darkNiGHTS0

Pure arcade goodness, one of my favorite NHL games out there. Love how you can adjust the speed of gameplay, and the season mode is very well done. The commentators are ridiculous, in a good way.

This is not the same experience as NFS: PU on the PC - Gamespot had it right when they rated the PlayStation version 5.9 and the PC version 8.9, though perhaps they were too generous by giving the PlayStation a 5.9 while calling the game "well-intentioned but utterly flawed." The experience starts on a high note, presuming you're a Porsche fan pumped to experience your favorite cars, and goes downhill from there. Head to Evolution and the real experience starts. You must buy cars and race to win in various tournaments, using the prize money to buy new cars. The selection of cars provides an overlook of Porsche cars throughout history. They're pretty presented realistically in the game as far as speed, acceleration, and handling go, which sounds like a positive, but it actually renders the entire selection meaningless, which was a disappointing realization after the initial excitement. Each car has a class and can only apply to races within that class. Cars are also non-upgradeable meaning if you buy a subpar car in that class, you're simply outgunned by the competition with no hope for keeping up. In each class, you simply scroll through the cars and buy the fastest car in the class. The progression in Evolution is non-existent. Some races will be easy, others will be hard or impossible. In most races, you will crush the opponents and course records. Since some cars in each class are uncompetitive, there will only be 1-3 cars in a single race that actually stand a chance at keeping up with you. By easy, I mean if you race decently without any practice, the player can often beat the CPU by 30 seconds on a 4-5 minute race and course record by 20-30 seconds. You can even set lap records on the first lap where you start from 0 mph. Ridiculous! And then aggravatingly, in the 'Classic' era 356 tournament, the gold medal is unobtainable. After beating those other races handily, even with the fastest 356 available, the CPU stomps the player by at least 5 seconds even if the player makes no obvious mistakes. The CPU, despite having the same vehicle, is simply faster. Oddly, a second place victory is enough to set the "course record", a contradiction that shows the polish of this mode. There's tournaments where you can earn ~30,000 credits after racing for 15 minutes or so, then there's circuit mode where you can easily beat a single 4 minute race for ~60,000 credits. You will be switching between screens a lot here thanks to the poorly designed UI. Not sure if the used car you're about to buy is the best in class? Go back to the Evolution menu, browse the used cars and scroll through to confirm. Then go back to the Evolution menu and go back to the used cars and find the car you were about to buy. Not sure if you've already beat a tournament? Just look next to the tournament before you start - it will show what medal you have. Oh wait, no it doesn't, because that would be a well-designed game. You must go to your trophy cabinet and look in 3-4 menus to check what events you have left to beat. Enough with the evolution mode. The tracks are decent but boring. Why aren't the tracks the same as on the PC? They're very flat and the turns aren't particularly well designed. The graphics are decent but the short draw distance can be annoying at times. You just have to look at the mini-map in the corner - at high speeds, a turn will just pop up out of nowhere, with not enough time to react. The night races are laughable. Your car doesn't have headlights and will race through dark mountain areas. Your eyes will hurt after that course. The collision and damage detection are laughable. Crash into a sign that easily breaks off and you'll have a hundred credit repair. Smack a wall and sometimes you'll have no damage. Or, you'll clip into the wall and be stuck permenently. Oops, better hope you weren't in the middle of a tournament you'll need to restart! The tuning is there but there is no explanation to what the affect of changing different items does. And annoyingly, you can test cars in your garage, but you aren't given the opportunity to tune them before driving! Meaning the only time you can experiment with tuning is in competitive races. Also, despite the gear ratio changing your acceleration and top speed, this is not reflected in your car's stats displayed directly above the gear ratio. I could probably go on, but I'm not going to waste anymore time on this game. Skip this and head to the PC version that is better in just about every way.

The basics of this game are fun. If you don't take the loops or the jumps higher, you will progress through the level pretty fast but you won't gain any gas or nitro. To complete all three laps, you must have balance. Too bad this game's gravity is way overpowered, it takes out the fun and challenge of jumps. Even with nitro, going off a jump drops you to the ground way too fast. And the game against CPUs is just too easy. You don't even need to use the d-pad for the majority of levels, you just end up landing fine most of the time. Hammering nitros is usually enough to win the race. It is fun, but short lasted unless you have a friend to link up with. Then the actual route you take through the course will matter much more!

Very fun game with well designed courses. Story mode **** which can be a positive depending on the type of gamer you are. If you just want to play and have no cutscenes, this is the game for you! Stunts are fun and the handbrake is easy to drift around corners.