think we are getting ridge racer tomorrow
Bout time!
Quez, in the immortal words of The McKenzie Brothers...................
TAKE OFF EH!!!!!!!!!
" On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me... a beer."
i' d appreciate feedback on whether or nor it' s as good as you hoped.
Been playing it for about an hour now, and I have to say, I' m
really really impressed.
Graphics Remember what you saw in the Stranglehold trailers a while back? Yeah? There you have it. The game doesn' t really stand out in screenshots. The enemy character design and environment quality isn' t really anything to write home about, and the water effects are anything but good (It looked like he was drinking gritty, yellow, dry-ice more than it did tequila with bubbles in it).
However, It runs at a relatively solid 60fps the whole way through, the game draws your eye to " cool stuff to ' splode" very naturally in a non-annoying sort of way. The smoke effects are absolutely awesome, the explosions are top-notch (the propane tanks really caught my eye) and the sheer amount of destructable objects makes the game look gorgeous in motion. I' ve only got one major complaint in the graphics department, and it has to do with the lighting. There' s no better way I can put this, as I don' t know why it' s happening, but all the enemies look like they' ve had their bloom cranked up about 400% higher than the environment.
Not a major issue, just a little off-putting.
Sound Didn' t pay attention to the soundtrack, if there was any, so that means that it really doesn' t stand out much. The firearms are nice and loud, and the destructable environments all fizzle, pop, explode and crash very satisfyingly. The enemies don' t do a whole lot of talking, but it' s not like there' s a significant lack of voices either.
Controls Right-trigger - Fire
Left-trigger - Context Sensitive Action/Dive
Left-bumper - A mostly useless cover button.
Right-bumper - SloMo
All the rest you could really figure out for yourself. There' s no reload button, as Mr. Woo has a brand new 120 round magazine for his pistols.
Also, there' s no dedicated jump button, jumping/climbing is all contextual apparently, which I found odd.
Character movement is the most fluid I' ve ever played in a 3rd person 360 game yet. Aiming is quick when it needs to be, but it' s suprisingly precise. If there was an option to calibrate it beyond inversion, I never needed to do so.
Gameplay Now, if you can envision this, imagine what Enter the Matrix could have been....
Shazaam! That' s Stranglehold. The game manages to give you that epic feeling of achieving movie-esque stunts and creative kills (A-la Black) without feeling like you' re being lead through a set of action-movie hoops. You can pick up on the frequent " Tequila Moments" or whatever they' re calling them, or you can go about your merry way, using the well-balanced slo-mo system. You don' t feel cheated out of an epic fight-scene if you don' t pick up on all of the context-sensitive qeues, which is quite an achievement.
Which leads me to the epic moments themselves. Whenever you are able to do something neato, a silver glint pops up where you should be doing it. (IE a kerosene tank having a bright white glint, or a handrail being lit up) All of it feels very natural, mainly because there are so many of them lying around (kerosene tanks, AC units, support beams, produce trollies, awnings with heavy objects above etc.).
The destructable environments are top-notch. There' s a fountain in the first area that while on first glance looks indestructable, so naturally, I pop about 4 or 5 shots into it & start to see parts chip off. I persist a little bit & large chunks start falling away. There' s stuff like that littered all through the demo. Very nice.
Last thing I' ll cover is Tequila' s special moves. I was really wary of these when I first got wind of them, as special moves in shooters tend to be rather bland & uninspired, but these captured the right balance of usefulness & fun. You fill a circular bar by well, shooting people. The more epic the kill, the more green you get, which means more special moves for you.
One gives you a quick health boost, just enough to dust whoever is bugging you & find a medkit.
One sends you on a bullet rampage. There' s a quick pan-back showing Tequila reloading his guns, looking menacing, then it heads back into the game, rather blurry & drained looking. You start firing like mad (not expending any of your ammo I might add) destroying anything and everything in your path. My only complaint is that there aren' t enough enemies to kill before your time runs out.
One is a spinning-attack where it pans back, shows Tequila spinning around firing tons of shots into everybody local, while a dove floats about looking poetic.
It clears out the area of all enemies.
The final special ability (my personal favorite) is their precision-aim feature. Aim at an enemy, hit up on the D pad and your view zooms in on him. Take a precision shot & fire off a round. The camera follows your bullet & watches it hit. Depending on where you hit the guy, the results are different. So far I' ve gotten different results from headshots, a shot to the mouth, neck, shoulders, hands, heart, stomach, balls (
) and legs. Very very slick.
Final Impression? B+ or an A-
From what I' ve seen, the game managed to avoid most of the problems that plague most 3rd person and destructable environment games. I' ll be buying this game at full price when it comes out, which is saying something.
< Message edited by eddie_the_hated -- 9 Aug 07 15:31:00 >