Perfecting Winding Bend Exits (PWBE 8/5/2012)

Play:

GT Academy 2012 (PS3) - just a 3GB special-purpose demo/tester with a
bunch of licence tests, but you don't need GT5 and it features a number
of tracks from the game including some of the better ones (e.g.
Nurburgring and Eiger Nordwand). And if you get gold on all five of the
tests you do in any given car, you *supposedly* (see Bin) get the car in
GT5. They're only pre-existing Nissans with ugly GT and GT Academy
decals plastered all over them admittedly, and Nissan aren't what you'd
call under-represented in GT5. I have to say it doesn't strike me as a
great introduction to the game, with Skid Reduction Force apparently
always disabled (as it probably should be, but it's hardly
noob-friendly), traction control stupidly set to 5 by default as always,
and everything (so far) being done on Comfort tyres, giving you slightly
less grip than tyres made out of cheese on a banana-skin road. And if
anything the UI seems even slower than in GT5 itself, which I wouldn't
have thought possible.

Gran Turismo 5 (PS3) - perhaps inevitably, this too. After Academy's
licence-style antics I had a go at getting silver/gold on more of the
"real" ones. I've now curiously ended up with gold on B and S, yet
only silver on A. :-)

Assassin's Creed 2 (PS3) - finished off the assassination contracts,
and the courier and beat-up stuff.

Red Dead Redemption (PS3) - I hadn't so much as tried the multiplayer
before, so I thought I'd give it a bit of a go. It seems pretty
variable to me, some stuff isn't bad and some, well, is. Didn't really
hook me, at any rate.

Velocity (PS3) - a Mini and PS+ rental. Kind of a nice idea behind
this one, it's a relatively basic shooter (though in practice more of
a collect-em-up) with a teleporting gimmick to skip through walls and
baddies, and while you can only shoot forwards (or at least that's the
case so far) you can throw bombs in any direction by moving while
releasing them. The main problem is that it starts feeling very samey
before long; so far I've played through 15 levels or so, and seeing
that there are 50 in all (as well as bonus stuff) I do wonder if it
might outstay its welcome by that point.

Shovelware (PS3) - there's a bunch of PS+ rentals this month which I
think it's fair to say generally fit under this category. The only one I
had ever even vaguely considered getting was Hamster Ball, which is
Monkey Ball as reimplemented in an afternoon by someone struggling to
remember a vague description of it they overheard years ago while drunk.
I've played through most of it, and it hasn't actually been awful as
such, but I can't say I regret not buying it. The Shanghai game does an
ok-ish job but has intermittent sound glitches and a large border around
the oddly-small play area for no good reason (and a rather distracting
dragon/snake animation within that border, also for no good reason) and
a story with slightly less depth than the poem from Jumping Jack (told
at virtually the same pace). Magic Orbz is a competent enough Arkanoid
clone but just manages to be incredibly boring somehow. Wakeboarding HD
I barely tried, but in the unreadable-text stakes it makes Capcom look
like amateurs. There are a few more too, but I think I'll save those for
when I'm feeling more determinedly masochistic. If you saw that recent
PS+-related survey mentioned anywhere, I'd say these are what they meant
by "C"-quality games.


Want:

I'm a bit surprised to be saying this, but Hitman: Absolution. It looks
very linear and probably drops most of the less-direct ways to kill,
which is quite disappointing. But what's left does still seem like it
ought to make for a decent game, and I don't really want to miss out on
that just because it won't be a "proper" Hitman.

Old GT tracks for GT5. A sort-of-leaked promo picture suggests that GT
Academy 2012 will eventually feature Twin Ring Motegi, so that one will
presumably also be coming to GT5 one way or another which would be nice
(though it's not one of my favourites TBH), but I hope they do at least
a few more. El Capitan and Seattle were particularly notable omissions
from GT5 IMHO. Also, I'm sure they'll never do this but I reckon PD
should port missing GT1/2 tracks as-is. With that approach they could
easily do the lot, and while they would look crude I think GT's PS1-era
take on realism has a certain retro charm these days. Maybe include a
low-poly PS1 car or two as well, complete with low-res shiny-effect
texture mapping - if the PS2 cars are "standards" I suppose these would
be "basics"? :-)


Bin:

Researching non-CRT displays. The more I read up on this the less I
want one. :-/ Even putting aside lag on LCDs and image persistence
problems on plasmas and some LCDs (mainly IPS), PWM flicker on LED
backlights sounds pretty grim for those that are affected by it - the
speeds being used seem remarkably low, e.g. the Dell I was leaning
towards is said to do it at just 90Hz. (That might not sound bad, as a
CRT refresh rate that'd be fine for pretty much anyone I expect, but
this is strobing the whole backlight on/off with basically zero
persistence.) The fun bit about all this is that I doubt I'd get on
well with a CRT either! I've never been able to tolerate progressive
60Hz (as opposed to interlaced 50/60Hz) on CRTs for very long, which
is why I've been focusing on LCDs.

GT Academy 2012 saying I'd won cars for use in GT5 (by getting
all-golds) and to visit www.gran-turismo.com for details - with no
details there whatsoever. And on the forums, I noticed a new GT
Academy thread full of people complaining about this. They did put up
an "uh yeah we'll sort this out somewhen guys" paragraph (buried at
the bottom of a page) on the website the following day at least.

Only managing a single top-2000 time on the GT Academy rankings,
despite playing only a few hours after it was released. It's probably
rather lower down by now. :-)

Awesomenauts (PS3) - PS+ again. I think this one is probably going
right over my head, or at least I'm not seeing the appeal. You attack
turrets/cores in 2D platform-shooty fashion while defending your own -
apparently it's kind of a simplified DotA variant or something, but
anyway, I wasn't too keen on it.


Expenditure:

15 quid on Portal 2 (PS3), 110 for the year.

-Rus.
.

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