Catching Up: GRID, HALO3, Penny Arcade, Dead Space

posted by Jaitu at 18:31

It's been a little while so here's a quick run down of what's been played in the meantime.
In no particular order.

Penny Arcade Adventures : On The Rain-Slick Precipice Of Darkness - Episode Two.
The adventure continues with Tycho and Gabe. Some (very) small tweaks to the controls improve the environment investigation. The story continues on a pace and the humour remains top PA fayre. I had a system crash during the final boss battle but other than that I enjoyed the second installment even more than the first.

Race Driver: GRID.
I haven't actually played this since almost the last post. I think I'm at the top tier of competition now. My only gripe, and it's a pathetic one that I have with all racing games of this nature, is that the rounds become increasingly long and include more races. This makes it harder to pick up and play for a quick gaming hit. I'm at the stage now where to complete a round involves maybe four races that each take ten minutes or more to finish.

HALO 3.
Techmaster and I managed to hook up online long enough to complete another two chapters on Legendary. I'm still peeved that you must complete the whole chapter in one sitting for it to count. We'll have to go back and run one again as despite having gone more than half-way through when we picked it up again from a checkpoint only about a third in the chapter wasn't marked as done when we finished it.

Dead Space.
I picked this up a month or so ago but found it almost impossible to play at the time. I was suffering from flu and the third person viewpoint gave me terrible motion sickness so I put it to one side (and played through Penny Arcade Adventures instead). Returning later I hit a bit of a choke point - I had decided to tackle it on the hardest setting from the get go - but once past that the game picked up some momentum and I've really been enjoying it.

GRID: Team Building

posted by Jaitu at 15:44

The success of the British based RTDL2 Racing outfit continues. Team
owner/driver Jaitu acquired Class B Licenses in both Europe and Asia and
as a direct result of the step up RTDL2 Racing has now expanded to a two
car team. Jaitu continues to drive the number 75 car and Japanese
Pro-Tuned specialist Eiji Matsuke has been brought in to partner.
With the addition of a second entry and some new sponsors the team funds
are also looking healthy. Successes in the Nissan Cup events and the
Skyline Versus Viper Touge were significant highpoints. Unfortunately
Jaitu's guest drive at Le Mans in a Corvette ended in disappointment
after contact with Tomas Enge's Aston Martin while leading the group
left the car damaged and off the pace. Jaitu ultimately brought the car
home last in group and only second from last overall. Rumours of a
potential RTDL2 team entry in the next Le Mans 24 Hours are yet to be
confirmed and could well depend on the results of the forthcoming
season.

Race Driver GRID: Start Your Engines

posted by Jaitu at 09:29

I began my GRID career last night and managed to collect a handful of
achievements without really trying. In fact a couple of them I was
really trying not to get - the ones for rolling your car or being
involved in a ten car pile up for example.
Like the previous Race Driver and TOCA games GRID is weighted heavily
toward the realistic end of the handling spectrum. This doesn't
instantly sit well with my more arcade-y style of virtual racing which
leaves me able to drive quickly or cleanly but not both at the same
time. Like those previous CodeMasters games I am sure that I'll be
investing a huge number of hours in to this one too.
Graphically the game looks great, shedding the slightly too crisp and
colourful aesthetic of the earlier titles and adopting shaders that give
a more naturalistic effect.
A new Gameplay mechanic that has been added is the ability to
'Flashback' at any point during an event. This gives you the power to
rewind time within a limit and have another go, think Prince Of Persia:
Sands Of Time, very useful having just ploughed into a tyre barrier. The
number of available flashbacks varies depending on your chosen
difficulty level.
Surprisingly, in the races I have completed thus far I have found the
most success in the Japanese Drift events. When I played the demo a
month or to back I was horribly bad at the drifts.
I am now seriously considering getting a racing wheel to go with this
game as I feel it would benefit from the control method. I always
struggle in the more simulation styled racers when relying on
thumbsticks.

Horizons: Broadened

posted by Jaitu at 08:26

In an effort to extend my game playing range beyond the usual first-person-shooters and racing games I have ordered up two new titles.
Battlefield: Bad Company (A military based first-person-shooter) and Race Driver: GRID (unsurprisingly a racing game).