Soldato
This was quietly released on Friday with little or no interest shown by
anyone. Decided to rent it as some previews had shown that a purchase was not a good idea.
Firstly, there's been a bit of talk that the graphics were only of PS2 quality, well, that's incorrect. Yes the textures are of rather low quality and the screen can look rather bland at times, some tracks are better than others in this respect. At times there will be only a few scattered bits of vegetation and rocks on one track, to masses of bushes, rocks, cacti, signs, tress, fences etc all filling up the screen rather nicely. What does deserve a mention are the huge draw distances, come over the top of a mountain and the drop down the other side can show literally a few miles of road ahead with views as far as the eye can see. Add to this 7 or 8 vehicles in front of you jostling for position while throwing up dust behind them and bouncing all over the place, all while running rather smooth and not a drop in framerate, it has to be said the lower textures are maybe an understandable inclusion.
Handling/physics, well I'm not sure on this one, the handling is a mixture of sim and arcade I guess. Sim in regards to the fact you are literally bouncing all over the place and madly adjusting your steering to compensate and it does feel quite realistic and hard to control. But then you come to a sharper corner and you can just throw it in and it'll stick a bit too much. You can also pull the handbrake on at silly speeds to get a round a corner, something which in RL would put you into a barrel roll for sure. When I first started playing, I nearly gave up as the vehicles have a tendancy to do some weird oversteering thing. Contrary to the 'getting around the corners too easy' trait I mentioned earlier. The back end will sometimes decide to start coming around on you and it feels very heavy, almost so heavy you can't get it to stop and you have to release the throttle and eventually if you don't end up in a big rock, you'll manage to manipulate it back straight again. This is however made better with the immediate purchase of the best tyres available, it doesn't solve the problem but helps a lot. Physics are good, it seems to react rather well with all the ruts and bumps (which there are many) and the weight while in the air seems spot on.
Presenatation, this is about as basic as you'll get. The menus are
fairly boring and uninspiring. At the end of a race you cross the line
and that's it, the screen goes to the next race option and off you go. Vehicle selection is basic and a touch slow.
So what about the gameplay itself? Well yes, it's not bad at all. Needless to say the further you get, the better the vehicle you can have. More power and speed certainly makes things more manic and 'seat of your pants' driving is normal throughout. The circuit races are ok but the longer, single stage events I really like. Keeping it on the track and in one piece (you can break everything, oh yes) is easier said than done. Finishing a long race with smoke pouring out, shocks banging and clanging, engine misfiring, steering pulling etc is common, and fun. It has to be said that the AI racers are rather linear and you do tend to get hung up on them sometimes. But, they do make mistakes and coming over a hill to see one rolling down it, is rather amusing.
There is also hill climb, where you race up to the top of a big hill, then back down, lots of crashes and swearing ahoy. Free roam also lets you go anywhere you want and this is where you'll really see the massive views on show which really should be appreciated.
Multiplayer, not many people playing but the few games I had it was fun, really fun. You get the usual prat driving the wrong way around etc but otherwise the racing is quite intense with just the slightest mistake and you're off or overtaken.
So, to sum it up, as a whole package, I'm honestly not sure. I think people will buy it and be put off by the lack of polish and initially hard/weird handling. They'll give it an hour and sell it on. Others who persevere and keep an open mind may just have found themselves a game to really get stuck in to. It's worth noting that it's currently available at £29.99 and I would say it'll be in bargain bins very soon too. One more thing, there's nothing else really like it on the 360 either so if you want something different to the usual asphalt race tracks, this might do you very nicely indeed.
Will I buy it? I don't know, let me give it a few more days and I'll do a edit here.
*I hereby claim no responsibilty for spelling mistakes or crapness, I have a migraine...
anyone. Decided to rent it as some previews had shown that a purchase was not a good idea.
Firstly, there's been a bit of talk that the graphics were only of PS2 quality, well, that's incorrect. Yes the textures are of rather low quality and the screen can look rather bland at times, some tracks are better than others in this respect. At times there will be only a few scattered bits of vegetation and rocks on one track, to masses of bushes, rocks, cacti, signs, tress, fences etc all filling up the screen rather nicely. What does deserve a mention are the huge draw distances, come over the top of a mountain and the drop down the other side can show literally a few miles of road ahead with views as far as the eye can see. Add to this 7 or 8 vehicles in front of you jostling for position while throwing up dust behind them and bouncing all over the place, all while running rather smooth and not a drop in framerate, it has to be said the lower textures are maybe an understandable inclusion.
Handling/physics, well I'm not sure on this one, the handling is a mixture of sim and arcade I guess. Sim in regards to the fact you are literally bouncing all over the place and madly adjusting your steering to compensate and it does feel quite realistic and hard to control. But then you come to a sharper corner and you can just throw it in and it'll stick a bit too much. You can also pull the handbrake on at silly speeds to get a round a corner, something which in RL would put you into a barrel roll for sure. When I first started playing, I nearly gave up as the vehicles have a tendancy to do some weird oversteering thing. Contrary to the 'getting around the corners too easy' trait I mentioned earlier. The back end will sometimes decide to start coming around on you and it feels very heavy, almost so heavy you can't get it to stop and you have to release the throttle and eventually if you don't end up in a big rock, you'll manage to manipulate it back straight again. This is however made better with the immediate purchase of the best tyres available, it doesn't solve the problem but helps a lot. Physics are good, it seems to react rather well with all the ruts and bumps (which there are many) and the weight while in the air seems spot on.
Presenatation, this is about as basic as you'll get. The menus are
fairly boring and uninspiring. At the end of a race you cross the line
and that's it, the screen goes to the next race option and off you go. Vehicle selection is basic and a touch slow.
So what about the gameplay itself? Well yes, it's not bad at all. Needless to say the further you get, the better the vehicle you can have. More power and speed certainly makes things more manic and 'seat of your pants' driving is normal throughout. The circuit races are ok but the longer, single stage events I really like. Keeping it on the track and in one piece (you can break everything, oh yes) is easier said than done. Finishing a long race with smoke pouring out, shocks banging and clanging, engine misfiring, steering pulling etc is common, and fun. It has to be said that the AI racers are rather linear and you do tend to get hung up on them sometimes. But, they do make mistakes and coming over a hill to see one rolling down it, is rather amusing.
There is also hill climb, where you race up to the top of a big hill, then back down, lots of crashes and swearing ahoy. Free roam also lets you go anywhere you want and this is where you'll really see the massive views on show which really should be appreciated.
Multiplayer, not many people playing but the few games I had it was fun, really fun. You get the usual prat driving the wrong way around etc but otherwise the racing is quite intense with just the slightest mistake and you're off or overtaken.
So, to sum it up, as a whole package, I'm honestly not sure. I think people will buy it and be put off by the lack of polish and initially hard/weird handling. They'll give it an hour and sell it on. Others who persevere and keep an open mind may just have found themselves a game to really get stuck in to. It's worth noting that it's currently available at £29.99 and I would say it'll be in bargain bins very soon too. One more thing, there's nothing else really like it on the 360 either so if you want something different to the usual asphalt race tracks, this might do you very nicely indeed.
Will I buy it? I don't know, let me give it a few more days and I'll do a edit here.
*I hereby claim no responsibilty for spelling mistakes or crapness, I have a migraine...
.