LA Rush
Publisher: Midway
Platform: X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Later this month
If you're already fed up with the recent hit driving simulator Burnout: Revenge and are after something a little more wholesome, but equally inane, then Midway's LA Rush is a pretty good place to begin.
Story driven rather than just being a chronological series of "win the race" games with differing objectives and aims, Rush has been designed along the same lines as the hugely popular Need For Speed series. Designers have reportedly recreated over 350km of Los Angles roads and seamlessly added a smorgasbord of highly convincing background detail.
The aim of the game is straight forward enough: get into illegal road races, avoid the law and become a champion. Along the way gamers get to earn cash bonuses, find hidden goodies, and of course, outrun police prowlers.
Unlike Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, where the law actually made an all out effort to nab you, Rush's AI is rather lacking in intelligence. The cops don't drive too well and outpacing them is easy. There are no roadblocks, no tyre traps and no helicopter support. While getting into a high speed chases with the LAPD should be one of the game's biggest selling points it is here rather a let- down.
Gamers are forced to concentrate on the road racing. There's nothing wrong with hurtling along LA's roads at a great rate of speed in a shiny sports car but it does become rather boring after you've won your third or fourth race and haven't even damaged you car.
Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2006
Publisher: EA Sports
Platform: PC, X-Box and PS2
Taiwan Release: Already available
Long plugged as the most realistic console/PC golf game on the market, the Tiger Woods PGA Tour series has successfully managed to outlast the competition thanks to the keen eye for detail exhibited by EA's superb design team. Courses look so real that you can almost smell the freshly mowed fairways and immaculately kept greens.
While the Tiger Woods standalone games are absorbing, most gamers will no doubt be spending most of their time in the career mode, or "rivals mode" as it is now referred to. Here gamers get to create a golfer with the aid of the top-notch "create-a-player" tool. The system is so good that gamers can either create a pretty good likeness of themselves or a totally outlandish character.
The "PGA tour mode" enables gamers to join the PGA Tour and take on a whole string of today's players and tee off on a dozen well-known courses. In the "career mode" gamers embark on a quest through time from the sports' early days to the present day. Players can use gear from the early 1900s and can even dress in frilly shirts and garish check socks. And like pervious games in the Tiger series, gamers get to try their luck against the likes of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus.
Sure, it's amusing for a short period of time, but as any golfer knows its not what you look like that counts, but how well you play. And this is where the game comes a wee bit unstuck.
Tiger 2006 still suffers from several annoying flaws that first came to light with last year's Tiger 2005. The most telling of these is the relative ease in which gamers can master everything from tee shots to long putts. Hitting a straight drive is slightly more complicated thanks to the "shape stick" -- which enables players to manipulate ball flight and spin -- but it is too easy to master.
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