Ameer67
Premium
- 10,984
- Chicago
And it's by EA, even better! Man, Nascar fans have been having it tough in the virtual world it seems.
(9,100th post on GTP!)
From Glory to Garbage
- Thread starter Ameer67
- 50 comments
- 2,193 views
(9,100th post on GTP!)
- 6,095
- Texas
Why wasn't I aware of this thread? Ohh, so much ax-grinding to do. I'll do games I know, no sense in going off a 10 minute demo or something like that. And also I'm NOT getting on the 'GT SUX' bandwagon because while GT5 is the turd of the series, it's still better than a number of other racers. Yes GT6 AI is still awful, but it's been the same basic engine since GT3, and I never hear anyone tear it to pieces. Does GT6 have faults? Hell yes, but all told it's a solid racer that looks decent, handles well, and has useless AI which until another game actually produces genuinely great racing AI I won't hold it against anyone anymore.
I also can't put Test Drive on here. I played 4, 5, 6, OR, OR2, and Unlimited. There isn't much between them to be blunt about it. Dodgy-at-best, all of them, but TD6 on Dreamcast was one me and my dad would play so there's that I guess.
Right, where's my ax?
Need For Speed- 1 was 'aight, 2 was decent, and while I don't care for the PSX Hot Pursuit, like my GT6 description it was solid, flawed, but a generally good racing game. Porsche Unleashed may have been fine on PC, but on PS1 it is all manners of ***. The beacon for PS1 games was High Stakes, and while I've never been good at it, I find it loads of fun warts and all. PS2 comes, aaand we start with HP2.....uunngh. Then the tuner scene explodes and someone thinks "Hey, we can capitalize on this!" and Underground is born. It's decent enough but the soundtrack was...unappealing to me, then there's the excessive rubberbanding that means to this day I've not seen past race...110 I think? Black box then makes NFSU2 and it's better in almost every way, easily the high point of the generation for me as I also believe this is the point the entire staff at Black Box were lobotomized. Most Wanted came around, darker, grittier, no more comic book cut scenes, and from what I can tell a new physics engine, one I never agreed with and a game I never agreed with either. Carbon took the extremes of MW and magnified them for the worse even though the crew idea was nice but not well done, then the jump to 360/ps3 comes with another rehash of the engine, but one that I came to grips with for the most part in ProStreet, a game with tons of faults but is a bit of a refresher on the downhill slide that kept going with that same physics engine in Undercover, the game that I wrote off BB after. The Shift games are also awful to me, I can't play them for extended periods of time, and while I think Criterion did a decent enough job, they felt forced and stiff. That's my limit, I've not touched Rivals or 2015.
NASCAR- This won't be as long winded. Console titles before NASCAR '98 are studies in frustration and a test of eyesight. Looking back, EA started off well. It is finicky and not a sim, but tearing around Bristol was and can still be great fun. EA's '99-'01 offerings looked better and were usually better equipped, but they didn't feel quite right, especially some of the damage engines. Moving to PS2 and Xbox brought in the 'Thunder' series, and while 2002 still had the more arcade feel, it showed the way for EA's stuff, but they weren't alone. After Thunder '02 came '03 and '04 by EA, games I grew up on, Infogrames put out Heat 2002 and it's broader scoped Dirt to Daytona, and Sierra/Papyrus released NR02 and NR03, the latter of which is legendary for it's versatility. Once EA floated the money to buy exclusive rights though, it's been hell. NASCAR 2005 still had some fun, but the losses mounted, exponentially it seemed, until EA finally killed it. All since are there. They exist, but they've no substance to them, and I'm losing faith in DMR as time goes on.
.....That's all I've got? CMR/DiRT was good throughout except for Showdown, but that seems to be a narrow point because of DiRT Rally's popularity. TOCA/Race Driver/GRID would be another, but after putting myself through TOCA 1 (Awful on PSX), TOCA RDs 1 (Couldn't keep going) and 2 (no motivation), I thing TOCA World Championship/Jarrett & Labonte and GRID 1 are the exceptions. WWE games are what they are. TXR improved regularly. GTA IV wasn't interesting but again, single spike. I'll come back when I have more.
I also can't put Test Drive on here. I played 4, 5, 6, OR, OR2, and Unlimited. There isn't much between them to be blunt about it. Dodgy-at-best, all of them, but TD6 on Dreamcast was one me and my dad would play so there's that I guess.
Right, where's my ax?
Need For Speed- 1 was 'aight, 2 was decent, and while I don't care for the PSX Hot Pursuit, like my GT6 description it was solid, flawed, but a generally good racing game. Porsche Unleashed may have been fine on PC, but on PS1 it is all manners of ***. The beacon for PS1 games was High Stakes, and while I've never been good at it, I find it loads of fun warts and all. PS2 comes, aaand we start with HP2.....uunngh. Then the tuner scene explodes and someone thinks "Hey, we can capitalize on this!" and Underground is born. It's decent enough but the soundtrack was...unappealing to me, then there's the excessive rubberbanding that means to this day I've not seen past race...110 I think? Black box then makes NFSU2 and it's better in almost every way, easily the high point of the generation for me as I also believe this is the point the entire staff at Black Box were lobotomized. Most Wanted came around, darker, grittier, no more comic book cut scenes, and from what I can tell a new physics engine, one I never agreed with and a game I never agreed with either. Carbon took the extremes of MW and magnified them for the worse even though the crew idea was nice but not well done, then the jump to 360/ps3 comes with another rehash of the engine, but one that I came to grips with for the most part in ProStreet, a game with tons of faults but is a bit of a refresher on the downhill slide that kept going with that same physics engine in Undercover, the game that I wrote off BB after. The Shift games are also awful to me, I can't play them for extended periods of time, and while I think Criterion did a decent enough job, they felt forced and stiff. That's my limit, I've not touched Rivals or 2015.
NASCAR- This won't be as long winded. Console titles before NASCAR '98 are studies in frustration and a test of eyesight. Looking back, EA started off well. It is finicky and not a sim, but tearing around Bristol was and can still be great fun. EA's '99-'01 offerings looked better and were usually better equipped, but they didn't feel quite right, especially some of the damage engines. Moving to PS2 and Xbox brought in the 'Thunder' series, and while 2002 still had the more arcade feel, it showed the way for EA's stuff, but they weren't alone. After Thunder '02 came '03 and '04 by EA, games I grew up on, Infogrames put out Heat 2002 and it's broader scoped Dirt to Daytona, and Sierra/Papyrus released NR02 and NR03, the latter of which is legendary for it's versatility. Once EA floated the money to buy exclusive rights though, it's been hell. NASCAR 2005 still had some fun, but the losses mounted, exponentially it seemed, until EA finally killed it. All since are there. They exist, but they've no substance to them, and I'm losing faith in DMR as time goes on.
.....That's all I've got? CMR/DiRT was good throughout except for Showdown, but that seems to be a narrow point because of DiRT Rally's popularity. TOCA/Race Driver/GRID would be another, but after putting myself through TOCA 1 (Awful on PSX), TOCA RDs 1 (Couldn't keep going) and 2 (no motivation), I thing TOCA World Championship/Jarrett & Labonte and GRID 1 are the exceptions. WWE games are what they are. TXR improved regularly. GTA IV wasn't interesting but again, single spike. I'll come back when I have more.
- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
IV suffered from a complete lack of narrative focus. I often found myself doing missions for someone with no idea why or how they figured into the plot. V, on the other hand, worked well because each character had their own personal story alongside the main narrative. That made it much more focused and grounded than IV.
- 1,486
- Jakarta
- FOUR16_
Has anyone here mentioned the fact DiRT came out from the landfill? I have to admit, I thought Codies killed the series for good with Showdown.
- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
I think the point of Showdown was to separate the all-style-and-no-substance gameplay modes from the Dirt Rally series to see if they could stand on their own. When they (predictably) couldn't, there was no need to make another game and Codemasters had the excuse they needed to jettison it entirely. The decision to release it felt more like a business decision than anything else.
Dirt 1: Good with some minor quirks.
Dirt 2: Frat boy heaven.
Dirt 3: Toned down the frat but still there to an extent.
Dirt Showdown: Spin off so Codies can spur out the frat to maximum level.
Dirt Rally: Strip all the frat and make it a serious sim.
Dirt 4????
- 14,660
- The UK
- JASON_ROCKS1998
- JR98 GAMING
Saints Row
I never played the original but I had a lot of fun with SR2, and I thought it had a really good story that was serious enough but also had some funny moments. I thought SR3 was pretty good too but then it came to SR4 where seriousness seemed to be thrown out the window with a very unrealistic story, compared to SR3. Plus the fact the map was almost identical to SR3's and rendered pretty much every vehicle obselete because of the super powers. Same for SR: GAOH but at least that made some major changes to the map to make it differentiate it from Steelport but the story for that made even less sense.
I never played the original but I had a lot of fun with SR2, and I thought it had a really good story that was serious enough but also had some funny moments. I thought SR3 was pretty good too but then it came to SR4 where seriousness seemed to be thrown out the window with a very unrealistic story, compared to SR3. Plus the fact the map was almost identical to SR3's and rendered pretty much every vehicle obselete because of the super powers. Same for SR: GAOH but at least that made some major changes to the map to make it differentiate it from Steelport but the story for that made even less sense.
- 6,095
- Texas
Actually, this is pretty close to how I describe it aside from the frat thing. Dirt 1 felt like Colin's thing, Dirt 2 was like the kids took over (and is my favorite of the series), then Dirt 3 the kids decided they needed to be professional while doing it and it feels a bit too stiff. Showdown was when the kids went full frat, and did I hate it.
- 8,239
- United Kingdom
Online derby was riotously good fun. The circuit racing was pointless, and the gymkhana driving felt flat because of the over-assisting. The 'Head-to-Head' super special stage-trick races with DiRT 3's handling would have been brilliant.
- 9,295
- Duisburg
Oh my god, yes, this. Final Fantasy went down the drain more than any other franchise named in this threat, including NfS and GT.
Final Fantasy IX is one of my favourite games of all time. IV, VI and IX were, in my opinion, the absolute greats of the franchise. X was great in its own right and, in my (very) unpopular opinion, better than VII and VIII, but most of the post-PSX releases are garbage, imho. I can't wrap my head around it. Square, Enix and Taito made some of the greatest SNES RPGs ever. Some of them are so damn great I still play them occasionally. The older Final Fantasies, Lufia II, , Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, the Mana series (Seiken Densetsu), Bahamut Lagoon, Secret of Evermore... I could go on and on and on. Such a shame.
- 33,155
- Hammerhead Garage
It all comes down to storytelling.
X was good; it was focused and interesting, but the linear storytelling limited opportunities for exploration and half the primary cast were hopelessly annoying (case in point, the infamous laughing scene); my party usually consisted of Auron, Lulu and Kimhari.
XI was Square's fixation with MMORPGs, which I don't think was a direction the series needed to go - as proven by XIV, which was a disaster. I think a lot of that distracted them from XIII; there's a good story in the Fabula Nova Crystallis suite, and if it had been one game instead of three, it would have been much better.
XII was excellent, but the story was a radical departure from everything the series had done, which I think put audiences off.
- 396
- Houston, TX
- realtexan
Flatout Series - Flatout 1, 2, and UC were great arcade racers that had a great damage model, great soundtrack, fun races, fun ragdoll stunt events. The publisher Empire Interactive went defunct after UC, and Bugbear were no longer the developers after that. A new team of developers got their hands on Flatout 3, and what they created was legitimately one of the worst racing games of all time. Another new team is supposed to be working on the upcoming Flatout 4 game, but I doubt it will be just as good as the old games. The announcement for Flatout 4 was made in August 2015, and almost a year later, there has been zero information about the game since the announcement. At least for Flatout fans, there's Next Car Game/Wreckfest, which is made by the original Flatout developers, and is just as fun as the early Flatout games.
- 2,694
- BurnoutLogicville, USA
- INF_Mike458
Asphalt Series: It was really, really good from 5-6-7... and then died on 8. Everything can be explained here: (WARNING: STRONG LANGUAGE IS USED IN THE COMMENTS: http://asphalt.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Mike458/Everything_Wrong_With_Asphalt_8 )
Haven't played the new NFS... and I'm probably never going to play it... but ever since The Run the game has been terrible (save for Rivals and MW 2012).
Haven't played the new NFS... and I'm probably never going to play it... but ever since The Run the game has been terrible (save for Rivals and MW 2012).
- 734
- Canada
The Super Monkey Ball games.
1 and 2 are some of my all time favorites and Deluxe is the perfect mix between the two(levels from both games and some new levels.) Would gladly buy a used Xbox 360 and the game to enjoy it in 60fps.
But then Super Monkey Ball Adventure came. While the story mode in 2 and Deluxe was pretty nice, Adventure was more like an adventure story and it was terrible. After this there was Touch and Roll on DS(which i quite enjoyed since it was somewhat the game in its classic form. They even put levels from the old games.)
There was also Banana Blitz on Wii, which was more oriented toward the older games, but without the fun. You can guess why(i'll give you a hint: the goddamn controllers.) Another thing of the game that frustrated me was that you could actually jump by pressing a button. I felt that because of this there was no fun for doing tricks like the first three games where you had to find how to do it. In Banana Blitz you just had to press a button, and voila.
After this they did a game for the Wii Fit, some iOS games and other ones, like one for the 3DS, which i finished in 15 minutes. In the first games it could take you days to finish the game, but i was actually done with the game in 15 freaking minutes.
Super Monkey Ball was a great serie, but like many other Sega series, they messed up. At least with Crazy Taxi they didn't released as many games to destroy it.
1 and 2 are some of my all time favorites and Deluxe is the perfect mix between the two(levels from both games and some new levels.) Would gladly buy a used Xbox 360 and the game to enjoy it in 60fps.
But then Super Monkey Ball Adventure came. While the story mode in 2 and Deluxe was pretty nice, Adventure was more like an adventure story and it was terrible. After this there was Touch and Roll on DS(which i quite enjoyed since it was somewhat the game in its classic form. They even put levels from the old games.)
There was also Banana Blitz on Wii, which was more oriented toward the older games, but without the fun. You can guess why(i'll give you a hint: the goddamn controllers.) Another thing of the game that frustrated me was that you could actually jump by pressing a button. I felt that because of this there was no fun for doing tricks like the first three games where you had to find how to do it. In Banana Blitz you just had to press a button, and voila.
After this they did a game for the Wii Fit, some iOS games and other ones, like one for the 3DS, which i finished in 15 minutes. In the first games it could take you days to finish the game, but i was actually done with the game in 15 freaking minutes.
Super Monkey Ball was a great serie, but like many other Sega series, they messed up. At least with Crazy Taxi they didn't released as many games to destroy it.
- 734
- Canada
Another serie i could think of is the Motorstorm one.
Pretty much everyone who got a PS3 when they released got the first game. It was like Burnout, but in off-road. With bikes and trucks. This was the stuff of madness that you could only love.
Then came Pacific Rift. I couldn't count the hours i've played this game. It's still on of my favorite racing games. Only thing that i disliked was how the game was hard toward the end. But hey, you just have to go in free mode, take a monster truck and put everyone else on bikes and let all your rage get out!
But then the developpers made IMO one of the worst choice i've ever seen for a game: Releasing the new game on the PS2 instead of the PS3. For me, it pretty much killed the serie since i've never really played the one that came after.
Pretty much everyone who got a PS3 when they released got the first game. It was like Burnout, but in off-road. With bikes and trucks. This was the stuff of madness that you could only love.
Then came Pacific Rift. I couldn't count the hours i've played this game. It's still on of my favorite racing games. Only thing that i disliked was how the game was hard toward the end. But hey, you just have to go in free mode, take a monster truck and put everyone else on bikes and let all your rage get out!
But then the developpers made IMO one of the worst choice i've ever seen for a game: Releasing the new game on the PS2 instead of the PS3. For me, it pretty much killed the serie since i've never really played the one that came after.
- 1,118
- United States
- Jake-Racer1221
It's long sadly, please read it though.
For me it's Gran Turismo, Driver, NFS, and Test Drive: Unlimited
Gran Turismo:
Let me start off with Gran Turismo 1 & 2, these two games got me hooked into the series when I was 5 to 7 years old in 2005 or 2006. It was fast and fun, with nowadays called Arcade Elements, but it wasn't so advanced in today's standards of racing games. I liked how you could take an ordinary car and fully modify it to be a race car. When I got to the GTWC I was going full on when I was little, but I wasn't good at all. Believe me, 1 & 2 were the best the series has to offer currently. Gran Turismo 3 & 4 were great, but not the best, however. Gran Turismo 3 is still considered my third best to me now with all the championships you can take, and the game used all cars like GT4. Now, GT5 and GT6 feel like rushed products, I mean they carried most of GT4's assets to GT5 and 6, they said it was hard development, but we'll have to see about the data on GT:HD and GT5P to find out why.
NFS:
I think the PS1 era or Classical Era was an awesome set of games. Once NFS reached into Black Box Era it didn't take much of a turn as the Current Era. I say NFS 2015 provided the most disappointment because of it's "Real" feel to it, like not ramming into cop cars while in a chase. And the customization is lacking a big bunch, it didn't have that flare to me. But by now the series is dying to me right now, due to the fact the franchise is lacking a lot of great qualities the old ones had and no fun whatsoever.
DR1VER:
Oh boy, was this game fun. When I was growing up I played San Fransico survival, and could not even go over 2 minutes of surviving those bloody cops. I haven't played Driver 3, but from I read and heard the game was so buggy that Atari through money at it. They even had press release DVDs for free for the consumers pleasure. Driver SF was great and all, but no flare like GT. However, Atari and UBiSoft dropped everything and ran to another franchise to afford their debts, it's disgusting.
TDU Series:
I think this series was fun of exploration and buy apartments, and the such, but TDU2 wasn't my cup of tea. It was horrible. The annoying voices made me don't want to take out the game again, and with the DLC was too annoying to compare to the original. Today I can't play TDU2 anymore without getting frustrated and long. Atari and Eden games tried, but didn't help any. Sadly.
Gran Turismo:
Let me start off with Gran Turismo 1 & 2, these two games got me hooked into the series when I was 5 to 7 years old in 2005 or 2006. It was fast and fun, with nowadays called Arcade Elements, but it wasn't so advanced in today's standards of racing games. I liked how you could take an ordinary car and fully modify it to be a race car. When I got to the GTWC I was going full on when I was little, but I wasn't good at all. Believe me, 1 & 2 were the best the series has to offer currently. Gran Turismo 3 & 4 were great, but not the best, however. Gran Turismo 3 is still considered my third best to me now with all the championships you can take, and the game used all cars like GT4. Now, GT5 and GT6 feel like rushed products, I mean they carried most of GT4's assets to GT5 and 6, they said it was hard development, but we'll have to see about the data on GT:HD and GT5P to find out why.
NFS:
I think the PS1 era or Classical Era was an awesome set of games. Once NFS reached into Black Box Era it didn't take much of a turn as the Current Era. I say NFS 2015 provided the most disappointment because of it's "Real" feel to it, like not ramming into cop cars while in a chase. And the customization is lacking a big bunch, it didn't have that flare to me. But by now the series is dying to me right now, due to the fact the franchise is lacking a lot of great qualities the old ones had and no fun whatsoever.
DR1VER:
Oh boy, was this game fun. When I was growing up I played San Fransico survival, and could not even go over 2 minutes of surviving those bloody cops. I haven't played Driver 3, but from I read and heard the game was so buggy that Atari through money at it. They even had press release DVDs for free for the consumers pleasure. Driver SF was great and all, but no flare like GT. However, Atari and UBiSoft dropped everything and ran to another franchise to afford their debts, it's disgusting.
TDU Series:
I think this series was fun of exploration and buy apartments, and the such, but TDU2 wasn't my cup of tea. It was horrible. The annoying voices made me don't want to take out the game again, and with the DLC was too annoying to compare to the original. Today I can't play TDU2 anymore without getting frustrated and long. Atari and Eden games tried, but didn't help any. Sadly.
