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hkellickThis may get a tad long. I considered writing about Rush Hour yesterday, but I got caught up with other things (work, actually playing rush hour, etc.) so I figured I'd post a review of both games at the same time.
Let's start with the best first. Or when I got it chronoligically. Whichever. Between DDR and SimCity, I probably play SimCity 4 more. It's just THAT cool. I love making these (well, not realistic, but more realistic than ever) cities. I love watching all the numerous cars and trucks that pass by as they're "created" from different buildings.. fire trucks from fire stations, police cars from police stations, ambulances and medical copters from hospitals, TV news copter from the TV station, the props (there are a shitload of props that show the wealth and density of a place.. swimming pools, signs, plants and many many more) and etc. Playing SimCity 4 is a visual extravaganza, which, for me, just makes it so much cooler.
What SimCity 4 Rush Hour adds is a little more visual extravaganza... there are new types of transportation previously not in RH, for example, if you unlock the Marina, your water will now have boats of all sorts moving in and out of it: Speed boats, yachts, tug boats, etc. Unlock the lighthouse and, at night, you can see the light of the lighthouse playing across the city and water. Unlock the cruise ship port and cruise ships come in and out of your bay. Unlock the Spaceport and you can watch as a space shuttle blasts into the sky to deliver people to the new outer colonies therein.
Then there's U-Drive-It. I have to admit that, at first, I wasn't sure what to make of U-Drive-It, but having played with it, it, too, is pretty cool. First off, there's free drive where you can just pilot automobiles, trucks, helicopters, planes, boats and, assuming you unlock the right thing, even a small UFO, across your city. What vehicles you can drive depend on what's in your city.. if you own a police station, you can drive a cop car around. If you own a school, you can drive a school bus around (which, to me, is funny as hell, because you hear the kids on the bus and when you hit another car they're all making appropriate noises in the background). Own a dump and you can drive a dump truck. Own an army base and you can drive a tank (Yes, the tank is loaded with ammo and, yes, you can destroy lots with it.). What about other things? Own the hospital and you can pilot the medical chopper along. Unlock the fire landing strip and pilot a fire plane around. Unlock the Marina and you can drive cigar boats, tugboats etc. around. This, in and of itself, may get boring to you, but it gives you a REALLY good idea which of your roadways are being used most and where, if anywhere, things like traffic jams and car accidents are occuring.
Then there are the missions, many (maybe all?) of the things you can pilot come with appropriate missions. Take the mayor's limo out to a ribbon cutting, take your amulance out to collect a wounded person and bring him back to the hospital, take your cop car out to catch a car thief etc. Each of these missions comes with rewards if you win.. for example, unlocking of rewards like the Convention Center or City Hall or the Lighthouse. Sometimes money. Always positive or negative mayor's rating (depending on how good or evil your mission is.) And some of the missions are hilarious. If you have the fire engine, you can save the kitties.. or you can hose those little buggers down. It's all good.. or evil, as the case may be.
Let's not forget some important details.. Rush Hour offers a whole new set of buildings.. the Euro Contemporary based on Germany, a number of new transportation possibilities like one way roads, ferries, avenues, monorail and elevated light rail which will get your sims moving better from point a to point b. There are a whole HOST of new bridge options instead of whatever bridge randomly appears. There are a few new rewards (the Marina, the Spaceport, the Cruise Ship port), a few new landmarks.. but the real meat of the expansion pack is in the transporation tiles and the U-Drive-It.
I give this expansion pack 10/10.. It costs $20 (and you get a $10 mail in rebate in the US and Canada) and is chock full of all sorts of great new features. May all expansion packs add as much as Rush Hour does to SimCity 4.
Can't wait to see what expansion pack they come up with next.. hopefully some sort of Tourism pack (something that gives new sports teams, new rewards, new reasons for people to come into and stay in your city.)
OK, onto DDR Max2. I got that yesterday and while I've definately played it less than SC4: RH, I'm still liking it.
Here's the lowdown.. it is, indeed, a US version of DDR with more english (and european) songs and bands (Kylie Monogue, DJ Sammy, 2 Unlimited, Ian Van Dahl, The Crystal Method, Dirty Vegas.. if you listen at all to the radio or to movies, you WILL recognize some of these songs.) The focus on american and european bands is cool as it tends to lead to a set of new songs that you've never seen in DDR. Not only that, but DDR Max actually gives the real videos to some of these songs (both Captain Jack songs, which is neat. Especially as I like Captain Jack's stuff.)
The sad side is that some "Favorites" from previous releases of DDR are in: Jam and Marmalade, Silent Hill, Secret Rendezvous, Spin the DIsc, The Shining Polaris etc. These are all songs from DDR Max that I already have played. Some seem to be remixes of the songs on DDR Max and that's.. better. Others, like Secret Rendezvous. it's not only the song, but at least in light mood, the same bloody dance steps, I'd swear!
They've added a new type of mode.. Beginner, for people like![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
dawnstar and ecwoodburn who haven't played the game and may not be ready for three and four foot songs yet.. All very easy steps (I haven't played it myself, but I'd guess 1 to 3 foot songs).
A returning favorite (from other DDRs, but not, I think, Max) are the dancers. You can set various dancers to dance around on the screen in front of the video. At the moment, it's amusing, some of the dance steps these guys do is.. amusing, but I can see it getting dumb after awhile.
Oni mode is gone.. but instead they've got something called Nonstop mode which seems to operate about the same way. You have a set number of courses and you have to try and.. well, not fail. (Much the same as I think Oni used to)
There's a new way to unlock songs... basically it sets a number of points based on how many songs you play.. so a typical game you'll get three points for (three "Stages")... then you unlock at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc.. until 100... then it's 100 110 120 130 140 etc. There are 35 unlocks altogether.. some songs, some nonstop courses, some options etc.
All in all, I really like DDR Max2. I like the focus on American and Eurodance and I like the new songs :) I give this game 8 stars out of 10 (it might have gotten 10 if there weren't the repeat songs, with the same bloody dance steps no less!)
And finally, sans the cut...
I think this is actually fairly accurate. What about you dorks? :)
Let's start with the best first. Or when I got it chronoligically. Whichever. Between DDR and SimCity, I probably play SimCity 4 more. It's just THAT cool. I love making these (well, not realistic, but more realistic than ever) cities. I love watching all the numerous cars and trucks that pass by as they're "created" from different buildings.. fire trucks from fire stations, police cars from police stations, ambulances and medical copters from hospitals, TV news copter from the TV station, the props (there are a shitload of props that show the wealth and density of a place.. swimming pools, signs, plants and many many more) and etc. Playing SimCity 4 is a visual extravaganza, which, for me, just makes it so much cooler.
What SimCity 4 Rush Hour adds is a little more visual extravaganza... there are new types of transportation previously not in RH, for example, if you unlock the Marina, your water will now have boats of all sorts moving in and out of it: Speed boats, yachts, tug boats, etc. Unlock the lighthouse and, at night, you can see the light of the lighthouse playing across the city and water. Unlock the cruise ship port and cruise ships come in and out of your bay. Unlock the Spaceport and you can watch as a space shuttle blasts into the sky to deliver people to the new outer colonies therein.
Then there's U-Drive-It. I have to admit that, at first, I wasn't sure what to make of U-Drive-It, but having played with it, it, too, is pretty cool. First off, there's free drive where you can just pilot automobiles, trucks, helicopters, planes, boats and, assuming you unlock the right thing, even a small UFO, across your city. What vehicles you can drive depend on what's in your city.. if you own a police station, you can drive a cop car around. If you own a school, you can drive a school bus around (which, to me, is funny as hell, because you hear the kids on the bus and when you hit another car they're all making appropriate noises in the background). Own a dump and you can drive a dump truck. Own an army base and you can drive a tank (Yes, the tank is loaded with ammo and, yes, you can destroy lots with it.). What about other things? Own the hospital and you can pilot the medical chopper along. Unlock the fire landing strip and pilot a fire plane around. Unlock the Marina and you can drive cigar boats, tugboats etc. around. This, in and of itself, may get boring to you, but it gives you a REALLY good idea which of your roadways are being used most and where, if anywhere, things like traffic jams and car accidents are occuring.
Then there are the missions, many (maybe all?) of the things you can pilot come with appropriate missions. Take the mayor's limo out to a ribbon cutting, take your amulance out to collect a wounded person and bring him back to the hospital, take your cop car out to catch a car thief etc. Each of these missions comes with rewards if you win.. for example, unlocking of rewards like the Convention Center or City Hall or the Lighthouse. Sometimes money. Always positive or negative mayor's rating (depending on how good or evil your mission is.) And some of the missions are hilarious. If you have the fire engine, you can save the kitties.. or you can hose those little buggers down. It's all good.. or evil, as the case may be.
Let's not forget some important details.. Rush Hour offers a whole new set of buildings.. the Euro Contemporary based on Germany, a number of new transportation possibilities like one way roads, ferries, avenues, monorail and elevated light rail which will get your sims moving better from point a to point b. There are a whole HOST of new bridge options instead of whatever bridge randomly appears. There are a few new rewards (the Marina, the Spaceport, the Cruise Ship port), a few new landmarks.. but the real meat of the expansion pack is in the transporation tiles and the U-Drive-It.
I give this expansion pack 10/10.. It costs $20 (and you get a $10 mail in rebate in the US and Canada) and is chock full of all sorts of great new features. May all expansion packs add as much as Rush Hour does to SimCity 4.
Can't wait to see what expansion pack they come up with next.. hopefully some sort of Tourism pack (something that gives new sports teams, new rewards, new reasons for people to come into and stay in your city.)
OK, onto DDR Max2. I got that yesterday and while I've definately played it less than SC4: RH, I'm still liking it.
Here's the lowdown.. it is, indeed, a US version of DDR with more english (and european) songs and bands (Kylie Monogue, DJ Sammy, 2 Unlimited, Ian Van Dahl, The Crystal Method, Dirty Vegas.. if you listen at all to the radio or to movies, you WILL recognize some of these songs.) The focus on american and european bands is cool as it tends to lead to a set of new songs that you've never seen in DDR. Not only that, but DDR Max actually gives the real videos to some of these songs (both Captain Jack songs, which is neat. Especially as I like Captain Jack's stuff.)
The sad side is that some "Favorites" from previous releases of DDR are in: Jam and Marmalade, Silent Hill, Secret Rendezvous, Spin the DIsc, The Shining Polaris etc. These are all songs from DDR Max that I already have played. Some seem to be remixes of the songs on DDR Max and that's.. better. Others, like Secret Rendezvous. it's not only the song, but at least in light mood, the same bloody dance steps, I'd swear!
They've added a new type of mode.. Beginner, for people like
dawnstar and ecwoodburn who haven't played the game and may not be ready for three and four foot songs yet.. All very easy steps (I haven't played it myself, but I'd guess 1 to 3 foot songs).A returning favorite (from other DDRs, but not, I think, Max) are the dancers. You can set various dancers to dance around on the screen in front of the video. At the moment, it's amusing, some of the dance steps these guys do is.. amusing, but I can see it getting dumb after awhile.
Oni mode is gone.. but instead they've got something called Nonstop mode which seems to operate about the same way. You have a set number of courses and you have to try and.. well, not fail. (Much the same as I think Oni used to)
There's a new way to unlock songs... basically it sets a number of points based on how many songs you play.. so a typical game you'll get three points for (three "Stages")... then you unlock at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 etc.. until 100... then it's 100 110 120 130 140 etc. There are 35 unlocks altogether.. some songs, some nonstop courses, some options etc.
All in all, I really like DDR Max2. I like the focus on American and Eurodance and I like the new songs :) I give this game 8 stars out of 10 (it might have gotten 10 if there weren't the repeat songs, with the same bloody dance steps no less!)
And finally, sans the cut...
I think this is actually fairly accurate. What about you dorks? :)
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(no subject)
Date: 2003-09-25 11:29 am (UTC)I will probably pick up MAX2 at some point just to add to the variety, but I won't be in a rush.
As for SimCity4, I'm still not sure it's something I would play much, but I'd like to try it at some point.