GF! Weekly Wrap-Up #14

Intro

Welcome gamers to a special holiday season edition of the GamesFirst! Weekly Wrap-Up. I’m Val Towsend, the Atomic Goddess, and this week we’re wrapping up some of the recent reviews we couldn’t fit into other podcasts this Fall. This episode we have revie ws of GUN, Mario Kart DS, Need for Speed: Most Wanted, Project Gotham Racing 3, and Quake 4. These games include some of the best titles of the season, so let’s get right into it.

Reviews

Kicking things off for the all-reviews episode, Shawn checks in with a review of GUN, out now for all platforms from Activision and famed Tony Hawk developer, Neversoft. GUN puts you in control of Colton White, a frontiersman making his way in the Wild We st with his father, Ned. On a routine trip to trade game for game aboard a steamboat casino Ned is murdered by a psychotic preacher. Just before his death, Ned reveals that he is not really Colton’s father. Colton makes it out of the massacre, and seeks re venge and answers to questions about his birth. In that order.

Colton saddles up and conquers the Wild West in a free-roaming world that includes two cities, Dodge City and Empire City. Story missions unfold the main plot and side missions build Colton’s skills and abilities. Colton can ride Pony Express missions, wo rk as a Federal Marshall, hunt wild game, or just herd cattle. The landscape and variety of missions keeps GUN interesting and enhances the story.

GUN is also greatly enhanced by an all-star cast of voice actors which includes Brad Douriff of Deadwood, Tom Skerritt, and videogame regular Ron Perlman. The script and music are both very well composed, and GUN does manage to create a suitably gritty am biance. Unfortunately, it’s not all long drinks and loose women: GUN is plagued by glitches which caused us to lose saved games and forced us to replay elements. These issues have an impact on gameplay, making them more than an annoyance. In addition, ther e are some low points in the game design. Horses drive like motorcycles, and, oddly, nobody minds if you steal them. You’ll treat horses like vehicles in GTA, which prevents you from becoming attached to any particular steed. And the complete separation of skill-building and story-completion is silly.

Regardless of its flaws, GUN is a fresh take on the third-person action-adventure game, and rewards gamers who are after something more than the typical sci-fi/fantasy, or cop/military storyline. We give GUN a boot-scootin’ four out of five stars.

Also offering fast-paced action of dubious legal standing, EA’s Need for Speed: Most Wanted has come to pretty much any system that can play games. Matt James took Most Wanted out for a spin around the block, and came back seriously gassed.

Most Wanted is a street racer that has you racing through urban and rural roads. The weather and environmental aspects of the game are great, and on the 360 or a high-end PC we’ve rarely seen such beautiful visuals. The sense of speed is excellent, and th e thrill of outrunning and out-driving cops is exhilarating. You can even listen to them on the police radio, which features some of the best voice-acting and dialogue we’ve heard in a racing game.

Most Wanted is not a hardcore driving simulator. Rather, it is a quick, arcadey good time, and we love it for that. Online multiplayer also lets you share the craziness with a long-distance friend, and works well. It’s light on the story, but we don’t wan t to hear a lot of talk when there’s so much road to rage. We’re happy to give Need for Speed: Most Wanted five skid marks out of five.

Of course, not everyone wants arcade-style action in their racing game, and Microsoft knows that. Project Gotham Racing 3 serves up some of the best realistic driving experiences we’ve ever had, and our resident gearhead, Chris Martin, loves it, too. PGR3 offers a wide selection of the most luxury cars in the world. Forget about racing anything you’d every see actually driving on the road: In Project Gotham Racing you’ll drive Lamborginis and Ferraris, and the cars are beautiful.

Featuring amazing graphics, PGR3 is one of the titles that exemplifies the next-generation look. But it’s not all about the prettiness. PGR3 also delivers rock solid control. The whole package is virtually flawless. Although some of the courses seem prett y tight at 200 miles per hour, our only beef with the game is that it’s so hard to appreciate the scenery when it’s going by so quickly.

For those new to the series, PGR3 revolves around completing races in locations like New York, London, and Tokyo. You earn Kudos points for driving with style or making gutsy moves. Those Kudos points are then traded-in for upgrades and bonuses. This syst em encourages daring driving, although this time out it might be a bit too easy to earn Kudos points. But we won’t complain that much.

Online multiplayer is smoothly integrated, and the competition is fierce. Adding to replayability is the custom course editor: You can define a course in one of the cities and race it with friends. Or if that is too much trouble, go into Gotham TV mode an d watch the best racers in the world compete online. With these graphics, it’s pretty much like watching the real thing.

Project Gotham Racing 3 is an incredible title, and any driving fans should already own this one. We give PGR3 a perfect five out of five stars.

Moving from the Earth-based titles to the remote world of Stroggos, Quake 4, from publisher Activision and developers Id Software and Raven, busts onto the scene like a dropship full of space marines. Quake 4 is available now for PC and Xbox 360. Taking up events immediately after the storyline of Quake 2, Quake 4 continues the war between the borg-like Strogg and humanity.

This time out, you won’t spend as much time inside the Strogg base, although there is still plenty of corridor running and backtracking. The new outdoor missions are a lot of fun and convey a feeling of bigness. Of course, to deal with all that bigness, v ehicles are also thrown into the mix, making Quake 4 a lot like those other FPS titles we’ve played for the past couple of years. In fact, Quake 4 even features some squad-based gameplay just like Halo. And that’s probably Quake’s biggest downfall: It’s bi g and scary, but it’s pretty much the same game we’ve played several times before.

Actually, it’s the same two games: While the single player mode is resurrected in Quake 4, the multiplayer mode remains. Multiplayer is still super-fast and very popular. Vehicles make the multiplayer different enough to provide something new, but it stil l feels a lot like so many other FPS titles.

If you’re a fan of Doom and Quake and all things Id, then you’ll find a lot to like in Quake 4. It’s a solid title with solid gameplay, and the only downfall is that it delivers exactly what you thought it would. We give Quake 4 a bloody four out of five.

The Nintendo DS WiFi service has launched as promised, and the game that is kicking off wifi enjoyment is Mario Kart DS, the latest handheld version of the popular kart-racing franchise. Mario Kart DS delivers in all the ways Mario Kart fans hope for: T he same classic gameplay with an extra helping of online multiplayer. George reviewed it for us because, really, who else would we get to do it"

After the disappointing experiment that was Mario Kart Double Dash, the DS version returns to the tried and true Mario Kart formula: choose a single driver, get on the track, and let loose with the red shells. Kart-style racing means that you will drive o n wacky tracks and pick up weapons like turtle shells, banana peels, and stars in order to knock out your opponents and win the race.

In online mode, you can race against opponents over the Internet using the Nintendo DS WiFi service. The online racing works well, and being able to race with your pal even when you’re not within 30 feet of each other is a great benefit. But the online ma tchmaking and friends system leaves a lot to be desired. You can make a friends list, but can’t just check if a friend is online easily. If you want to just race a quick track with a friend, then you must wait for the system to finish trying to find other players – there’s no Start Game Now button to bypass the matchmaking process. Overall, the online component is welcome but disappointing. Regardless, we give Mario Kart DS a rousing “woo-hoo!” and a five out of five.

Conclusion

And that’s all for this week. Thanks for listening, gamers, and don’t forget you can get more on these games as well as the latest videogame news, reviews and previews posted daily on GamesFirst.com. I’m Val Townsend, the Atomic Goddess, and you can catch me later.