MEMBER PROFILE FOR BigJosh359
Average Overall Score Given: 6.66667 / 10
Total Forum Posts: 1310
Reviews
Crash Nitro Kart
Fans of Crash Team Racing rejoice as Crash Bandicoot and friends are back for another run with Crash Nitro Kart. This time, Crash and friends along with Dr. Cortex and his goons are kidnapped by Emperor Velo for an Interstellar race. Why you may ask? The clich? reason for tons of games and movies, TO SAVE EARTH from Velo's destruction. As usual Crash must save the Earth because he would be the Hero, and Dr. Cortex must race Emperor Velo to determine who will conquer Earth because they would be the villians. Fans of Crash Team Racing will have an easy time adjusting to the controls for Nitro Kart where players will have to master the art of controlled boost when racing to win. Nitro Kart brings many colorful worlds, silly characters, power-ups and more Kart Racing goodness to the increasingly crowded Genre of Kart-type racers. Crash Nitro Kart should be a good weekend rental to most and a good buy for Crash Bandicoot fans.If you played Crash Team Racing, then you will notice that Nitro Kart is just about the same with some added goodies. There are more power ups when racing and new battle modes for multiplayer. The most irritating feature for this game would have to be the boosting ability. If you remember from CTR, you can power slide to keep your speed up, and if timed right, you can have up to 3 boosts in a slide. With that said, you can theoretically hit all the boost pads, hit your boost at the end of each jump, and power slide your boost, and use power up boost, if you are good enough, all the way around the track. Boost the whole race?
There are tons of power ups that you can set traps to foil your opponents. Just remember where you set them, or you will foil yourself. You can team up with your team mate to have a long string of power ups. Your team mate will have to remain close to you in the race in order to build up your team charge. When you use it, you will have a certain amount of unlimited power ups to set traps, get boost, or whatever your luck gives you. Having an extra team mate helps in the races as either you or your team mate has to finish first to move on to each circuit. After you win the circuits, you come up to unique characters who are the champs of their area. You alone will race against them to move on to the next area of Emperor Velo's realm. Each boss lets say, has their own way of trying to slow you down in the race. It can be quite challenging if they get out in front, which usually happens. I found that your opponents will be their weakest on the last lap of all races. They let you catch up and then the AI becomes idiotic at times.
One new feature is when the Karts automatically go into magnetic hover mode on certain parts of the tracks. This makes the tracks a little more appealing with loops and twist and being able to climb to the tops of tubes you are Karting through. Controls can be a little awkward to start with, but you can get used to them since you can customize any buttons.
Moving on to modes. Single player, you can do the typical time trials, racing with the AI, and the adventure mode. In Adventure mode, you will have to race 3 circuits and then the top karter on each area, before moving on to the next. The 3 circuit races aren?t very challenging, but like I said, the bosses can be challenging. You will be able to pick from 3 racers on your team, depending if you need more speed, better cornering, or an all rounded racer. Team Cortex has their own story line from Team Bandicoot, so there can be some replay value here.
Of course with these Kart games, Multiplayer Battle Mode is where this game should shine. There several battle modes to choose from but they are all based on Capture the Flag and Survival, no matter what the name of the game is called. Four players can duke it out to see who will come out on top or you can team up against each other. CNK is a pretty good party game for few hours of enjoyment. If you don?t like how the developers selected what power-ups go where or how many there are, you can create your own custom track, in terms of power ups only.
Ill admit it, I have never really cared much for Crash Bandicoot. CNK is for those people that are Bandicoot fans. However, CNK did provide me with a weekends worth of enjoyment. A weekend is all anyone is going to need to play through both Adventure stories and play some multiplayer battles.
This version of Crash reminds me of all of his previous games, visually. The worlds are cartoonish, very colorful and clean. Most tracks will have activity around that may cause you to whip out. The cut scenes are a cartoon themselves, which you can watch whenever you want as you go along in the game. The only complaint I have about the graphics is when your Kart is in Magnetic mode and you are doing loops and twisting around. The camera tends to have trouble deciding what exactly to do in the situation.
That cheery type Crash music is back in full force with this game. Too bad you can?t use custom tracks. The Crash tunes get mind numbing after a few races. The voice acting isn?t that bad in the cut scenes. During the racing however, the taunts from your opponents and team mates gets really repetitive in the first few races alone.
Suggestions: Get off the saving the world story line, it?s old and over done! Xbox Live or System Connect needs to be added to every game like this. There is no reason this game cant have 8 people racing at once. I think that would make the multiplayer mode more enjoyable. Come up with some unique battle modes. Make this game with other Xbox characters. Custom Karts instead of each character having their own pluses and minuses when racing. Tone back the boost or have a boost meter to fill. Custom controls. Maybe do something other than Karting, maybe something in space or under water. Custom soundtracks or tone back the cartoony music.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
Grooverider: Slot Car Thunder
Slot car racing has been around and very popular since the early 1960's. A lot of boys got a slot car track of their own as kids, I remember 3 of mine. But those are not the slot car racing hardcore racers do. They have room size tracks that they compete on. In the video game age though, slot car racing just as a toy has died off and it was only a matter of time before this hobby crossed over into a video game. The people at Encore have successfully brought this past time to the Xbox. Grooverider will be priced at $19.99, pretty good price considering the games that are out today that run for $49.99 easily.If you ever had a slot car race track as a kid, you know what to expect from this game. You can go forward and slow down with however much pressure you apply to the button. Encore decided to add in lane switching which wasn?t used much on slot car tracks. As with any slot car racing, you have to slow down in the curves, or you will fly off the track. There isn't much to be said about the game controls here, Grooverider is a simple game with game controls that are very straight forward.
It may sound boring and too easy, but there are added elements to keep you coming back to the game for more and make the game a challenge. Grooverider has jumps, loops, wall climbs, missing parts of the track, power ups, track hazards, and interactive environments. The power ups can help you for the most part or hurt you depending on how you use them. There is a jump and booster that can reek havoc if used in the wrong parts of the track. You can lay mines for your opponents to hit, but you will have to remember where you placed it because sometimes, you may be the one to hit it. There are shield power-ups to help you mow down hazards if you happen not to avoid them in time. Then there is an energy pulse to help you out with hazards that are in the way or if you are good enough, to blast the opponent ahead of you off the track.
Lane switching is something to get used to. You have four lanes to chose from and when switching left to right, you have to hit the lane switch button ever time you switch lanes, so there is no switching from lane one to four just like that.
With that game play, you must look far ahead on the track to see what?s coming at you. But sometimes the environment you are in will throw a curve ball at you, like toast suddenly dropping on parts of the track when racing in the kitchen. The father you go in the game, the harder the tracks and opponents become.
Of course, just like every other game, you can unlock a bunch of new cars, 20 in all, that run at 3 different voltages and 20 different tracks and 5 environments with 4 bonus tracks.
For a $20 game, the environments look pretty dang good. You will be racing over and under tables and beds and plants plus whatever else they throw at you. I wouldn't say its eye candy, but they look good. The car shells look decent with your choice of 1920's British cars to stock cars to Indy cars. Whenever you got a speed burst or hit a huge jump, there was some minor graphical slow downs, but not enough to hamper game play.
This game has some decent music to groove to while racing, mostly techno. But if you don?t want that, custom soundtracks are supported. Probably some Isaac Hayes would be awesome to groove too. Thankfully the game doesn?t have an annoying engine sound when racing. It is mostly smothered in the background from everything else that is going on the screen.
Suggestions: I would suggest a custom track editor. I would love to make some mad tracks for this game. More environments than different track layouts. Custom car bodies. Add more racers to the tracks, make them 8 or 10 lanes. More interaction from the enviroments themselves. Cause more chaos! Maybe a best crash or a wipeout feature in the game. XBL content downloads. More of everything!
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Outlaw Volleyball
Outlaw fans have been waiting for the next installment from the Outlaw franchise and it?s back with a bigger set of balls in the form of Outlaw Volleyball. Outlaw Volleyball is nothing like Dead or Alive: Extreme Beach Volleyball, except for the Volleyball part. Hypnotix actually made the attempt to make a decent Volleyball game instead of Tecmo's successful blunder in cashing in on half-naked characters and boob-bouncing. Hypnotix succeeded in their attempt and Outlaw fans will not be disappointed. With great eye candy, decent game play, fairly good soundtrack, Xbox Live (we love games that are XBL and will have downloadable content), and Summer in skimpy swimwear with some new and old friends, Outlaw Volleyball will surely keep you entertained for most of the summer and beyond.First off, let me say that if you played a lot of Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball, prepare for a reality check when you start to play OV. The controls are NOTHING like DOA: XBV. There is a non-interactive tutorial you can watch and listen to for all the controls, but you can't practice the controls till you get to the drills or start an exhibition. Drills are to help you understand and help build up your skills needed to play this game. Most of the drills are locked to start with which means you can't practice but so much to start with. The drills are mainly aimed at developing your character so they can have better offense, Defense, speed, and power. In exhibition mode you are playing against the easiest levels of AI opponents so that you can learn the controls and practice timing. The controls will be frustrating to learn off the bat, but you will soon learn that everything is pretty smooth when you get used to it. Multi-tasking is a must in this game. While you are trying to hit the ball, you have to aim the ball and keep an eye on your spike meter while watching where and what your opponents are going to do in response to whatever you are going to do. It might sound a little tough, but after a few volleys, you really start to get into the game.
With Exhibition mode, you can customize your game to any of the modes you are going to be playing on Tour mode. There are 3 modes of play; Classic, Hot Potato, and Casino. With classic, you play plain old volleyball with a certain point total to win and a certain match total to win with standard rules. Hot Potato is interesting and sometimes tricky. You play regular volleyball, but a counter is counting down. The object is to keep the ball on your opponent?s side of the net. Of course you can still get points by siding out or if the ball touches the ground before time is up. If the ball is still being volleyed when time runs out, then the ball explodes and which ever side the ball explodes on, the opponents gets the points. The timer doesn?t always count down at the same speed each point. Casino is an odd mode. The team with the most money wins the match, no matter what the score. That sounds odd, I know, but the longer the volley goes, the more money that goes in to the pot. So serving Aces or scoring quickly doesn't mean you will win the match. And of course you can change settings for the games, like match wins, score wins, Timers, difficulty, and Time bombs. Time bombs are created when the ball is dropped. When the bomb goes off and you are near it, you will get thrown around a little bit and have to recover to continue playing the game.
Tour mode is the heart of the game with 50 events and a ton of unlockables. This is also where you start with the crappiest skilled characters of the game. You play the drills to improve your characters class and attributes. Each event has its own game settings like timers, bombs, hot potato and casino. The farther you go in the Tour, the more you unlock. Whatever you unlock and whatever changes in attributes you made to your characters will be available to you on Xbox Live. Yes Xbox Live, we all love games that are on Xbox Live. 2 players can play at a time on one Xbox with OV on XBL. The best is of course the future content downloads of new characters and courts and I'm sure they will add to the list. But what is an Outlaw game without a little ass whooping? With the Outlaw Golf series, you could only beat up on your caddy, which was still fun. You still earn beating tokens with Outlaw Volleyball and still fight, but this time, you can fight your opponents. You start the beating by picking one of your two opponents. Let the ass whooping commence. Hypnotix actually incorporated a half ass fighting system. It's not DOA 3 or Mortal Kombat, but it's a real interesting twist to a volleyball game. Characters can punch, kick, block, and pull of a special move. You can only move from left to right and the fighting is nothing really special. However, momentum from the current game does affect the fighter?s power behind their hits. The winner steals momentum and the loser, well, loses their momentum. Momentum is used as your turbo regeneration. The more momentum you have, the faster your moment regenerates. When using your turbo during the game, you run faster or do power serves and spikes.
Graphically, the Outlaw environment shines in this game. All venues look superb with their unique and some times funny styles. The crowds are not 2D cardboard cut outs!! Just like in Outlaw Golf, the crowds have a 3D shape to them. There are many different camera angles for optimal action. So anyone should be able to be as close or as far from the action as they want to be. But when Summer is on the court, close is better. Each Player has a couple of his or her own unique reactions for good or bad plays. But they also recycle many of the same amongst each other.
All the characters look better than ever with small details like tongue and ear rings distinctly shown. Tan lines on Summer look very real, but I'm more surprised that she would actually have tan lines. That doesn't sound like the Summer I know. There where some FPS slowness when players would pull off some of their special moves, but nothing to hinder gameplay. And now the boobs. They move a little awkwardly. The chest doesn't sway around, just 3/4 of the boobs. They either look really fake at times or you?re hypnotized by their effect. Boobs. Summer. Did I mention Summer's Tan lines?
The Daily Show's, Steve Carel, once again cracks us up with his hysterical commentary. The laughs will keep coming for a while, but as with all games it gets repetitive after a while, so be warned! All the players are mocking each other and communicating with their team mates during the games, which adds a slight bit of realism but again, it gets repetitive. Crowd reactions are minimal but humorous at times with some good one liners. The soundtrack is gold. This has to be one of the best sound tracks for any game on the Xbox. OV features the breakthrough band Diffuser and their single "Get it On". The soundtrack has a good variety of songs for Rock to Rap. When the soundtrack does get old, you can always customize the tracks, another great bonus for any game.
Suggestions: This is a solid game and there is little to suggest to Hypnotix. Improved fighting engine with more moves and unique special moves would make the gameplay that much better. The fighting looks and feels like Bikini Karate Babes, imho. Also might consider letting your player kick both opponents asses at once. Interactive Tutorial mode would help new players pick up on the game a lot faster. Fix the boob issue; it doesn't look real enough to me. Maybe add little butt jiggling action. Full camera control with player reaction I think would add a little more rise to the game. More unique player reactions are a must. More commentary by Steve Carel, we just can't get enough of him. Trixie? Where is Trixie from Outlaw Golf? I love her school girl look. Make her the first Xbox Live Download. I think I wouldn't mind the option of Summer with different skin tones. Tan lines or no tan lines. Last Suggestion, Outlaw Volleyball 2 or maybe Outlaw Football, Basketball, Baseball. Maybe Summer should get her own ass kicking game. More Summer!
Overall Score: 9.0 / 10
Pro Race Driver
Ok, just another racing game, right? No. Pro Race Driver attempts to make racing look and feel real. They also try to make Pro Race Driver more than just a racing game by adding a little drama to keep things interesting. Basically the overall story is that you are Ryan McKane and you?re from a well known racing family trying to distinguish yourself from your brother who is supposedly the best at racing. You mission throughout the game is to try to dethrone your brother. Impressive graphics, semi-real driving simulation, and a RPG like twist make Pro Race Driver distinguish itself from other racing games. But of course, I have to be picky and point out all the problems I have with this game and how frustrating it can be.Alright, you have story or RPG mode whatever you want to call it, time trials, and multiplayer. RPG you start your quest to become the top McKane. The story itself is mediocre and is basically a Days of Thunder rip off. We have seen these types of movies and TV shows and only few have succeeded with making it work. Incorporating this into a game is a good idea, but seemed to be pointless at times. You join race teams and race to win points and money depending on your contract. The more points you get, the faster you move from division to division till you get to the pro circuit. The more money you make the more the amount goes up but since you never use the money, what's the point of having it? I guess to give you the illusion that you are accomplishing something which is bogus since you are racing for points!
There are no qualifying runs in RPG mode! This gets really frustrating when you are racing for points and you start somewhere in the middle of 20 cars. The contracts you sign you usually have to bet a certain team or your own brother and starting in the middle of the pack sucks. Why does it suck you might ask. Well when you press the gas to go, usually you want to floor the gas right? Wrong, blasting the gas will make you burn rubber for many yards before you actually get grip. So you ease in on the throttle then right? Nice steady acceleration. Well if do that, you will get rear ended from the AI behind you and damage you car. Count on getting rear ended a lot no matter what you do. Braking, OMG!, yet another frustrating feature about the game. Ok, I get that slamming on the brakes locks up your tires, but why is it that when you?re barely braking into a corner that you will suddenly lock your tires and skid straight and miss the turn? I thought this was supposed to be realistic. I can do that in real life, why not in this game? Speaking of skidding, why is that if you get in the grass, you automatically slow down? And why is it that when you wreck in the grass that you get stuck in the grass? I didn?t know grass was that slick to get in to. And if it's not grass you get into, it?s the gravel or the sand pit. Ok I can see getting stuck in those; I see it when I watch NASCAR on a road track. But if you make it to where you get stuck in the gravel or anywhere, why isn't there a reset button? If you get stuck, you lose the race and there is no point in continuing the race because if you don?t get 6th place or higher you get no points and seeing everyone fly by you sucks ass.
The AI is ok, I have seen better, but in RPG mode they do some really stupid stuff sometimes. I hate AI that is so erratic that you don't want to play the game and Pro Race Drivers AI just take off and leave you behind with their jets on. There are a lot of unique and real tracks you race on, a great variety from NASCAR tracks to road way tracks. There are also a ton of name brand cars. You can customize the set up of the cars from the tires to brakes to gear ratio and down force. You can save your settings which is great with the amount of racing you are going to do. I highly suggest people take the time to test drive every track with different setups so you can get a feel for the car and the tracks. But it seemed to me that no matter what setup you have, it just will not work. You are going to slide on every track no matter how hard or easy you drive your car. Get some TUMS for this part of the game, you will get frustrated but you will come back for more. Time Trials are just that, time trials and a chance for you to race as long as you want on the track of your choice. Multiplayer was supposed to have XBL support but doesn?t (boooooo!!!) but you can race against a friend. The best part about this game is all the tracks and cars that are already for you to race when you start the game. There are still some to unlock but you will be surprised at everything you have to choose from at the start. One big problem that irks me about the game is that there is no spotter for you. Your crew chief will help you from time to time, but that?s rare, and with no rear view mirror, it?s even worse to race. All you have is this stupid little red arrow that shows someone is behind you and gets brighter when they get closer. Bah.
Visually, Pro Race Driver is pretty good. The cars look great with real time reflections on the car. I guess this could be one reason for no rearview mirror, to keep the frame rates up. The tracks look great for however good that can look. The crowds are still very 2D cardboard cut outs. The car does take damage and the gfx engine shows a lot of damage on the cars. Some times though it takes some good licks to make the car really damage. Most damage effects are on the body of the car and not the important hardware. Though if you blow a tire; you are in for a long race. Blow 2 or more, just quit the race, no toe truck and no reset and sometimes the tracks are really far away from the pit. It takes a lot to damage these cars so don?t be too cautious when racing. You loser a spoiler or have big time body damage, it doesn't affect the aerodynamics much if any. The pit stops are lame, not much animation at all.
No custom sound tracks, but why would you need it? You get a great mixture of Iggy & The Stooges, Thin Lizzy, Al Green, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, among others. The cars sound like cars from the engine to tires squealing to crunching metal. I turned the engine sound low though to hear the soundtrack. The crowd cheers are horrible! I don?t know why racing game seem not to have a good crowd cheer or boos. The voice overs for the RPG part of the game are actually pretty good for any game and tends to make the characters seem somewhat real.
Suggestions: Rear View mirror would be a great addition to the game. Maybe some manual pressure adjustments for the gas and brake would help out a lot for better control of the car. Auto braking needs to be an option and not force upon. An original story line would help the RPG aspect of the game out. Maybe make the game more of an RPG with selectable characters that need to earn experience before moving to a higher racing division. What is the point of the money? Make to where if you wreak you car, you have to pay to fix it or make it to where if you ram someone off the road, penalize them. Black Flags and Yellow Flags and make some of the races longer so you can use those flags. Custom soundtracks and Xbox Live!
Overall Score: 7.0 / 10
Apex
Apex Racing is a mediocre racing title for those people that want to kind of design cars and not really build an automotive empire. Apex racing is a typical racer with big claims of revolutionary game-play that quite frankly, it just doesn?t deliver it. The concept of building a vast empire of concept cars is hampered by the lack of end user creativity throughout the game. So for those of you who are looking for a visually good looking title, with mediocre game play and sorry sound, this is the game rental for you.You got two choices of game play, Arcade and Dream Mode. In arcade, you can do time trials, single races, and multiplayer. There is no link or Xbox Live option unfortunately. Most tracks and cars must be unlocked to really enjoy any part of the arcade mode and to unlock them you have to do well in the Dream mode.
You begin Dream mode by starting your own car manufacturing plant. You don?t get to decide anything like a location or type of building. Your car builder and you go inside to take a look at the place. Behold, blue prints left over from the previous owner to help you get started on your venture of car design and selling your product by racing. And the blue prints are the biggest beef I have with the game. All of the blue prints are of pre-designed cars that you have no say-so in designing except for the color. You choose a design, and six months later, your car is built. To be able to build better cars you have to race and do well in the races. The higher you place in the races the more sales you get for your car. The more sales, the better the blueprints you get. As you complete races and gain more sales, your factory expands just like any business would. Winning is the key all racing games, big surprise. You also get a test track to test out your cars settings and upgrades from racing. You can only change whether you car drifts or not, the gear ratio and the spoiler setting; low, med, high. Any other change or upgrade is done by your car builder.
Depending on the track and the experience you have will decided what type of car you use and what it looks like. Certain races have different car requirements; Roadster, Sports Car, Super Car. As with most racing titles, you start in the back of the field of cars, which is only 6 counting you. The controls are super simple and fully customizable. The steering reaction is too sensitive for my taste but is manageable. The AI is simple and sometimes either aggressive or just in the way and don?t react to your maneuvers. More than half of the track I didn?t have to use my brakes, I just let off the gas or pumped it. Running into the grass causes you to automatically slow down to a snails pace which is really a pain when trying to pass a car on the inside. Any damage done to your car does not affect your performance and doesn?t really show on the car. Getting hit from behind give you a good boost of speed and can cause you to go out of control and getting hit in the side or hitting someone in the front causes the grass affect. The cars handle well if you know how to drive them and maintain control. You should be able to keep up with the AI and most of the time, finish well if not win.
The in game graphics aren?t the best in the world, but they are up there. I would have to say that Apex looks like a mix between Midtown Madness and Need for Speed HP2. The cars look smooth and shiny and the levels are clean with no frame drops. The tracks tend to be recycled, meaning that the layout of the track may be different but its most of the same models used throughout each course in usually the same places. Don?t get be wrong though, there are a lot of locations to play and several track layouts, just expect to see a lot of recycled scenery.
The concept car models resemble hybrids of automobiles of today while not leaning heavily on the futuristic side. There are damage models for each of the concepts, but the damage is hardly noticeable and are poorly done.
Ugh, this is by far the worst part about this game. The voiceovers are ok, nothing spectacular. The in-game sounds are rather plain for a racing game with generic sounds for most every car. The tunes that come with the game are an annoyance and keep repeating during racing without ever advancing to the next track. You can make custom sound tracks but that?s a waste since the same track is repeated.
Suggestions: Allowing people to fully design a car would be awesome. Being able to pick the location of your factory and then racing in that state or country would be cool. A rearview mirror would help with collisions from behind. Slowing down in the grass automatically shouldn?t even be there. More tracks and more original track designs would spice up things. Better sounds effects and soundtracks. Damage to cars should affect performance and visual damage needs improvement. AI always has room for improvement like when they slow down to allow you to catch up. I don?t like that, if I lose, I lose for my mistakes. Xbox Live support would be awesome for this game and having an online world where people compete to sell their cars would rule.
Overall Score: 6.0 / 10
