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Hey, I like longish reviews. The small details of the gameplay can really make or break a game for me. I agree with you about Assassins Creed. I really enjoyed the game but it did get repetitive and I ended up quitting before beating the game. I really hope AC2 fixes some of that.
Fuel 5/10
The only thing this game really has going for it is a huge environment. It's 14,400sq KM and you can literally drive in free roam for hours in 1 direction and not reach the edge of the map. The problem with such a huge area is that it's extremely generic. There are few landmarks, and almost every road looks the same. There are things to collect but they feel very useless. They just let you customize your ugly vehicle with designs that you'll never really be able to see because you never see the front of your vehicle.
The driving physics are a little floaty, You feel like you're going to slide off the road going around every corner. In the game's defense though, if you hit the turn right and don't have an "oh shit" moment and let off the gas or hit the brakes you'll usually make it through the turn. Object interaction is a little iffy also. Going off road is a risk because you really don't know what you can drive through. You can pretty much drive through huge bushes but a small tree or a tree stump can stop a monster truck in it's tracks. Other objects like fences, and junk cars can be easily pushed over sometimes and other times it's like they're super glued to the ground and much like trees will stop you dead in your tracks.
The AI in the game has to cheat to compete. It's not exactly rubber banding per se, but on easy difficulty the AI will be extremely competitive until the last bit of the race and then they'll just slow down you and fly past them. On harder difficulty it's the opposite. You can be winning and at the end they'll fly past you. Also, instead of driving better on harder difficulty they'll just adjust the max speed of the CPU cars and it's really upsetting to see the CPU using the same vehicle fly by you while you're going max speed. One thing I like about the gameplay is the GPS. Instead of a single arrow pointing in the general direction you need to go, it pretty much has arrows going down the road you need to go. This makes it extremely easy to navigate to your destination when there's so many twists and turns along the way.
The graphics look decent but that's pretty much expected nowadays. In the distance, the graphics are really muddy and under detailed though. There is a lot of pop-in. It's not horrible up close pop-in like old PSX games but seeing things constantly spawning in the distance can be distracting. I've not decided if I like the day/night cycle or not. When it gets dark, it gets really dark. You literally can't see anything that your headlights aren't shining on. It's cool visually and immerses you in the game, but it makes it extremely difficult and it lasts forever.
Honestly, I wouldn't have given this game a second look and definitely wouldn't have written so much about the game but Xplay gave it a 4/5 and pretty much convinced me to buy it instead of a racing game which I had played and enjoyed called Pure.
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