PXR Reviews: Pure (360 Version)

About seven years ago, back in 2002 a game called ATV Offroad Fury 2 was released on the PlayStation 2. It was one of the first games my brother and I played when we eventually got a hold of a PS2, and it ended up being one of our favorite games to play together. It was a solid racing title that endeared many scratches and thumb prints due to the play time we put it through. Those experiences I had with ATV 2 ended up fueling my interest for Pure, a game that was released last year. I never got around to playing it, and saw it on sale for twenty dollars on Amazon. I couldn’t pass it up, and I’ve been playing for the past week and half.

In its purest form, (Oh hello there pun!) the game boils down to you controlling a selectable character and making your way through courses that emphasize either endurance tracks, short tracks or freestyle trick tracks. These three divisions aid to a bit of variety in the game, although you almost always will need to pull off tricks to fill up your boost capabilities. You also get to build your own bikes, which is a fun and neat addition that I wish would have been further expanded on. The ATV’s are split between three different classes: Race (Endurance), Sprint and Freestyle to suit the different types of tracks in the game. If someone ever makes an ATV game on par with a car simulator such as Forza Motorsport or Gran Turismo, I am THERE.

First off, the visuals in this game are great. I wasn’t expecting too much but there is some quality work here. The tracks are gorgeous, and feature an expected amount of difference in regards to there locations and layouts. The sense of speed, a huge deal in racing games, is spot on here. When you inject some of your Nitrous, you feel it. The surrounding area around you becomes blurred, and as you catapult yourself over a slope into a body numbing trick combo you feel involved with the race. You find yourself wondering if you’ll be able to survive the jump without losing both of your legs, which leads me to the problems of the game.

For a game so focused on pulling tricks and going as fast as possible so that you can stay in the air longer, Pure has a frustrating amount of collision issues present that really beat the fun out of it sometimes. I’m not sure who decided to litter the tracks with tires and barrels, because all it seems to do is provide clutter when you’re already doing your best to avoid the AI drivers. Who, you can get by hopefully at the beginning of the race, otherwise have fun getting stomped on by them occasionally when landing from a jump. I really loved the detail in the tracks in this game, but unfortunately it also ended up being something I loathed. Placement of objects comes off as half baked and is a recurring issue in many of the maps. If you’re telling me I have to boost over hills in order to gain placement in a race, then why are you placing an overhanging cliff in my way while I’m still midway through my jump sequence? It gets to be especially aggravating when you find yourself restarting multiple times because of a flaw in the level creation that you as a player have no control over.

Pure was an enjoyable experience that has issues, but they can be overlooked if you’re willing to put up with some momentary aggravation every few races. Give it a shot if you can find it for a good price. The developer currently has a new title in the works called Split/Second, which is also a racing game. Hopefully they take the knowledge gained from working on Pure and apply it to their upcoming project.

Totally

Awesome.

How are these guys in charge of such important positions?

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" - Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. Chairman, Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc.

Read the rest of the article here, it's worth some laughs.

The FTC takes a stroll with GameStop

Well, this is quite interesting. I don't shop at GameStop a lot, mostly because I despise them. If you've ever traded in a game there before, you'll know where I'm coming from. Getting $25 dollars for a brand new game, and then seeing other used copies of said game going for $55 dollars in the store might be enough to get someone worked up a bit.

I actually bought a new game from GameStop the other day, and I received what is known as a "gutted" copy of the game. This was the first time this has ever happened to me, so naturally I felt it was awkward that a store could sell a product as "New" when it had clearly been opened. GameStop has a policy where employees are able to basically try new copies of games out that have been opened, and the boxes are used as displays unless copies are needed immediately for sale. This policy is well...bull shit, for lack of better words. GameStop has made the argument that this is done to combat theft, because the empty boxes of the games are used for display and do not contain the game. Again, this is bull shit. The reason being, is because the stores could just as effectively prevent stealing by printing out a games cover art and sticking it in a DVD slip case. Problem solved, and no opening of brand new games necessary. It seems to me that this policy has been put into place to encourage sales to GameStop employees, by letting them play newer games for an allotted time in the hope that they will buy them. That's a great idea, but guess what? You're giving a consumer a used copy as soon as that plastic is ripped off. It's really hard to believe that this has gone unnoticed for so long, because a lot of people shop at these retail stores.

The Federal Trade Commission is there to prevent consumers from getting screwed over, and I'll honestly be shocked if GameStop doesn't get at least a wrist slap for pulling this malarkey on it's customers. If anything this ordeal will be a reflection of the FTC itself, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Next weeks news: Best Buy and Target to make customers pay tariffs for unopened games in response to demand for sealed products.

Source: Kotaku

Boners and Video Games

I laughed so hard when I listened to this in my car this morning.

I loved it so much I edited the file and made it available on Youtube.

Enjoy.

Damn you Steam Weekend Deals

Picked up Far Cry 2 the other day, despite my best intentions to prevent myself from buying anymore games. For fifteen dollars, it was too good of a deal to pass up. So far I think it's a pretty interesting game. If I've learned anything from it so far, it's that Malaria is not to be screwed with.

I'm also playing a LOT of Starcraft lately, and my God is that game addicting. As someone who never got around to really playing this game, I'm a late comer to the series. Despite it's age its still a great experience. The Zerg are a serious force to be reckoned with from what I've played so far. Those little critters can chew through almost anything as long as you keep producing them.

Four Months Later...

By the time Gears of War 2 released on November 7th of last year, I was pretty excited for the game. The previous one had an engaging single player, that was even better when played with a buddy. I liked the multiplayer but never really scratched the surface of it since I didn't feel like it was my cup of tea, and by the time I had tried playing it everyone was leagues better than me. With that aside, I really enjoyed the first one. It had great graphics and the over the shoulder game play along with the jump to cover mechanics were really fun, keeping you involved in the action while making you pay attention to your position at all times.

Now, while I was looking forward to the campaign in the new one, I was hardly interested in that compared to the multiplayer offerings. I had been under the impression that all of the problems that plagued the first one were going to be remedied, encouraging players to utilize cover like the game was meant to be played and the way the weapons functioned rebalanced.

That was great and all, but what happens when you release something that well...tries to implement change but at the same time feels like it's been punched through with buckshot rounds? As in, there's holes everywhere you look because people are cheating, matches take forever to find and there are glitchers ahoy. This is the problem that the game ultimately faced when it was released and for quite a time after.

This recent patch that came out seems to put the game on track to where it should have been at launch. The update seems to address all of my problems and also has a new leveling system implemented, such as the likes of Call of Duty 4. While I was playing, I didn't notice anyone cheating or standbying, which was good. However, matchmaking was still a mixed bag. Sometimes I would find a game within thirty seconds. Other instances would take up to three to five minutes.

All in all, I'm happy I held on to my copy. Granted, I wish Epic would have gotten their act together more quickly but I'm glad that I can finally enjoy this game and play without having to be so frustrated at how broken it previously was. Hopefully this will only help to encourage them to stick by their products and maybe, just maybe Gears of War 3 will be fine to play online the first day it comes out.