Working Title 01.16.09: In Loving Memory of...

Posted by Rod Oracheski on 01.16.2009

With Jordan Williams out on sabbatical, 411mania's Rod Oracheski steps in with a look at some racing games you might have overlooked in the past year.



Welcome back to the #1 column normally written by Jordan Williams that's not written by Jordan Williams this week - Working Title. Last week Jordan told us all about an anonymous e-mail he'd received, one critical of the direction he'd taken the column. As a result he's gone off on a sabbatical to what he called "the Holy Land of video games" though he didn't give us any other details. That's what I think happened, in any case. He said he couldn't do it and I filled in the gaps. It's just a theory, could be wrong.

So yeah...there's probably a Best Buy near where he lives that's currently sporting a dude wearing a robe and chanting - probably in the section devoted to games. I know in some places (L.A. for one, or maybe Jersey) that's probably not unusual, so look for the one with the 'HI, my name is JORDAN' name tag. If you find him it's probably best to keep a safe distance and contact the authorities.

While trying to figure out a topic to talk about, I decided to go back to the seemingly bottomless well that is...my BACKLOG. A few weeks back in Achievement Unlocked I mentioned wanting to burn through some of my backlog of games from 2008 (and shamefully, some 2007 releases) that had been bothering me for a while.

It's a common problem that people run into - you pick up a game and then work or school gets busy and it gets put on the back burner. But by the time your schedule frees up, there's some other big new game out that you want to play that little bit more. Maybe you're like me and wind up bumping primarily single-player games for multiplayer-heavy title like Call of Duty: World at War so you don't miss out on the early rush when everyone is playing.

It's not that older games don't have an audience, of course. Looking at the Top Ten Played list of games that Major Nelson releases each week shows that a lot of older titles still draw respectable numbers. It's those days when everyone's a newbie and it's easier to dominate, that's what makes the early days of a game - particularly a shooter - so much fun. Join into a World at War game and see a horde of low-level players and you know there's a good chance it's going to be a feeding frenzy. Join another game and see nothing but multiple-prestige icons or (even worse) a full team of guys with six-plus days played all sitting at 65 - that game is going to be a bag of hurt...

In any case, at some point you get tired of that game sitting there on the shelf taunting you. Or maybe it's when you scroll through your Achievement List and notice it sitting at 60-70 points, amid all the 600-700 point games. It's that last one that gets me. There are a few games on my list that I'd swear I've put a lot more time into, but the Achievements don't lie! Okay, so maybe that's not entirely true - is it? I've spent dozens and dozens of hours in Oblivion, I just continually get distracted from the storyline or quests and wind up not advancing.

Did you know that you run faster when you're not carrying a weapon? Punching deer is the way to go! But I'll digress from that line of conversation before it gets into strategies for hunting deer while nude.

The point is, there are probably a few games you want to spend some more time with. Or maybe you figure there's one or two that you should check out while there's still time, you know, before we get hit by Resident Evil 5, Street Fighter IV, and other big releases slated for 2009. I figured I'd talk about one or two that I've played recently in the racing genre. Maybe Jordan will carry on talking about games from 2008 you should have played when he returns next week - maybe he won't. It's tough to tell with the mentally disturbed.

Working Backwards: Racing

Three titles jump out at me here - all of which were critical successes but could have had a lot bigger impact at retail than they did: Burnout Paradise, Race Driver: Grid, and Pure. All three deserve honest consideration for Racing Game of the Year awards but may have been overlooked at many media outlets. Each offers top-notch graphics, great control, and blistering fast action - so why didn't they make a bigger splash?

Red cars attract police attention. True story.

It's really tough to say, though I have to admit that I actually passed over Burnout Paradise myself until just recently. I played it at a friend's house a bit, but the game just never captured my interest in that setting - people over to play, passing the controller, etc... With the game hitting $20 recently, I gave it a shot at home to see what the early stages were like and I can see how it might have been either intimidating or boring to people who rented it.

You're dropped into the game world (after what seems a ridiculous chain of long loading sequences) and that's it - go race. You don't know the map, there's no real 'point' to the game aside from getting a better license, and your starter car is okay - but not great. Still, if you can get past the initial 'what the hell am I doing' stage, there's a lot of fun to be had here. The engine allows for incredible speed, especially with the new bikes they added in, and the damage component...some of the accidents are awe-inspiring.

Yeah, there are still some things to fix - collision detection is occasionally sketchy, for one. You'll see a phantom crash or two, especially during Marked Man missions, but it's not terrible. The open-world design often means you'll see things during a race that you want to check out later, but can't find again without scouring the area - and there's still that whole 'lost the race five feet from the finish, and have to drive all the way back to the starting line for a do-over' thing...

The biggest omission, in my opinion, remains Crash Junctions. With the incredible damage and physics work here, it would have been a lot of fun to throw cars into an intersection for hours with friends - doubly so in an online party mode. The car-rolling replacement? I found it ridiculous the first time I did it, rolling for over 3 miles and changing directions multiple times, and just stupid every time after. In a game that's built around speed and mayhem, slowing things down to a crawl that way just seems like a horrible idea tacked on at the last minute.

Maybe there's someone out there who finds that more fun than Crash Junctions, but it sure as hell isn't me or anyone I know.

Despite those misgivings, for $20 you're really getting a great racer here and Criterion's been good about supporting the game with add-on content. I saw 30,000 or so people on tonight, but there's no reason that number shouldn't be much higher. Give this one a look if you haven't tried it, and be sure to pop it in if you haven't played for a while - even just to get that new (and free) content.



Mr. Plow in the winter, Drift King in the summer

Where Burnout Paradise goes the open-world route, Race Driver: Grid opts for the tried-and-true 'choose from a calendar of events' method, and it works pretty well so why mess with a good thing?

Like Burnout, Grid looks amazing and features highly detailed damage modeling. It's close enough that I'm not sure which I'd give the nod to in terms of collisions - Burnout has better car crumpling, but Grid seems more 'real' somehow. Vehicles are thrown around in a more reasonably realistic manner, for one - though they'll catch air if the collision is just right, they don't take off like they have rockets attached.

Grid features a few different types of racing - something Burnout lacks. Sure, Burnout has races with different objectives (Marked Man - make it to a location without dying, Race - make it to a location first, Road Rage - take out opposition) but they all tend to play exactly the same way - race through the city and bash into opponents. There's some variety, but it's nothing like what's on offer in Grid - regular racing, bracket racing, drift competitions, etc...

Where Burnout is good for someone looking for a straight-up, no-apologies arcade racing experience, Grid should appeal more to someone looking to improve their virtual driving skills. If you want to win drift competitions, for example, it'll take some practice. It's not a better experience, just a different one. If you weren't impressed by Burnout - don't think Grid has nothing to offer.

Graphics aren't the problem here.

And finally we get to what I felt was easily the most surprising racing game on offer this year: Pure. You know, the game released by Disney Interactive - the publisher behind such gems as Bolt, Novadrome, Disney Princess: Enchanted Journey, and - last and certainly least - High School Musical 3: Senior Year Dance (Ramon's personal pick for Game of the Year here at 411mania, but one that was quickly shouted down, bound and gagged, then taken out back and shot).

Pure had a pedigree behind it beyond that of its publisher, of course. Developed by Black Rock Studio, who (and I know some of you actually did just say 'WHO?" but they were called Climax prior to being bought up by Disney) made the popular ATV Offroad series, the game was a nice twist into arcade action for the development team.

With good speed, great track design, and huge, huge air - Pure was fun from start to finish. Okay, maybe not entirely to finish. I have to admit that I wound up putting the game aside after a week or so, moving on to either Force Unleashed or maybe Brother in Arms: Hell's Highway...coincidentally two titles that, like Pure, are on my backlog from 2008.

Like Motorstorm, Pure suffered a bit from 'I've played this race!' fever. After beating the second stage I was looking for something new to do. After beating the third I was beginning to wonder if there was anything new coming. The game has 10 stages to unlock - so if you try to do it all in one or two sittings, you should expect to start to feel things getting a bit 'samey' after a few hours. It's something that's kind of common to the racing genre - I mean there's only so many ways you can present 'circle this track' in a unique way - but, like Motorstorm, it's more prevalent here than in other games.

Because of that problem, I'd put Pure at the bottom of this three-pack 'must play' list of overlooked racers from 2008 - but it's still solidly on that list. The graphics and controls are top-notch and fans of the ATV Offroad series should give it a look. I've heard it compared often, and favourably, to SSX - so those who were fans of that series might also want to check it out.

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Working Feedback

Working Feedback, despite Jordan's musings last week, will not be making a return to its original format this week. Instead I'll agree with his point that we don't really know what the Game of the Year for 2009 is going to be at this point, and we may not even know anything about it yet at all. I just don't think it's going to be Resident Evil 5. Prove me wrong, Capcom!

I think we're going to hear a lot about Fall-Winter releases in upcoming months - GDC (Game Developers Conference) runs in March and I'd bet we hear some things there. It's already been confirmed that there'll be a presentation about Mass Effect 2, for example. There's bound to be more than just that.

Working Question

Having already tied up WiiFit, WiiMusic, WiiSports, WiiSpeak, and WiiPlay - what's next for Nintendo to tack the Wii- prefix onto?

Until next week, when Jordan should be back, I'm out.