Nfsu Rivals & Namco Museum For Psp

[kotd]

Well they arrived today, good ol aussie post. Anyway I'll talk about each game as I've played each for a few hours, hopefully this info will help importers. Feel free to ask me any questions and I will try to answer

Okay Namco Museum...this game surpassed my expectations, its really cool. You get 7 original classics (Pacman. MS pacman, New Rally X, Rally X, Galaga, Galaxian and my favourite Dig dug! which look superb on the PSP screen. You can also enlarge the originals ratio and flip them to play on the side. Way cool.

You also get 4 specially remade games. These are the ones you'll probably play most. These include Pacman, Galaga, New Rally X and Dig Dug. They have beautiful sprites, 3D and CD quality audio Plus they have been remade with extra stuff. Now you fight giant bosses in Pacman and Galaga and you progress level by level. There is a 1-2 second loading time between most levels, when the background changes, which makes this the fastest loading game I've played yet. Theres hardly any Japanese and most menus are in english which is great for importers. If you like these classics I definately recommend picking this up.

Okay NFSU Rivals, let me start by saying, DON'T believe what it says on the GBAX site, this game has heaps of Japanese text. Navigating and figuring out menus is a chore. It took me 10 minutes or so to get a grip on the menus . Much harder than ridge racers which had english on a lot of menus...anyway the game in my opinion is great.

When you play the first race you'll be pinballing around the track. It takes a few goes to get used to the handling. It is really sensitive! A little press turns the car quite a bit. Anyway I'm playing it no problem now but the handling is very different to Ridge Racers.

The soundtrack is superb! heaps of songs and you can even watch a few of the music clips which is awesome. I hated the techno in Ridge Racers but this soundtrack is top notch.

Graphics are superb, much better than Ridge Racers. The cars have a lot more polygons and better reflections. Jaggies also arent a problem like in Ridge Racers. Not PS2 quality but getting closer Very nice...

Loading times also much improved over Ridge Racers. Most menus have no loading and getting into a race is quicker! Also theres no loading times in your garage and while tuning your car up

Overall, wipes the floor over ridge racers. I'm really enjoying it. However the Japanese version is annoying for non japanese people. You may want to wait till it comes out in the US. Matters how much patience you have. You have been warned!

Any Qs please ask
h34r:

 

[bast525]

sweet thanks for the pre-reviews.


Glad you checked out Namco Museum... I wouldn't even have given this one a second thought as to now they have almost all been the same, so it's cool to know this one includes some update/remakes. I may have to pick this one up as one of my last imports before the US one comes out.


As for NFS... I"m not surprised about the high level of Japanese. NFSU on the consoles has similiar amount of depth in the ability to tune and such as Gran Turismo, and that game always has tons of japanese in the menus, so I figured NFS would be the same way. I'm assuming when you talking about the sensitive handling, you are using the analog nub, correct? How is the car selection? How is the framerate?

I'm getting paid tommorow, was thinking of picking something up... haven't really heard of much new out since Rengoku, so anyways, I'm glad someone is talking about newer games... I may pick these up I dunno I'm still real skeptical of NFS and may either wait for US release or just wait for GT4.

I wish Ape Escape would come already!!!

 

[Kop_007]

I think I'm going to get rid of Ape Academy.

Dont get me wrong, it's a good game and the two player is great, but it's just starting to p!$$ me off a little bit.

Was thinking of swapping it for something or selling it and getting Namco Museum. Who knows.

 

[kotd]

Frame Rate is perfect, yeah with the analog nub its sensitive. The game is really awesome, been playing it for a while now. Though I wont get the US version now that I have played it. This is the most polished PSP game I've seen. Damn the soundtrack is good

Namco Museum also saves your progress on the remakes which is great, so you don't have to start from the beginning every time. New Rally X is definately the worst remake. Its exactly the same just in 3D, I never liked Rally X. The other 3 are top notch though

kop_007, isn't Ape escape academy the mini games? The US one is meant to be the proper game from what I heard. They're not going to release the mini game one, I think it was just a filler in for the Japanese.

 

[bast525]

the real Ape Escape game will release in Japan first... there were always intended to be two different Ape Escape games in Japan. I THOUGHT the Japanese Ape Escape was supposed to be out by now.... I haven't really been keeping an eye on things so I have no idea what has come out at all in the last month.

 

[junker]

can you even compare ridge racers to nfsu? rr is more of a traditional racer while nfsu is a drag racing game.
anyway, if nfsu is like rr gameplay wise, i might have to pick it up.

 

[bast525]

rr is more of a traditional racer while nfsu is a drag racing game.

​

Um... not quite :rolleyes: the two are actually a bit more similiar than that. "Drag racing" implies a straight line race, usually with only two cars involved, from the start line to some predetermined distance (1/4 mile or 400km are the most common). NFSU has the same kind of racing around a race course as GT or RR do, usually running a set number of laps around the course. NFSU is also similiar to GT in that you race to make money and buy upgrades for your car.... constantly making it go faster, handle and look better. Like RR, NFSU also places a bit emphasis on drifting (at least, it does on the consoles).

So NFSU is probably very much like RR except for the added bonuses of real life, licsensed cars and the ability to customize and tune them.


EDIT: The US launch games are shaping up quite nice... Tony Hawk Underground looks friggin amazing... I tired of Tony hawk after 3 on PS2, but damn... just as a graphics showcase, THUG shows that the PSP has a lot more potential even than we've already seen. Spiderman 2 looking pretty good as well and just got an updated preview... supposed to be more fun than either of the console versions.

 

[kotd]

How can you not compare the 2? They're driving games. Anyway Underground is awesome while Ridge Racers is not. Pretty simple

 

[kotd]

Okay, well I've played iNFSU Rivals for over 25 hours now and I'm about 85% complete so I can give a more complete review. Firstly I'd like to say this game is the best portable game I've played. Its definately what I bought the PSP for.

There are a few bugs in the game. On some tracks when you smash through walls to take shortcuts you get slowdown...also the game just locked up on me once. It never happened again though.

Also while the soundtrack is awesome as I mentioned with a mixture of rap, metal, punk and techno/dance/trance (whatever you wanna call it ) The random play in Rivals is shit. Far too often I get the same song 2 races in a row. Some songs only play on the menu etc. However getting rid of songs you don't like from the mix seemed to improve the randomness. I noticed Ridge Racers random song feature also played the same tunes over and over. Maybe the bugs will be gone for the US game...

About the game, there are new modes that are exclusive to the PSP. You've got an indoor racing which I liked least out of the lot. THeres heaps of turns and its hard. Drag racing is awesome. Drifting for points is my favourite.

Than you have a checkpoint or gate race. Where you get thrown onto a track with full nitro, than when you hit another gate your nitro replenishes. The point is to get the number of gates neccessary to finish. This one is really crazy as most of them you have the nitro on.

Than you have Knock out, where at the end of each lap the last person gets KO'd and is off the track. Theres also finish the track in the amount of time given for some races and finally theres relay races. You pick 2 cars and start with one, than once you get near the 2nd lapm you drive into a side pit and you continue with a second car. This one is also cool.

Graphics: 9.5/10
Sound: 10/10
Controls: 9/10
Gameplay: 9.5/10

Overall: 9 ( +.5 if they fix the small bugs)they Very similar to the console experience.

A must have on launch unless you don't like racing games or NFS or you want to buy another game instead which is understandable. I can only afford to buy 2 games on launch and I'll be buying Wipeout Pure and Twisted Metal Head On. These are only $40US each, way cheaper than DS games in Aus!!!!

 

[bast525]

obviously a big fan of racing/car games eh?


Thinking of THUG 2 on launch, and possibly Spiderman since it's getting good previews, or Metal Gear so I can play thru it again in English... I dunno what else I kinda want to wait and see what get's good reviews on the other stuff.

 

[kotd]

Yeah I like racing games, depends on which ones though. Gran turismo, Midnight club, NFS and NFSU and wipeout, twisted metal are some of my favourites, also rally games.

Can you tell me more about THUG 2? I was a big fan of Tony hawk Skateboarding 1 and 2 but absoloutely disliked 3 and 4. I have not played Underground, whats it like? Do you think I'll like it?

yeah I want to play MGA in english. I'm worried about Spiderman being short and a game I'll never play again once I finish it. Anyway all my PSP games are going on ebay to fund my US purchases. Not sure how I'll buy them as I'm in Aus lol but hopefully something will work out.

 

[bast525]

prolly will put up half of my import games on ebay as well, if no one here bites when the time comes.


Umm... THUG 2... well... I also haven't played a Tony Hawk game since 3... I had gotten kinda burned out on them. So I can't say from firsthand experience... but I know what I read, and that is, THUG 1 and 2 do make some HUGE changes to the game, not so much in the controls in how you do tricks or whatever, but just in the level and goals layouts... after TH 4, all the magazines/websites were saying that if TH 5 came and was just more of the same as the first four... well... it just wasn't gonna fly anymore and was getting way old. But when THUG came out it got great reviews... so whatever changes they may have made, must have worked. This is supposed to be one of the most playable, long lived, fun and deep games out there, and is being improved for the PSP with more levels... the graphics are almost identical to the PS2 version. I've been looking for something I could keep playing for a long time, so I think this will be my game for that.

As for Spiderman - good point, they've all been kinda short... well, surely you will be able to rent it from a local video store not long after release?

 

[kotd]

Yeah cool, I'll guess I might shell out for that one too. ARGHHH so many to buy so little time and money .
Thug 2 looks very nice I just hope its fun to play, as I didn't think 3 and 4 were....

I may take your import games, depends on what game

Well when PSP games come out in Aus dont know when? Probably end of the year I'm not sure if they'll have the games for rent. I hope they do but I've never seen a video store with GBA games or any portable games....I guess I could buy it, finish it and sell it for a loss and count that as a rental?

I'm hoping sony does the Best Sellers or "Platinum" titles as their known in aus that are $20US each. This budget price for old top selling games has been definately missing in the portable market.