I've been able to sink a few hours into this since it arrived on Friday and my overall impression is that it's a very good game.
Winning races early on seems quite difficult with a near-standard car but once you earn enough to do a few modifications, your car becomes more competitive and each race becomes a really close and tense affair, often drawn out for miles as you and the opponent constantly battle for the lead whilst avoiding slow-moving traffic.
Even though the races take place on motorways, the battles are just as exciting as any in Ridge Racer or Initial D since your opponent is no mug, and they're almost always in a faster car than you.
Graphically, the game is only mediocre by 360 standards and looks more like PS2/Xbox1 level, plus it's only 30fps with some slowdown and scenery pop-up issues. It's generally smoother than PGR3, but it has more pop-up and doesn't look anywhere near as good. The game actually looks OK, just nowhere near the quality of graphics we expect on these new systems. Compared to Ridge Racer 6, it definitely looks like a last-gen game.
The soundtrack though, is great, as is the amount of tuning and customisation options. Nearly every major component on the car can be upgraded and adjusted to improve performance, and you can also modify how the car looks in a variety of ways too including hideous Max Power-style bodykits.
This is one of the reasons why the game is so addictive and the difficulty level seems nicely-judged - you find yourself being just too slow to beat the boss car, so you go and earn enough money winning the other races to upgrade the engine etc untill you're fast enough and the repeat the process on the next set of teams...
The feeling of speed in this game is very convincing - 200KM/H really does feel like 200KM/H and the cars handle very well. The handling is simulation-based with realistic movement and weight, probably comparable with Gran Turismo 1, but slightly more "drifty". More realistic than PGR3, but not by too much.
So far I've beaten over 40% of the rivals and I've found the game very absorbing. With some games it can feel a chore to keep winning races to build up cash, but there's less of that here since winning a race is never easy.
I've just added another car to my garage and I'll be looking to do the rest of the quest mode with it. There's also online modes including time-attack, but my connection hasn't been good enough to try them.
Overall, this game is excellent and a fine addition to the series. If it had shinier graphics it would probably have a chance of gaining the series a more widespread appeal, but with it looking it the way it does, I don't see that changing.
Winning races early on seems quite difficult with a near-standard car but once you earn enough to do a few modifications, your car becomes more competitive and each race becomes a really close and tense affair, often drawn out for miles as you and the opponent constantly battle for the lead whilst avoiding slow-moving traffic.
Even though the races take place on motorways, the battles are just as exciting as any in Ridge Racer or Initial D since your opponent is no mug, and they're almost always in a faster car than you.
Graphically, the game is only mediocre by 360 standards and looks more like PS2/Xbox1 level, plus it's only 30fps with some slowdown and scenery pop-up issues. It's generally smoother than PGR3, but it has more pop-up and doesn't look anywhere near as good. The game actually looks OK, just nowhere near the quality of graphics we expect on these new systems. Compared to Ridge Racer 6, it definitely looks like a last-gen game.
The soundtrack though, is great, as is the amount of tuning and customisation options. Nearly every major component on the car can be upgraded and adjusted to improve performance, and you can also modify how the car looks in a variety of ways too including hideous Max Power-style bodykits.
This is one of the reasons why the game is so addictive and the difficulty level seems nicely-judged - you find yourself being just too slow to beat the boss car, so you go and earn enough money winning the other races to upgrade the engine etc untill you're fast enough and the repeat the process on the next set of teams...
The feeling of speed in this game is very convincing - 200KM/H really does feel like 200KM/H and the cars handle very well. The handling is simulation-based with realistic movement and weight, probably comparable with Gran Turismo 1, but slightly more "drifty". More realistic than PGR3, but not by too much.
So far I've beaten over 40% of the rivals and I've found the game very absorbing. With some games it can feel a chore to keep winning races to build up cash, but there's less of that here since winning a race is never easy.
I've just added another car to my garage and I'll be looking to do the rest of the quest mode with it. There's also online modes including time-attack, but my connection hasn't been good enough to try them.
Overall, this game is excellent and a fine addition to the series. If it had shinier graphics it would probably have a chance of gaining the series a more widespread appeal, but with it looking it the way it does, I don't see that changing.
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