First impressions so far after 2 hours are first: what resolution does this run at on X1? is it 900p upscaled to 1080p? It looks like 900p up scale, if it's 1080p native the distance blur is very very obvious.
I have issues with the lighting engine, being always dark 24/7 for me, i thought ok, so, if they do it right they could make the clarity nice, and for the most part it is, but the problem I have is the blur, the blur can be too much at times.
Sound, for the most part, cars sound good both rear and front exhaust and engine notes actually sound good, v-tec is a v-tec, inline 4 is a inline 4, however my issues is VOLUME, anyone have an issue with the game sounding too quiet? I have turn my speakers WAY up (and oddly, select TV mode) for it to sound loudest...which is really odd, i had to turn the music wayyyyyyy down for the cars to sound even remotely loud. Will need to try in on my PC setup with the X1 streaming as i have a much higher fidelity setup on my PC.
Gameplay/physics...actually, i've got to admit it's not as bad as I thought but man does it still feel a bit...odd. Cars feels relatively nice on the road, the "auto centre" thing when you drive off is extremely annoying, stop taking away control of my car, i know im not gonna hit a wall, let me sort that out, the physics and drift physics are...ok, i'd rather not be forced to drift when turning (perhaps I need to shift 100% into to GRIP MODE?) so that's a bit annoying otherwise...i could probably get used it. Having so much customization options locked at the start is also crap, why?! I wanna do it now, every opponent is running around with mods and there is me stock as anything, you have to level up to 20's at least to get decent stuff...poor move, very poor, should be available much earlier
However I will say now after a couple of hours with it, THIS GAME NEEDS FREAKING MANUAL TRANSMISSION! I don't care what ANYONE says, the lack of control when breaking with the auto shift down, the shifter selecting the wrong damn gears when going up hills/coasting round corners and the low rev auto shift is frustrating, limiting, and very controlling. This is obvious, try driving up a hill and see what gear it selects, ALWAYS the wrong gear! Try slowing for a corner and keeping the car in a high rev range when going round a bend...NOPE shift up/shift down automatically, no control over speed. GIVE US MANUAL is all I will say.
That above is my biggest gripe that I was right. The auto shifter is competent at best, dreadful at it's worst.
As for the story...lol, first 20 mins was a load of BS I didn't care about, just give me a damn car to race in I don't care about your over the top, forced acting and "yo yo yo" every 5 ****ing seconds, talk properly, or F off! All the people are boring criminal F+F stereotypes (even F+F has much much better and more likeable characters to be fair) and this stupid sexual feminist tension between Amy and the other douche bag is obvious and distracting...i simple don't care, yet, at least...I just wanna race, so the "tutorial" as sorts is too long, 20 minuts there was 5 mins racing 15 mins cutscenes, felt like I was playing MGS4 lol. Much better when finally opens up.
So far I am very 50/50 about it, there is a lot of bull ****, but there is actually quite a lot of depth and some fun to be had with the cars/customization, if they just removed the bull ****, opened up the game more, removed the crap story, gave us more cars and manual transmission and a proper day/night cycle this game would very very good, so far, it's extremely average after 2 hours, hopefully once you get past all the gated level content rubbish like level 44 to unlock this thing you should unlock within the first hour of the game...it gets better.
. Edited to remove some of the passion, down with censorship I say.
Can't believe I still have 2 months to wait til I can play it.
