Ok, I'm actually reviewing four things this week, throwing caution to the wind and leaving absolutely nothing for next week.
Need for Speed World is my first victim. Well, my first review at least, because I actually liked it. Admittedly, I approached it as a F2P racing MMORPG, rather than a Need for Speed game. It borrows heavily from my favorite, Need for Speed Underground, with at least a good portion of the game world included (my memory's bad, but some of the more memorable parts are the same). It felt very familiar, but had enough unique stuff to keep me playing for a while. The car customization isn't quite as overblown as in some of the more recent games, but it's enough that you can tweak both the performance and look of your car to be unique.
Brink is probably the only reason I stopped playing Need for Speed World. It's really fun, even if it's uncomfortably short. My only hope is that the free DLC adds a few hours onto Brink, because while I love the gameplay, it lacks heavily in variety of maps. Admittedly, the maps are more deep than I had hoped, but would it kill Bethesda to put in Capture the Flag or King of the Hill or even a deathmatch? I know it would "break immersion/storylines" or whatever, but it'd add a ton to the replayability if I didn't have to do the exact same objectives on every map every time I played it. Why not have multiple possible missions per map, and just add them as "What If" options to the campaign, or even just freeplay? Lord knows that in this day and age such a thing is possible.
Need for Speed World is my first victim. Well, my first review at least, because I actually liked it. Admittedly, I approached it as a F2P racing MMORPG, rather than a Need for Speed game. It borrows heavily from my favorite, Need for Speed Underground, with at least a good portion of the game world included (my memory's bad, but some of the more memorable parts are the same). It felt very familiar, but had enough unique stuff to keep me playing for a while. The car customization isn't quite as overblown as in some of the more recent games, but it's enough that you can tweak both the performance and look of your car to be unique.
Brink is probably the only reason I stopped playing Need for Speed World. It's really fun, even if it's uncomfortably short. My only hope is that the free DLC adds a few hours onto Brink, because while I love the gameplay, it lacks heavily in variety of maps. Admittedly, the maps are more deep than I had hoped, but would it kill Bethesda to put in Capture the Flag or King of the Hill or even a deathmatch? I know it would "break immersion/storylines" or whatever, but it'd add a ton to the replayability if I didn't have to do the exact same objectives on every map every time I played it. Why not have multiple possible missions per map, and just add them as "What If" options to the campaign, or even just freeplay? Lord knows that in this day and age such a thing is possible.