Kudos for Auntie Poulet

The past few days since I`ve got back from Chicago have seen some retro gaming with Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (PC) and Metropolis Street Racer (Dreamcast). Of course, it almost goes without saying that both of those were sandwiched between some mandatory Battlefield 3 on the PC.

Vice City remains the only Grand Theft Auto game since GTA 2 that I haven’t finished more than once and, truth be told, it was because I didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as GTA 3, San Andreas or IV. Playing it a second time though made me realize my lack of fond memories weren’t a result of the result of the game itself but moreso the time in my life I was playing the game. I remember getting the game during my miserable first year of medical school where everything felt like a slog so I’m not surprised that the game felt like a bit of a chore as well.

Playing it now, 9 years after release, I’m actually having an absolute blast despite the clearly antiquated game mechanics. The cast of characters is hilarious with my favourite being the leader of the Haitain gang; Auntie Poulet. The missions are a ton of fun and I love that you can use the sandbox nature of the game world to help you. For example, in a mission named Naval Engagement you have to break up a drug deal taking place between the Haitains. You can check out the video below – you have to approach their mansion by water, take to the shore, steal the briefcases and then make it back to home base with the police on your tail.



The first two times I attempted the mission I would get smashed off the road by the ultra-aggressive police car. So, to make things easier, before the mission I just flew a helicopter and ‘parked it’ around the corner from the Haitain mansion – then after I picked up the briefcase I just had to run to my waiting chopper and fly home with the cops left in the dust!

Of course, the star of any Grand Theft Auto game is the game world and the atmosphere and Vice City excels. I love the Miami-inspired architecture, the pastel 80s color scheme of the city and the soundtrack is absolutely incredible – Michael Jackson, Hall and Oates, REO Speedwagon, Luther Vandross, Lionel Richie and I could go on. Great atmosphere, great game though I must admit that playing it on the PC helps mitigating the previous issues of load and save times when this was on the PS2.

The other title I`ve been playing is Metropolis Street Racer for the Dreamcast. I never owned a Dreamcast during the system`s prime and this was a game I only briefly played before but I`ve always been intrigued because I’m a massive fan of Bizarre Creations’ Project Gotham series which was the spiritual successor to MSR.
I’ve only played an hour or two of MSR but the game still holds up fairly well. The Kudos system in the PGR series is front and centre here as well but rather than show the Kudos score in real-time while you’re racing, you get to see it at the end of the race. Like PGR you get Kudos for driving clean sections and drifting but you also get Kudos for finishing laps within a certain time. The more Kudos you get, the more races you can unlock. Another neat touch is that the game uses the Dreamcast’s internal clock to determine whether races are held during the day or night. Very novel idea for a game from 2000! A solid title and a reminder that it's a damn shame Bizarre Creations shut down. RIP.

The Vet and the nOOb

Despite some issues with the multiplayer community I still enjoy the Modern Warfare series. Activision released a really fun commercial recently with Jonah Hill, Sam Worthington, and a (currently) unemployed basketball player.

Time for a new console generation?

Since I last wrote it’s pretty much been all Battlefield 3 for my gaming time. I’ve spent now approximately 7 hours on the PC and 8 hours on the 360 version. Because my friends are on Xbox Live I’ll ultimately spend more time with the console version in the upcoming weeks/months but I think, in almost every respect, Battlefield 3 is significantly better on the PC. Furthermore, as the title of this post alluded, it’s the first PC game that’s made me wish that my console were more powerful.

After playing some of the single player in Battlefield 3 on the PC, I think it would only be mildly hyperbolic to state that, visually, the PC version absolutely shits on the console version. Again, it’s not just the resolution, but the lighting, the animations, the textures, the particle effects and more. That’s not to say it’s an ugly game on the 360, far from it, it looks very nice but on the PC it is simply jaw-dropping.

Of course, Battlefield 3 isn’t the first PC game in recent memory to look better than it’s console port. Crysis 2, released earlier this year, was another stunner but graphical fidelity aside, the gameplay was more or less the same on the consoles as the PC. This is not the case with Battlefield 3. The (slightly) increased map size, increased number of capture points, and the more than double the player count makes the game way more intense and, on the major maps, much more fun. There’s also more vehicles and improved destructibility of the environments in the PC version as well.

It’s clear that the Frostbite 2 game engine that DICE created is a bit too much for the current crop of consoles but then again, should we be surprised? On November 16th, the Xbox 360 is going to be six years old! A top of the line PC from 6 years ago would probably struggle to run a quarter of newest PC games released today. There’s a finite limit to just how much power developers can squeeze out of the current crop of consoles and I think they are reaching that limit now.

Does that mean that I’m ready to buy the Xbox 3/720/Next/WhateverItsCalled tomorrow? No. There are still dozens upon dozens of games still to enjoy in this current generation but I also wouldn’t be surprised if at the next E3 Sony and Microsoft unveil their next generation of hardware for release in 2013. A looming next console generation is always an exciting time but the transition to the next generation should be even more intriguing as there are many questions that need to be answered that would never have been addressed before; What happens to digital distribution? Will either Sony or Microsoft have the stones to reject physical media or, at the very least, de-emphasize it? What happens to downloadable content? Will I be able to play my downloaded Xbox Live Arcade/PSN games on the next system? What will become of motion control? Will there even be true next-generation hardware or is the next step adoption of an On-Live style cloud-based streaming service?

Lots of questions and I’m hoping we’ll get an answer to some of them at the next E3. In the meantime, I am more than happy to run and gun on the 360 and PS3.......but oh the PC version of Battlefield is just so freakin’ good!

Lavan

GTA V

I'm a massive, massive fan of the Grand Theft Auto series. Today Rockstar released a teaser trailer for GTA V, enjoy!



GTA San Andreas was one of my favourite games of all time so I love that they've gone back to California. The even in that short video the environments look incredible and I can't wait to drive around that game world.

What do you think of the trailer?

Lavan