For the few gamers who still play GBA games a lot, this thread is for your reviews of recent games that you have played.
NFS Most Wanted
I picked up this game about two weeks ago, cost me $350.00, kinda steep in my opinion but since it was a fully 3D game i thought it might be worth the pricetag
Lets get one thing cleared up at the onset, the GBA was never intended as a 3D platform. The infrastructure of the unit was designed generally as a portable SNES. That said however the developers did a very good job of pushing the hardware to the limit.
The graphics in this game will both excite and enrage you. On the one hand you are plesantly suprised at the decent framerate and the more than satisfactory car modeling. the game environment is well done and initially the game almost feels like a 1st generation PSone racer. By the time you take your first sharp corner however your game experience starts to go downhill.
The game's graphical blessing is also its curse, the graphics become very choppy when making turns at even a moderate speed. Added to that it is near impossible to see vehicles that are approaching you if that vehicle's colour is even remotely close to that of the road. Needless to say frequent crashes abound, and if you are one of those with anger management issues you might be better served by watching TF&TF for the umpteenth time to get your speed fix.
The game's audio is another sore point. The game uses a looping collection of techno/hip hip beats as its soundtrack. At first it is forgettable , after a while it becomes slightly annoying, you might want to go to the options menu and turn it off entirely. The game's ambience is provided by the sounds that the actual car makes, and it does quite a good job at it. From engine revs to tire screeches you get a nice mix of effects, and while the engine may be more reminicient of a lawn mower than a V-8 and crashes sound decidedly thinny for the GBA hardware the audio is more than acceptable.
Gameplay is what really counts and NFS MW does a pretty good job at it. The AI is suprisingly good without having the appearence of cheating, and once you get familarized with the general layout of the track you almost forget the sometimes choppy graphics. The aim of the game is to beat rival drivers and end up being the most wanted of them all. You go through 15 different "chapters" each of which contains between 3 and 6 races plus a boss race. There are various race modes , point to point (sprint for you undergrounders) circuit, time trial and a new race type barricade in which the object is to get from one point to the other in a specified time without crashing into the various police traps or swat vans. The presence of police dosent really add anything to the gameplay and you have to smash into a number of civilian vehicles before they even notice you, even then you are never busted, if the po po catches you your penalty is simply a tailspin that will set you back about 3 seconds of gametime.
All in all NFS MW is a very well done racer that boasts of a fully 3d nviroment and good frame rate and challenging AI. The downside is choppy visualy and low visibility at very high speeds and when conering sharply
This one gets 3 1/2 reputation points out of 5
Graphics 3.5
Sound 2.5
Gameplay 3.5
Replay 3.5
