Buro Destruct
Formerly known as, Buro Destruct, , Southtown Stre
- Joined
- Jul 27, 2002
- Posts
- 9,058
So I fire up Project Gotham Racing 2 this evening with the intent of testing out the process of transferring WMA files to the bocks for custom soundtracks, instead of waiting 9 days to rip and re-name tracks from a CD. Well, it worked for any interested.
Anyway, what dawned on me, and immediately pissed me off, is that Project Gotham Racing 2 is really only a tolerable racing game after having conquered its single player mode. Going online only serves to remind me why I stopped going online in the first place, the hassle of finding a good group of racers to play with (meaning they don't bitch, they don't cough/sneeze/wheeze into the goddamn microphone, they don't race dirty) far outweighs the patience and effort I'm willing to invest in playing. Unfortunately, the luxury of being able to race any car on any track in the game is not afforded in the single player mode. Why can't I swing my Skyline around Chicago by myself, or for that matter start a random race in the Grand Touring class in San Francisco? Why can't I even race BY MYSELF aside from going around the test track (which blows) 900 times? (There are few and far between races in the game I truly love to play over and over; the time trials on Nurburgring in the Ultimate class are pure fucking genius and a blast to play).
The answer is this: Bizarre Creations completely over-focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game. For some reason, the first Project Gotham also lacks this flexibility, but to a much less restrictive extent. Their ORIGINAL game in the series, Metropolis Street Racer (a game unrecognized by many for its beautiful hybrid style of arcade and simulation styled racing, and for its absolutely mind-blowing visuals) had the option to play ANY released track, with ANY released car, at SPECIFIC times of the day. I can't even begin to convey the feeling of whirling around the Shibuya district at 4:00 in the morning in-game (and at times, in real life) with the blue/pink haze of early morning filling the sky (again in-game and sometimes in real life), listening to the games only DNB-styled music track "Heartland".
Honestly, why am I not allowed this luxury in games? R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, a game argued by just about EVERYONE to be the pinnacle of stylish arcade racing, lacks a "single-race" feature, but at the very least I can race the time trials (alone) to my heart's content. Another game considered to be the pinnacle of racing, Wipeout XL/2097 by its very DESIGN allows you to play any released track with any released (Piranha being the only hidden team) vehicle at any point during the game. There is no distinction between tournament and single play in this game, you just simply win your class division once you've placed 1st on all tracks.
Ridge Racer V forces the player into racing "cups" consisting of 3-5 tracks a piece, and I honestly only play 1-2 tracks per cup before turning the game off or quitting the cup and starting over since the track order is random every time. What a fucking hassle.
Games like SSX 3, Need for Speed Underground, and Burnout 2 all have this type of "free-form" play, but all suffer from absolutely SHIT track design as well as a host of other bothersome gameplay quirks or simple outright lazy development. The two games (SSX and NFS) enabled for Live play I can only imagine are a complete fucking chore, considering how absolutely assinine the single player experience gets.
Somebody just give me a fucking racing game where I can race where I want with what I want, don't feed me multiplayer bullshit with headsets and real-time tracking stats. I want to enter a trance-like state blissfully tuned into the sounds of LTJ Bukem and completely lose myself in racing the clock.
P.S.- Bizarre Creations is by no means the only developer at fault, it just so happens their game sparked my interest in ranting over the topic.
Anyway, what dawned on me, and immediately pissed me off, is that Project Gotham Racing 2 is really only a tolerable racing game after having conquered its single player mode. Going online only serves to remind me why I stopped going online in the first place, the hassle of finding a good group of racers to play with (meaning they don't bitch, they don't cough/sneeze/wheeze into the goddamn microphone, they don't race dirty) far outweighs the patience and effort I'm willing to invest in playing. Unfortunately, the luxury of being able to race any car on any track in the game is not afforded in the single player mode. Why can't I swing my Skyline around Chicago by myself, or for that matter start a random race in the Grand Touring class in San Francisco? Why can't I even race BY MYSELF aside from going around the test track (which blows) 900 times? (There are few and far between races in the game I truly love to play over and over; the time trials on Nurburgring in the Ultimate class are pure fucking genius and a blast to play).
The answer is this: Bizarre Creations completely over-focused on the multiplayer aspect of the game. For some reason, the first Project Gotham also lacks this flexibility, but to a much less restrictive extent. Their ORIGINAL game in the series, Metropolis Street Racer (a game unrecognized by many for its beautiful hybrid style of arcade and simulation styled racing, and for its absolutely mind-blowing visuals) had the option to play ANY released track, with ANY released car, at SPECIFIC times of the day. I can't even begin to convey the feeling of whirling around the Shibuya district at 4:00 in the morning in-game (and at times, in real life) with the blue/pink haze of early morning filling the sky (again in-game and sometimes in real life), listening to the games only DNB-styled music track "Heartland".
Honestly, why am I not allowed this luxury in games? R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, a game argued by just about EVERYONE to be the pinnacle of stylish arcade racing, lacks a "single-race" feature, but at the very least I can race the time trials (alone) to my heart's content. Another game considered to be the pinnacle of racing, Wipeout XL/2097 by its very DESIGN allows you to play any released track with any released (Piranha being the only hidden team) vehicle at any point during the game. There is no distinction between tournament and single play in this game, you just simply win your class division once you've placed 1st on all tracks.
Ridge Racer V forces the player into racing "cups" consisting of 3-5 tracks a piece, and I honestly only play 1-2 tracks per cup before turning the game off or quitting the cup and starting over since the track order is random every time. What a fucking hassle.
Games like SSX 3, Need for Speed Underground, and Burnout 2 all have this type of "free-form" play, but all suffer from absolutely SHIT track design as well as a host of other bothersome gameplay quirks or simple outright lazy development. The two games (SSX and NFS) enabled for Live play I can only imagine are a complete fucking chore, considering how absolutely assinine the single player experience gets.
Somebody just give me a fucking racing game where I can race where I want with what I want, don't feed me multiplayer bullshit with headsets and real-time tracking stats. I want to enter a trance-like state blissfully tuned into the sounds of LTJ Bukem and completely lose myself in racing the clock.
P.S.- Bizarre Creations is by no means the only developer at fault, it just so happens their game sparked my interest in ranting over the topic.
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sort of different situation but makes me feel the same way about it. I just got PGR2, er yea its on the box, and im already feelin' what you're saying. Not only is this a problem in racing games but it just adds to my frustrations with companies so set on multiplayer/online etc... If your going to do that dont take away from the damn one player experience, its like they assume "well everyone is going to play online or have 4 friends over" and then they throw together some one player BS. It sucks, things like this plague Nintendo "we are trying to appeal to an older audience as well" ...oookkkk so you assume some 20something year olds have their buddies over nightly to throw down on some multiplayer? fuck connectivity and this "its good to play together" shit, its ruining games.
) So what's the alternative? Stock cars, which means a slow boring as all Hell race. Bad, bad, bad, but I can't really think of any way Polyphony could've fixed this without screwing up the Single-Player, or tossing in some ridiculous "Balancing System" that would take away the whole point of suping up cars.