BMW M3 Challenge

Doing the unthinkable?

Don’t tell me you’ve never wanted to drive one of those great foreign sports cars. No offence meant, but a visit to a good psychologist would be in order if you told me the unthinkable. Life would be so much better if you could buy cars like you’d buy your groceries. However, you can get a fraction of that immense pleasure for free with today’s entertainment options. If you’re a fan of BMW and have visited their site, you would probably have downloaded their M3 racing game. If you haven’t done so, don’t hurry-read this post first and then think about the matter.

Gameplay:

This is a racing game but not what you think. It will be useless (perhaps amusing) to compare it to games like NFS Carbon because it is not designed for pure gaming purposes. It has two racetracks-the Nurburgring sprint and the Nurburgring GT with three gameplay modes-practice, time trial and race weekend. There is also a multiplayer mode. This makes it obvious that gaming was not the original purpose of the game (sic). Then what was? If you’ve read the last post, you should know that this game was intended to boost sales buy giving players the feel of an M3 coupe. But does it succeed? The answer lies on how the gamers get the surreal feeling and this depends on the performance of the car on the racetrack. Well, the engine noise of the car in the game is loud but exhilarating, the gear shift noises are good and design of the car looks good. But this makes you think this virtual car is different from the real one. I can’t really say whether that’s true but if you’ve got an M3, the do let me know. The handling of the car in the game is very, very realistic but harder than the ‘unrealistic’ ones. Well, that’s the price you pay-even for a free game. The tracks are well designed-do let me know if they are the same as the real ones-with barriers in the right places, sand, grass and even a water body if you drive recklessly enough. The ironic part is that even though the game was made for the admiration of the car, it ended up making the track admired.

Features:

You won’t find many tracks here, nor many levels. In fact, there are only two of both in the game-two in Practice, two in race weekend, two in time trial and two in multiplayer. They are the Nurburgring sprint and Nurburgring GP. This is however, the first multiplayer game tested so far.

Story:

Did you expect a story here??? You are just a driver driving the M3

Difficulty:

The game is tough initially-especially because of the handling of the car’s handling but you’ll get used to it quickly. Here’s a tip-slow down on almost every turn.

Graphics and sound:

The graphics are the best among all the games I’ve tested so far but low frame rates register on my PC’s configuration. That means the game runs choppy. The music in the menu is good but the sound of the engine can be annoying sometimes.

Specs:

Gameplay:

9/10

Features:

7/10

Difficulty

6/10

Graphics

7/10

Sound

7/10

Overall

7.2

Age recommendation:

0+

Genre:

Racing

Developer:

Blimey! Games

Publisher:

10Tacle Studios Belgium


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Editorial-1 (what makes a game free)

What makes a game free?

All this time has been spent talking about free games. Some of these games could easily become your favorites. So why are they free? Why couldn’t the developers just sell the games and make money? Well, the list of reasons could be enormous.

1. Marketing:

A lot of these game cost almost nothing to develop except for time and temper. It’s not always someone gets a profit in the marketing business. If they were small time developers, the probably wouldn’t have recognition and therefore hardly anyone would buy their games. The cost of buying storage mediums like CDs would not be recovered and therefore, they would lose money.

2. Not up to mark

Would you pay money for a game like jumper? Probably not. Why? Perhaps because it was too tough, had bad graphics, inadequate story and no feeling of any surrealism.

3. Too short

Did you play Paroxysm? Then you probably wouldn’t want to shell out any cash for it. Technically, paying money for something that gets over quickly (except for food) is not something that everyone would want to do.

4. Just for fun

Some developers just create game for themselves to pass their free time. They know that there is no harm in sharing the games- after all, such sharing mentality is why we get free games. They don’t want to get involved in the hassles of marketing either

5. Supplementing Business

My next game review will be on the BMW M3 Challenge. It is a free game by BMW which you can find on their website. They feel that if people like the game, it may get them interested in buying their cars.

Overall, if you want to get a better understanding of this subject, compare one of your paid games to a free one. You should see the light.

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Specifications

Since this is the last day of the month, I decided to introduce a specs table for all the games I reviewed so far.

Name:

Frets on Fire

Hurrican

Jumper

Jumper 2

Mario Forever

Paroxysm

Gameplay

5

5/10

6/10

7/10

7

7

Features

7

5/10

5/10

4/10

N.A

6

Story

1

5/10

4/10

4/10

2

Difficulty

7

10/10!

10/10!

10/10!

8

7/10

Graphics

7

6/10

5/10

5/10

6

5/10

Sound

9

7/10

4/10

5/10

7

7/10

Overall

6

6.333/10

5.666

5.833

6

6.4

Age recommendation:

7+

0+

0+

0+

0+

12+

Genre:

Music

Side scrolling FPS

Side scrolling arcade

Side scrolling arcade

Side scrolling

Side scrolling

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Paroxysm

These bear traps may look useless at first...

Game Test 6

Ever wondered what it would be like to go through a difficult obstacle which seemed impossible to cross, and yet, finally manage to cross it in the bare minimum of time? Well, it gives a feeling of surrealism which can hold you breathless for a few moments.

Paroxysm attempts to give you just that feeling- when you start playing it, you feel that it is really hard-and it is-but as the days progress, and so does your determination to conquer it, you realize that it is not so difficult anymore.

Two the reasons why this happens is because the levels are short but difficult, and the number of lives you have is incredible- 50 for easy mode. Things don’t go so easy in single life mode. Also, your health replenishes really quickly. Yet another reason is that it is easy to get used to the game.

The levels are filled with traps- the variety you will see in the traps is not so great but they don’t get boring. The placement of these traps is quite good which provides for a fun filled level and not just which you slog through to cross. At the end of levels, you can see either two or one exits. The all lead you to different places. There are also four worlds-dungeon, factory, lab and the tomb. The total number of levels is 23. The gameplay is however, quite gory and my age recommendation (new addition!) is 12+.


Short Game

There is absolutely no story. I am NOT BOTHERED.

The soundtrack- especially for the factory is good. However, not much variation is present which means you can get bored over time. The graphics are slightly below average but that isn’t what we’re looking for here.

Verdict

An interesting game with just the right amount of difficulty. Very short though.

Specs:

Paroxysm

Gameplay:

7/10

Features

6/10

Difficulty

7/10

Graphics

5/10

Sound

7/10

Overall

6.4

Age recommendation:

12+

Genre:

2D side scrolling action arcade

+Fun

+Correct Difficulty

-Short

-Soundtrack gets boring

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No need for apologies anymore

The bugs in my blog are now trashed-the video is removed and replaced with a youtube widget which does however stop when you change pages. I have also removed some other ‘useless’ widgets too.
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Genres

Genres

Just as there are genres of music like rap, rock, pop and the like, games too have their genres. These genres can help determine the people who will want to buy them. Just as certain people buy music by their genres, so do gamers. So what exactly are genres?

Genres are how contents are categorized based on their characteristics. Of course, the genres of games will have totally different characteristics than that of music. So let’s move on.

Here are some genres:

1. Fps (first person shooter)

2. Racing

3. Arcade

4. Action

5. Puzzle

Some people even take the names of popular games as genres:

6. Mario

7. Sonic

Just so you know, my exams will be starting soon and I won’t be able to post before the 30th so please cooperate.

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What Goes Into Reviewing a Game?

What Goes Into Reviewing a Game?

Part 1: Exaggeration Is Out

You might be wondering how I review my games. Well, in reviewing a game, the most important thing you should remember is not to exaggerate any point of the game, no matter how much you like it. This is because not everybody shares the same interests as you. If you exaggerate points which are interesting only to you, the gamers will get a game which did not meet their expectations.

This will be a waste of other’s time and anxiousness. Your reviews may no longer be read by anyone other than those who like wild stories.

Let me give you an example by giving a sample review of Frets on fire which shows immense exaggeration:

Sound:

The sound in this game is totally surreal. You can’t find better sound anywhere else and the songs here are the best. Trash your music collection- this game is your new music collection.

And here is my review as I had done earlier:

It’s a sound game and has great sound- enough said.

Both you and I know that none of the descriptions are descriptive enough. However, the second review tells more accurately than the first one.

Exaggeration is okay once in a while as it tells of the game’s good portions but should be avoided whenever possible.

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The Gaming World

Ever wondered how many people out there are really into gaming? The results may surprise you but they do not give me the same feeling. Gaming is too indulging an activity to be ignored by the masses and everybody who is interested can get into gaming.

However, the costs of good games could be a put-off. Additionally, in today’s games, you can’t run many good games without spending some 60,000 or so in Indian Rupees on gaming PCs.

There are basically to solutions to rectify this- Gaming consoles like PS2s and Xboxes which are somewhat future proof and free games. With the development of games which are completely free, users can now feel assured that they can have long hours of entertainment in their homes. This basically signifies the importance of unpaid games.

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A turning point…


Alright, I have warmed up with my blog and am ready to tackle the blogging community. Now you will see more frequent posts and will make my content brief and descriptive.

You will see the changes on my next post-tomorrow and I hope you will like the morph. Now you’ll see a lot more than just plain reviews. You will be really lucky to see the transformation. See you!

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Sorry...

Apologies!!!

I have been noticing that none of the games I reviewed had a good rating. I am really sorry and quote that from now on, at least 70% of the games I test will have a rating of 7 or more. I plan on doing a minimum of 5 reviews per month and if you have any queries, feel free to give some constructive comments. I will also do some additional articles about gaming and this blog. I hope you like it.

Lastly, I also want to tell you about the widgets. I know that they are cluttered and they make the blog load slowly. Moreover, the video stops playing every time you click a link. I plan on changing all that but I will really be pleased with you if you can tell me what to keep and what to trash.

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Jumper 2

Ever wanted a game you could never beat, regardless of how good it was? If you’ve really enjoyed jumper or have even won the whole game (have you really?) then jumper 2 is the game for you. Still old school and like jumper- but a bit more difficult and without any editor. I’m not going to talk in detail about this game as you should already have read of my jumper review. If you haven’t, go and read it now.

Jumper 2 is the place where Ogmo’s back and ready for action. Now containing even more diabolical traps and better designed levels, you can bet on this game being better than the original Jumper.

The graphics are of the same goodness as before but the sound seems a little better. The lack of a level editor is a noticeable flaw which costs this game some points in the features section.

Verdict:

Better and more challenging levels but without editor which makes this game an average one.

Stats:

Gameplay

7/10

Features

4/10

Story

4/10

Difficulty

10/10!

Graphics

5/10

Sound

5/10

Overall

5.833


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Jumper

Those bored of graphics intensive and memory killing games will do anything to get back to the past in which a game was just played for fun. Jumper tries with success to bring this back while not compromising on anything. This results in a really fun game.

The game has an old fashioned story. In it, scientists unknowingly set loose a terrible creature. However, they never finished Ogmo. He has to escape. The objective is simple: reach the end of the levels. However, the gameplay is not half as easy as there are all sorts of traps just waiting to catch and annihilate you so watch out. I doubt you will really win the entire game. The difficulty does make you bored if you’re not ambitious enough.

The levels are not just this and that thrown here and there- all the traps together try to engulf you. However, one cannot help but think this placement is not close to perfect.

You do have a level editor in it which is simple to use. The drawback is that you cannot run custom levels from the main game directly.

The graphics are not good (what would you expect?) but the visuals are funky. The soundtracks can get bland and boring. However, since this is an old school game, I will not totally regard this game as dumb.

Verdict: Good enough for an old school, levels are good and the difficulty is really tough. But bad soundtracks used here really surprise me.

Genre: Arcade; 2D Side scrolling

Developer: Unknown

Download size=1.7MB

Hard Disk Space Required: 5.78MB

Stats:

Gameplay

6/10

Features

5/10

Story

4/10

Difficulty

10/10!

Graphics

5/10

Sound

4/10

Overall

5.666


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