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Dangerous Driving is 3 people who worked on Burnout series in the past attempt to recreate Burnout 3 on Unreal Engine 4 for at the time modern gaming hardware.
Since this game release in 2019 nothing has changed in regards to the the Burnout series unavailability, majority of the series is still stuck on 6th generation of the consoles (PS2, gamecube, original xbox), with only only Burnout Paradise recieving so called "remastered" port on 8th generation (also backcompatable on the 9th) and PC.
And while Burnout Paradise is extremely cool racing game in its own right, even if its post launch changes via patches were arguably for the worse and obviously "remaster" was build on top of that foundation, while also introducing issues of it own.
Open world of Paradise City wouldnt be everyone cup of tea, nor is a replacement of the track design of prior games with both offering different and unique driving experiences.
So as it stands people who would want to experience track based Burnout experience on the hardware they would currently be using to play currently released games are out of luck.
Obviously even without this abstract idea about a sequel of any game taking advantage of the new technology on the new hardware is an appealing proposition, even if people dont really know what they would want from it aside from "more graphics".
Basically "next gen" Burnout game was most wanted, and EA with Criterion games reduced to a vegetable state in their basement wasnt there to provide it.
However in 2014 an independant studio Three Fields Entertaiment was founded by 3 ex Criterion Games staff members including people who were its original founding members.
Over the years so called "indie" developers in general did a pretty good job either breathing new love into the old concepts so called "AAA publishers" were ignoring or otherwise creating compenet replicas of such experiences.
Dangerous Driving however sadly was incompent replica of creators own past work.
Before delving into Dangerous Driving itself let me touch of the studio prior game as road that took us here.
In 2016 they would release a Dangerous Gold, a somewhat arcade'ish game about a ball bouncing around destructable physics based enviorment.
I think that was neat and captured idiosyncratic aspects of Criterion Games library of games that went beyond surface level "lol its destruction". The game had character, it had presentation.
However to my dissapoinment studio couldnt proceed in this direction. People really wanted creators of Burnout to create Burnout.
I wont be touching on Lethal VR due to it being a VR game (what an irony for post talking about unavailablity of old games due to hardware enjoying a modern game unavailability due to not having another type of hardware i guess).
In 2017 Danger Zone was released and it set a precedent that will dominate studio library "We will rebuild Burnout, but bits by bits releasing game modes as its own separate overpriced games".
Danger Zone seeked to recreate experience offered by the crash mode that first made an appearance in Burnout 2. The game was critised for having sterile presentation taking place in this testing fascility type enviorment and everything being framed as virtual simulation. However ironically i think it what it gives it a little bit of character compared to the sequel, for example said virtual simulation aspect informs how UI and HUD look etc.
Comparatively sequel Danger Zone 2 released in 2018 would take place on generic "hire this man" UE4 highways road, and all menus and HUD will become plain text. However it enabled gameplay to get additional layer of "driving to a crash zone", however those parts of stages were too long and lacked almost puzzle solving aspect of Burnout Revenge, and instead felt like a drawn out survival gaunlets you have to go thru before getting to main point of the game.
It really felt an attempt to sneak driving game in the it, however i think it result was overall detrimental.
However stages where you drive a huge truck and do traffic checking were a neat addition.
The games lack of presentation trully shows how much of a crazy work criterion put into likes of camera work and cars behaviour when they collide as well as individual destruction models. A gap current technology and hardware simply cant even begin to close, at least under circumstances of this game development.
Much akin to crash mode of Burnout 3 it feels like player is more rewarded for collecting multiplayer icons and crashing itself takes a back sit to it, arguably this issue is much worse for Danger Zone 2.
In 2019 Dangerous Driving finally would release, an attempt to recreate a main racing mode of Burnout 3 experience.
Players even will be greeted to imitation of graphic design of Burnout 3 menu upon booting the game, as well as the only song in the game. Obviously licensing music is a pricey endevour and neither hiring composers would be free, honestly there is something about how both Dangerous Driving and Danger Zone 2 before it just having spotify thing in the menu.
However i dont think playing with my favorite songs can beat a good original soundtrack or good selection of licensed music that will capture VIBES the game is going for.
However obviously having such option is good and respectable, even the game had its own music, because you may get tired of it.
Anyway not a point worth much dwelling on, but i think having races take place in silence unless you do something about it yourself is pretty reflective of the game overall.
It feel hollow.
Its a game that tries its hardest to just be another game without much to iterate upon it, and without competence to trully recreate it. Its a next gen Burnout that fails even without direct competetion, without its source of inspiration to compare it. Taxi Chaos gaining certain popularity despite being very bad imitation of Crazy Taxi it is not.
The game is called dangerous driving and act of driving in this game is indeed dangerous cuz the game tries to fall apart every second. Every turn you take makes your car feel like most fragile thing in the world ready to fall apart if you look at it funny. Walls and rails that were grindable against in burnout now make your car bounce so it just feels weird.
General gamefeel is just broken and it will make you apreciate most simple things you take for granted in other games, like car going catching the air from the jump.
Puttings Swans "Her Mouth is Filled with Honey" on spotify for races may be fitting, cuz this game may feel even more disempowering and scary than original first Burnout.
I honestly dont feel like mentioning its almost original game mode and returning stuff from Burnout 2 and Burnout Legends, cuz while its neat it just doesnt matter when basic act of playing is this poor.
Burnout series made the name for itself on its crashes, on even losing being fun cuz crashes are so entertaining to watch. Its more entertaining to watch Dangerous Driving crash itself, however this novelity of the game being so broken its funny isnt what one should pay for.
This game kinda exists because you cant play Burnout 3 anymore unless you either delve into emulation on PC or find actual PS2 to play it on. I dont get any joy from being negative about this game or people working on it.
I think its a broad videogame culture at fault for this game existence, a culture where individual games are inherently connected to hardware and software, a culture where companies purposufully keep past in the mist, a culture where people just want the same game again but more graphics.
However i dont want to take blame for poor game away from the developers even if their circumstances are understastable, they still sold it for too high of the price and handled launch pretty poorly.
Dangerous Driving is a momument to all our sins
Since this game release in 2019 nothing has changed in regards to the the Burnout series unavailability, majority of the series is still stuck on 6th generation of the consoles (PS2, gamecube, original xbox), with only only Burnout Paradise recieving so called "remastered" port on 8th generation (also backcompatable on the 9th) and PC.
And while Burnout Paradise is extremely cool racing game in its own right, even if its post launch changes via patches were arguably for the worse and obviously "remaster" was build on top of that foundation, while also introducing issues of it own.
Open world of Paradise City wouldnt be everyone cup of tea, nor is a replacement of the track design of prior games with both offering different and unique driving experiences.
So as it stands people who would want to experience track based Burnout experience on the hardware they would currently be using to play currently released games are out of luck.
Obviously even without this abstract idea about a sequel of any game taking advantage of the new technology on the new hardware is an appealing proposition, even if people dont really know what they would want from it aside from "more graphics".
Basically "next gen" Burnout game was most wanted, and EA with Criterion games reduced to a vegetable state in their basement wasnt there to provide it.
However in 2014 an independant studio Three Fields Entertaiment was founded by 3 ex Criterion Games staff members including people who were its original founding members.
Over the years so called "indie" developers in general did a pretty good job either breathing new love into the old concepts so called "AAA publishers" were ignoring or otherwise creating compenet replicas of such experiences.
Dangerous Driving however sadly was incompent replica of creators own past work.
Before delving into Dangerous Driving itself let me touch of the studio prior game as road that took us here.
In 2016 they would release a Dangerous Gold, a somewhat arcade'ish game about a ball bouncing around destructable physics based enviorment.
I think that was neat and captured idiosyncratic aspects of Criterion Games library of games that went beyond surface level "lol its destruction". The game had character, it had presentation.
However to my dissapoinment studio couldnt proceed in this direction. People really wanted creators of Burnout to create Burnout.
I wont be touching on Lethal VR due to it being a VR game (what an irony for post talking about unavailablity of old games due to hardware enjoying a modern game unavailability due to not having another type of hardware i guess).
In 2017 Danger Zone was released and it set a precedent that will dominate studio library "We will rebuild Burnout, but bits by bits releasing game modes as its own separate overpriced games".
Danger Zone seeked to recreate experience offered by the crash mode that first made an appearance in Burnout 2. The game was critised for having sterile presentation taking place in this testing fascility type enviorment and everything being framed as virtual simulation. However ironically i think it what it gives it a little bit of character compared to the sequel, for example said virtual simulation aspect informs how UI and HUD look etc.
Comparatively sequel Danger Zone 2 released in 2018 would take place on generic "hire this man" UE4 highways road, and all menus and HUD will become plain text. However it enabled gameplay to get additional layer of "driving to a crash zone", however those parts of stages were too long and lacked almost puzzle solving aspect of Burnout Revenge, and instead felt like a drawn out survival gaunlets you have to go thru before getting to main point of the game.
It really felt an attempt to sneak driving game in the it, however i think it result was overall detrimental.
However stages where you drive a huge truck and do traffic checking were a neat addition.
The games lack of presentation trully shows how much of a crazy work criterion put into likes of camera work and cars behaviour when they collide as well as individual destruction models. A gap current technology and hardware simply cant even begin to close, at least under circumstances of this game development.
Much akin to crash mode of Burnout 3 it feels like player is more rewarded for collecting multiplayer icons and crashing itself takes a back sit to it, arguably this issue is much worse for Danger Zone 2.
In 2019 Dangerous Driving finally would release, an attempt to recreate a main racing mode of Burnout 3 experience.
Players even will be greeted to imitation of graphic design of Burnout 3 menu upon booting the game, as well as the only song in the game. Obviously licensing music is a pricey endevour and neither hiring composers would be free, honestly there is something about how both Dangerous Driving and Danger Zone 2 before it just having spotify thing in the menu.
However i dont think playing with my favorite songs can beat a good original soundtrack or good selection of licensed music that will capture VIBES the game is going for.
However obviously having such option is good and respectable, even the game had its own music, because you may get tired of it.
Anyway not a point worth much dwelling on, but i think having races take place in silence unless you do something about it yourself is pretty reflective of the game overall.
It feel hollow.
Its a game that tries its hardest to just be another game without much to iterate upon it, and without competence to trully recreate it. Its a next gen Burnout that fails even without direct competetion, without its source of inspiration to compare it. Taxi Chaos gaining certain popularity despite being very bad imitation of Crazy Taxi it is not.
The game is called dangerous driving and act of driving in this game is indeed dangerous cuz the game tries to fall apart every second. Every turn you take makes your car feel like most fragile thing in the world ready to fall apart if you look at it funny. Walls and rails that were grindable against in burnout now make your car bounce so it just feels weird.
General gamefeel is just broken and it will make you apreciate most simple things you take for granted in other games, like car going catching the air from the jump.
Puttings Swans "Her Mouth is Filled with Honey" on spotify for races may be fitting, cuz this game may feel even more disempowering and scary than original first Burnout.
I honestly dont feel like mentioning its almost original game mode and returning stuff from Burnout 2 and Burnout Legends, cuz while its neat it just doesnt matter when basic act of playing is this poor.
Burnout series made the name for itself on its crashes, on even losing being fun cuz crashes are so entertaining to watch. Its more entertaining to watch Dangerous Driving crash itself, however this novelity of the game being so broken its funny isnt what one should pay for.
This game kinda exists because you cant play Burnout 3 anymore unless you either delve into emulation on PC or find actual PS2 to play it on. I dont get any joy from being negative about this game or people working on it.
I think its a broad videogame culture at fault for this game existence, a culture where individual games are inherently connected to hardware and software, a culture where companies purposufully keep past in the mist, a culture where people just want the same game again but more graphics.
However i dont want to take blame for poor game away from the developers even if their circumstances are understastable, they still sold it for too high of the price and handled launch pretty poorly.
Dangerous Driving is a momument to all our sins
I feel like at this point its accepted that racing games became skewed towards reality. Not realism, reality.
Its kinda a given, expected and probably demanded that each new major release will have licenced cars by major car manufacturers.
Fantasy of owning and driving real cars became integral whatever game is about serious motorsport and grounded driving model or about cop chases in the urban enviorment and effortless drifting.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is also about fantasy of owning and driving cars by a hot manufacturer, however said fantasy is much closer to reality to an average person.
Hot Wheels toy car line up doesnt need no introduction obviously, chances are you may even own some without even being able to remember it.
Not only its cool looking car models, they can even drive, albeit in a straight line and to be able to turn you need to buy proprietary orange road that essentially railroads the the dar in a narrow "slide" or get creative and do some DIY stuff to achieve similiar effect.
In his video about Burnout Paradise (https://youtu.be/djGeem-QYow?si=rFMnaMQv9sp__GgP) Errant Signal compares the game mentality to treating cars like toys, Burnout Paradise indeed captures sense of whimsy of a child smashing toy cars into each other without any second thought about not damaging toys in state of the art 3d real time rendering and soft body simulations.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is this in a more literary sense.
The way game manages to create a fantastical premise while engaging with a sense of reality is trully compelling, while for example Lego games also being real physical toys licenced games generally try to create their own fantastical world with a liberal use of actual Lego bricks, Unleashed puts fantastical into your living room.. or your neon bathed basement... or highrise building thats in the process of being build...
Its comparable to likes of Toy Story, Chibi Robo or Army Man RTS, but can we call it "toys came to life" if toys dont have actual humanity? Are they sentient? Do they have qualia?
Basically Unleashed is exxagarated fantastical idea of playing with Hot Wheel cars, unshackled from reality. Build tracks impossible in real life in your virtual living room, or do so on the top of highrise building - there is some grounded sense of absurdity to it.
And its not just visual texture either, it inspires genuinely most inventive aproach to track design for an arcade racing game i've experienced on the 8th generation of console.
Linear orange orange roads with stage gimmicks and maybe some diverging points give way to driving outside of the track. Its still linear part of the track, but hard walls are replaced with traffic cones. It has certain vibes of breaking the rules despite you in fact obeying the rules still.
Well you can actually break the rules, in a way similiar to Quake famous bunny hopping, but likely intended by the developers and with a certain restrictions.
The game physics are weird and in general i feel they capture idea of a toy car very well with how it can fly off the track from collision with another car or a stage hazard, while also arcade racing grip for break to drift (altho i had Need for Speed: Most Wanted moments for car turning over from those), but it can be really weird on slops which tracks consists of cuz they are build like a rollercoasters with constant going up and down. If you have too much speed or go nitro at the wrong time you can fly off the track on the up climb which can feel unwieldy. However more advanced players can take adventage of that to take insane shortcuts thru the track, hence breaking the rules. If this was indeed intended mechanic by the devs, then obviously tracks build with some of those shortcuts in mind, however this new style of maneuvering in space makes them non obvious and makes you feel rewarded for breaking the game in the speedrunner way even if was actually intended.
Tracks have checkpoints you have to pass thru in order balance this out and prevent you from lets say somehow skipping to a finish line at the start.
A lot of racing games tend to build their single player progression around packing selection of all its track into repeated loop of playing them over and over again with difficulty naturaly going up via both player and opponent driving progressively faster cars. Sprinkle different gameplay modes that arent just generic racing on top and maybe also add racing same tracks in reverse. The way you pack this repetion in gameplay systems outside of the core racing, and how to contextualise unlocking new challenges and cars to drive - is in my eyes a core of single player progression for racing game. You can call it "content interfacing", because outside of open world context those systems tend to be menu based.
And i feel like this is pretty much weakest aspect of the game and it goes beyond single player experience and negatively impacts multiplayer.
Its not uncommon for racing games developed starting from 7th gen (when online infrastructure for games in general became closer to how we know it today and online on consoles became a more common "default" thing) to have shared progression between single and multiplayer - for example in both Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 and Wreckfest you earn same point and both and use cars from the same garage.
And yeah Hot Wheels Unleashed is also like that. I think what lets it down a lot (and its pretty much universally agreed) is that you get a new cars via loot box system. It pretty much destroys sense of progression, there will be high possibility that you will drive one and only car with high enough average between all stats for the whole game.
Cool toy cars freed from the restains of reality doing impossible things they could before are now ironicaly shackled by arbitatrary assigned videogame stats, arbitatrary assigned value. The game will tell you how this funny looking ice truck that you really like the looks of is actually worthless, and you have no choice but to put this new toy into your toy box and never play with it ever again.
Its quite sad, but i also dont know how they could handled it otherwise with amount cars the game has. The game tries to remedy "same car every race" by having special points on the map you pick races from be locked and having unlock conditions of using car X in event Y, while also giving said car somewhere else on the map. But interfacing for this is super cumbersome, having to find event by name and then I basically just replay it in a worse car than i finished it before.
I found map system itself neat, but those locked points with special conditions really kill the sense of being able to aproach it non linearly. While there are basically only 2 modes (standart racing and lap time goal), it manages to feel like everytime you actually race on a new map, so that pretty impressive. Probably the way tracks are done by putting orange roads differently in the same 4 big rooms enables pretty convenient way to reitarate it and build tracks.
And players can do that themself too with the ingame level editor honestly i cant even remember when was the last time i played around in editor. Obviously this feature is reflective of how people play with Hot Wheels toys and once again enables people to engage with them in ways that reality cant allow.
Its honestly sad that the game has such issues, cuz core racing is really solid and Its most inventive arcade racing we saw this generation full of Forza Horizon 2 clones. Its original soundtrack is cool and while i think licenced OSTs have their place, its so fresh to have a racing game that doesnt need to rely on lets say music from the outside. Altho this music clashes with pretty uninspired presentation otherwise like pretty default looking hud and some bland text during map navigation.
P.S. I failed to include it anywhere above, but its pet peeve of mine that a lot of racing game reviews dont talk about nitro system, like its just a difference whatever game has one or doesnt. So i wanted to talk about it even if in such removed isolated way.
Well there isnt much to talk about, its pretty basic implementation. Its auto charges with time and drifting also charges it. I find it pretty lackluster, it doesnt encourage a play style like lets say Burnout making you put yourself in dangerously or Motorstom making you put yourself on edge and consider enviorment about heat/cooling. There are parts of the tracks that charge it faster making you try to drive on that line, but i think it speaks more to how nicely designed stage gimmicks are and not nitro system itself.
There was like one track with hazard that your nitro bar bleed, so there is also that.
There are some cars that actually have different nitro system, instead of bar you can depleet at any moment you have a bunch of circles that you give you a continues boost upon pressing a button kinda like Hotshot Racing. (reminds me that Hotshot Racing is really cool game).
But because of beforementioned issues with the game progression i didnt really use them much and didnt have much reason to the lower stats aside from that one time to clear a lock on the map.
Use case is more interesting i guess, like amount of air control you can have and how you use nitro boosting to fly over parts of the track
Its kinda a given, expected and probably demanded that each new major release will have licenced cars by major car manufacturers.
Fantasy of owning and driving real cars became integral whatever game is about serious motorsport and grounded driving model or about cop chases in the urban enviorment and effortless drifting.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is also about fantasy of owning and driving cars by a hot manufacturer, however said fantasy is much closer to reality to an average person.
Hot Wheels toy car line up doesnt need no introduction obviously, chances are you may even own some without even being able to remember it.
Not only its cool looking car models, they can even drive, albeit in a straight line and to be able to turn you need to buy proprietary orange road that essentially railroads the the dar in a narrow "slide" or get creative and do some DIY stuff to achieve similiar effect.
In his video about Burnout Paradise (https://youtu.be/djGeem-QYow?si=rFMnaMQv9sp__GgP) Errant Signal compares the game mentality to treating cars like toys, Burnout Paradise indeed captures sense of whimsy of a child smashing toy cars into each other without any second thought about not damaging toys in state of the art 3d real time rendering and soft body simulations.
Hot Wheels Unleashed is this in a more literary sense.
The way game manages to create a fantastical premise while engaging with a sense of reality is trully compelling, while for example Lego games also being real physical toys licenced games generally try to create their own fantastical world with a liberal use of actual Lego bricks, Unleashed puts fantastical into your living room.. or your neon bathed basement... or highrise building thats in the process of being build...
Its comparable to likes of Toy Story, Chibi Robo or Army Man RTS, but can we call it "toys came to life" if toys dont have actual humanity? Are they sentient? Do they have qualia?
Basically Unleashed is exxagarated fantastical idea of playing with Hot Wheel cars, unshackled from reality. Build tracks impossible in real life in your virtual living room, or do so on the top of highrise building - there is some grounded sense of absurdity to it.
And its not just visual texture either, it inspires genuinely most inventive aproach to track design for an arcade racing game i've experienced on the 8th generation of console.
Linear orange orange roads with stage gimmicks and maybe some diverging points give way to driving outside of the track. Its still linear part of the track, but hard walls are replaced with traffic cones. It has certain vibes of breaking the rules despite you in fact obeying the rules still.
Well you can actually break the rules, in a way similiar to Quake famous bunny hopping, but likely intended by the developers and with a certain restrictions.
The game physics are weird and in general i feel they capture idea of a toy car very well with how it can fly off the track from collision with another car or a stage hazard, while also arcade racing grip for break to drift (altho i had Need for Speed: Most Wanted moments for car turning over from those), but it can be really weird on slops which tracks consists of cuz they are build like a rollercoasters with constant going up and down. If you have too much speed or go nitro at the wrong time you can fly off the track on the up climb which can feel unwieldy. However more advanced players can take adventage of that to take insane shortcuts thru the track, hence breaking the rules. If this was indeed intended mechanic by the devs, then obviously tracks build with some of those shortcuts in mind, however this new style of maneuvering in space makes them non obvious and makes you feel rewarded for breaking the game in the speedrunner way even if was actually intended.
Tracks have checkpoints you have to pass thru in order balance this out and prevent you from lets say somehow skipping to a finish line at the start.
A lot of racing games tend to build their single player progression around packing selection of all its track into repeated loop of playing them over and over again with difficulty naturaly going up via both player and opponent driving progressively faster cars. Sprinkle different gameplay modes that arent just generic racing on top and maybe also add racing same tracks in reverse. The way you pack this repetion in gameplay systems outside of the core racing, and how to contextualise unlocking new challenges and cars to drive - is in my eyes a core of single player progression for racing game. You can call it "content interfacing", because outside of open world context those systems tend to be menu based.
And i feel like this is pretty much weakest aspect of the game and it goes beyond single player experience and negatively impacts multiplayer.
Its not uncommon for racing games developed starting from 7th gen (when online infrastructure for games in general became closer to how we know it today and online on consoles became a more common "default" thing) to have shared progression between single and multiplayer - for example in both Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2010 and Wreckfest you earn same point and both and use cars from the same garage.
And yeah Hot Wheels Unleashed is also like that. I think what lets it down a lot (and its pretty much universally agreed) is that you get a new cars via loot box system. It pretty much destroys sense of progression, there will be high possibility that you will drive one and only car with high enough average between all stats for the whole game.
Cool toy cars freed from the restains of reality doing impossible things they could before are now ironicaly shackled by arbitatrary assigned videogame stats, arbitatrary assigned value. The game will tell you how this funny looking ice truck that you really like the looks of is actually worthless, and you have no choice but to put this new toy into your toy box and never play with it ever again.
Its quite sad, but i also dont know how they could handled it otherwise with amount cars the game has. The game tries to remedy "same car every race" by having special points on the map you pick races from be locked and having unlock conditions of using car X in event Y, while also giving said car somewhere else on the map. But interfacing for this is super cumbersome, having to find event by name and then I basically just replay it in a worse car than i finished it before.
I found map system itself neat, but those locked points with special conditions really kill the sense of being able to aproach it non linearly. While there are basically only 2 modes (standart racing and lap time goal), it manages to feel like everytime you actually race on a new map, so that pretty impressive. Probably the way tracks are done by putting orange roads differently in the same 4 big rooms enables pretty convenient way to reitarate it and build tracks.
And players can do that themself too with the ingame level editor honestly i cant even remember when was the last time i played around in editor. Obviously this feature is reflective of how people play with Hot Wheels toys and once again enables people to engage with them in ways that reality cant allow.
Its honestly sad that the game has such issues, cuz core racing is really solid and Its most inventive arcade racing we saw this generation full of Forza Horizon 2 clones. Its original soundtrack is cool and while i think licenced OSTs have their place, its so fresh to have a racing game that doesnt need to rely on lets say music from the outside. Altho this music clashes with pretty uninspired presentation otherwise like pretty default looking hud and some bland text during map navigation.
P.S. I failed to include it anywhere above, but its pet peeve of mine that a lot of racing game reviews dont talk about nitro system, like its just a difference whatever game has one or doesnt. So i wanted to talk about it even if in such removed isolated way.
Well there isnt much to talk about, its pretty basic implementation. Its auto charges with time and drifting also charges it. I find it pretty lackluster, it doesnt encourage a play style like lets say Burnout making you put yourself in dangerously or Motorstom making you put yourself on edge and consider enviorment about heat/cooling. There are parts of the tracks that charge it faster making you try to drive on that line, but i think it speaks more to how nicely designed stage gimmicks are and not nitro system itself.
There was like one track with hazard that your nitro bar bleed, so there is also that.
There are some cars that actually have different nitro system, instead of bar you can depleet at any moment you have a bunch of circles that you give you a continues boost upon pressing a button kinda like Hotshot Racing. (reminds me that Hotshot Racing is really cool game).
But because of beforementioned issues with the game progression i didnt really use them much and didnt have much reason to the lower stats aside from that one time to clear a lock on the map.
Use case is more interesting i guess, like amount of air control you can have and how you use nitro boosting to fly over parts of the track
This review contains spoilers
Somehow default consencus on post heavy rain western adventure games utilizing cinematic presentation is that they are like a movie or a tv show with players ability to shape their own canon of its story.
As of moment of writing this "SILENT HILL: Ascension" came out (kinda) and weaponises this idea to extort audience for money, its "overview trailer" mentions this idea of defining canon as a mantra, as a curse.
But is that really all that choice making and branching narrative can be? Is that all what it was? Answer is no.
Even Heavy Rain as this trendsetter already wasnt just that (and that not even delving in the genre past with games like Chunsoft's Kamaitachi no Yoru), the game used interactivity and idea of choice and its consequences even existing to create connection between players and character, to make player feel what those characters feel in any given moment thru interactivity.
Twin Mirror interconnects idea of choice and its consequences with heavy gamification to create a thematic narrative where neither route is treated as right or wrong.
The game main conflict can be neatly summed up by the fact that while investigating murder mystery player has a timed choice to either listen to characters rant about their circumstances or coldly cut them off to get to the point of asking your mystery solving questions. Its a conflict between empathy and truth.
Back in the day main character was a reporter who wrote an article that uncovered certain wrongdoings, and while it was morally good thing, it lead to the town main source of income to shut down. Despite doing something good consequences of doing so lead to something bad, so its understandable why hero who exposed the evil himself got treated like even worse evil.
Even before the game started ambiguity gets established, doing the right thing may not always be the right thing to do given circumstances, or at least not for everyone.
Years later main character returns to the town that mostly hates him due to his close friend passing. As fate or more so murder mystery narrative contrivice would have it said death wasnt under the normal circumstances and was most definitely not an accident. This idea is proposed if not forced onto MC by the first character he meets - a victim's daughter. While its easy to consider that she is coping from her father passing, she is in fact correct.
The game separates its more gamey gameplay sections away from the "reality" where player walks in standart third person controls and "clicks" on NPCs to initiate dialogue or on objects to initiate MC comments (and i find those comments to be strong parts of dontnod games) - into different realities with different presentations.
While i find presentation of investigation to be kinda banal cyberspace reconstruction of crime with not super imaginative gameplay of "choose right options to complete how sequence did play out", stuff like handling panic attack as running thru the black void attacked by a doors with typography of negative thought with player needing to find the doors with positive thoughts while on the run to calm down MC i found pretty creative.
There is however also intrusion of this artificial into the reality where MC just talks with people - his imaginary friend, who gives tips on how to handle any given situation and how to proceed with dialogue. The game very briefly tries to explain his existence as "MC was anti social as a child, so he created this persona to be his friend", which i dont think was handled particulary well, but at least its thematically coherent that he pushes MC to be more empathetic person and consider other people as people, and not just NPCs to give testimonies about murder mystery.
Something brilliant the game does with him is that it has 2 scenes back to back of MC trying to help 2 different characters to calm down.
In the first case you have 3 choices and 4th one to ask him which one of the 3 is correct one, its not even a tip, he will tell you and it will be the best option. However it seems to be limited in terms of how much it could have been used during this dialogue, honestly makes me wish they would incorporate this thru out the whole game as more consistent system instead of him just being there as non interactive thing in a dialogue. However that in itself show MC opening up to him, and not just getting suggestions passivly, but actively seeking them.
In the second scene MC meets victims daughter again, and his imaginary supported proceeds to tell him what to say even before dialogue option appears. If player chooses to follow the advice, it will be "wrong choice" that will upset her, after which his imaginary advices resigns in defeat saying that MC knows better how to handle her. It conditions player to follow advice only to present it as unreliable immedietly after.
Game's major choices are framed with portraits of MC and his empathy Watson. If one repressents consideration of others and trust, then another repressents cold rationality and distrust for the sake of finding truth.
However its not as clear cut as we can see, victims daughter doesnt want empty consideration towards her, she wants honestly - even if it means cold hard truth.
We can see this both as her being more accepting of this side of MC, his "detective" side, but we can also see childish naivity about "truth over everything" - where MC is just inconsiderate in his pursuit of truth, she is just innocent and doesnt yet realise how complex the world is and how truth can hurt, even herself. In fact revealing the full truth to her would leave her to become disillusioned with her father, however said truth wont be discovered until the very end of the game after the curprint would get "justiced".
Late into the game player gets biggest choice yet between detective side and empathetic human side - basically a choice between 2 gameplay system which will define which one MC will use in the finale to confront the curpint.
If player choses detective side, then upon returning to reality for a short period of time MC sees a person with him as this cyberspace voxel thing the same way people are presented in his virtual simulation when he does his investigation thing - very cool way to showcase how detached MC became and how he treats others as NPC in his mystery game.
In fact most magical virtual cyberspace investigation simulation thing (of which there arent that many admitedly) do a nice job of depicting idea of seeking truth as something destructive.
Very first one is about MC remembering how he had a fist fight with a dude while being drunk a night before, and the last one before above mentioned above is about MC creating a diversion to get past guards by setting something another person had created by hand on fire - MC literally destroys something valuable to another person to get the truth, he comes like a force of nature to a group of people who were hurt the most by the article he wrote years ago and hurts them some more.
Don't get it wrong, its not just simply a bad thing, it not like letting murdered being on the loose would be a better choice, it's not like not getting some form of justice for those who had died would be a better choice.
At the end if player had chosen detective side then MC confronts the murder ignoring why did this person became like this in the first place - its just a culprit, someone to be brought to justice.
Narrative itself was kinda banal "someone was killed while uncovering dirty secrets" and the game short length really make events feel like they just happen quickly for the sake of this murder mystery farce to unfold and conclude, however gameplay serving as both tool of storytelling and element of presentation really elevate it for me to become something memorable even if individual elements arent particulary strong.
However with epiloge i feel like it becomes more interesting.
With everything seemingly concluded and everyone getting some form of closure MC has to leave the city once again.
And it doesnt just cut to cutscene, player has to manually make MC leave the way he came from - the game UI even makes it a mission, it just says "leave". And while leaving you will actually meet another character who makes a sudden appearance and that then MC will realise something again, after everything was seemingly over - he met a mastermind behind everything that happened. A mastermind he has ability to put confront legally.
However said mastermind only came to the town because of the article MC had wrote years ago, because town came to a downfall as result of this article being published. It can be argued that MC is as guilty in events that happened as actual people who have blood on their hands. Well mastermind kinda doesnt have blood on his hands and nor does MC, so...
They may had different intends, but consequences are similiar. They had enabled each other existence and to do what they do - detective need criminals to do crimes to apprehend them after all. In the void created by evil being purged worse evil can come to take its place, but does it mean we have to just accept it in fear of that happening? What if this evil supports the economy and society, feeds normal innocent people? Do we have to strive to what just if it means hurting
The game doesnt present a good or bad solution, both are ambigious. The game has one last choice, MC can retain this status quo build on dirty money or he can take it down even if means potentially making people lives worse again like he did years ago.
Whichever player chooses, nor the player nor the MC will see those people regardless. We have no choice but to run away from consequences of our actions, either in another town or into the credits roll and uninstalling the game.
As of moment of writing this "SILENT HILL: Ascension" came out (kinda) and weaponises this idea to extort audience for money, its "overview trailer" mentions this idea of defining canon as a mantra, as a curse.
But is that really all that choice making and branching narrative can be? Is that all what it was? Answer is no.
Even Heavy Rain as this trendsetter already wasnt just that (and that not even delving in the genre past with games like Chunsoft's Kamaitachi no Yoru), the game used interactivity and idea of choice and its consequences even existing to create connection between players and character, to make player feel what those characters feel in any given moment thru interactivity.
Twin Mirror interconnects idea of choice and its consequences with heavy gamification to create a thematic narrative where neither route is treated as right or wrong.
The game main conflict can be neatly summed up by the fact that while investigating murder mystery player has a timed choice to either listen to characters rant about their circumstances or coldly cut them off to get to the point of asking your mystery solving questions. Its a conflict between empathy and truth.
Back in the day main character was a reporter who wrote an article that uncovered certain wrongdoings, and while it was morally good thing, it lead to the town main source of income to shut down. Despite doing something good consequences of doing so lead to something bad, so its understandable why hero who exposed the evil himself got treated like even worse evil.
Even before the game started ambiguity gets established, doing the right thing may not always be the right thing to do given circumstances, or at least not for everyone.
Years later main character returns to the town that mostly hates him due to his close friend passing. As fate or more so murder mystery narrative contrivice would have it said death wasnt under the normal circumstances and was most definitely not an accident. This idea is proposed if not forced onto MC by the first character he meets - a victim's daughter. While its easy to consider that she is coping from her father passing, she is in fact correct.
The game separates its more gamey gameplay sections away from the "reality" where player walks in standart third person controls and "clicks" on NPCs to initiate dialogue or on objects to initiate MC comments (and i find those comments to be strong parts of dontnod games) - into different realities with different presentations.
While i find presentation of investigation to be kinda banal cyberspace reconstruction of crime with not super imaginative gameplay of "choose right options to complete how sequence did play out", stuff like handling panic attack as running thru the black void attacked by a doors with typography of negative thought with player needing to find the doors with positive thoughts while on the run to calm down MC i found pretty creative.
There is however also intrusion of this artificial into the reality where MC just talks with people - his imaginary friend, who gives tips on how to handle any given situation and how to proceed with dialogue. The game very briefly tries to explain his existence as "MC was anti social as a child, so he created this persona to be his friend", which i dont think was handled particulary well, but at least its thematically coherent that he pushes MC to be more empathetic person and consider other people as people, and not just NPCs to give testimonies about murder mystery.
Something brilliant the game does with him is that it has 2 scenes back to back of MC trying to help 2 different characters to calm down.
In the first case you have 3 choices and 4th one to ask him which one of the 3 is correct one, its not even a tip, he will tell you and it will be the best option. However it seems to be limited in terms of how much it could have been used during this dialogue, honestly makes me wish they would incorporate this thru out the whole game as more consistent system instead of him just being there as non interactive thing in a dialogue. However that in itself show MC opening up to him, and not just getting suggestions passivly, but actively seeking them.
In the second scene MC meets victims daughter again, and his imaginary supported proceeds to tell him what to say even before dialogue option appears. If player chooses to follow the advice, it will be "wrong choice" that will upset her, after which his imaginary advices resigns in defeat saying that MC knows better how to handle her. It conditions player to follow advice only to present it as unreliable immedietly after.
Game's major choices are framed with portraits of MC and his empathy Watson. If one repressents consideration of others and trust, then another repressents cold rationality and distrust for the sake of finding truth.
However its not as clear cut as we can see, victims daughter doesnt want empty consideration towards her, she wants honestly - even if it means cold hard truth.
We can see this both as her being more accepting of this side of MC, his "detective" side, but we can also see childish naivity about "truth over everything" - where MC is just inconsiderate in his pursuit of truth, she is just innocent and doesnt yet realise how complex the world is and how truth can hurt, even herself. In fact revealing the full truth to her would leave her to become disillusioned with her father, however said truth wont be discovered until the very end of the game after the curprint would get "justiced".
Late into the game player gets biggest choice yet between detective side and empathetic human side - basically a choice between 2 gameplay system which will define which one MC will use in the finale to confront the curpint.
If player choses detective side, then upon returning to reality for a short period of time MC sees a person with him as this cyberspace voxel thing the same way people are presented in his virtual simulation when he does his investigation thing - very cool way to showcase how detached MC became and how he treats others as NPC in his mystery game.
In fact most magical virtual cyberspace investigation simulation thing (of which there arent that many admitedly) do a nice job of depicting idea of seeking truth as something destructive.
Very first one is about MC remembering how he had a fist fight with a dude while being drunk a night before, and the last one before above mentioned above is about MC creating a diversion to get past guards by setting something another person had created by hand on fire - MC literally destroys something valuable to another person to get the truth, he comes like a force of nature to a group of people who were hurt the most by the article he wrote years ago and hurts them some more.
Don't get it wrong, its not just simply a bad thing, it not like letting murdered being on the loose would be a better choice, it's not like not getting some form of justice for those who had died would be a better choice.
At the end if player had chosen detective side then MC confronts the murder ignoring why did this person became like this in the first place - its just a culprit, someone to be brought to justice.
Narrative itself was kinda banal "someone was killed while uncovering dirty secrets" and the game short length really make events feel like they just happen quickly for the sake of this murder mystery farce to unfold and conclude, however gameplay serving as both tool of storytelling and element of presentation really elevate it for me to become something memorable even if individual elements arent particulary strong.
However with epiloge i feel like it becomes more interesting.
With everything seemingly concluded and everyone getting some form of closure MC has to leave the city once again.
And it doesnt just cut to cutscene, player has to manually make MC leave the way he came from - the game UI even makes it a mission, it just says "leave". And while leaving you will actually meet another character who makes a sudden appearance and that then MC will realise something again, after everything was seemingly over - he met a mastermind behind everything that happened. A mastermind he has ability to put confront legally.
However said mastermind only came to the town because of the article MC had wrote years ago, because town came to a downfall as result of this article being published. It can be argued that MC is as guilty in events that happened as actual people who have blood on their hands. Well mastermind kinda doesnt have blood on his hands and nor does MC, so...
They may had different intends, but consequences are similiar. They had enabled each other existence and to do what they do - detective need criminals to do crimes to apprehend them after all. In the void created by evil being purged worse evil can come to take its place, but does it mean we have to just accept it in fear of that happening? What if this evil supports the economy and society, feeds normal innocent people? Do we have to strive to what just if it means hurting
The game doesnt present a good or bad solution, both are ambigious. The game has one last choice, MC can retain this status quo build on dirty money or he can take it down even if means potentially making people lives worse again like he did years ago.
Whichever player chooses, nor the player nor the MC will see those people regardless. We have no choice but to run away from consequences of our actions, either in another town or into the credits roll and uninstalling the game.