GTHD
I gave GTHD a good go on Friday night and Saturday afternoon. I was using the PS3 pad rather than a wheel, but it still gave me an idea of how the game ran. The most I can say is that it ran alright and as expected, I've been consistantly disappointed with the series since GT2 to be honest, GT2 being my favourite. I found GTHD pretty sterile initially but warmed to it a little after a while. The cars still appear a bit floaty on the road, probably not helped by the lack of rumble from the controller. The loss of rumble is pretty important as it robs you of a lot of useful information. I know that to get the most out of the game you should use a wheel, but people that use a controller shouldn't get short-changed with a part performance. Driving over rough, landing after the jump, breaking traction, these things pass without any great impact.
On the plus side, the physics are about right. Drifting through the turns feels smooth and natural and the cars have a decent weight to them. The visuals are nice, but not exactly the leap over xbox 360 visuals that has been promised, which is a bit disappointing. Also, the sense of speed seemed slightly questionable, on the sluggish side.
Anyway, that said, I managed a time of 1:18.522 with the Evo VIII (Stability control OFF, traction control OFF, R3 tyres front and rear).
It would be interesting to see how it stands against other times. If it's poor, my excuse is that I was stood behind the counter of a busy shop using a pad, playing on a 14 inch CRT with no sound, with staff getting games out of draws in front of me..
Resistance: Fall of Man
This didn't hold my interest for very long unfortunately. I liked the intro, it set the story up well and by the time it's over you just want to gun down the Chimera and start the desperate fight to win the land back. The atmospheric intro ends and then you are dropped into the beginning of the level, and from there it went downhill. You creep forward, get a feel for the controls, fire a couple of rounds, reload, all seems relatively well. Follow some on screen tips and walk a little further into the level and before you've gone 20 meters, sound clues are dropped and you are about the face your first Chimera. For me, this wiped all efforts at creating atmosphere clean away, and the game became standard fare. It would have been nice to witness some evidence of destruction and devastation before my first encounter, but the developers had other ideas. The creature ran straight at me and went to ground very easily. This will happen a couple more times until you get to a house with Chimera emerging from the doors and shooting from the balcony. Take cover and pop them 'til they drop, and repeat. Next-gen visuals maybe, but definitely not next-gen gameplay.
The landscape was set out into corridor like avenues, with barrel placements and vehicle shells funneling you along a pre-determined route. That's all well and good, and the norm for most first person shooters, but It's done in such a way that it takes any hint of immersion that you had right back from you. I'm trying to work out why it didn't get my attention like Halo did the first time round, and I can't put my finger on it. It looks pretty enough, although again it's nothing that you wouldn't expect to see on the 360. The sound is as you would expect from a FPS but I didn't have 5.1 set up so my opinion probably won't hold too much weight.
In summary, not hard to resist..
Motorstorm
I've read a couple of reviews on Motorstorm and had high hopes. Load the game up and the intro looks pretty, the sense of mayhem and that the racers are getting properly caked in mud is spot on. Press start and select your car and track and the first thing you should notice is how long the game takes to load. I don't usually care too much about load times, but I actually got bored of waiting, frustrated with watching that stupid little logo spinning around.
The racing itself is pretty basic, and the excitement over the fact that you can take so many different routes is soon watered down by the realisation that you don't ever really get the feeling that you're racing 10+ other vehicles. The mud on the routes was well drawn out and the scenery was fairly grand in scale, but again (and spot the pattern here..) I was hardly blown away. That's so disappointing because reviews had said that this game looks stunning, and I didn't really think that held up on my experience. Most annoying was the way the mud splattered onto the camera. If it was done well I could see its worth, instead, every now and then a splodge of translucent brown just appeared on the screen. It never appeared to come from anywhere in particular, it just landed on the screen, reminding me of one of the weapons from Mario Kart.
I can see this having fairly limited appeal in single player, although online it could be interesting. If you've tried it, let me know!
Formula One
Sonys take Formula One games have been poor from the start in my opinion. No hint of realism and unusable controls (over-sensitive). I've heard mixed reviews so I went into this with no idea of what to expect in terms of gameplay. The visuals didn't really stand up to early videos that I'd seen but by this stage I wasn't surprised. I loaded a game on full sim settings and set about qualifying for silverstone, and a worrying sense of familiarity crept in. It seems that there's been no attempt to recreate realistic physics by the developers, and although you could possibly expect this of a console formula one game, it's definitely not what has been advertised - especially when I jumped straight into full sim mode, expecting a sim-like experience (funny that). I put in about 15 to 20 laps, but the game never felt like it should. It's a shame, because the formula one licence deserves better than this.
Hardware
Within minutes the machine looks grubby, with dust and fingerprints drawn to the shiny plastic shell like moths to a light. It's nothing being careful with your mitts and a feather duster won't cure, but a little annoying. It's a surprisingly big machine, but then if you're replacing other kit with it, it shouldn't be a problem.
The most disappointing aspect of the hardware is the controller. Since the Dual Shock pad came out, the analogue sticks have felt like they were stuck onto the existing pad as an afterthought. Now more than ever, the left analogue stick is the primary control for movement in games and it feels unnatural to have to stretch your thumb to a secondary position to use it, worse still is trying to steer a car with the analogue stick and brake with the left trigger at the same time. The sticks feel quite tall and a little bit too loose to be able to pilot a car with much accuracy. I guess you get used to these things over time, but my initial impression was not good.
The triggers feel compromised in a similar way to the analogue sticks, which I feel is due to the fact that they've been added to an existing pad design rather than being designed in from the ground up. They feel more like deep-set analogue buttons than triggers, a bit like the shoulder buttons on a gamecube pad. In that respect, it doesn't really imitate the trigger on a gun, and any sustained pressure on the button resulted in my fingers slowly slipping off. This was made worse by the shape of the button, which was short and curved toward the pad, rather than away, making it difficult to use for any extended amount of time. As you can tell, I'm not a fan of the pad, but I think my disliking is justified.
Well done if you read all of that, if you think any of it was unfair, or you feel differently, let me know! It's pretty clear that my feelings are mostly negative, but I have honestly tried to stay objective. While I've never really had any intention of buying a PS3, I wanted it to impress me, following all of the hype and build up to the launch. It's a shame then, that it doesn't seem to have delivered much to impress, at launch stage at least..
This is living?? Not for me, thanks.
If you've played it, or have one, I'd really like to know your opinions on the machine and the games! Even if you haven't played it, it would be interesting to know what you think of it..
