3rd April 2004, 1:04 PM
(This post was last modified: 3rd April 2004, 1:18 PM by A Black Falcon.)
I'm at school and don't have a TV most of the time you know... that's why. It's also why last time I was at the store (when I got 8 games) 2 were PC and four were GBA...
Oh, despite that (i'd explain if you want again but it isn't really worth it) I beat XGRA last thursday... not exactly a hard game. I think it's probably the first futuristic racing game I've played where I NEVER HAD TO RACE ANY RACE TWICE. Yup, I beat the whole game by just racing each race once and moving on! Now I did not manage to unlock the best team but I got the other stuff... too bad. Great game, just lacking in challenge and with a VERY easy gameplay setup (league-based, so you can make up for mistakes later. Weak competition much of the time. Very easy point minimums to keep going -- so easy that as I said I never failed a league! And as I said I was never even killed once, I think... well ONCE, but that's it. You get no points and go to the next race. In some games that'd be bad but with this one...
Oh, I realized something when I was beating it. The final circuit was not super easy. I finished quite low positions several times (7 tracks long). But that didn't matter! It just lets you keep going and at the end I had enough to win, I guess...
Oh, then I played XG2. I realized againthat it wasn't super-super-hard-competition that makes that game so tough. It's that blasted 'only save every 4 tracks'... if that game had a save like XGRA I'd have beaten it years ago...
Oh, let's compare anyway. Both games have very similar numbers of races to complete. XG2 just makes completing them significantly harder. Especially the final circuit. Like the two before it it's 12 tracks... save after every 4... but what makes it so hard is this. It's a full 8 car field and you must win every race. Yup. Now it is POSSIBLE to win every race in this game, obviously, but still... it's a steep challenge. Last time I tried I did get to the final track once (those last four tracks of that challenge are my good friends now I've done those first three so many times)... and got third. In just about any racing game that'd be good enough to finish the game, but not here... you lose. Start again from track 9.
XGRA... that game is so fun, and the tracks are really well designed (I love the tracks... I felt quite the opposite about XG3, as I've made plain before...), but... man, I wish it had a "Hard" mode with actually challenging victory conditions (that would make the game a LOT harder, if you had to finish well to continue, even WITH save after every race (which I did not use since I never had to redo a race in the game I didn't bother -- and it autosaves after a circuit) it'd be so much harder... and if they tied progress, as well as unlocking cars and getting parts, to how well you acheive those team goals the game would be tough in parts, for sure! I wish they'd done that, the game is just too easy as it is... :(
Erm, back to the subject. You're right, BG&E doesn't support gamepads. Rayman III does, of course... it even supports the second analog stick as the look control! I think that's my first PC game that uses the second analog stick on my gamepad... :) As for BG&E, as I said a lot of the game, like the 'dungeons', don't have framerate issues; it's the overworld (sailing around in the hovercraft) and especially the city that have them. Oh the controls... it's mouse & keyboard. It works... not sure if gamepad would be better or not (obviously I can't try it) but it works... WSAD, and a bunch of other commands over there (uses Q, E, 2, 3, Shift, Spacebar, maybe another), and the mouse for look/action... the one real complaint I have is the menus. Some you navigate by spinning the mouse and some with the keyboard! It makes no sense... and when you have to use WSAD (or the arrow keys) to move in those menus you still need the mouse because Activate and Back are on the mouse buttons! Argh.
... but that's probably a stupid complaint because you CAN remap some of the controls (not the mouse axes) and have two buttons for each command so I probably could add a keyboard Activate command... I just haven't bothered. :D
Oh, despite that (i'd explain if you want again but it isn't really worth it) I beat XGRA last thursday... not exactly a hard game. I think it's probably the first futuristic racing game I've played where I NEVER HAD TO RACE ANY RACE TWICE. Yup, I beat the whole game by just racing each race once and moving on! Now I did not manage to unlock the best team but I got the other stuff... too bad. Great game, just lacking in challenge and with a VERY easy gameplay setup (league-based, so you can make up for mistakes later. Weak competition much of the time. Very easy point minimums to keep going -- so easy that as I said I never failed a league! And as I said I was never even killed once, I think... well ONCE, but that's it. You get no points and go to the next race. In some games that'd be bad but with this one...
Oh, I realized something when I was beating it. The final circuit was not super easy. I finished quite low positions several times (7 tracks long). But that didn't matter! It just lets you keep going and at the end I had enough to win, I guess...
Oh, then I played XG2. I realized againthat it wasn't super-super-hard-competition that makes that game so tough. It's that blasted 'only save every 4 tracks'... if that game had a save like XGRA I'd have beaten it years ago...
Oh, let's compare anyway. Both games have very similar numbers of races to complete. XG2 just makes completing them significantly harder. Especially the final circuit. Like the two before it it's 12 tracks... save after every 4... but what makes it so hard is this. It's a full 8 car field and you must win every race. Yup. Now it is POSSIBLE to win every race in this game, obviously, but still... it's a steep challenge. Last time I tried I did get to the final track once (those last four tracks of that challenge are my good friends now I've done those first three so many times)... and got third. In just about any racing game that'd be good enough to finish the game, but not here... you lose. Start again from track 9.
XGRA... that game is so fun, and the tracks are really well designed (I love the tracks... I felt quite the opposite about XG3, as I've made plain before...), but... man, I wish it had a "Hard" mode with actually challenging victory conditions (that would make the game a LOT harder, if you had to finish well to continue, even WITH save after every race (which I did not use since I never had to redo a race in the game I didn't bother -- and it autosaves after a circuit) it'd be so much harder... and if they tied progress, as well as unlocking cars and getting parts, to how well you acheive those team goals the game would be tough in parts, for sure! I wish they'd done that, the game is just too easy as it is... :(
Erm, back to the subject. You're right, BG&E doesn't support gamepads. Rayman III does, of course... it even supports the second analog stick as the look control! I think that's my first PC game that uses the second analog stick on my gamepad... :) As for BG&E, as I said a lot of the game, like the 'dungeons', don't have framerate issues; it's the overworld (sailing around in the hovercraft) and especially the city that have them. Oh the controls... it's mouse & keyboard. It works... not sure if gamepad would be better or not (obviously I can't try it) but it works... WSAD, and a bunch of other commands over there (uses Q, E, 2, 3, Shift, Spacebar, maybe another), and the mouse for look/action... the one real complaint I have is the menus. Some you navigate by spinning the mouse and some with the keyboard! It makes no sense... and when you have to use WSAD (or the arrow keys) to move in those menus you still need the mouse because Activate and Back are on the mouse buttons! Argh.
... but that's probably a stupid complaint because you CAN remap some of the controls (not the mouse axes) and have two buttons for each command so I probably could add a keyboard Activate command... I just haven't bothered. :D
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