Although the visuals look great, you soon realise just how
far other racing games have come since 2008, especially when comparing these to the likes of Forza Horizon.
Not exact matches
More then anything in NASCAR 09 you never get the feeling like in many
other EA titles that your really getting an accurate view of the sport where in this
game you feel like the competition is
far to passive and the
game feels more like a standard
racing game rather then a true NASCAR experience.
Thus
far, then, the GPX has shown considerably better performance than a standard controller in
racing games and either equal or better performance in
other genres.
Speaking of grahpics they are certainly a stand out feature in this
game, bright and lively these are
far from the standard brown shooters of the modern era that we have to look at, the character models are all well detailed, not to mention that they move around as you
race, sometimes dancing around the vehicle or
other little things that help make them feel more alive.
During the dawn of the SNES, Nintendo launched a
racing game that was
far different than
other titles on the market.
This is actually fairly necessary, as the
other game modes take you through a series of
races, and you aren't able to exit out (as
far as I can see) without completely exiting the
game.
I find replays in
other games (I'm looking at you Forza) focus too closely on your own car while GT6's wider field of view offers a much better perspective of the actual
racing and is
far more entertaining to watch.
But
other than those and SMB1, Bowser's attempts at evil (if he even goes so
far as to feign at evilness, which he doesn't in sport or
racing games and rarely in RPGs) have always had a playful, halfhearted vibe to them.
The most notable features so
far for me have been the incredible voice acting for the story characters and the online experience; creating a life - like or not so life - like street thug and completing missions,
races etc. with
other players is by
far one of the
games» major strengths.
The modes unique to the Xbox version so
far are «OutRun Mission» which introduces, er, missions to the
racing action, and «Xbox Live» which - you guessed it - does indeed let you
race with
other gamers.
To be clear, this is a better (and
far more thorough) representation of
racing than any of them, but those
games offered a reason to go from one
race to the next
other than just unlocking more content.
We'll have to wait and see what
other games will use the hardware although its looking like this may be spelling the end for the RingWide hardware, which has been used in several
games Sega has done for the US so
far (Giant Tetris, Dream Raiders, Sonic & Sega All - Stars
Racing Arcade).
In the time spent online so
far, I was able to participate in approximately forty 1 vs. 1
races with no lag, but time will tell on the larger populated
races when thousands of
others own the
game.
«Blur» has an advantage of coming out in a time not overrun by
other racing games its only competition being «Split Second: Velocity» by Black Rock Studio and compared to the
other racing games on offer «Blur» is
far behind the likes of «Burnout: Paradise», «Need for Speed: Shift» and both
games in the «Dirt» series.
The examples indicated that individuals who were on standby duty could encounter difficulties picking their children up from school, attending the opera or hockey
games, training for
races and pursuing
other personal endeavours as they could not venture
further than an hour away from their offices and had to be able to work at all times.
The fact that it's not clamped to a desk does make it
far more convenient, and the multiple buttons and dials - that can be used for
racing games other than Simraceway - are excellent.