Nascar Legends! The GREATEST disappointment...

It hurts to write this, but Papyrus' Nascar Legends [NL] has got to be the most disappointing game I have ever tried! Of course it still is an average game, but it fails to deliver on every single field!

People were expecting NL to be GP Legends [GPL] with Nascar cars... and people got a game that it is a genuine step back on 1998's NASCAR 2!

Why were general expectations on NL, so high? Well, NL was announced to feature the same physics of GPL, and it should benefit not only from the experience of two previous attempts on the Nascar theme, but also from the superb overall GPL achievement!

In the end, NL is something between bad and average, depending on your approach to racing games. If you prefer simulations to arcades, then NL is bad! If you prefer the arcade way, then NL might be just playable... I don't believe anyone will ever consider it a good game.

Nascar Legends explodes like a bomb on your hands! After a few clicks, you are ready to test drive it, and from the very first moment, it is obvious that the game is not what it was promised to be:

- if you have a force feedback wheel with buttons for gear shifting a la F1 then disappointment #1 will be that you can't define such keys for shifting... You did could use them for that purpose on GP Legends, so how come that is not an option now?

- but the negative surprises won't [ever] stop, and your first graphical contact with the racing track is pure horror! It looks almost exactly like NASCAR 2!!, except that it runs slower!

- the worst part, is driving the car. It is unbelievable, but throttle & braking are treated as digital inputs, even when you use [and setup] an analogue device! Forget GPL's smooth accelerations and daring braking maneuvers!- Everything happens on the old fashioned predictable digital way. This is so ridiculous, that it is impossible to get your car out of the pits, without burning one ton of rubber, as one of the pictures on the left column shows!

- the crap control system has a deeper negative impact, than you can imagine: because the game is really using the very accurate GPL physics, it turns out that performing high speed turns @ full throttle will be impossible, as the car won't be able to defeat the force that pushes him forward. This means that OR you are using all the accelerator, OR you are not, with nothing between... how realistic, eh?

- the frame rate is another shock. 31 fps @ 1024x768x16 was my best, on a straight, with no other cars on the track, without clouds and without horizon. This is really 1998's performance... Beware that the game was tested on a P3@450 + V2 SLI.

- the replay system doesn't work... it has so many problems that it really is of nearly no use. For example, you can't access the replay controls when viewing action @ full screen, and there always will be NO SOUND, if you configured sound for "zero other cars". Well, the truth is that you need at least "one other car", IF you want to hear yourself, on the replay...

The only good thing on NL is that you can race against more that 40 other drivers with a small impact on performance, but that is all. What's the use of being able to race 40 computer cars, when you can't truly control your own vehicle?!

So, sound and graphics are absolutely outdated, playability stinks as you would never expect Papyrus to stink, the replays don't quite work, and the game even dares to use the "Legends" word, which I had just started to associate to top quality simulators... It is undeniable that the most recent NASCAR games are cursed! Just remember the shitty Nascar Revolution...

Stay away from Nascar Legends, or cross your fingers for a huge patch...

On the other hand, was it my version of the game? Was I playing an early beta? More news, soon...

Age of Empires 2 - SPECTACULAR Multi player win #1

Age of Empires 2 [AoE2] is known for its very hard Multi player games. In my last AoE2 updates, your were told about how nearly impossible it is to defeat computer opponents, when they are playing @ the HARD or HARDEST difficulty levels. Well, today I've won my first Multi player game, played @ the HARD setting.

The game lasted for 3 hours and 30 minutes, and it featured 4 players: 2 humans [Prosty + Carla] against 2 computers [Mondhir + Chief Thorgest]. The human players were britons and saracens; the computer players were set @ a random race. The map was "random" and "giant" sized; resources were "normal" and the whole tech tree was NOT available, thus preserving each race's special ability. The units' limit was set to 200, which is the highest possible value.

As always, trouble did come soon. The whole key to success on AoE2, resides on resisting the first hour and a half; after that, you are expected to have enough troops, at least for a strong defensive position.

Carla was the only presence on her island, and that allowed her the growth of a stable society, with plenty of water resources and a natural tendency to defend using galleys and other war boats.

Prosty had to share his island with Mondhir. By the end of the game, Mondhir had killed over 400 Prostys... but suffered a bloodier defeat with nearly 600 dead! This should give you an idea of the epic dimension of the game!

Mondhir was always the most aggressive party. Prosty never launched a single attack, until near the end of the game. Most of Prosty's dead were victims of a more or less single suicide mission, while Mondhir's losses were from successive [repressed] raids.

At some point, Carla managed to build a wonder, and that launched a countdown clock, that would mean the defeat of the computer players, if they could not destroy the wonder on time. By then, Chief Thorgest bailed out of the game and Prosty decided it was time to make use of 163 units that were waiting for action :)

When only 600 years remained and Carla had her wonder under control, the humans' military offensive did begin! Prosty ordered ALL his 163 warriors to kill and destroy all Mondhir things, and so they did, having no fear against strong defensive buildings, including castles! Carla sent her huge array of ships to the western coast, where Prosty found most of the computer water units.

It was a bloody battle, that could have meant trouble, if there was no allied wonder, since Prosty was on a difficult position to go for wood, gold and stone... In fact, Prosty got the highest score, despite being the player with less resources, except food!

The 03:30:00 battle showed very different gaming styles. Prosty builds very tight civilizations and waits too much for its first army; Carla builds sparsely, and is much more rational when defending. The computer gives it all for a fast military supremacy, and once it finds a way into your territory will try to enter and damage the town center, as many times and it can produce units to send!

During the game, there was little diplomacy. Prosty was neutral at request, but for not too long... Humans gave no tributes to computers, and vice-versa.

The greatest lesson that this spectacular war delivered is that the best tactic is something between Prosty's tight / easily defendable constructions, Carla's early defensive units, and the computer's perseverance.