Xtreme Misnomer

Games
1

So I was in EB thinking to myself “Self, you really need a cool game to play that will take advantage of your brand spankin new Athlon XP 2200+ with the geForce 4 Ti 4200 with 128MB”

Unfortunately, the part of the self that rose to the challenge was apparently the part that also decided to purchase Windows ME. This part suggested that Xtreme Air Racing would hit the spot quite nicely. What a doophus that part is.

Cathcart tried to warn me, saying to me as I head to the register “Dude, it has ‘Xtreme’ in the title…are you crazy?”

Briefly, the PCGamer review of Xtreme Paintbrawl flashed through my head, but unfortunately, my Windows ME part won out.

So after installing the game, “playing” it for 4 minutes, crashing my boring Mustang P-51D straight into the boring ground at an Xtremely slow speed mislabeled as “432 mph”, then uninstalling the “game,” I have coalesced my thoughts into the following statement:

“This game sucks.”

Once I had uninstalled this turkey and prepped it for its return journey to EB’s island of misfit games, I looked up some reviews. Sometimes I like to be post-warned…you know, after it’s too late and all.

A certain “Denny Atkin” of CG Online seemed generally positive about the game. DennyA, if that’s you, it looks like your editor pared your review down to the CG Online equivalent of “Mostly Harmless,” because it certainly didn’t post-warn me that the game sucked.

Now, Steve Hildrew on the other hand…he’s my new hero.
His review gets right to the heart of the matter.

“It’s pretty hard for simulators to be, well, xtreme, due to the constant striving for reality.”

He post-warns me in exactly the way I would like to have been warned if I had taken the time to allow myself to be pre-warned.

So Denny Atkin, if you’re out there, don’t let your editors take the review out of the review next time ok?

Look, I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt this time. They probably cut out the part where you say “Only play this game if you are a hardcore fan of Xtremely realistic ennui.”

2

Unreal Tournament 2003 would have been a better choice as far as exploiting your new hardware goes. There is some ambivalence about the game itself, but it’s certainly not bad.

3

We have to look at this retail version of this game, because that review is a year old; you’re the second person to point out the game’s suckage, so it’s possible it’s been modified from the version that garnered all that praise. Maybe they added suck.

4

And of course the leaked Doom 3 alpha will be happy to smack your system around and say “Upgrade not sufficient, please try again.”

If you had something less than a GeForce 3 before, probably the best games to look at the difference are ones with pixel shaded water, NOLF 2, Morrowind, UT2k3 all have it (although I’m not so sure about UT2k3 because there really isn’t time to look).

I only do Xtreme when it involves buying bikinis.

5

Maybe they added suck.

Aren’t they supposed to unsuck* games over time?

* I’m trying to make this a legitimate word – as in, to make less sucky. If someone from this board actually uses this word in CGM or CGW in the next couple of months, I’ll Paypal them five bucks for contributing to my cause.

6

I did think XAR was dull with all the “training wheels” turned on. But with the neon guides turned off and the realism cranked up, it’s really challenging, and I had a lot of fun with it. (If I remember correctly, I expressed that about the “easy” options in the original review.)

The guy who wrote to Steve had problems I never encountered (wheels mushing into the ground on landing, for instance). Some of his other gripes were a bit more out there, such as an artificial ceiling that wouldn’t let the planes climb to their max altitude (yeah, and NASCAR Racing doesn’t let you drive out of the speedway, either…).

Sorry I didn’t get the “sim” nature across well enough to warn you. Hildrew had the advantage of GamesDomain’s lack of a word limit. :-) I had a mere 250 words to describe and judge the product, due to magazine space limitations.

XAR’s not for everyone, just like some people would say NASCAR games are dull ("you’re just driving in circles). But I had zero problems with it, the sense of speed was just fine when you’re mixing it up in a pack of four or five other planes, and the gameplay was a very nice change from the rut most flight sims have been in for the past few years.

(The sense of speed thing that so many sim players complain is somwhat based on a false perception of what things should look like. Next time you’re flying a commercial flight, note how slow things feel until you’re literally almost on the runway. It’s no different in an F-15 or T-34.)

Hildrew’s review didn’t really disagree with mine – his biggest “complaint” is that this is a sim and not an arcade racer, and he’s right. (Well, that and the sense of speed thing.) He gives it four stars as well. (And if I remember right, Jeff Lackey gave it a similar rating for CGW.)

7

Actually, it would be more proper to coin a word such as “Desuck”. Granted, a purestrain English word such as “Improve” would work, but with a notable absence of color and colloquial charm. With further modification, you could then use the term as “desucked” to indicate that the process of “desuckification” of the inhenent “suckage” was complete and that the game was now certifiably a “suck-free” experience. In fact, that should be a promotional sticker on the cover of the game box…

Those who purchase products not certified by independent suck monitors would thus be termed “suckers”. However, note that this is a derivitive noun of the verb root, and thus implies that the subject is in fact responsible for the “sucking” - once again proving that it is the duty of the consumer to purchase discriminately lest they propone the issue.

8

Wow. I bow to you.

And you’re right – “desuck” is a much better word. Thanks. :)

9

That 250 word limit is a pretty tough nut to crack. I’m not sure I could even tell you what I did this morning with only 250 words.

XAR’s not for everyone, just like some people would say NASCAR games are dull ("you’re just driving in circles). But I had zero problems with it, the sense of speed was just fine when you’re mixing it up in a pack of four or five other planes, and the gameplay was a very nice change from the rut most flight sims have been in for the past few years.

That certainly makes sense. Honestly, I haven’t played a flight sim in many years. My Windows ME part came to the faulty conclusion that this would be more fun.

(The sense of speed thing that so many sim players complain is somwhat based on a false perception of what things should look like. Next time you’re flying a commercial flight, note how slow things feel until you’re literally almost on the runway. It’s no different in an F-15 or T-34.)

I know you’re right and all, and I’m sure that the sim fans are tickled by the pokiness of it all, but that sort of sucked the life right out of the experience for me.

Hildrew’s review didn’t really disagree with mine – his biggest “complaint” is that this is a sim and not an arcade racer, and he’s right. (Well, that and the sense of speed thing.) He gives it four stars as well. (And if I remember right, Jeff Lackey gave it a similar rating for CGW.)

True…I think the real culprit here is that doggone 250 word limit. I just don’t expect to see such brevity on the internet anymore. Since the review was carried over from the print edition, it’s understandable.

Hey…in the end, the only person I have to blame for me purchasing the game is ME. Windows ME that is. (Darn you to heck Bill Gates!!)

Incidentally, I did install the UT2K3 demo on my machine, and it looks fantastic…I just don’t play FPS games (I made an exception for BF1942.)

10

I would suggest getting rid of this obviously neurotically psychotic part of self.

Better yet, seek out a priest - because you’re going to need a damn good excorcism to rid the part of self that came up with the idea to get winME instead of, oh I dunno, winXP Home maybe? :roll:

11

Well, in my defense, the Windows ME purchase was well more than a year ago. I’ve been running XP for a while now.

I try to keep the ME part of me down, but it’s so irrational, always seeking out the worst software. The heyday of that part of me was when I played and actually enjoyed Trespasser. I can’t believe I’m even admitting to that.

(Don’t worry though Derek, the WinME part wasn’t the part of me that bought BCM. That was the “interested in a fun challenge” part. Unfortunately, the part of me that I spun off as a daughter has been keeping me from playing BCM, although I’ve already installed it on my new machine. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to dive back in this weekend.)

12

Download the Final Fantasy XI benchmark. I don’t have a link offhand, but it’s freely available here and there.

I think a score at the end of like 5000 or so means you have a kickass machine, and maybe 3500 or so means you can at least live with it. At work, where I tried it, I have a P4 1.8Ghz box with a mere GeForce 2. The machine has 1 GB main memory, by the way. It scored 1200, and at times it was running only 1 or 2 FPS. And the frames themselves were butt-ugly, for that matter.

Holy chrome. All the benchmark had was a bunch of identical dorky looking cute critters doing aerobics or something while the camera zoomed around, showing also some water effects and the occasional lens flare from the sun – nothing incredibly impressive.

Anyhow, it looks like only overclocked GeForce 4 or the new NV30 boards will be able to run this game with anything like smooth motion and an attractively rendered world.

13

? I ran it on my 1.4 Ghz Athlon with a GF2 MX400 and got an 1850. Ran ok, but wasn’t very pretty. Some craziness going on with the bench. Can’t tell what it’s testing, if it has different resolutions or settings, etc.

14

According to HardOCP, this benchmark is screwy in terms of producting repeatable, reliable results and should be disregarded. For what it’s worth.