That's right, no subtitle. It's a new arcade driving game from Specular Interactive, the original devs of Hydro Thunder (and its 2009 spiritual sequel, H2Overdrive). Flew under my radar until I saw it in the wild today.
http://www.specular.com/Zeus/index.htm
I've given it a few credits and can provide my impressions. Speaking as someone who really liked Hydro Thunder and Specular's other games, it's pretty disappointing.
It's not a racing game, but an open-world Twisted Metal kinda deal (you have permanent machine guns by default), where you get objectives to take out enemy cars or drive through waypoints on the map. You can even turn a 180 on the spot by swerving and braking. I appreciated that they included almost every major Batmobile design, from Adam West up through Dark Knight Rises, but they're all exactly the same, with no differences in weapons or handling. The action is satisfying, like Burnout with guns, but the problem that nearly killed the whole experience for me is that IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID BEING HIT.
You get a caution indicator when something's about to shoot you and take a point off your health, but I haven't found a way to do anything about it other than disengaging and going after a different enemy, in which case I just run out of time. Swerving around everywhere doesn't help at all, and your guns aren't strong enough to destroy targets before they shoot you, even with perfect accuracy. You can pick up other weapons like rockets and cannons, but I found that it's best to ignore them, since they take forever to activate and by the time you can use them you've already been shot. There's also a drone plane that supposedly helps you, but it also takes far too long to do anything. As far as I can tell, the game is a total quarter muncher.
Sometimes you get to fly the Batplane from DKR, but this makes the game even more broken, as you'll be constantly hit by anti-air cannons that shoot the instant you come within range.
You can choose to go after Mr. Freeze, Bane, or the Joker, and Penguin shows up somewhere too. From what I've seen, their henchmen, boss vehicles and objectives are all exactly the same. They just look different and appear in a different order. You won't see the Mr. Freeze enemies shooting ice rays or anything. At least everything looks pretty: they aped the style of Arkham Asylum, just with less ugly character designs.
It's nice that Specular tried to do something different instead of just making another cookie-cutter racer, but this project was obviously rushed and they had little idea of how to design a game of this type. But hey, it's a new Western arcade release from 2013 that isn't complete shit or a redemption game. Give it a shot if you see it.
http://www.specular.com/Zeus/index.htm
I've given it a few credits and can provide my impressions. Speaking as someone who really liked Hydro Thunder and Specular's other games, it's pretty disappointing.
It's not a racing game, but an open-world Twisted Metal kinda deal (you have permanent machine guns by default), where you get objectives to take out enemy cars or drive through waypoints on the map. You can even turn a 180 on the spot by swerving and braking. I appreciated that they included almost every major Batmobile design, from Adam West up through Dark Knight Rises, but they're all exactly the same, with no differences in weapons or handling. The action is satisfying, like Burnout with guns, but the problem that nearly killed the whole experience for me is that IT'S IMPOSSIBLE TO AVOID BEING HIT.
You get a caution indicator when something's about to shoot you and take a point off your health, but I haven't found a way to do anything about it other than disengaging and going after a different enemy, in which case I just run out of time. Swerving around everywhere doesn't help at all, and your guns aren't strong enough to destroy targets before they shoot you, even with perfect accuracy. You can pick up other weapons like rockets and cannons, but I found that it's best to ignore them, since they take forever to activate and by the time you can use them you've already been shot. There's also a drone plane that supposedly helps you, but it also takes far too long to do anything. As far as I can tell, the game is a total quarter muncher.
Sometimes you get to fly the Batplane from DKR, but this makes the game even more broken, as you'll be constantly hit by anti-air cannons that shoot the instant you come within range.
You can choose to go after Mr. Freeze, Bane, or the Joker, and Penguin shows up somewhere too. From what I've seen, their henchmen, boss vehicles and objectives are all exactly the same. They just look different and appear in a different order. You won't see the Mr. Freeze enemies shooting ice rays or anything. At least everything looks pretty: they aped the style of Arkham Asylum, just with less ugly character designs.
It's nice that Specular tried to do something different instead of just making another cookie-cutter racer, but this project was obviously rushed and they had little idea of how to design a game of this type. But hey, it's a new Western arcade release from 2013 that isn't complete shit or a redemption game. Give it a shot if you see it.
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