Finally! As much as the idea of having big budget, AAA titles released every week sounds like a good idea, it doesn't do our bank accounts the power of good! So as the release of all the big hitters for this year have come and gone, I feel it's an appropriate time to look back and concede, just what was the worst of the year. And do make this be a game you've played. Not that I've seen it in JPH!P (thank God, it's the only place that doesn't), but I don't want to see the likes of say, Resistance 2 being slammed just for being on a different console. Ain't big and it ain't clever.
For me, my biggest dissapointment of the year, and I'm surprised myself to say this, goes to
Project Gotham Racing 4
"Uh, say what Tuffty? A technically solid, graphical tour de force of a driving game is your biggest dissapointment?", I hear you cry. Well I'm afraid so. Let's get this out of the way first, yes, it
is a very solid game. Cars handle very well and the introduction of m0t0rb1k3s is a very welcome addition. And yes, it
is a very pretty game. Racing in London, Shanghai and New York, to name a few, has never looked better.
Howwwwwwwever. As someone who's played PGR2 and even as far back as Metropolis Street Racer on the good ol Dreamcast, I will say this about PGR4.
It's not a PGR game. Sounds a bit silly when Project Gotham Racing is in the damn title but to me, PGR4 just doesn't feel like a proper entry in the series. Let me tell you all what I loved from MSR, and why it's still my favourite driving game ever. The locations. I would be driving in London one minute, and then a drive through Shinjuku would just feel so different. Now it helped with the realistic time gameplay gimick (for those not aware, MSR used the internal clock in the DC to determine what time of day you would be driving in-game, so if I decided to play the game at 12 pm I would be driving through a sunny/rainy day in London at 12 pm but in San Francisco, it would be 4 am at night and in Tokyo 9 pm ), but what also helped was the soundtrack. Each city in the game had it's own built in radio stations that was unique to that location, with radio DJ's to fill in the gaps between songs. It was a really nice touch that led some authenticity to the game, made it a little different from other racers in the market and something I still look very fondly back on.
PGR2 ditched the real time mechanic, but at least there were daytime/nighttime stages for each city and they expanded on the radio stations seeing as there were more cities to drive in which I had no complaint about. PGR4 however has none of these things. Instead, you get a generic soundtrack which you can listen to in any city, no DJ's, and certainly no realistic time gimmick, not even as an option for us to choose, so it's always nighttime while driving in Shinjuku, or always daytime in Macau. And I just can't help but wonder, if these, admittedly minor, things were included I would have never gotten tired of the game. Dynamic weather, different time zones, DJ's, that's what I'd like in a PGR game. That' s what I think made previous entries great. But with PGR4 each city is just too samey, like the developers used cut and paste a lot, I didn't care where I was driving in.
Another gripe is online. I've never had a game with worse difficulties connecting to a single race online. I've had the game for a year and could tell you how many races I've been in with one hand. I don't know if this is a shared problem, but as a result, it did kill the lasting appeal a little. Once you've finished career mode, there's really not much else to do.
So that's all I have to say about PGR4. I realise that if it shouldn't really matter if it plays well, and that perhaps nostalgia is playing some part in shaping my opinion, but PGR4, to me, doesn't have that much else to differntiate itself from other racers, something that, for someone who even liked MSR's god-awful-yet-good soundtrack of original spoofs of different genres, makes me an unhappy camper.
Topic: Biggest Dissapointment of 08? (Read 4365 times)