VIRTUAL WORLD TOUR

yesterday at work, miguel and i were both seated around my desk with the playstation 2 and xbox versions of burnout 3: takedown, the new arcade racer/crash simulator from criterion games and electronic arts. taking a glance a miguel's review will clue you in on just how good the game is... but if you're still not convinced, check out the movies we made; they are free to download or stream from our site with no waiting, btw. oh and if you hear random people yapping during those vids, they're just strangers we were playing against on xbox live.

BURNOUT 3: TAKEDOWN

so, what was my point? oh yes... i really wanted to head home and play the game last night, but unfortunately it's not available in stores until later today. the thing is that racing games tend to allow players to use their own custom soundtracks on the xbox. you can simply rip tracks off cds and organize them in anyway you'd like, then call the music up in the game at any time. and since publishers tend to build game soundtracks out of relatively terrible music, this is a welcome feature; it is also one of the few reasons that you've simply got to get the xbox version, if you have the means. so i started ripping a few cds: the new mouse on mars, radical connector, and chutes too narrow by the shins. this process takes FOREVER, unfortunately. so i stopped after two discs. then i got the urge to test them out, so i started playing project gotham racing 2, a game in a series i mentioned here only a few days prior.

because of the deluge of games that hit during the holiday season, my addiction to need for speed underground, and some stupid child thief who nicked it (and several other games/dvds) from my bedroom while i was living at home, i didn't spend much time with pgr2 even though christian loved it so much. the short story is that it's really, really excellent -- not only as an example of what racing games should shoot for, but also of what net enabled console games should be. i love that after completing a race, i'm shown exactly how well i've done compared to every other player who's attepted the same event, assuming they have an xbox live account. i love that i can download players ghosts to compare their techniques to my own, and thus improve my times. and i love that the console's hard disk frees me to do things like save replays and ghosts without so much as a care; i've never done this in the past knowing that having those extra files sitting on a memory card would simply eat away the amount of space i need for game saves and the like.

but beyond the actual gameplay, (which i love) the most important aspect of this particular title is the fidelity and care of the rendering of the game's real-world cityscapes. i mentioned a few days prior that i recognized areas of london in which will and i wandered simply because i had driven through them before. pgr2 has a number of different cities to careen through including stockholm, hong kong, florence, sydney, yokohama, & edinburgh. they are simply marvelous to behold. and while playing, i want nothing more than to be able to visit those locales in actuality just so i can compare the real with the virtual. in fact, my only complaint about the rendered environments in the game is that it appears as if a neutron bomb (thanks will) has decimated all living creatures in the area. the cities appear dead, except for the fact that there a few race cars making their way through the city streets. in fact, occasionally, a flock of birds will fly overhead and the game seriously takes on a whole new level of realism, simply because there's something else moving in the scene. when the machines have enough power to render people in these racing environaments -- like the number of people who exist on the streets of a european city at any given time -- then games in the genre are going to be incredible. but, to be sure, they really already are.

PROJECT GOTHAM RACING 2

so but an xbox... and buy some racing games. take virtual tours of the earth without leaving you living room. you can do so in the comfort of some of the world's finest vehicles and while enjoying any music you might have the urge to listen to. it's a great time to be a gamer. oh, and yes... the xbox is the best current-gen console available, imo. i never thought i'd say it, but it proves its superiority again and again on a nearly daily basis.

one final non-gaming-related thought: i've been listening to final straw by snow patrol quite a bit the past few days and i'm highly enjoying it; thanks for the recommendation, chris. it hasn't taken over my life in the same way that the shins have... and i haven't been completely addicted to it like interpol's antics -- i've trying to stop listening to that record, so i can better appreciate its actual release, but i can't -- but it's enjoyable nonetheless. give it a listen. Posted by ryan at September 8, 2004 08:36 AM