All the way the game feels like... a game. Except for beautiful woods and huge map, it lacks any immersion! And all the bugs (including bugged controls!) just pinpoint the smell of scripts, bad game logic and the UI is worse than a bad student's project. No good tutorials, no labels in menus and just try to drop an item from your invertory without looking it up on the internet! Lockpicking is horror. The purpose of the "mood minigame" is beyond me. I've played a lot of games, even Bethesda's, but not even Fallout 3 is that user unfriendly. Terrible. There are FAR better.
The engine just smells of Tomb Raider 3 and NPCs are far from that immersion revolution, but hell the game is fun! Exactly what I miss today: simplistic rules used right in complex situations! The level design in combination with spot-on atmosphere create memorable experience. UI doesn't meet today's standards, but it's simple enough, yet informative and useful. I completely control the game via Trackpoint. Recommended!
Beware! This game may look like a NFS or Forza competitor, but is tremendously far from it. It's a pity, because I wanted to try it since I read about it in a 2006 magazine, but now I understand why it fell into the abyss of oblivion. Though it implements much of 2006 high tech, the smell of low level is instant. UI is terrible, soundtrack is none-saying, physics is simplistic, but the greatest letdown is the unbalanced gameplay. Your opponents will tear you to shreds right from the beginning. You're expected nothing less than perfection in terms of driving. And it may still be not enough, because your rivals have better cars. Hands off!
I'll put it simple just like this game is itself. Bad controls, bad AI, simplistic level design, a corridor tight as new pants, bad optimisation. I expected more considering the reviewers praising it. The story might be ok (and I'll watch a longplay on YT), but as a non-american I don't relate to it. So far it looked like a series of clichés. Most of the characters acted unbelievably unprofessional, some of them on Steve Buscemi level. If the gameplay saved the situation... but it didn't. I've played WAY better TPSes.
I was hesitating for quite a long time before buying this title, yet my lust for outrun-ish game won. I truly don't regret, as all those negative reviews revealed as untrue. ...well, mostly. This game offers a virtue trip to early 90s in terms of graphics, music, menus, well-thought settings, song selection, sound, postprocessing effects and filters and many more. And of course, if not the most important - gameplay. It must be noted that this was the biggest problem in most critiques. Yes, games in 90s WERE hard. Since the developers had very strict limitations set by the amount of data carried by the media (in early 90s it happened to be 3.5" floppy with 1.44 MB), the lack of gigantic contents of entire open worlds was filled with (many times insane) difficulty. In case of Outrun or Crazy Cars (3 for me) the game mechanics was not aimed at real driving simulation, but rather "how many rivals can you catch up before section ends?" This mechanic is contained in Slipstream, which makes it 100% tribute to the genre, even extending it with interesting "slipstream" feature. Slipstream offers very nice wrap-up of early racing arcades so it can be easily consumable by today's gamers. Nostalgic graphics with smooth rendering and up-to-date resolutions, old-fashioned 80s music with no bad aftertaste of PC speaker or midi and simple, easy to understand, hard to master, mindless gameplay. No, this game may not be for everyone, but if you felt like having fun playing very old, simple yet hard games, grab this! + graphics + music + menus + gameplay mechanics + nostalgia + filling gap after Outrun-ish games vanished + almost everything has a scent of well-thought ideas from loving gamer dev - game modes are not well described - only one player can play on keyboard at a time (others must use gamepads) - speech bubbles are kinda distracting - track sections are short PS: I didn't play Horizon Chase Turbo, but it seems to target on wider, less nostalgic gamers. Uncomparable.
+ interesting story (I'd definitely buy a book rather than this) + somehow catchy game (you want to play more despite its flaws) + graphics of that time and realm-changing + well-crafted locations - unskippable LONG FMVs - SERIOUSLY imbecile save system (distant save points etc.) - idiotic combat - not too many locations, you keep going back and forth - controls not really prepared for keyb+mouse - bland synth music (Soul Reaver 1 was better at this) - level design not well tested: dark places (needs gamma tweaks), puzzles dependent on badly visible low-def texture etc. (sometimes you wander around just because you don't notice that a texture of a stone in the dark is slightly different from others etc.) Conclusion: I really looked forward to playing this game. In the end, it reminded me how catchy old games were with their simple, original mechanics, engaging story and, in this case, sympathetic antiheroes. However, it possesses a high risk of throwing your time away, as you may spend hour or more between chances to save with enraging combats, degraded by horrible controls and tacky camera.
