Tendo City

http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/new...04,00.html
With a bunch of screenshots, too. It looks like... well, a sequel to XG3...

It, as the name suggests, is the next Extreme-G game... though why they don't call it Extreme-G 4, I don't know. I REALLY liked Extreme-G 2 (on PC) and thought Extreme-G 3 on NGC was a pretty good, if too soulless (it took almost everything in the game straight from Wipeout and F-Zero and basically ignored XG1 and 2... BAD! I really would have liked to see a true sequel to XG2...) and too short and easy (27 races on 10 tracks and you have completely beat the game! And you can save between them... XG2 had 58 or so per difficulty level (on 12 tracks, each of which had 3 variations) (and 3 difficulty levels) and only saving every 4 levels, so you can probably understand I was dissapointed to find XG3 dramatically shorter and easier... oh well. It was still a good racing game, so I'm looking forwards to this one.

Without Midway's racing games (Where in the world did the Midway racing division go? They made so many good N64 racers... 3 Cruis'n games, 3 Rush games (Rush 2049 is still easily one of the best racing games ever... and probably the N64 game I play most, when I play N64...), Hydro Thunder, etc... I know a lot of people didn't like them, but I did, so I am wondering where they went... the only semi-racing game Midway made recently is SpyHunter, and while I really liked that game a lot, it was more action game than racer... I want Cruis'n 4, or, ideally, RUSH 4! That would be so cool... the only reason Rush 2049 isn't best N64 racer is because F-Zero X exists...

Oh well. At least others are partially making up for it, like Acclaim here with Burnout 1/2 and XG3/RA.

Oh... lets go on to the XGRA info! Almost forgot...

Quote:Acclaim is working on a new game in the Extreme-G series.

At a press event last week Acclaim Entertainment released details on and showed a video of XGRA, the latest entry in the company's Extreme-G franchise. An early version of XGRA was shown in video form last week, and it looks as though it has taken the Extreme-G franchise in a completely new direction. Acclaim has decided to tone down the emphasis on speed in XGRA and focus gameplay more on combat.

The speed of the game has been slowed down so that players can take more time to battle it out with opponents. Acclaim is also adding new destructible environments that come complete with gun towers that take shots at you and the pack as you race by.

While the overall look of the game hasn't been changed dramatically, the development team has added a lot to the futuristic racing game. New bike and character models have been added, and new cars and sidecars have been introduced, all with an assortment of new weapons. The game will also feature real-time commentary that will call the action as it happens on the track.

XGRA is currently on schedule for release this summer for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube. Check back for more information on XGRA in the near future.

Hmm. It seems like they are changing things from XG3... XG3, if you remember, was EXTREMELY fast. Way faster than XG2, actually... that game is fast, but nothing compared to XG3. Not many games are... but this time they seem to have decided to slow the game down again and increase the focus on weapons. It wil also have destructible environments... cool! Those were great in the Rollcage games... :)

Screenshots. I wonder what platform they are from... the game is on all three. PS2, maybe? They seem to be lower quality than NGC would be... but maybe that's just the image quality.

Anyway, the graphics seem to have changed little from XG3... just, I guess, small changes. XG3 looked pretty good overall, and the changes seem very nice. What do I mean? Well, XG3 changed a LOT of stuff from XG2. For one thing, XG2 had tracks that went all over... roads, cliffs, multiple surfaces, etc. XG3? They were like racetracks... all on one roadtype everywhere, with the same walls and stuff... it got kinda dull. I see already that that has changed at least a little, at least in parts of the game... I don't know if it'll have XG2's variety, but we'll see. :)

those do look like PS2 screens, the aliasing hints at that, plus the somewhat washed out colors...which may be just the image quality, but GC and Xbox games seem like they tend to have bolder colors than PS2 games...not in all cases mind you, but...

ahem...

XG3 was really fun. i liked it alot and didn't think that it was too easy. it wasn't terribly hard, i'll admit, but it was a challenge without being frustrating. and the co-op mode rocked my socks. i'll keep my eye on this one, but i don't even have money to pre-order zelda, and since zelda and skies of arcadia are higher on my list, i don't know if i'll ever be able to afford this game...

I'm a huge racing fan, but I never cared for any of the XG games. They're a poor man's F-Zero and Wipeout.

Quote:Without Midway's racing games (Where in the world did the Midway racing division go? They made so many good N64 racers... 3 Cruis'n games, 3 Rush games (Rush 2049 is still easily one of the best racing games ever... and probably the N64 game I play most, when I play N64...), Hydro Thunder, etc... I know a lot of people didn't like them, but I did, so I am wondering where they went...

.....

Hahaha, good one. I thought you were being serious for a second there. Hehehe. Yeah those Cruisin' games were awesome!! And I thought that you didn't have a sense of humor.

I love unrealistic racers... especially futuristic ones. I own 8 N64 racers... of 26 games. And all of them are unrealistic. Only a couple of my NGC games are racers, but there are fewer good NGC racers than there were N64 ones...

Midway makes good racing games. I mean it... I don't own any Cruis'n games (the only Midway racers I own are Rush 2049 (2nd best N64 racer after F-Zero X) and Hydro Thunder (a really good game, despite the fact no one else seems to like it all that much)... I wish I had Cruis'n Exotica, but never found it for a reasonable price... :( I've only played the second two Cruis'n games in the arcades, unfortunately... but I think they are very fun there. Actually I've played a little of the first Cruis'n USA on N64... its very simple, but fun. Sort of like Hydro Thunder, but that game has much better graphics, more alternate paths, etc.

If you even try to say Rush 2049 wasn't a incredibly good game I'll guess you either never played it or only played the far inferior arcade version... I don't see how any arcade racing fan would not find it at least a really good racer.... well, sorta... the most fun part of the game was the stunt mode, which didn't involve racing. F-Zero was a better racing game, but Rush 2049 had the best non-race modes of any racing game I've ever played... I've spent many hours in that game's stunt mode (Wings = Cool!)...

XG a poor man's F-Zero or Wipeout? In many ways yeah... especially XG3. They are clearly takeoffs on the idea. XG2 was a little less a F-Zero/Wipeout clone that XG3, but it definitely was in the futuristic racer mold... I think they are well done, though, and are good games. I have XG2 and XG3 and like both of them... I like XG2 more by quite a bit, honestly (I could write a pretty long post about why I like XG2 over XG3, but I don't think anyone cares, or I would...), but XG3 is a good racer too. XGRA looks like its XG3 with a little of XG2 and some new elements... cool.

All of the Cruisin' games and the first Rush game are complete shit. Rush 2 was okay, but Rush 2049 was a lot of fun. I bought the superior DC version a long time ago. Fun game. I especially love the stunt arena.

But second-best N64 racer? Ehh.. I'd have to disagree. I liked Mario Kart 64, Wave Race 64, Wipeout 64, and Diddy Kong Racing a lot more. But to each his own, I suppose.

Wipeout 64 is a VERY close third... only beaten because its pretty short. Even so, while I would put it in third, I can definitely see how someone could prefer it to Rush 2049... Rush's single player main race mode is good, but not as good as F-Zero, Wipeout, or Excitebike 64 (another VERY good racing game). Its extras are what make up for it...

Mario Kart? Never got it, but played it a bunch... its really only good in multiplayer because the single player game is pathetically easy. Good... if you have friends only.

DKR was a good kart racer... but I'd say that kart racers aren't as good as futuristic ones. Better than Mario Kart 64 IMO because I don't play much multiplayer so its very long and good single player game was much more important than its not that great multiplayer.

And Wave Race? I played that one... beat everything in the game in a few weeks, and then was happy that I was only borrowing it because there wasn't anything left to do. Its lame 2-player only with no computers multiplayer sure didn't help either... still, it was fun. But too short!

I'd say F-Zero, Rush 2049, Wipeout, and Excitebike are all better than those three games. In that order, probably.

Oh... the N64 racers I have are F-Zero X, Rush 2049, Wipeout 64, Excitebike 64, DKR, Star Wars Ep. 1 Racing (a average futuristic racer...), Beetle Adventure Racing (decent, fun, hard... good but not great. I wish there were cars other than Beetles though...), and Hydro Thunder, which no one seems to like much more than Cruis'n USA... but I liked and found a lot of fun.

Ep I Racer is okay. BAR is a lot better than that, and I like the single-player mode a lot more than Rush's. I totally forgot about Excitebike.

I'd take those kart racers over any Midway or Acclaim racer any day of the week.

And I'd take Rush 2049, Hydro Thunder, or XG2 over Mario Kart no question. Probably not XG3 or Burnout, though, if we go to Acclaim's NGC ones.

BAR single player better than Rush? Well... probably not. Harder... maybe, but it is probably the save system. I FAR prefer Midway's style of letting you save after every race to Nintendo's circuits which you can't save in... it is a lot more fun when you can always retry a race with no penalty! Frusterating circuit style is why XG2, Excitebike, and BAR are so hard, of course, so save after every race does make games easier... its just less frusterating!

Oh, and Excitebike is, IMO, the best non-futuristic racer on the N64. Really good game... and VERY hard. I've gotten really far (last December I beat Pro Gold circuit, after over a year of trying! Platinum is even harder, though... but at least I finally unlocked all the tracks...), but still haven't finished it. The track editor is limited, but a nice extra. The Hill Climb and Desert modes are really cool, though... I've finished the Hill Climb twice. That's so hard...

Yeah well, my opinion is better than your's!

...I liked Cruisn' USA! It was, however, one of the very few games I've sold.