E3 2013: The Racing Games - VisceralBishop's Blog

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E3 2013: The Racing Games Stuck

Posted on June 11, 2013 at 03:06 PM.

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With each new console generation, we always get a handful of racing games. This time it�s no different, with some big franchises and even a new IP being at E3 this year. So without further ado, let�s start talking about each one.

Forza Motorsport 5:

Driveatar was the biggest news to come out of E3 for the game. A.I. is essentially a thing of the past because the cloud will deliver �real human behavior� by learning how you and your friends drive. So even when you�re not racing and are offline, your Driveatar is still out there racing and earning XP for you. This is simply fantastic since the A.I. in most racing games are the same and rarely do anything different from race to race to make them more fun or interesting. With this, you have to be sure to stay on your toes. Out of the racing games shown during the press conferences yesterday, Forza got me the most excited.

Oh, and Forza Motorsport 5 is also a really pretty game.

Need for Speed: Rivals

Hot Pursuit 2 is basically what this new Need for Speed game is. Though that is not necessarily a bad thing. With Criterion Games assisting Ghost Games on Rivals, I see a lot of potential with it. Being a next gen game on the Frostbite 3 engine, obviously it looks pretty sharp and the gameplay does look more like Hot Pursuit than last year�s Most Wanted. However, when it comes to the gameplay, one thing has always irked me about the Need for Speed franchise: the A.I. When it comes to rubberbanding A.I., NFS has always been the worst at it. Although I highly doubt that has been addressed with this iteration, one can hope. Even if that is not addressed, the highlight of this series has always been the multiplayer. I have a lot of faith in them that will stay incredibly fun.

The Crew

Visually, The Crew looked the worst out of the three racing games I�m talking about today. But looks are definitely not everything, and the ideas revolving around The Crew sound awesome. The gameplay that was shown reminded me a lot of the Fast & Furious movies, and UbiSoft claims it will �change the status quo� for driving games. A persistent, online representation of the United States means that you can go from New York to Miami in an instant, without any load times. Making a MMO racing game sounds like it could be very successful and even with the lackluster visuals, I hope it achieves that success.

If multiplayer is not your thing, fear not, there is a single player component to The Crew. And if MP is your thing, that single player can be completed with the assistance of your crew.

Driveclub

Not a whole lot of new information was revealed for Driveclub (it will be available as part of PlayStation Plus on day one), but if you want to know more about the racing game from the MotoStorm devs, you can find that here.

What were your thoughts on the racing games we saw yesterday? Let us know in the comments below.