Review: 18 Wheels of Steel: Extreme Trucker

More trucking games, right? Well, Extreme Trucker is different from the classic 18 WOS games in a lot of ways. How many? Let's see.

Extreme Trucker takes you to 3 different locations from around the world: The Australian Outback, the Canadian ice roads, and the "Death Road", or Yungas Road. The ice roads are the easiest with a lot of room, little traffic, and short distances. Australia brings you higher speeds, longer drives, and big loads. Yungas Road is the hardest with high speeds, narrow roads, and a lot of traffic.

The concept of Extreme Trucker takes you away from the "your the boss" sandbox play of classic 18 Wheels of Steel games, and puts you into an arcade-style simulator. You're randomly given a choice of different loads to pull and trucks to drive, and where they're going. When you complete those, you get experience points. The higher the experience, the better the loads and trucks you're able to use. Of course damage and time affect the amount of experience gained from each contract, but there is no money or police to get in your way anymore.

While playing this game, I found the trucks drive a lot better than previous truck simulators. Steering is fine, and speeds are good too. The only game play issues I really found are that after a while this game can get boring, just like all truck simulators, but while it lasts, it's a great game.

My Rating: 8/10

Review: 18 Wheels of Steel: American Long Haul

Some of you might call it a boring truck driving game, but to somewhat losers like me, it's hours of fun. 18 Wheels of Steel: American Long Haul puts you on the open road hauling to dozens of major cities in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. You manage your trucks, hire drivers, and drive the trucks yourself pulling anything from milk to lumber.

The game starts giving you a terrible truck and some money, more money depending on how easy the difficulty you're on. With that crappy truck, you complete jobs making money along the way. You can hire drivers, buy more trucks, and upgrade your trucks, all so that you can hit it big.

Lets start off with the bad parts of the game, because there are quite a few. First off, the trucks don't drive realistically....at all really. Steering is hard, speeds are slow, and braking is terrible. The worse part is, while you're doing full speed 35 mph on the highway pulling horses, other trucks are darting past you going 95 pulling the same load. A similar issue is that whenever you turn your truck the slightest bit, it slows down....a lot. This makes driving on windy roads a huge pain.

More issues! In real life, you can get away with doing 90 down the interstate as long as the cop doing spot you. Not in this game! In American Long Haul, you have a meter that goes up whenever you violate the law. This meter will slowly go down over time, but if you pass a cop when your meter's high, you get pulled over. You could get a ticket in Mexico for speeding in California. Another annoyance with civilians and cops is that the civilians drive like idiots. If they cut into you, you'll get the ticket. They also like to come to complete stops in front of you.

Finally, the good parts. American Long Haul gives you a wide selection of trucks and trailers, and most of which can be customized. The game also has few glitches since it's so simple. Even if you don't like delivering loads with trucks, this is still a fun game to hit civilians and wreck your truck.

My Rating: 6/10

Review: Motorstorm: Pacific Rift for PS3

"The first MotorStorm wowed critics and gamers alike with its heady formula of brutal, unpredictable off-road racing, festival vibes and stunning Monument Valley desert scenery. This new outing takes you to a solitary tropical paradise in the Pacific Ocean, ready for a whole new take on no-holds-barred racing action through thick swamps, dense jungle, towering peaks and steaming volcanoes."

MotorStorm isn't realistic. It isn't an intense driving simulator with enhanced vehicle customization like most other racing games. But it does have something most other racing games don't, family fun, or just fun in general.

First off, it has online racing and four player split-screen. Split screen is sadly something that has been dropped from many newer games, but is (totally) awesome. It feels good to race around and beat your parents, siblings, friends, children, and even random strangers.

MotorStorm has a simple concept. You race around in circuit tracks with your cars, trucks, buggies, motorcycles, ATVs, and the occassional redneck Jeep looking vehicle. You also have boost that makles you go faster. However, if you use too much boost at a time your car goes "kaboom!". There are jumps, tunnels, shortcuts, and hidden passageways at tracks to make things interesting, and random peices of garbage layed around to annoy you. It's very enjoyable.

Besides how fun it is to play, graphics are amazing, 3D is available, and there are very little glitches.

My Rating: 9/10

Would I reccomend this game? For anybody who wants to have fun, yes. But I would have to say no for anybody who's anti-social or doesn't like to see a lot of firey flames (there are a lot in this game).

Review: Need for Speed: Shift for PS3

Need for Speed: Shift

Feel what it’s really like to race high-end performance cars as Need for Speed SHIFT thrusts you into the heart of the action for the true driver’s experience. Immersive and exciting features such as a stunningly realistic first-person cockpit view and an all-new crash mechanic deliver an unrivaled sensation of the speed and exhilaration of racing a car on the extreme edge of control. Plus, an ultra-realistic physics engine lets you feel every bump as you race around some of the world’s top tracks. Whether you’re battling online or playing through your career, build your unique driver profile from moment to moment and from race to race and get rewarded for driving the way you want to drive.

The newest Need for Speed title takes the franchise off the streets and onto the race tracks for more realistic racing, or at least that's what EA claims. Does it live up to it's words? Let's find out.

When playing Need for Speed Shift, I found myself surprised with how easy it actually was. Getting money in career mode isn't hard, so you can buy some pretty nice cars from the beginning. I starting out with a BMW 1-Series, but soon had a Camaro, Mustang, M3, and more very quickly. Unless you turn off all of the assists (which I would never do), you'll find yourself whipping through the profile mode.

Shift is supposed to be a very realistic racing simulator. I found it a lot more realistic than previous NFS titles, but nowhere near a Gran Turismo standard. Whenever you crash, you fuzz out and things go into black and white for a little, which mainly just annoys me most of the time. However, damage is pretty realistic, and running directly into a wall will affect your car's driving.

Aside from that, I did find vehicle selection to be good. The cars are all split up into groups depending on how fast they are, and you have to get your level up to unlock more cars. Some of my favorite cars available are the Lamborghini Reventon, McLaren F1, Chevy Camaro, and Shelby Mustang. Vehicle customization is good too. You can create your own paint jobs and decals for your cars, and also purchase body kits to make them faster and better looking.

The tracks in the game look amazing. Every part about them is realistic, and the overal graphis of the game are amazing too. There are oval tracks, drift courses, and road courses. For events there are sprint races, circuits, drifts, timed challenges, and more.

Overal, I feel Need for Speed Shift is an ok game. I still miss the old cops and robbers styled games and street races, but Shift is good for what it is. The only thing is that when you compare it to something like Gran Turismo, it's no competiton.

My Rating: 7/10

Would I reccomend this game? Only if you're a die-hard NFS fan.

Review: Midnight Club L.A. for PS3

Midnight Club: Los Angeles is the fourth game in the Midnight Club series made by Rockstar. Those are the people who make GTA, so it has to be a good game, right? Who knows....

The best way to see Los Angeles is at 200mph. Race at breakneck speeds through the streets of modern-day L.A. recreated in stunning detail. Drive the hottest range of real-world tuners, muscle cars, exotics and superbikes on the streets today. Customize your ride with the best after-market performance parts and custom kits. Illegal street racing with no track, no load times, no rules: Welcome back to the Midnight Club.

The first thing you see when you turn on Midnight Club L.A. is the stunning graphics. It looks amazing. The first thing you see when you start driving down the road in Midnight Club L.A. are the nicely designing buildings and cars. It looks equally amazing. But it's not just the graphics that make this game great.

Midnight Club L.A. has a great selection of cars, and if you buy the complete version of the game, you get even more. By the time I beat the game I had over 20 cars, from my flamed up Corvette Z06 to my fake police Range Rover and my pimpin' Golf GTI.

I found the races harder than any Need for Speed game I've ever played. There are circuits, sprints, time trials, etc. There is a ton of traffic to run into and make you scream while racing, along with a lot of hidden shortcuts along the way, and you have an even chance of winning.

The online world is also fun, with all kinds of races to do, and other events such as capture the flag. If that doesn't make you happy, you can just cruise around and chat with your friends.

Wait, everything about this game can't be totally awesome? Yes, there are downfalls too. The cars in the game don't handle very realistically and will pretty much spin their tires no matter what, and damage isn't as hardcore as I'd like it to be, and this game can be freakin' hard at times, but it's overall a very well made game the rocks.

My rating: 9/10

Review: Test Drive Unlimited for PS2

Test Drive Unlimited may have been released a while ago, but there's always room for a review of it. Here it is:

Test Drive Unlimited is the only game that immerses you into the car and bike enthusiast lifestyle, with total freedom to race however and wherever you want within a huge, online-persistent environment. Visit the most sophisticated car and bike dealers to purchase new vehicles or simply take them for a spin. Collect and trade rare performance parts and customize each vehicle to make it one-of-a-kind. Test Drive Unlimited challenges players online to experience the most exotic and fastest vehicles on more than 1000 miles of diverse Hawaiian roads. Gamers win races, challenges, missions and tournaments to earn credits and purchase new cars, bikes, rare performance parts, clothes, apparel, homes and garages.

With my time playing Test Drive Unlimited, I've found it a blast. There are thousands of miles of roads to drive on and you can even go off the road if you want to take a shortcut (which usually doesn't work). Vehicle selection is fine, ranging from a Saleen S7 to a Chevy SSR. Vehicle customization could better, all you can really do is make performance upgrades and change colors and rims.

Some events can be challenging, while others can be a breeze. Luckily you can change difficulty on race series for people like me who suck at them. Along with series races, time trials, and sprints, there are also car clubs where you can race your way to being president and maybe win a car on your way.

But there's more than just car racing in this game! Half of this game is about cruising online with your friends, buying and selling virtual houses to keep your rides, speeding around the island, and getting into police chases. It's all in Test Drive Unlimited.

Would I recommend this game? Heck yeah.