- Joined
- Oct 11, 2004
- Posts
- 14,804
Well, finally got my copies of F1 Championship Edition and Armored Core 4 on the JP PS3. Played each for a little while last night, thought I'd post a few impressions if anyone is considering a buy on either one.
F1 is interesting. The car models are completely and utterly phenomenal. Watching race replays is pretty transfixing if you just watch the cars. The lighting is also incredible. Doing a late afternoon race and seeing how the light shines through the mesh and plays shadows is awesome. But the textures on the courses themselves aren't very impressive. Satisfying, but could have been better.
The gameplay is pretty solid. On the default setting, so damn many assists are on that the challenge and skill are pretty much all gone. Granted, though, the braking assist is so severe that it cuts your speed to levels that can't keep up with the AI, pretty much guaranteed. Turned off is much more interesting and realistic beast. Sense of speed is excellent, really fast game. Follows the Forza-established trend of allowing you to turn an ideal racing line on or off, very helpful for learning tracks and individual turns.
90% or so of the game is in English, for importers who can't read Kanji (like me).
AC4 certainly doesn't scream next gen in any way that I can see... The weapon effects are very impressive, but the cores themselves don't have great models and nothing else really wows me, either. Gameplay is the usual AC stuff, love it or hate it, though there does seem to be more of an emphasis on boosting in this one.
Oh, and there's a little picture-in-picture cam you can use to track one enemy at a time, kind of cute.
Game is probably about 75% Japanese, including all parts descriptions, which makes for a little bit of guesswork, but the stats are easy to understand if you've played past AC games, so it's pretty manageable.
Overall, F1 is recommended, AC4 is not (unless you're already an AC fan, then go head and buy it), given initial impressions.
F1 is interesting. The car models are completely and utterly phenomenal. Watching race replays is pretty transfixing if you just watch the cars. The lighting is also incredible. Doing a late afternoon race and seeing how the light shines through the mesh and plays shadows is awesome. But the textures on the courses themselves aren't very impressive. Satisfying, but could have been better.
The gameplay is pretty solid. On the default setting, so damn many assists are on that the challenge and skill are pretty much all gone. Granted, though, the braking assist is so severe that it cuts your speed to levels that can't keep up with the AI, pretty much guaranteed. Turned off is much more interesting and realistic beast. Sense of speed is excellent, really fast game. Follows the Forza-established trend of allowing you to turn an ideal racing line on or off, very helpful for learning tracks and individual turns.
90% or so of the game is in English, for importers who can't read Kanji (like me).
AC4 certainly doesn't scream next gen in any way that I can see... The weapon effects are very impressive, but the cores themselves don't have great models and nothing else really wows me, either. Gameplay is the usual AC stuff, love it or hate it, though there does seem to be more of an emphasis on boosting in this one.
Oh, and there's a little picture-in-picture cam you can use to track one enemy at a time, kind of cute.
Game is probably about 75% Japanese, including all parts descriptions, which makes for a little bit of guesswork, but the stats are easy to understand if you've played past AC games, so it's pretty manageable.
Overall, F1 is recommended, AC4 is not (unless you're already an AC fan, then go head and buy it), given initial impressions.
