Jeremy McGrath's Offroad Review

Those who've been gaming since the days when it meant being tethered to a console by a wired controller (crazy, right?) might remember Acclaim's Jeremy McGrath Supercross series. If you don't, consider yourself lucky—they were awful. Thankfully, McGrath's latest video game effort, Offroad, has nothing in common with it, save for the supercross star's name.

The desert can be hell on your paint job.

The first thing you'll notice about Offroad is its lack of knobby-tired motorcycles. Yep, despite Offroad starring the “King of Supercross,” it's all about McGrath's newest passion: racing dirt-kickin' four-wheelers such as Sportsman Buggies, Prolite Trucks, Pro Buggies, Rally Cars, and Trophy Trucks. The second thing you'll discover is that Offroad's a refreshingly accessible, arcade-y romp into a genre that often keeps rookie racers at arm's length.

The streamlined controls, trio of difficulty levels, varied vehicle set-ups, and manageable amount of modes and content welcome anyone to start their engines. Additionally, players aren't punished while learning the ropes; even those who consistently place last in events will see their careers progress and new challenges and vehicles unlocked. Despite being approachable to those whose racing experience is limited to tooling around the Mushroom Kingdom in a go-kart, though, Offroad still packs enough depth and nuance to keep seasoned speedsters engaged. Easy-to-learn, difficult-to-master mechanics make moves such as clutch boosts and powerslides a pleasure to pull off, while carefully maneuvering jumps offers its own brand of eat-my-dust thrills.

They're just a couple hood-mounted weapons away from being in Mad Max.

On top of putting players at the front of the pack, these moves rack up XP which can be spent between events to tweak each vehicle’s handling, brakes, acceleration, and top speed. Our most adrenaline-amping moments came not from winning races, but from successfully powersliding into hairpin turns seconds before clutch-boosting out of them to simultaneously pass opponents and collect triple-digit XP. So, while anyone can cross the finish line, only the best will be able to properly pimp their rides.

Visually, Offroad's a bit hit or miss. From snow-blanketed mountains to dusty deserts, the track environments are drenched in postcard-pretty detail. Vehicles, however, are a bit bland, and their occupants could pass for crash test dummies. We also could've done without most of the “dynamic obstacles”; turning a picket fence into a pile of matchsticks is a fun, XP-earning affair, but having a perfect run spoiled by a wayward, cartoony-looking snowball or bale of hay only serves to break the pedal-to-the-metal immersion.



Source : ign[dot]com

The Unfinished Swan preview

Sony has been making a huge push for independent games as of late, looking to make PlayStation Network the home for original efforts that deserve to find an audience.  Shawn McGrath’s Dyad is certainly making a few waves, as is the upcoming Papo & Yo.  Joining the party this week is The Unfinished Swan, a game that began development way back in 2008 under the guidance of a young Ian Dallas.  Now, with the help of his team at Giant Sparrow, it’s just about ready for its unveiling on PlayStation Network this year.  Ian and his fellow programmers recently invited us to get a first look at the game in action.



There’s an interesting story behind The Unfinished Swan.  A boy finds himself orphaned when his mother passes on, and the only thing he has to remember her by is a series of unfinished paintings, as she never found the motivation to complete them.  Upon being transferred to an orphanage, he’s told he can only take one with him, so he chooses an Unfinished Swan drawing, since that’s most endearing to him.

One night, the Swan actually disappears from the painting, and on his quest to go searching for it, the boy finds himself in an alternate world, one which was once ruled by a king and has now been left in a solid white state.  Seriously.  Everything — the walls, the ceiling, the floor, the statues — have been colored white.  In order to navigate his way through the world and find a way home, the boy must literally paint his way out by throwing paintballs at everything, staining objects a solid black (and possibly other colors later on in the game) and eventually finding his way around.

The way that The Unfinished Swan uses a world that isn’t there one minute and then comes completely to life is startling, and a rather neat effect.  Each object you hit with paintballs reacts to the splatters in real time, so you can see the forms of statues, collapsible walls and other things as you hit them.  It plays out in a first-person perspective, and it works remarkably well.  Furthermore, objects you paint stay painted, as you’re able to see by peering out into the distance and seeing what’s been impacted by your paint.

Along with painting your way around this white world, you’re also able to discover bits and pieces of the story, figuring out why the king left this world the way he did, and the significance of the swan itself.  You can also locate hidden items, including little swan footprints and balloons that you can collect in each stage, which enable you to unlock a few Trophies.  In addition, the game supports PlayStation Move, if you’re looking for a new game to support that peripheral.

Though it may look simplistic at first, The Unfinished Swan has a superb graphic engine — one that really sucks you in as you discover bits and pieces of the world during your journey.  It’s definitely a startling effort that’ll shake up the PlayStation Network, perhaps even in the same way Journey did last month (but for different reasons, obviously).

The Unfinished Swan also includes a mysterious “Toys” extra feature, though Dallas and his team are keeping that under wraps until around E3 time.  We’ll learn more about it then.



For a game that’s been in the works for some time, we’re happy to see that The Unfinished Swan will soon be, um, finished?  Released.  Yeah, that’s a better word.  We’ll let you know how it’s progressing when it shows at E3 next month

Source : http://gamezone.com/previews/the-unfinished-swan-preview