Committing Grand Theft Auto

I would like to announce with much fanfare that I have finally fired up my copy of Grand Theft Auto IV and I’m aiming to play right through it.  For me, that is quite an achievement.  The game has just been sitting there, gathering dust for over a year at my current estimate.  Partly I think it’s been due to lack of free time, and otherwise it’s been total apathy towards the game.

Apathy, you say?  Well, yes.  Back on the PS2 the Grand Theft Auto series was genuinely ground breaking and it offered something new.  On the next generation systems, despite great visuals, more detailed environments and gameplay enhancements, I’ve felt it’s been a case of peddling out more of the same.  Besides, during the launch of GTA IV in 2008, I got hooked on Race Driver: GRID anyway, which is a totally awesome racing game.  One in fact, that I need to revisit as all my gamesaves got wiped in the ‘Great PS3 Christmas Tragedy of 2008’ that I’ll continue to mention for a good while yet as it still hurts.

Back to discussing a bit of GTA IV- from what I’ve played so far, it mostly feels exactly the same as previous instalments.  The only thing that got my attention was the explosion of a car bomb, which looked so shocking and real.  A definite improvement from past instalments in the series.  Yet I’ve felt the apathy creep in again.  Although you play as an Eastern European with a conscience, you still end up going on a rampage like in previous games in the series, so I’m skipping through the cut scenes as I just don’t care.  A bonus in doing this is I figure I can go for the ‘Liberty City Minute’ Trophy where I’ve got to complete the main story in less than 30 hours.  Sorted.

Pausing to reflect for a moment: If there has been one downside to playing GTA IV and Prince of Persia, then it has been leaving Lara Croft on her own in some cave somewhere, waiting for me to guide her on her way…

Retro Gaming Memories: Gran Turismo

Cover art for Gran Turismo, the first game in ...
Image via Wikipedia

I’d like to share with you some memories of gaming days gone by, when times were simpler, and true 3D gaming was a novelty…

Schoolboy shenanigans

In the mid 90s, I’ll always remember finishing school on a Friday, and spending it with my mate.  First, I’d go out with him and help him do his paper round, munching on some sweets we’d got at the newsagents.  Later on we’d fire up the PlayStation (original) and play Gran Turismo- with a difference.

We weren’t gamblers by any stretch of the imagination, but we’d place ‘penny bets’ on each race which made things interesting.  Every so often we would up the stakes by placing all or nothing bets on one race.  In times like those, it felt like the world was on my shoulders- if I lost, I could end up losing as much as 50 pence!  But I digress…

Ready, steady, go

For a young lad then, Gran Turismo was a slice of gaming heaven.  You had gorgeous 3D graphics, with hundreds of cars rendered beautifully.  And they were fast.  That’s what mattered.  But the Gran Turismo series heralded more than just racing, it brought out the whole ‘driving experience’.  The music was perfect; it varied between being fast and satisfying, to having some haunting melodies.  Just thinking about it is sending shivers down my spine.

They say the car’s the star, but the racing tracks were equally impressive.  Each track became a thing of legend; Trial Mountain, Grand Valley Speedway, and Deep Forest Raceway to name a few.  Sure, the AI was a bit unforgiving as they never made mistakes, just following their own perfect racing line flawlessly.  Quite a strong constrast to AI behaviour in the games of today such as Race Rriver: GRID in which yes, your competitors can and do make mistakes.

Everyone will remember saving up and buying their first car.  The patience required to hold off on any rash purchases, holding out for the high-end model that you really wanted.  I would be doing Gran Turismo a disservice if I didn’t mention the detailed customisations you could make to your car: fitting turbos, racing chips, choosing the right tires and tweaking the suspension.  This was to many people, including myself, a level of detailed never seen before in a racing game.  But Gran Turismo was never just another racing game, was it?  It was the real driving simulator.

A vintage

So, do I think that Gran Turismo has aged well?  Of course it has.  It is a classic game that showed everyone just what a driving game could be.  The series has gone from strength to strength, gathering new fans with each successive game.  Whilst I do admit to prefering to sample the delights of Collin McRae: DiRT, and Race Driver: GRID for my driving fix these days, I will always look back on my gaming memories with Gran Turismo fondly.

Do you have any retro gaming memories that you’d like to share?  I’d love to hear your stories!

A golden opportunity for Codemasters

I feel that Codemasters are missing out on a golden opportunity.  How so?  I’m referring to Trophy support and downloadable content; what I’m on about will all become clear very soon.

Codemasters are driving game veterans, having developed the Collin McRae Rally series over a number of years now.  They followed up their great series with the launch of DiRT on the PS3.  Then the subsequent development and launch of Race Driver: GRID- essentially the latest game in the TOCA Touring Car series, was a stroke of genius.  I’m only guessing here, but GRID surely reached a large audience.  I was a gamer that had played the TOCA Touring Car games and didn’t particularly like them, but GRID changed that. The visuals, the style, and the sublime handling.  Hey, I liked the handling! (some people would argue the handling was lumpy).

What has made things turn sour for PS3 users, is the fact that GRID won’t be patched to retrospectively support Trophies.  Everything’s been quiet on the GRID front for months, and then a mysterious downloadable content pack is available to purchase on the PlayStation Store.  It’s called the “8-ball pack“, and for £6.29 you get 8 cars.  Yup, for all that money, you just get that.  Let’s have a look what the competition have done…

Criterion Games, the developers of Burnout Paradise, have toiled away at and released Trophy support, and numerous downloadable content packs (all free!), and are only going to charge for their next pack because it adds a whole new island to the game.  It is probably even in the territory of an expansion pack.

This is why I don’t get this comment:

We’re currently not planning to retrospectively support PSN trophies – it’s not a trivial thing to add to a game.

Source.

This is where I believe that Codemasters have missed a golden opportunity.  The fans want Trophies, and the developers want a return on investment (ROI), so why don’t they patch the game for trophies, chuck a couple of cars in to sweeten the deal, then offer the pack up for purchase on the PlayStation Store?

You may think I’m making a big deal out of this, especially because there are many games out there that were released before Trophies came out and haven’t been patched such as Resistance: Fall of Man, The Orange Box, and many more.  But none of those games have just had a downloadable content pack released!  If they’re willing to develop new content packs, then why not Trophy support?

Sure, there will be a development team working on DiRT 2, but GRID is a franchise now in it’s own right and they could have kept interest in the game for far longer than they have done, just by following Criterion’s example.  But I digress.  I’ll conclude by admitting that the main reason I’m so upset about this is that GRID is one of my favourite games, and I’m just irritated by the attitude of the developers in this case.

GTA IV gets Trophy patch

GTA IV gets Trophy patch– I must admit, this news really took me by surprise.  Considering such games as Race Driver: GRID and Resistance: Fall of Man were not going to be patched, I had resigned myself to the fact that GTA IV would also not be patched.  Sooo….. this is great!

So many games, too little time

I suppose that this post has as much to do about money as it does about there being loads of games out there, but not having enough time to play them!  Anyhow, I might as well recount from the beginning.  I got my PS3 for Christmas 2007 and played on Assassin’s Creed.  A lot.  My brother and I then got some extra games as well to be playing through, such as Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, The Orange Box, Resistance: Fall of Man and Colin McRae: DiRT.  Quite enough to be getting through, don’t you think?

I think I had finished Assassin’s Creed (or there about) a few weeks after Christmas as I had to go back to Uni for exams in January.  Between January and Easter 2008 I got hooked on Uncharted and played it as much as I could each weekend I was back home… every 4 weeks!  I then finally completed it at Easter.  Over Easter I got stuck into Resistance, DiRT, and the Orange Box.  I’ve still yet to complete either DiRT or Resistance!  Anyhow, I decided to attack the Orange Box over Easter and over the following months got a fair amount of it completed.  I then came to the end of my journey with the last bit of Half-Life 2: Episode 2 to finish and Portal.  By mid-May The Orange Box was completed.

Don’t even mention Grand Theft Auto IV; I just haven’t had time to go on it or been particularly bothered with playing it.  It’s not going anywhere, so I’ll get back to it at some point.  Since being home for the Summer, Race Driver: GRID has been out and I love it.  I have still got way over 3/4 of the game left to finish!  Other times, I’ve fired up GRID and decided to play online for a good hour or two.  Recently released is Metal Gear Solid 4, but there’s no way I can afford it, let alone have time to play it!

Assassin's Creed

I suppose this little story of my PS3 game playing journey might be a bit boring, but I’ve been trying to describe the plight of a gamer more often than not, not being able to play any games!  As a student I don’t have that much money to start shelling out on £40 and £50 games, and my PS3 is left at home whilst I’m away at Uni.  I can however appreciate people who have full time jobs as both this year and last year during the Summer, I have worked 40 hour weeks and you don’t necessarily feel like gaming after a particularly rough day.

Really, this post has become a kind of message to all those kids with a 40-strong PS3 (or Xbox 360, why not?) games collection who play every night and complete one game a week.  Which is ridiculous.  So my message is, erm get your homework done(?!) and gaming will have to take a back-seat in your life in future, so enjoy it while it lasts.

If anyone is wondering what on earth has being going on in this post, then you are not alone.  I, myself am not really sure either.  I’ve kind of gone off-tangent and started to rant a bit, but I’ve covered everything I’ve wanted to say, so I’ll leave it at that.  Comments, as always are most welcome.

Hands-on with Race Driver: GRID

Regular followers of my humble ramblings will have noticed of late that I am obsessed with Race Driver: GRID. I just thought I’d post some of my initial impressions and experiences of the game, along with my reasoning for getting the game in the first place.

Background
Quite simply, it all started with the demo for Race Driver: GRID. The handling of the cars was a bit tricky, but once I had mastered the controls it was good. Real good. I wanted more. I suppose the GRID demo has been one of the rare few demos that I have hammered. Then the reviews started coming in; 9/10 and 10/10 from most magazines and online publications. I was getting good vibes, and so I swiftly placed my order with Play.com and got a bonus Aston Martin DBR9 as well!

Starting out
Initially you race for other teams in order to scrape a bit of cash together to repair your first ride, and to finance your own racing team. You’ll compete in a mixture of varied racing environments from racing muscle cars in the USA, to drifting high performance cars in Japan. There’s so much to do. The game starts to ‘kick up a gear’ (pardon my pun) when you get your own team together; from choosing your team colours and sponsors, to climbing the ranks of world teams and drivers. What’s very refreshing is that your objective isn’t always to come first. A team or sponsor may only want you to come at least 3rd or 5th, and some only want you to finish the race!

The difficulty is adjustable. Keep coming last in a racing style you’re not comfortable with? Kick it down a notch. Conversely if you’re wiping the floor with all the other drivers in one of your best events, then kick it up a notch to spice things up a bit and give yourself a real challenge. For me, what really distinguishes Race Driver: GRID from Gran Turismo 5 Prologue is your other drivers. Here, they are (depending on the difficulty level) just as likely as you to clip a corner, spin out of control or brake too late. The damage is fully realistic and very satisfying when you scream past another driver who clips the side and totals their car.

Race Driver: GRID

The atmosphere
Whilst the behaviour of your competitors (mentioned above) certainly adds to the atmosphere, your pit crew communicates important information to you, such as the state your car is in and who you need to beat in order to secure the current objective. The most amazing feeling I have ever experienced in a racing game has been compteting in Le Mans 24 Hour on GRID. It’s just epic. Unlike racing for hours on Gran Turismo (boring, tedious) time is speeded up dramatically, allowing you to experience the full day and night cycle.

Conclusions
So what do I think after my initial hands-on with Race Driver: GRID? It’s racing- as it should be. In a way, it’s all I had hoped for and more. Codemasters really deserve credit for a fantastic job. I’ve not mentioned everything, such as licences, reputation, the art of touge etc., but I never intended to (also I’ve not tried out multiplayer yet, but when I do, I might provide an update further down the line). Hopefully this has just given you a brief overview of my thoughts and experiences on this game, and a taster of what awaits you, should you decide to take the wallet for a walk. Highly recommended for both PS3 and Xbox 360 owners.

Clive Moody on Race Driver: GRID

Clive Moody on Race Driver: GRID– “Codemasters’ latest driving epic drifts sideways and at great speed onto shop shelves today. To celebrate its release we talk to senior producer, Clive Moody, about the design philosophy behind the game, and the team’s passionate love of smoke effects…”  An essential read for all gamers; especially petrol heads!

My driving game of choice: is there a worthy successor?

I’ve been enjoying Collin McRae: DiRT for a while now, but have started looking around for my next driving fix. I’ve totally skipped Burnout Paradise because I don’t like driving games trying to be role-playing games. I don’t want to cruise around a huge city looking for a set of traffic lights which has the event I want. Instead I just want to select the car and the event on a menu and then race. Period. DiRT does this perfectly, as does the entire Gran Turismo series and all previous Burnout games.

Sooo… I have Gran Turismo 5 Prologue. Am I enjoying it? Not particularly. Sure, the graphics are impressive but it’s quite tough and doesn’t ‘feel’ fun. It just doesn’t. Heck- it’s even billed as ‘the real driving simulator’. I want a fun racing game, not a simulator. On the PS2 the World Rally Championship series and the Burnout series satisfied my appetite.

Race Driver: GRID

So what game will be the worthy successor to my current driving game of choice- DiRT? I feel that it just HAS to be Race Driver: GRID. I’ve played on a demo and it is amazing- I’ll be buying it as soon as it is released. Ok, so why am I hyping this game up? The demo I played borrowed certain menu effects from DiRT (which is no bad thing), and seems to have bags of personality (ala Burnout) that seemed sorely lacking in TOCA. The visual style and handling seems to be the result of putting Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Burnout Paradise and DiRT into a smoothie maker and achieving the perfect blend. What’s surprising is it’s actually the successor to the competent TOCA Touring Car series; a series which I’ve played occasionally on demos, but not actually bothered to buy.

When I get Race Driver: GRID soon, I’m sure I’ll post some more thoughts up here. This game should be on the radar of both PS3 and Xbox 360 owners. Better still, try the demo!