better than the first campaign or multiplayer.
Xbox
360
     And if you really wanted to know the difference between evolution on the 360 and on the original xbox, heres a comparison.

Sound
  
     The audio experience in FCIP is surprisingly well done. There are three things I want to sounds good in an FPS; guns, atmosphere, and music. FCIP almost completely succeeds on all fronts (with some minor hiccups). With the exception of the base pistol, weapons sound beefy and powerful (even when they're not, though we'll get to that later). You really get that feeling of firing a projectile perfectly here. Since the game takes place in a tropical environment, the expected chirps of birds, rustle of the waves, and movement of the wild grass is all there. When there isn't any music or gun fights, you can really close your eyes and visualize being there....though you may get killed if you do that too long so be careful. Finally the music has the perfect "summer blockbuster" type sound to it with typical action rock rhythms. Its a good break from the overly orchestrated soundtracks we hear today. Voice acting is surprisingly well done too, though you will find yourself laughing at the screams of the enemies when you feral attack them (that may sound disturbing, but trust me you will laugh). My only gripe about the sound is the cry jack makes when he gets hit doesn't really change much based on how hurt you are. It can be frustrating when you get 90% of your health taken away and he makes the same sound he would've made if you only lost 5%.

Gameplay

     Now lets get to the reason you would buy this game, the gameplay. Again we need to split this up into the same three sections we did with the graphics , but first lets just give a general lowdown of what every mode has to offer. I think the closest game I can think of in terms of general control would be Halo (seeing as it was developed for the Xbox, thats not much of a surprise).  The jump, crouch, shoot, grenade, melee, reload/pick-up, and grenade selection buttons are all the same as Halo. Weapon selection is done on the D-Pad (with a three weapon system being used) and most feral related abilities are activated with the Y button. Many gamers today may not like the "loose" feeling the game has, by that I mean Jack doesn't really feel like he has a whole lot of weight to either himself or his weapons. Most weapons allow duel wielding too. 
     First lets start with some specific aspects of the Instincts campaign. First time players may not notice this, but the beginning is REALLY difficult compared to the end. This is mostly because abilities such as a one hit one kill melee attack, regenerating health, and thermal vision are not available to you yet. This means you have to play the into using a lot of stealth and sniping. This is fine for the first half since its pretty much a training part, but damn does it get frustratingly difficult after a while (epically since you're required to use the weak pistol for a while). The level design is fairly linear in this campaign. While you will find sections that have a couple of different paths, there really isn't any way to explore (unlike the 2004 original). Enemies are often called extremely stupid by reviewers, and they're 100% right. However, they never point out that this game is often very difficult because of them. I don't know why, but I died a lot throughout this game, and the enemies were usually the reason. They always seemed to snap right to my head anytime they say me. Finally there is a big issue with the auto aim in this one. it snaps to the outer most part of the enemy, thus making head shots really difficult. It also makes turning a pain when there are multiple enemies around. 
     Thankfully, the evolution campaign fixes many of the issues, while creating a few more. The auto aim is thankfully far less broken, making turning feel much MUCH better. The level design is also far more open, and back tracking is actually needed later on in the game. But with all the good comes some bad. This campaign seems to love trapping you in a small area and then forcing you to do a semi horde mode at the most annoying points. I for one love horde modes, but this game throws them in completely randomly, and its gets frustrating being forced to fight through them when you just want to continue.
     Both campaigns have a fairly annoying checkpoint system that seems to always pack one annoying section way at the end, thus forcing you to mow through 100 enemies just to get snipped 2 seconds before the checkpoint.  They also both have vehicles, but I any recommend using them when they're required. Reason? The control pretty bad. Why they didn't map accelerate to the right trigger I will never know.
     Multiplayer is apparently the reason a lot of people go this game to begin with. While I can't recommend it just for it, the feature does kick a lot of ass. While I hate the player and ranked match bullshit a crap tone of games seem to use, match making is easy to find even to this day (though only both going to player matches since no one does ranked matched anymore). Its a pretty standard fair, but predator powerup and a strong map community makes this pretty sweet. The standard game modes are all there as well. This is all boosted by a strong map maker included with the game. The only limites here are really space and what the game provides you, as I've seen some pretty unique maps I didn't even know could be made on here. Probably the best thing about the editor is the fact that you can simple press back to go into a gameplay mode to test your map in first person. There is no load time at all, so it takes away the fiddling many map editors have. Finally the multiplayer has no unlockables, so there is nothing to work up to, but its also fine that everything can be used right off the back. 

Overall

     With Far Cry 2 and 3 already out in stores, is it a good idea to pick up an overly glorified HD collection? I would honestly say yes. Its often on sale on Xbox Live and I picked up my physical copy for a small $6 at a pawn shop. While the game does have a pretty hefty amount of problems (both ones it had on day one, and some that got worse do to aging) its still a fun romp of FPS fun that can excite a far cry fan. I honestly recommend using cheats though, as it gives it a sweet, almost quake like feel. Achievements are a pain in the ass though since no one does Ranked matches for some stupid reason. Overall, pick this up if it sounds like your thing. 




Monday, July 16, 2012

Need for Speed: Most Wanted 5-1-0 (PSP) Review

Twisted Metal: Head on anyone?
Yeah, I'm not even going to make a joke about how I haven't done anything on here since November or how no one ever seems to look at this crap. Whatever, guess I'll do my long awaited first ever PSP review! I had to think for a second about what game I should do since I have a good selection. After a couple of minutes, though, I thought it would be cool to review the first PSP game i ever got. Need for Speed 5-1-0 is a pretty solid downgrade from it's console counter parts. For the most part, it captures the same great feel, even at the cost of many big components.

Presentation 

You know those cool, stylized cut scenes the  console versions have? Yeah, this has none of them. In fact, the entire story has been completely taken out of the game. That being said, the game has cool, functional menus with short load times and plenty of options. The lack of a story however, does make the game feel more "incomplete". This might be because you don't really have a reason as to why you're doing these races or why you want to be number 1 on the blacklist. Rather you just do everything no questions asked.

Graphics

Sunday drive?
 This is one of the games strongest suits. For the PSP game from early 2006, this is one good looking game. The cars are made up of plenty of pixels with a very nice sheen to them. The framerate moves along very smoothly, even with a bunch of cars on screen at once. The backgrounds may look a little plain when looking at still shots, but they look fine when you're moving thanks to the really good blur effect. There are a few problems though. For one, the tracks really don't look very different from one another. Also, there is no car damage at all. This really doesn't matter to much though, as it's not that big of a deal.

Sound

This is a mixed bag. The cars all sound fairly similar, and they're a little bit to high pitched for my taste. The crashing sounds are great though, you can really hear the metal bend and the glass shatter. The cop's radio chatter sounds really cool. The soundtrack is ok. Some songs are pretty good, while others are just bad. Also, the game seems to play some songs WAY more than others. Thankfully, you can turn off songs (just hope you like more of the soundtrack than you dislike). Come on EA, no custom soundtrack!?

Gameplay

First things first, dont expect this to play like the console counterpart. This is NOT a port of most wanted, rather it is a complete reworking of the game on a completely separate engine.  With that out of the way, the gameplay is mostly solid and fun. The driving has a very nice arcade feel to it, with regenerating NOS and the use of the "speedbeaker" (basically bullet time). The cops add heavy tension to the game. While sometimes they can be easy, other times they can be pretty cheap. It seems to be completely random when the come out. You coould do one race with no cops, and then do the exact same race again with cops. The upgrading system is pretty strait forward and easy. The controls also have a few issues with them. The best option is "Automatic B" which is,

X=Accelerate
Circle=Look Back
Triangle=Speedbreaker
Square=Brake/Reverse
R=E-Brake
L=Nitrous
Left/Right=Steer
Up=Pursuit Camera
Down=Change Camera

Fist of all, why they didn't allow you to put "look back" on the up or down arrow is beyond me. Also, why don't they allow you to Accelerate and brake with the shoulder buttons? While they're not perfect in terms of placement, they do work very well in terms of responsiveness.


Overall

 
As EA's second attempt at putting NFS on the PSP, this is pretty solid. Its a generally better game than Underground 2 was, and its MUCH better than the lazy DS version. This is a very fun and solid Arcade racer on the PSP that honestly still holds up to some of the console's later NFS titles. Actually, the graphics are generally better than the PSP port of Undercover (which came out 2 years later)! Sadly, EA shut down the online severs to this game a while back, but there is still always the option of Ad Hoc multiplayer. Sadly however, the blacklist wont take you very long to get through, so don't expect the experience to last very long.