NLU Weekly #31 (May 10, 2007) - Step Back, It's NLU Weekly! |
 Gears of War Maps Exactly one week ago the new Gears of War maps hit the Marketplace, I didn't download them then because it was Retro Revival Week, but I spent the 800 points to bring you my review on each of the four new maps. Before we begin, I love Gears, but I also hate Gears... It's such a random game, but is so much damn fun, that you don't care that the Lancer may as well be water gun, that melee attacking with a gun is almost better than shooting it and that the shotgun is the only really useful gun in the game. But enough of the Gears rhetoric, everyone knows about it's balancing issues, let's talk about the maps. Bullet Marsh This a pretty cool map, it's a bit tough to figure out and getting to lower levels is kind of tough at times, but the threat of the Krill is a pretty neat addition to the game. The gimmick is that most of the map is lighted, but, there a few places that aren't if you stray to far from the lights the Krill will take you out. The other threat is that there is a generator and if it gets hit enough by stray (or purposeful) fire even more of the lights go out. I haven't actually seen too many people play this map during matches so I'm not sure people like it. Subway This is probably the best map of the bunch in my opinion, it's kind of like the ever popular Gridlock combined with Tyro Station (except without that annoying train). The distance between weapons and the starting placement of the two teams is almost perfect. The team that starts on the bottom is probably going to get the Torque Bow and possibly the Boom Shot, but the upper team is going to get the Sniper Rifle and a chance at the upper grenades. The map also flows really well and there are multiple paths that you can take up and down from the underground, so you never get confused. This map is by far the one that I have seen the most people play of the new maps. Process Process is the rooftops of the map pack, this thing isn't all that great, both teams just race towards the central point and go for the Boom Shot. That's it, there is also a Torque Bow, but there isn't much too this map other than the awesome glow of the immulsion. Garden Garden is another one of the gimmick maps, this one has two greenhouses that are getting sprayed with deadly pesticide and if you go in there (or are stuck in there when they come back on you are dead). The gimmick is you can turn these they sprayers off, because you want to be able to get the power weapons located within. It's a pretty fun map, probably the second best of the four. All these maps bring new elements to Gears, but the only ones that I think will really stick are probably Subway and Garden. If you are interested, Gridlock is probably the most popular of the original Gears maps (Mansion, Canals and War Machine are the others), as for the second pack Raven Down is probably the biggest surprise, it's actually pretty good for a quick (and messy) frag fest. I'm pretty excited to see what Epic is going to bring to Gears next, whatever it is I'm sure it's going to be good (unlike, that crummy Annex mode). Video Motorsport Spectacular This week I played a ton of racing games, I haven't quite got around to playing any R4 (where this NLU gets it's name, in the theme song, the woman says, "step back, it's Ridge Racer") yet, but I did play a bunch of Gran Turismo 4 (including a near 2 hour endurance race, while waiting for the Forza 2 demo) and the newly released Forza Motorsport 2 Demo that was released at 2am PT this morning. In fact that is what I mostly wanted to talk about. I have been anticipating Forza 2 since I saw that 22 minute presentation of the game back in early March, I have been reading the official message boards on a daily basis and am ready for May 29, when the game hits. As for the demo it give you a small taste of what to expect in the full game, you get a short track "Magello Short" and can pick from 24 different cars from 3 different c.lasses (C, A and R2). I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I like the way this game drives, each car is a different beast, especially when it comes to braking. You might be in one car and be able to go really deep into a corner before braking, but in another car from the same c.lass if you try the same thing, you might just go sliding off the track because you just don't have the same stopping power. This is tremendously different from Gran Turismo, where every single car has just about the same braking power. The game looks pretty good, better than PGR 3, but where the game really shines is the audio, the engines of all the cars are distinctly different and the one thing I noticed is that the tires skidding/screeching sound effect is spot on, the people who make GT take note, that is what screeching tires sound like. And finally I have to mention the crashing sound effects, these are the most wince inducing, painful sounding crashes you've heard in one of these games. Not to mention parts of your car's body work will fall off and the paint will get all scratched up. It's a pretty fun demo, especially when you get into the R2 c.lass. I'll probably have more on Forza 2 as the game nears release. Closing Out That covers my week in games for the most part. I did try the Double Dragon trial on the XBLA and it's seems okay, but I don't know if it's worth spending $5 on for me right at the moment. Other than that, that's all folks, I'll write again in NLU Weekly #32 and before if anything worth talking about comes up, heck I might have a backlog feature, I have a pretty incredible one myself, I would guess off hand, probably nearly 20 games that I have yet to finish. Step back, it's Ridge Racer! Loading Complete! |
POSTED ON MAY 10, 2007 |
