Our annual holiday stay in Washington state at my Brother-in-law’s was a bit shorter then usual due to a few less available vacation days. For that reason we didnt set up the 4-PC LAN and blast away at one another in Ghost Recon as we’ve done in years past. My nephews have a PS2 and a traditional XBox, however, so there was still some electronic sport to be had. My oldest nephew and I played “Knockout Kings 2002″ until 1-2AM every night. (That game was a gift from Uncle Geoff, by the way, right out of the bargain bin. It makes me wonder why no arcade boxing game has been created, or at least ported over to the PC, frankly.) Good uncle/nephew bonding time, for sure. We had a couple of real wars.
My younger nephew recieved “Need For Speed: Most Wanted” for Xmas. As much as I hate driving a virtual car with a gamepad, I was very impressed with a number of things about this game. First, the car selection is more in-line with my real world tastes rather than the credit list from one of the “Fast and Furious” movies. I cite the Ford GT, Lotus Elise and Corvette C6, to name a few. Secondly, the virtual city of Rockport is just plain fun to navigate through, with tight city grids, perimeter superhighway sections, realistic overpasses and interchanges, plus backally shortcuts. Thirdly, the police pursuit element is a different twist on getting from point A to point B in the lowest elapsed time. Once the black-and-whites start to accumulate, it becomes a real challenge to lose them.
I enjoyed this game so much, I bought it for the PC. Getting on the interstate with a supercharged Mustang GT and hitting the nitrous button to speed the RPMs up and hasten the shift from 5th to 6th at 150mph, I can say, gives me genuine enjoyment every time. No, it’s not rFactor, and sometimes I wish there was a hardcore setting to make car damage a little more realistic, but its a challenge to play this game well.
Now that I got the pink slip to Jewel’s Mustang, I sold the Supra, which gives me two Mustangs, an Eclipse and a Porsche Caymen in the safe house, and I’m up to #8 on the Blacklist. My nephew would be proud of me.
