Why am I wasting your time with this? Well, Big Race USA is a reviewer's blessing and a reviewer's nightmare rolled into one. For fans of the Pro Pinball series, purchasing this game is the ultimate no-brainer; if you liked Pro Pinball: The Web or Pro Pinball: Timeshock, then BRUSA is absolutely without question your next purchase. End of story. The nightmare begins when I attempt to defend my high rating of this game to the people out there who didn't play any of the Pro Pinball series, who don't like pinball games (real or virtual) or just never gave them any thought. That's where my skills as an evangelist come in - how can I 'sell' a pinball game to Quake players? How can I 'sell' a pinball game to readers who may have never played an actual coin-op pinball game in real life? You see, there is more to BRUSA than a typical pinball game. This isn't just the game for people who love pinball; this is also the perfect game to get those who don't know about, like, or care about pinball hooked on the lights and bumpers for good. BRUSA is the perfect introduction to pinball for those who typically wouldn't be caught dead with their hands on some flipper buttons. Bigger, Badder, Better As I said previously, fans of the Pro Pinball series already know what to expect from BRUSA. Amazing visuals, eerily perfect ball physics, uncanny table physics, a fun plot and totally original content. Each Pro Pinball game seems to get exponentially better than the last, and BRUSA is no exception. Just a short list of the new features BRUSA brings to the 'table': Millions of colors, real-time motion blur, ball slide and ball spin, real 'airball' (ball leaving the table) shots, intelligent dot-matrix display, and head-to-head LAN and Internet play (yes, you read that correctly!). Add to that a plot-driven game with multiple modes, an excellent Dolby Surround soundtrack, celebrity voice impressions, totally customizable table with real operator's menu and ten-ball multiball, and you basically have a world-beater; no other pinball game I've seen on Mac or PC comes close. Hell, few arcade machines come close. Pinball from the Quake Player's POV Let's face it; a pinball game is a tough sell in today's 3D-accellerated world, when so few actual physical examples of pinball tables exist, and those that you do manage to find in the darkened corner of a sports bar are in terrible repair. Pinball seems so square, so '80s, so 2-D. I've tried to get a few of my friends as hooked on pinball as I am, and their responses are pretty textbook: "it's too hard," they moan. "You don't have enough control," they groan. "It's too random, you have no real way to be consistent," they claim. Those are fairly typical complaints about pinball from people who have never really played it; frankly, it takes years of experience to get good enough at pinball (and even to get good enough at a particular machine) to be able to score well consistently. There is also a difference of paradigm here: the majority of computer games feature an opponent or opponents that you must 'best' in order to 'win'; in pinball, you essentially play only against yourself. I think that is the primary reason behind the extreme frustration factor that pinball tends to inflict on new players - if you have a lousy game, you have only yourself to blame, not cheating monster AI or a low-ping network opponent. So what does Big Race USA have to offer those uninitiated in the ways of pinball, or turned off by past experiences?  A Radically New Twist on an Old GameFeature-wise, BRUSA is a tremendously detailed attempt to mimic the experience of an actual pinball game, from the realistic physics to the lights and sounds to the rust-spots visible on the pinball itself. Yet BRUSA also does pinball one better - and does it numerous ways. Unlike the arcade machines, you can select a difficulty level, reducing the frustration factor. Unlike the real machines, you can pause the game to wipe your sweaty hands. Need I mention the endless supply of quarters? And unlike the coin-op versions, you can play against someone on a LAN or anywhere in the world via the Internet - head to head, in realtime. Pinball Deathmatch?! No, not quite, though it is a survival challenge of sorts. In head-to-head play you don't actually see your opponent or their pinball table; screen real estate won't allow for that. Instead you both compete at the same time to reach a specific set of goals within a time limit. Play consists of three rounds, City Challenge, Taxi Duel and The Big Race. Basically, you have to make "lit" shots or targets more consistently than your opponent and do so in sequences that guarantee a bigger score (such as combo shots and repeated shots.) Your actions have a direct consequence on your opponent and vice versa; for example you can deflate your opponent's 'air bag' (a bonus that partially blocks the main 'drain' [ball trap] for a period of time) by inflating your own. So it isn't just flailing for points; a lot of strategy comes into play. You can play Ladder games, where your rank and score are entered on a worldwide scoring table like the ranking system on Myth II: Soulblighter's Bungie.Net. Or you can play friendly matches where the final score doesn't go on your permanent record, so to speak. Internet play is intense. Lag is not an issue, as the only data being traded is your opponent's score and table status; the actual ball position doesn't seem to be necessary. I never thought I'd find a better thrill than the sweaty-palmed gut-wrenching battles I've had on Bungie.Net, but BRUSA comes very close. You have to learn how to trap the ball and hold it, stay cool, and watch your opponent's moves very carefully if you want to win. It is a radical departure from how the game is usually played. In other words, it is pinball for people who previously hated pinball or found it boring. Sights and Sounds I'm not going to go on and on about the amazing visuals and sparkling table design of this game, because you can experience these for yourself by playing the demo. If your jaw doesn't drop the first time you see the ball do a "spinout" after a glancing flipper hit, I'll eat the box. Suffice to say that the 11kHz sound and 640x480 visuals of the demo get exponentially better with the full release. Perhaps most remarkable is the original soundtrack; a deft mix of techno, drum-and-bass, smooth jazz and incidental music, it is extremely listenable and often downright groovy. A minor complaint is that many places your ball can strike on the table are totally silent; my guess is that this was done as an aesthetic issue, because the clatter of the ball would drown out other, more important sounds such as bonus awards. Numerous vocal samples are included, and randomized for certain actions so you don't hear the same voice over and over again. Among the numerous phrases are several celebrity voice impersonations, including Darth Vader as a sheriff's deputy and Forrest Gump as a monster-truck driver. Pinball with a Plot? All pinball games have a plot; like movies and television, not all plots are good, in fact many of them stink. The purpose of the plot is to set a series of goals before the player, with the prize for completing certain parts of the story being access to higher levels of the plot and bigger bonuses. The best example of a pinball plot I've seen is Little Wing's Crystal Caliburn, which took you though the Arthurian quest for the Holy Grail.  How does BRUSA stack up? Admirably well. You play a mind-mannered taxi (in this game, cars are substituted, Herbie-style, for the personalities of their drivers) who has to pick up passengers, deliver them to destinations, travel from city to city and enter the occasional race. There are two modes, In the City and On the Road; each offers a different set of goals and bonuses. Each city on your route across the USA features a different 'feature'; clearing that 'feature ' results in a bonus that grants you access to the Really Big Race at the "end" of the game.The goals are logical, and one thing leads clearly to another; the combo shots you have to complete are challenging, but make sense for the particular goal. This is greatly aided by the crystal-clear layout of the table and some extremely clear diagrams in the 58-page manual. Overall, BRUSA is extremely challenging. I think a few of the ramps are too tough to hit consistently, and the upper right corner is very crowded with targets compared to other parts of the table, but these are minor problems. The game really starts to shine after you learn to hit the ramps and combo shots consistently - not an easy goal by any means, nor should it be - and the logical, smooth flow of the gameplay becomes apparent. A Question of Speed Many people believe only first-person shooters and 3D games really tax your processor, but speed is critical in a very unique way with pinball games; they depend absolutely on timing and responsiveness of the controls. Just as a dropped frame might cause you to misjudge that rocket coming at you in Quake III, a stuttery ball will cause you to fudge your shots in BRUSA. When you add 24-bit color, motion blur and 10-ball play to the mix, speed becomes a critical issue indeed. This brings up perhaps my harshest criticism of this game: The minimum processor requirements, a 100 MHz PPC processor (which obviously includes 601 machines, since they were the only PPC machines that slow) are utterly, totally ludicrous. Empire did themselves a great disservice by setting them so low. Even with mono sound, 640x480 256-color graphics and all ball special effects turned off, BRUSA wasn't totally playable on my 200 Mhz 604e machine. It was fine with one or two balls, but make that three or four and throw in some flashing target lights and the game gets choppy right at the critical moments in which you need the most responsiveness. I would say that a 233 Mhz G3 with 64 MB RAM would be a minimum system for perfect 640x480 play in thousands of colors (it is a crying shame to play this game in 256 colors.) Will all the eye-candy options turned on and 1024x768 resolution, the game still stutters a bit during multiball on my 400 MHz Blue G3. I can't think what kind of a monster machine it would take to run the game at its maximum resolution of 1600x1200. I'm not saying BRUSA is a slow game; on the contrary, it seems faster than Pro Pinball: Timeshock on the same hardware. But you definitely need some serious computing iron to see this game in its full glory, and anyone trying to run it with a 100 MHz 601 is bound to be grievously disappointed. But that's the great thing about a demo; give it a whirl and see if it is fast enough on your system before you buy. Cruisin' Across the USA So is this the game to convert Quake players to pinball? I think it just might be. It adds enough innovations and eye candy to an aging genre to make anyone second-guess their attitude towards pinball. Add to this the nearly endless tweakability of the table, extreme graphic detail and great sound, and this game is a winner in all respects. High processor requirements ae a drawback, but gamers already know you have to have the big hardware to get the real eye candy. BRUSA is one game that totally lives up to its name and the on-the-box claims; it is a huge leap forward for electronic pinball, and a game even the most amazing pinball wizard will be challenged and intrigued by. If this game's realism and visuals don't floor you, then go buy some green sunglasses, because you are officially jaded. I hate to end an otherwise positive review on a sour note, but I did learn something at E3 that disturbed me: BRUSA's Mac sales have disappointed Empire, and they currently have no plans to bring their next pinball game (now in development) to the Mac OS. One of the reasonsfor this is that the game is really hard to find, none of the Mac-only online stores are carrying it, and it isn't in the major Mac catalogs either. Your best bet is calling Empire directly at (800) 216-9706 to order, although you'll pay top dollar for shipping. If you want to see more games from Empire in the future, you need to buy BRUSA and encourage a few friends to do so as well. Personally, I think they need to bundle the demo (along with many others) with every iMac, but hey, I'm just the messenger. Pros • Jaw-dropping visuals, amazing ball physics, and the fantastic 'feel' we have come to expect from Empire titles • Real ball spin and hop • Detailed, clear table rendered at high resolutions • Special effects such as motion blur, magnets and lens flares • Involved plot with multiple modes and branching goals • A killer soundtrack of catchy, original tunes • Detailed manual with full explanations of rules and table tweaks • Real operator's menu for ultimate tweakability • HEAD-TO-HEAD INTERNET PLAY. Need I say more? Cons • Minimum processor requirements a joke; needs a G3 to really strut its stuff • Some shots are still too tough for those new to pinball to make consistently • Head-to-head interface is a little primitive • You might never set foot in an arcade again
|
