henke on 22/10/2018 at 04:44
I've been playing this for a couple weeks now, and I'm finding it quite engrossing. Despite being a driving game, it really showers you in stuff to do, so it has that quality that a lot of open world games have where if you get bored of one activity you can go do something else and keep enjoying the game. My favourite thing has been the "barn finds", where you go to an area with a "suspected barn" and once you find the barn, whadayaknow, there's an old car just sitting in there, free for the taking. Then someone fixes it up for you and a short while later you get to drive it. Wheee! Besides showering you in activities, it also showers you in cars. "Hey you did pretty good in this special race, go ahead and keep the car!", "Hey you won the race, go ahead and spin the prize wheel and you might win a Lamborghini... or a knitted cap!". This game is like half-driving game, half-rich person fantasy. Gathering a collection of your favourite cars is one of the biggest draws in a game like this. I quickly picked up a Lotus Esprit and a Subaru WRX, along with K.I.T.T. and Dominic Toretto's Dodge Charger! I've also found some new faves, like this 1971 Nissan Skyline GT-R, souped-up to A-class.
[video=youtube;80SWVYZfWaE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80SWVYZfWaE[/video]
Most importantly, the drivin's goooood. And you get to customize it to your desired level of realism or arcadeyness. I've turned off guide-lines, traction and stability control, and the rewind feature. Make things more difficult for yourself and you're also rewarded with greater money bonuses for each race, I currently have my difficulty setting at +70%CR.
I know at least a couple other TTLGers have been playing this. How are you enjoying it?
Thirith on 22/10/2018 at 06:15
I've not played long stretches of it, but it's definitely great fun. Nonetheless, I've been thinking about uninstalling it, since I've got a huge backlog and I know I usually burn out on games like this - for one thing it's the genre, for another the constant sugar rush of activities and rewards can result in a game feeling like the equivalent of eating box after box after box of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut. I'm not sure I want to play for long enough to be hooked and buying the game, only to lose all interest two weeks later.
Having said that, it *is* like a box of Kellogg's Crunchy Nut. It's sweet and crunchy and addictive and oh so pretty, and the driving feels great. Do you drive with a wheel, henke? I'm playing with the Xbox One Elite controller that came with Oculus Rift and the thing has force feedback in places I didn't even know had FF!
Sulphur on 22/10/2018 at 07:32
I like me some cereal when I'm in the mood (which, for driving games as well as cereal, is not very often), but I will admit I've yet to find any bowl of flakes I'd call pretty.
Thirith on 22/10/2018 at 07:39
It's the box, not the bowl. They're like more cartoony versions of the Monolith in 2001. Soooo hypnotic.
Thirith on 22/10/2018 at 08:09
Soooo yellow.
Malf on 22/10/2018 at 08:15
It's very pretty, the live season change thing is nifty, and the driving's pretty good, but...
I was chatting to Sulphur & Jesh about it last night while we were getting repeatedly ran over by monsters.
There's something a little too Microsoft about it. It's like every surface has been scoured to remove any sign of a soul.
It's also incredibly weird playing it as a Brit. Everything just feels a little off, as if it's been designed by a committee of people who know the UK exists, but know nothing about its culture.
But its biggest problem is that it feels a lot like Burnout Paradise, to the extent that I fired up the remastered version of that. And I ended up having a lot more fun.
Edit: Oh, and the bit early on where you complete a stunt job and get given a country mansion for free as a reward left a really nasty taste in my mouth as a homeowner with a mortgage. Sure, there are other games that do similar things, but something about this just pissed me off.
Thirith on 22/10/2018 at 08:33
Since you mention Burnout Paradise, it's funny: I pretty much bounced off of that one completely. I see how it does similar things and probably has more personality to boot, but I found the city a dreadfully boring place to navigate. Forza Horizon's It's A Small World Britain, however, as much as it falls into the How Green Is My Uncanny Valley, feels more interesting to me as a network of roads, side streets, shortcuts, hills and fields.
And the way those herds of sheep panic and run when you race towards them reminds me of a holiday in Wales I went on with my parents. Finally I can get my revenge for having to wait half an hour until the last bloody sheep had moved off the road.
henke on 22/10/2018 at 10:53
Yeah the presentation is pretty soulless, much as The Crew, or Test Drive Unlimited 2, or any AAA game in this field, but at least the setting is original. Besides Euro Truck Simulator 2 I can't think of another game that lets you drive around the English countryside.
I can see how the whole premise might be distasteful. Unlike other video game power trips, this one is just about being really privileged. Just because you can drive a car halfway decently you're showered in a neverending stream of cars, houses, money and novelty-horns.
RE: Burnout. Loved Burnout 3, was kinda meh on Paradise. (tho that didn't keep me from making a secret prequel to it)
Thirith, I'm playing with the XBox One gamepad as well.
Malf on 22/10/2018 at 11:13
Oh, I'm playing on the actual Elite controller by the way. The one that comes with the Rift is the regular Xbox One controller. The Elite's the one with the interchangeable joysticks, d-pads and grip paddles mappable to face buttons so you don't have to take your thumb off of the right stick.
But yeah, I suppose with Forza being a Microsoft product, it really does take advantage of features on the pad that few other games I have do, if any. The rumble on the accelerator trigger was a particularly nice surprise.