NFS Rivals review

NFS Rivals review
     Rivals doesn't really have a storyline, but then this is a driving game so we can't say we care too much. The game gives you two play options: take the wheel as a racer to tear up the free play world that you exist in, or play as cops trying to keep the peace.

There are no boring cutscenes that try to help you justify anything, and certainly no backstory about how you are only racing to save your family being held by some Ray Liotta looking character. It's all about the fun.

    That doesn't mean to say that there isn't a campaign to complete, but you'll not only be hard pushed to care, but also to remember you've got to complete certain tasks to progress in the first place.

Set in the make-believe world of Red View County, Rivals' vast map is completely open and waiting to be explored. There is a range of different areas but with a huge focus on the countryside rather than city racing.

Dynamic lighting, rain, nightfall, sunsets, lens flare, dust, snow, and falling leaves all help breathe life into the gameplay, giving you a greater sense of realism than ever before.

Damage your car and at times the handling reacts accordingly, including driving on burst tyres. Crashes, you'll have plenty of them, are epic, although it's disappointing from a realism point of view that your car doesn't end up a complete wreck when you get back on track.

Interacting with the surrounding environment can be a bit hit or miss though.

Drive along a dirt track and the PS4 DualShock 4 controller slightly rumbles so you know you aren't on the smooth tarmac, but smash through a farmer's barn and you'll feel nothing.

As you can probably tell there are a lot of chances to get distracted in Need For Speed: Rivals. Like in Burnout, the premise is to drive to different locations around the world to complete specific missions, races, takedowns or escapes depending on which faction - racer or cop - that you've opted to play.

       What Rivals brings that’s new to the part is a system it calls AllDrive. Hot Pursuit introduced the idea of Autolog, where the game actively pits you against your Xbox Live or PSN friends, comparing achievements, finishing times and progress so that you were playing with each other, even when you weren’t doing so at the same time. AllDrive takes a different tack, signing up to six racers into its open world, and breaking down all the barriers between solo and online play.
The joy of Rivals’ structure is that it encourages you to just drive around and explore, finding hidden tracks and daredevil, chasm-spanning jumps, or just enjoying the feel of high-speeds on the open road. Meanwhile, the advantage of point-to-point, open-road racing over the courses you’d find in a more serious racing sim is that you can’t learn the tracks. Instead, you learn how to respond to sudden changes of direction, pitch or camber, and how to push each car to the edge of its performance. The result is an arcade racer where everything flows, whether you’re simply racing your way from checkpoint to checkpoint.

   It’s furiously addictive, too. Each career is divided into chapters, and each chapter has you moving through the cop or racer ranks by completing several to do lists of objectives, that might be as simple as just getting silver in a time trial event, or as tricky as hitting five racers with pursuit tech upgrades. Completing lists and ranking up unlocks new cars, liveries, events and upgrades, and it’s not long before you’re trapped in a cycle of competing to get a new car and new upgrades, then seeing what you can do with your new car, then working again to go up the next level.

 

      Is it faultless? Nope, and a lot depends on how much you’re frustrated by the occasional technical problems. At one point I lost connection to our shared game, dropping us mid-event back into a single player game world, and forcing  to find and start the event again. It can also be annoying to be a whisker away from winning when some clown comes out of nowhere and – whether by accident or design – smacks you clean off the road. A handful of objectives are peculiarly difficult to manage, and sometimes you wish the cops would just leave you alone while you finish your time trial or race.

     Yet, overall Need for Speed: Rivals is everything you might want from an arcade racer. It’s ridiculously fast, ridiculously thrilling and a wonder to play.  

GTA San Andreas Game Mechanics

It is vital for any game to be successfully received by the user, it must have game mechanics methodical and careful thought.
In GTA San Andreas identify several game mechanics: walk, mission vehicles, gangs, guns, radio stations, friends, schools, training, attack, the attack statistics, acquisition of items.

Mission Mechanics

The main mechanics of the game in my opinion are the missions These are present in all games in the GTA series and they are defining.

• The main missions

Each mission begins with a mechanic who informs us about the kind mission and information necessary to meet the performance .During a mission there are present more game mechanics such as the player's interaction with different people, vehicles, weapons, money.Sometimes,the player collects "action points" in these interactions.

It is very important for the player to perform the task in order to move to the next (here intervening the action mechanic).

 • Side Missions

These side missions are designed to make the game more varied, more attractive.You can drive a Taxi, extinguish fires, catch criminals (the police), save people (as a doctor on the ambulance, steal from houses, pimp prostitutes, drive trucks and trains (in order to deliver a commodity at the time) and the flight school (airplanes and helicopters), driving schools (for cars and motorcycles) . In these missions will appear more game mechanics such as the player's interaction with different people, vehicles, weapons, money.

• Missions vehicles

This type of mechanics are in all GTA series. When the player approaches an object, possibly a vehicle ,he will be given to the opportunity to participate in the mission.

 

Vehicle Mechanics

The vehicle mechanics are among the most important in this game. There are many types of vehicles in GTA: SA, ranging from land, sea and aer.In San Andreas,the player can take about any vehicle that is not busy, can steal the occupied ones,he can even modify them.

Here,there are present mechanics for entering and exiting a vehicle. For a vehicle in motion, the player must locate it, and then often times shooting in the car or stop it from moving.In both cases, the driver usually freak out and abandon the car.A problem may appear when trying to stay in front of the car, if the car has high speed, the driver can not stop and our character and ends at hospital.If the police are around ,  mechanics for "wanted level"activate.Also,  a problem may appear if the car driver is from the rival gang, here intervening band mechanics.

If the player wants to modify the car, it must first find  a garage or "Pay 'N' Spray". Once inside, the player has many options available, repairs,changing paint, some upgrades or change the layout after.In this mechanics, the player loses money.

Attack Mechanics

These mechanics implicate that the player must attack an object or person (especially a rival gang). These mechanics are present in most missions.The player either shoots people, or participate in a brawl.

Available to the player are a lot of weapons for brawl: shovels, baseball bats, swords, chainsaws etc.The damages are related to muscle damage of the player.These attacks often leave the player vulnerable to future attacks.Each of these has a value and a set of damage
For shooting people there are also a variety of weapons: 9mm, shot-gun etc.Each firearm has a number of bullets after they remain empty.
      The losses were the mechanics of weapons and also statistical mechanics, and we can show how efficiently handles the player bullets available.
Your character can also use grenades, molotov cocktail, pepper spray.

Pressing L1 while holding weapons, players can easily view the status of qualification of the weapon owned. When CJ takes every weapon at first,it has the status of "poor", but with  use, he updates his skills to "gangster" or "Hitman".        

GTA San Andreas Review

GTA San Andreas game was created by the company Rockstar North and definitely lives up to the Grand Theft Auto name.If you like gangster stories from the'' 90, surely this game will appeal to you.Movies like  "Menace II Society" and "Boyz N the Hood" are clear influences here.

The action takes place in the '90s in San Andreas State within which there are three cities: Los Santos, San Fierro and Las Venturas and the surrounding areas.The main character, African-American CJ Carl Johnson returns home from Liberty City to Los Santos to attend the funeral of his mother.

When he arrives,he gets intercepted by a gang of corrupt cops (rival gang). He manages to get home and get to terms with his old gang, Grove Street Families and works with his friends Big Smoke and Ryder.But while gaining more territory, CJ learns that his friends betrayed him.They managed to catch his brother , Sweet, and afterwards he was arrested.The only way to his brother release is to help  Tenpenny(corrupt cop) with its dirty affairs.

 San Andreas is structured similarly to the previous two games. The big game is made ​​up of RPG elements and driving, which offers the player a vast space to act.

On foot, the player can walk, run, swim, climb or jump, also he can fight other characters.You have to go on missions for different individuals . You'll go drive certain individuals,  kill people (especially the rival gang) etc. But you can also play  side missions such as catching criminals (the police), saving people (the doctor), stoping a fire (as a firefighter).

The game has 200 cars, 11 airplanes 9 helicopters, bikes, you can change cars,rob houses, buy clothes, food, play arcade games, you even can make debts.By killing members of a rival gangs,you can start a war.

A new rule is that you must take care of your physique, occasionally having to eat.You can't die in the water, you can swim.

 

The newest addition to the game is that you can play with a friend, but not entirely.There are certain conditions which we will not reveal now, but in consequence with a friend can wreak havoc in your car or on foot some of the game .

The decor is very well captured, unique .It's very realistic giving the impression of ghetto.

 
Architecture of the game is incredible, and these new effects are great.In warm areas, you can see the shiny effect caused by the sun.When it starts to rain, the game gets a very realistic look, the rain was very well designed.When you reach top speed in a car, the screen becomes a little blurred, giving the impression of extreme speed.

The characters are very well done, realistic hands except that sometimes look weird.

When it comes to  graphics, it is impressive, but it is a problem.If your system, Play Station, PC is older some elements do not look so good until you get very close to them for the texture to load.

 But if your PC is new,you will not have such problems. In terms of graphics, the engine used to realize  GTA: SA is exceeded. But if you should consider the color palette used, then it kind of turns the wheel, because it's a pleasure to walk around dawn or at sunset and admire the colors you come and countries, when the weather is soft and warm.

Cinematics are excellent but the number of polygons and ineffectiveness cut your little enthusiasm, but these are issues related to the engine's limits and no to the owner's intentions.

The sound is very well done, in the game there are many dialogues between characters..They imitate very well the sound of a car engine, mototciclete etc.You can listen to radio as well as in other games in the series, especially rap, other genres are less clear .

Usually when a game tries to make a million things,they do not stand up well.  But GTA San Andreas manages combining a lot of elements ans to be a strong game that will not disappoint, with a few noticeable problems.GTA San Andreas has a very strong history and a narrative story, well-written dialogue, voice expressed extraordinary, impressive graphics, sound game, and the game is very fun and varied.

  

Game Concept Worksheet

Any video game has a designer.But how the designer manage to implement uniform all the mechanics?To understand the core mechanics behind any video game,you must respond to the following questions:

1. What is the nature of the gameplay? That is, what challenges will the player face? What actions will the player take to overcome them?
2. What is the victory condition for the game, if any? What is the player trying to achieve?
3. What is the player’s role? Is the player pretending to be someone or something, and if so, what? How does the player’s role help define the gameplay?
4. What is the game’s setting? Where does it take place?
5. What is the player’s interaction model? Omnipresent? Through an avatar? Something else? Some combination?
6. What is the game’s primary perspective? How will the player view the game’s world on the screen? Will there be more than one perspective?
7. What is general structure of the game? What is going on each mode, and what function does each mode fulfill?
8. Is the game competitive, cooperative, team-based, or single-player? If multiple players are allowed, are they using the same machine with separate controls or different machines over a network?
9. Does the game have a narrative or story as it goes along? Summarize the plot in a sentence or two.
10. Does the game fall into an existing genre? If so, which one?
11. Why would anyone want to play this game? What sort of people would be attracted to this game?


Here we have an example of the GTA San Andreas's Concept Worksheet  :

1.GTA San Andreas  is an action adventure game that has some RPG elements developed by Rockstar Games.
Gameplay: consists of elements of third person shooter and driving game.The player can walk, run, swim, eat, drive cars, helicopters, airplanes, bicycles, trains, tanks, motorcycles and use firearms.
The main aim of the game is to carry out missions but there are side missions that are optional.The main character, CJ,  must overcome several obstacles to complete his goal:he  has to shoot some individuals,  transport stuff,drive persons.In most missions, the player must reach a certain target using vehicles at its disposal.

 
2.In GTA San Andreas, our character CJ tries to save his brother from prison and then  get revenge on  while battling rivals to succeed .He carries out missions for different individuals.If the player meets all the missions, he will complete his goal.

3.To save his brother from prison, CJ, our character controlled by the player must do  dirty work for a corrupt cop ,Tempenny.Our player can walk, run, swim, eat, drive cars, helicopters, airplanes, bicycles, trains, tanks, motorcycles, use firearms.
The player can perform side missions and briefly deviate from the target, but eventually he has to perform the primary mission .For example,he can rob houses or individuals, struggle with rival band, sometimes starting a war.

4.The action takes place in Los Santos,San Fierro and Las Venturas.


5.The player controlling the character is ubiquitous seen from a third person perspective shooter.

6.A main storyline with a clear narative wire is defined.But, there are side perspective where the player can be a doctor, fireman,officer of the law, can rob houses, deviating a little from the main thread.
The player will see a very violent world full of gangsters who traffic drugs, prostitution, killing, a world where character is caught in the middle and  must spin in order to save his brother and to avenge those who put him in jail.

7.The overall structure of the game: The game is divided into main missions, each mission must be accomplished so that you can move to the next one.The player performs missions using different vehicles, firearms.With every mission completed,our character is coming increasingly more to saving brother and get his revenge.

8.The game is single player, but the newest addition to the game is that you can play with a friend, but not the whole game.

9.The game also has backstory, as the game unfolds creates a narrative that forms a story that will lead to the fulfillment of the purpose 
CJ gets along with the old gang and fights rival gangs.His brother is captured because of Big Smoke and Ryder 's betrayal and thrown in jail so CJ is forced to undertake all kinds of dirty stuff for a corrupt police officer Tempenny. Carl and his new friends open a garage in San Fierro  and waits for an opportunity to return to Los Santos . After Ryder kills ,CJ is contacted by a government agent Mike Toreno , who tells him that he can bring Sweet out of prison if he helps with  some " stuff " .
In the aftermath Carl's family and friends arrive at the Johnson house for a meeting. As his friends and allies celebrate their success, Carl turns to leave. When Kendl asks where he's going, he replies, "Fittin' to hit the block, see what's happening."

10.GTA San Andreas  is an action adventure game that has some RPG elements.

11.If you like stories with gangsters from the  '' 90 and listen to rap music,then  this game will definitely be to your favorite.
The game comes with 200 cars, 11 aircraft, nine helicopters, bicycles, you can modify cars to rob houses, you can buy clothes, food, arcade games you can play, you can even make debts.You can even start a war between gangs.
GTA San Andreas has a very strong history and a narrative story, well-written dialogue, voice expressed extraordinary, impressive graphics, sound game, and the game is very fun and varied.

Video Games genres V

Strategy

 
Games have evolved from the principles of strategic games in which players perform moves by rotation, for example Command & Conquer, Total War.

• RTS (Real Time Strategy)

Indicates that the action in the game is continuous, and players will have to make their decisions and actions in the context of a state game in a changing enviroment.You have to get resources, build bases, technologies to research and produce units.Example: Warcraft Series, Age of Empires, Dune
II,Dawn of War, Command and Conquer.
 

• Real Time Tactics
This game has the feature of an action,wargame and simulation game, for example, the battle system (though not the entire game). Example: Total War Series

• Tower Defense
These games have a simple layout .The player has to "build" towers to defend his territory from enemies(computer monsters).You can poison enemies or  slow them down ;it depends on the game.The more  you kill, you get money with which you can build more towers.Example: Bloons Tower Defense.

 
• Turn based strategy
The player is allowed to a period of analysis before committing any action, some games allowing a certain number of movements or actions  in a turn.Example: Combat Mission, Heroes

• War games

WarGames is a subgenre of real-time strategy games that emphasize strategic or tactical warfare on a map. WarGames, in general, depending on the tower game is based, or in real time,  the concentration of the game is in the strategy or tactics.Example:1944 Warfare.

                                                        Hybrid Games
 
It is important to recognize that many games are not limited to one genre. Some types are a mixture of two or more genres. In fact, as the game progresses, we see the blurred lines between genres more often than not. The introduction of 3D games like action / adventure has increased dramatically. It is basically a catch-all category that includes real-time 3D games and battle with puzzle solving in a fairly coherent story. Many of these games are also first-person-shooter. Some are 3D platform titles. Most securities qualify as horror survival and Action / Adventure games too. Another example of a hybrid Myst. It is both an adventure game and a puzzle game.