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Coming Soon > PlayStation Game Cheats > PlayStation Reviews > Staff Review | |
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| Playability: This game was very easy to learn to play. The controls were in positions where you'd expect them. The right thumbstick served as the gas/break and the left as steering. The game gives you 4 choices of layout of the buttons and thumbsticks, but it is not customizable. Upon booting the game up, I discovered an annoying feature by accident. I found it never prompts you to save the game and it doesn't recognize memory slot 2. You have to be diligent on saving the game or lose what you've acquired. Now on to the meat of the game. There are three gaming options. Arcade mode, Championship mode and Head-to-head on a split screen. In Arcade mode, there are initially two tracks available. You are given a map of the US with ten locations, but only two are open. Each location has 3 tracks. There are two classes of trucks; the standard 4x4 and hot rods. The first tracks in Arcade mode are the 4x4's. The racing is extreme, fast and cut throat. Your opponents will waste no time blocking you from passing, trying to run you off the road or nudging you into a wall. You have to learn to be as vicious as your opponents, or they will have you for lunch. This approach reminded me of the movie Road Warrior. As you progress and keep winning; you open more tracks. In order to open a new location, you have to win all three tracks in the previous location. It gets easier since you get rewarded with new trucks to choose from which handle better and go faster. The first five locations are the standard 4x4 trucks and you have two laps of the course to win. You must win to open new tracks and trucks. Once you open up the first Hotrod course (Washington State), you now have a new group of trucks to open up and you need to complete 3 laps of these courses. I found the tracks of each location to be creative in the way they were presented. The first race was usually in a clear condition and you raced in a general counter-clockwise direction for each lap. Once you won this race, the next track was usually in fog, rain, at night, etc. but in reverse. They also would add a twist by sending your truck around a different fork to add a little variety. The third track would be a different condition and fork off to a different location. When you race, you notice barricades over certain roads that are moved/removed on the next track. I found this to be creative and made the tracks different enough as not to bore! When I first started playing this game, I had a lot of trouble, especially if a competitor ran me into a wall. I would have to back up, then get back on the track. It ended up that I'd lose the race badly. I noticed that if your truck went into a river or embankment, the program would replace the truck right on the track. I then discovered there is a "replace truck" button on the controller. I found that when I was getting into trouble like running into a wall, I could quickly replace the truck and save valuable time. There is absolutely no penalty for doing this. If you don't, you have to race a flawless race to win, which is nearly impossible. I don't know if they intentionally did this or it is a flaw, but it is very handy. The other really cool aspect of this game is how the trucks show damage. If your truck rolls, your roof will be caved in. If someone crashes into the rear quarterpanel, it will be pushed in. If you slam against a wall sideways, the glass on the truck will turn to spider web, but doesn't break all the way out unfortunately. The damage stays put throughout the duration of the race even if you use the replace truck button and. It doesn't seem to affect the ride or handling of the trucks. The arcade mode is fun, but you don't get to see new tracks or the hotrods until you open them up by winning. To see more (all) tracks and to race the hotrods, you can go to the Championship mode. There are two classes of championships, the 4x4 and hotrods. Then there are two championship 'seasons' in each class; amateur and professional. You have to win the amateur, of course, to race in the professional. The amateur series is five races, one on a track each location of the 4x4 (or hotrod) series. You have to finish first in points standings to go on to the professional. If you do well, but not win the series, it will open up some more trucks to use (this is independent of how many trucks you opened up in the arcade mode). You can't change trucks in mid-season. You race the same truck on all five races. And there's no redo. You need the fastest truck possible to win the series. The professional series is ten races, two from each location (total 15 of each class for 30 tracks). At the time of this writing I haven't won the professional series, so I'm not sure of what is in store for the winner… Of course, nothing is better than actually racing against a friend in split screen and really trying to screw him over. After you master winning against the computer, the unpredictability of a direct competitor is sure to please. Game Options: This is a 1 disk game for 1-2 Players. It is compatible with the standard (digital) joypad and the analog stick controls of the dual shock joypad. Games can be saved via memory card (1 block per save). |
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