TrackMania United (PC)

Slot car fantasies come to life in TrackMania United, the latest addition to the zaniest, most addictive arcade racing franchise to ever hit the PC. French developer Nadeo may stick a little too close to the original TrackMania and its sequel TrackMania Sunrise, but the concepts introduced in those games have been refined to near-perfection here. Dozens of insanely catchy tracks, fantastic online support, and a few new gameplay hooks will have you craving the next race the second you finish the last one.

If you decide to download this game from Steam (the only place it's available in the US), be aware that this a racing-game throwback--not the usual hardcore sim with a capital "S" that you tend to get on the PC. Ripping around and having a blast is the point here, not running telemetry until you can blow the doors off everyone at Daytona. Vehicle types here come with loose physics and a slidey feel more fitting of toy cars than of real hunks of metal and plastic. Cars even bounce when they fall from great heights, whether they hit pavement or water when they come down. Tracks are even more fantastic, typically featuring insane jumps, hoops hovering in midair, snowboard-style half-pipes, precipices high above desert canyons, and tropical-island highways that come to abrupt dead ends. And if you can think of a design even nuttier, you can make it yourself with the powerful, easy-to-use track editor.

All of this speedy craziness is experienced in three modes of play. Race is the most down-to-earth option. Like in Sunrise, you run time trials alone or against gold, silver, and bronze pace cars. However, opponents are just ghost cars to push you to better times, as you can't collide with them. Races take place in seven different track categories that unlock as you collect a requisite number of gold and silver finishes. Categories offer different scenery and racing styles. Stadium, for example, sees you guiding formula one-style cars around racetracks in concrete domes, while Desert features trucks on dirt roads. Rally boasts rally cars on grass in windmill-laden pastoral Europe, and Snow takes you to the mountains on ATVs.

Repetition is a bit of an issue when racing, despite the dozens and dozens of tracks included in the game. Each map type repeats the same scenic elements, only varying the time of day and adding glitz like red sunsets and neon nights. Still, you don't spend enough time on any one track to get bored. Tracks range from 10-second drags in the opening stages to slightly more winding treks that take a minute or two to complete. Also, the challenge is strong enough that you can find yourself running a race a couple-dozen times in a row to try to catch the perfect performance of the gold car. Just the slightest mistake puts you in second place, so don't underestimate the toughness of what looks to be a shiny, happy arcade game.

Racing can also be taken online. TrackMania United boasts an awesome online community in both Europe and North America, which lets you hook up with a race day or night. Lag is a slight problem at times, although typically only when loading and starting races. Once you get going, everything smoothes out. Nadeo keeps online leaderboards for different tracks, and also allows you to check your times against others by running official races in the solo mode. So if the basic gameplay doesn't keep you playing, trying to hit the top of the charts likely will. There seem to be thousands of different tracks available over the Net as well, testimony to the game's European fan base and the usability of the editor. These tracks can be downloaded and installed on the fly, although you need to purchase them in solo gaming with coppers earned from activities like posting good official race times.

But while races and the challenge of besting online times will hook you, platform mode will keep you coming back for more. This fiendishly addictive game (a revamped take on Sunrise's ramps tracks) challenges you to simply make it from start to finish without hitting a checkpoint restart too many times, but that's easier said than done when you have to deal with jumps that don't line up, holes that drop you into watery graves, tunnels that whip you around like a pinball, and outrageous one-after-the-other leaps to floating platforms suspended in midair. These tracks beautifully balance learning with driving skill. Even after you've run through a track a few times and memorized its pitfalls, funky driving is still required in order to stay on the road. This means a lot of trial and error...along with a lot of laughing as you continuously miss turns and cinematically sail off ramps to plummet hundreds of feet into the drink in front of gorgeous sunsets. Swearing alternates with the laughter, though, as getting a gold medal requires perfection, and perfection is gamepad-throwingly hard to come by.

Compared to the above, the puzzle mode of play is a big letdown. As in Sunrise, this option sees you building tracks from a top-down perspective. It's an interesting concept, though it seems as out of place with the other two modes as pizza does with rice, and solutions rarely seem logical. As the other options are such pure fun, puzzle really isn't worth much of your time.

But while puzzle makes you question what the developers were thinking, the visuals make you ask how the heck they managed to make a game look this good and run this fast. Frame rates fly on even a low-end machine, and tracks load in seconds (restarts are instantaneous), even though the appearance of the game hasn't been compromised at all. Tracks are designed around postcard vistas like tropical beaches, historic countrysides, and snowy cliffs. Big jumps often trigger the camera switching to a panoramic view of the action, further emphasizing the attractiveness of the backdrops and adding a Fall Guy feel. In-game advertising is the only sore point. When you're logged in online, the scenery is marred by billboards. It's not like tracks are clogged with signage, though, and the ads are region-specific (in Canada, for instance, you get billboards for Rogers and those irritating Bell Canada beavers), so you might see something of interest. Still, having to endure commercials in a retail game is every bit as galling as having to sit through ads in movie theaters.

Audio quality almost makes you forget about the annoying sales pitches, at least. Atmospheric effects are dialed way down for what should be an over-the-top arcade game with lots of squeals and smashes, although the selection of great tunes on the soundtrack mitigates this minor issue. Each song matches its setting, so you get a nifty country honky-tonk in desert races, a scratchy hip-hop beat in the city, and so on.

Overall, TrackMania United has a dreamy, fantasy vibe that could fulfill a kid's slot-car dream. Veterans of the previous two games in the series might find it too much of a been-there, done-that sequel, but it's perfect for anyone who appreciates speed, imaginative track design, and a definitively offbeat take on running cars around in circles.

Call of Juarez (PC)

We know about the genre known as the spaghetti western, but is there such a thing as a pierogi western? There is now, thanks to Polish developer Techland's Call of Juarez. An Old West-themed first-person shooter, Call of Juarez fits snugly into the solid little niche that games like Gun and Red Dead Revolver have already taken up residence in. The game is similarly hard-boiled and filled with gunslinging, horseback riding, train robbery, and all the other staples of the western genre that you might have already gotten your fill of. Still, for as few risks as Call of Juarez takes across the board, it's a well-made genre exercise that's more often entertaining than not.

The game puts you into the boots of two distinct characters. Billy Candle is a half-white, half-Mexican drifter of sorts who had been on the hunt for the legendary Lost Gold of Juarez, a treasure trove of gold buried somewhere within the titular town. Unable to find it, Billy decides to come home to the town of Hope to visit his mother and stepfather--only to find them murdered upon his arrival. The other character is Reverend Ray, Billy's step-uncle and the town preacher. Ray's a reformed gunslinger now dedicated to spreading the Lord's word, but when he hears of the ruckus going on at his brother's farm and arrives to see a panicked Billy running away from the bloody corpses of his brother and sister-in-law, Ray vows vengeance, and begins tracking his step-nephew until he can satisfy it.

The dynamic of having two playable characters would be more interesting if there weren't such a distinct separation of quality between them. The more entertaining of the two, both in story and gameplay, is easily Ray. Voiced by an actor who seems to be equally channeling Sam Elliott and the creepy priest from Poltergeist II, Ray's sequences are filled with enough amazing, self-righteous bible quoting immediately followed by heavy amounts of murdering that you almost wish they'd gotten Samuel L. Jackson for this role. Heck, Ray's even got what we'll affectionately refer to as a "bible button." One of the weapons he can hold is a bible, and if you press the fire button while he's holding it, he'll start reading random passages to any nearby enemies, who will then stop for a second to listen, at which point you can shoot them in their stupid faces. That's either genius or awful--or possibly both.

Apart from using the gospel as a weapon, you spend most of your time as him running around, shooting various hombres, rustlers, outlaws, and other unsavory individuals. His primary weapon is a pair of six-shooters, which he can actually use to bust into a slow-motion "concentration mode" when he draws them from their holsters. Doing this gives you a pair of targeting reticles you can guide toward any nearby enemies and then unload upon them. Ray also gets to engage in some straight-up gun duels against other gunslinging baddies. These are essentially the bulk of the game's boss fights, though they're very quick. In these fights, a counter ticks down, and when you get to the end, you quickly pull back and then press forward on the right control stick to draw. Once you do, your reticle pops up and the scene goes into slow motion again, though the reticle is a little off-kilter, as you did draw rather quickly. It's up to you to aim and shoot before the other guy offs you. You can't call these sequences brilliant, or even especially original (Red Dead Revolver had some similar mechanics), but they're fun all the same.

Less fun and generally more irritating are Billy's sequences. Billy can fire the occasional pistol, and even exclusively use both a bow and arrow and a whip, but nearly all of the scenarios he finds himself in revolve more around bad first-person platforming and overlong stealth sequences than any form of real action. The stealth stuff isn't bad, exactly. Billy can find shadowy or otherwise dark areas to hide in, as well as use bushes and boxes to hide behind, and that all works pretty much as advertised. The issue is that all the stealth bits take way, way too long. Waiting for your enemies to slowly wander through their patrols so you can move from shrub to shrub is about as fun as it sounds. In a few cases you can run and gun it if you want, but you're rarely ever properly armed for these types of situations, and as you are without uncle Ray's concentration ability, Billy just isn't quite as useful for gunfights. So instead, you're stuck spending 15 minutes just trying to navigate one camp full of bandits.

Less tolerable are the bouts of climbing and swinging. First-person platforming has never been a good idea, yet for some reason developers keep trotting it out in these sorts of games. It doesn't work here, either. Billy can climb up short ledges, use his whip to grab onto branches and other elongated protrusions, and then swing from one ledge to the next. The main problem here is perspective--when you're jumping around in the first-person, it's sometimes difficult to gauge the distance of jumps, so you end up trial-and-erroring it until you get just the right amount of distance. The whip-swinging thing seems neat at first, but it can be tough to get the right amount of swing momentum to hit certain ledges. Again, it's a trial-and-error process to figure out how much you need to climb up the whip to get the proper angle. And like the stealth bits, these scenes are just overly protracted. There's one obnoxious fetch quest in the middle of the game where you have to climb up a giant mountain for nearly a half-hour (counting time needed to die and start over), just to grab an eagle feather for some cranky old Indian, only to have to spend another several minutes jumping your way down. Creating a degree of separation between the two playable characters wasn't a bad idea, but this was perhaps not the ideal way to go about it.

Horseback riding pops up now and again for both characters, and it's an enjoyable distraction from the usual trudging around that you do. Controlling the horse is initially a bit of a pain, but once you get used to it, it's both a quick way to get places and a fun way to engage in combat. There are a couple of scenes where you'll find yourself blasting away at other bandits on horseback. Aiming while on a horse is tough, but that makes sense.

Controls on the PC version of Call of Juarez are, as you might expect, significantly different than the 360 version's. Aiming is certainly simpler with the use of the mouse, and whip swinging is actually a little easier as well, as you don't have to fumble around with analog sticks. However, other mechanics are made a bit clumsier by this control scheme. Ray's concentration mode now requires you to press two buttons at once to holster his weapons, and horseback riding, which was already unwieldy to control, is even tougher to deal with on the PC. The crouch mechanic also needs some key remapping to be useful, as the key has to be held down while you move, and default setting of the CTRL key just isn't comfortable.

Another key difference between the PC and 360 versions of Call of Juarez is content. None of the extra missions or gun duels that the 360 version has as separate modes are present in the PC version. At least you still get the same 8- to 10-hour campaign, as well as the same multiplayer mode. LAN and online versions of the multiplayer are available, too. The multiplayer is pretty typical class-based FPS-style action. You can play as either a rifleman, a gunslinger, a sniper, or a miner, and there is a variety of modes like deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag, VIP, and so on. The four classes are reasonably well balanced (though in skirmish modes, snipers seem to rule the roost), and there are enough different modes to keep the action interesting for a while. It helps that the game isn't kneecapped by bad weapons, as some historical FPSes tend to be in the multiplayer arena. All the weapons pack a nice punch, though each class is only assigned a pair of specific weapons, a primary and a secondary. There are no weapon pickups on the various maps. All told, the multiplayer isn't remarkable, but it can be fun.

In terms of presentation, Call of Juarez is all over the map, especially as far as graphics go. Environments are definitely the high point. As you wander around the game, you'll see tons of attractive Old West scenery, from mountain vistas to desert plains. It's great-looking stuff that's made better by some nice lighting effects and solid texture work (save for a few occasional ugly spots). On the other side of the coin are the character models. The people you encounter all have that sort of Doom 3 overly shiny thing going on, and they even look a bit mutated to boot. Animations tend to be stiff, clipping issues pop up quite often, and any time you catch a glimpse of what your own character model is doing, either in a reflection or a shadow, or just by looking down, you'd think you were controlling an animatronic robot from some ghost town tourist trap. Still, the problems are mostly outweighed by the positives, and the game as a whole looks good.

It looks noticeably better if you happen to have a video card that supports DirectX 10. On the higher resolutions, environmental details and grass/foliage are much denser and cleaner looking. Lighting and shadows are also more impressive. At the same time, even on a high-end PC, the game chugs a bit while running on the higher resolutions. It's nothing game breaking, but the frame rate drops quite a bit. It's also worth noting that on multiple test PCs, loading times for each chapter and multiplayer map were over the top.

Audio is less scattershot. Apart from some great sound effects and a soundtrack that nicely captures the atmosphere of the era, the game has mostly solid, if slightly hammy voice acting for nearly all the characters. Billy is the only one who didn't fare very well, as the actor who plays him sound like he's in as big a rush as possible to get out of the recording booth, but pretty much everyone else is on their game and delivers an entertaining performance.

As ham-fisted and generic as Call of Juarez can be at times, it does enough right to transcend its various issues and turn in a pleasing shooter. It does the Old West motif well, the gunslinging (and bible slinging) are a lot of fun, and the capable multiplayer modes have enough going for them to give the game a bit of staying power. It doesn't quite rise past the ceiling established by other recent western shooters, but it's good, solid fun all around. That said, if you have the choice, you should probably look to the Xbox 360 version. The PC iteration is good, but its lack of content for its price tag and slightly dodgy DX10 support prevent it from being the ideal choice.

Lost Planet: Extreme Condition (PC)

Capcom has opted to bring Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, its exciting Xbox 360 shooter, to the PC, complete with DX10 support. But all is not well with this port. Right off the bat, you'll detect signs of platform translation. The pop-up tutorials all refer to the Xbox 360 controller, leaving equivalent keyboard commands completely out of the equation--and if you're a keyboard jockey, the correspondingly awkward menu navigation will be the first thing you notice. You may also observe another major annoyance: Lost Planet requires you to be connected to the Internet via Valve Software's Steam client just to play the single-player game. Losing your connection during gameplay will cause the game client to quit, and since there are no midmission saves, you'll have to replay the entire mission from the beginning. Without the connection, the game can't start, and at press time, will not start even if Steam is in offline mode.

These are simple but exasperating blunders, but if you can overlook them, you'll find that Lost Planet's single-player campaign features a lot of cool action with larger-than-life shooting sequences. Furthermore, it's all capped with stunning visuals that surpass those of its console counterpart. Make no mistake: This is a beautiful game. You trudge through drift after drift of gleaming white snow, fending off towering insects in memorable scenes that will make your heart pound. The high dynamic range lighting is particularly stunning, and the game makes good use of it both in indoor caverns and wintry fields. It's also been touted as one of the first DirectX 10 titles, though running it in DX10 mode didn't yield any noticeable quality or performance differences. Either way, be prepared to turn down visual settings, as you need a beefy rig to run the game, let alone see it in all its frigid glory.

In Lost Planet you play as former snow pirate Wayne on planet E.D.N. III, a frozen wasteland teeming with buglike creatures called the Akrid. Wayne and his colleagues, including his own father, are attacked by a monstrous Akrid called Green Eye. After the assault, Wayne believes his father was killed in the incident, and the story plays out initially as a revenge tale. As the narrative progresses, however, it gets more and more convoluted as characters are introduced and the plot swerves out of control.

As you can imagine, you'll spend a lot of time in the frozen tundra, though you'll explore plenty of indoor arenas as well. As on the Xbox 360, you control Wayne from a third-person perspective, though you can zoom in to a closer view, or even use a limited first-person perspective if you like. Unlike the 360 version, however, the aiming reticle stays fixed in the center of the screen. It makes the PC controls feel less cumbersome, if a bit less original. They work just fine with a mouse and keyboard, though you can plug in a gamepad and play that way if you prefer. But even with its more traditional targeting scheme, Lost Planet moves at a measured pace. Wayne doesn't run all that quickly, and lumbering through heaps of snow slows him down even further.

You'll be spending a lot of time shooting bugs. Some of them flutter around and are nothing more than an annoyance. Others rise toward the heavens, swiping at you with pincers the size of snowplows. These are the moments where the game excels. The Akrid look and sound horrific and intimidating, and getting sideswiped will send you flying backward and underneath the drifts, causing plenty of confusion as you try to stand up and get your bearings. Granted, some of these assaults can be exasperating when you fall victim to a succession of attacks that make it almost impossible to escape unscathed, but it simply lends gravity to your struggles with these disgusting monstrosities.

That isn't to say that Lost Planet is hard, mostly due to Wayne's ability to collect thermal energy, or T-Gen. T-Gen is found throughout the game in glowing puddles left behind by fallen Akrid, or even within entire towers filled with the stuff. Your energy level drops continuously as you play, so you need to keep replenishing it lest you drop dead. When you take damage, T-Gen is used to restore your health--and since there's so much of it to be had, it's not often you need to worry about death. Some of the menacing bosses may take you to task, and these encounters are a lot of fun. They don't present much of a challenge though, as long as you quickly learn their patterns. On top of that, every Akrid has an obvious weak spot, identified by the glowing energy within. Target that spot and be mindful of the boss' movement, and you'll be fine in most cases.

You also get a grappling hook to play around with, which makes it easy to get to higher places and is occasionally used in some simple platforming sequences. It's a nice idea but underused, and you'll spend most of your time shooting guns and piloting hulking mechs called vital suits. Piloting a VS is pretty simple, and there are a few different types. Some of them can jump to decent heights; another can transform into a drill for bulldozing over enemies. But whether you're on foot or in a VS, there's a nice selection of weapons, from your standard assault SMG to laser weapons, and they all feel weighty and produce plenty of clatter and screen-filling explosions.

Yet you won't be spending all your time dealing with frostbite and overgrown cockroaches. Wayne gets plenty of harassment from human and mechanical foes too, indoors as well as out. Snow pirates aren't as interesting as the Akrid; they will often just stand there and let you shoot them without exhibiting many signs of life. Occasionally they'll try to tumble away or take cover, but for the most part, they're bullet fodder. VSs are harder to take down, but you'll often have your own VS to pilot, though a plasma rifle and a few grenades will turn them into scrap heaps in no time flat.

Lost Planet is relatively short, with each of its 11 missions taking between 30 and 45 minutes to complete, depending on whether you rush through to take on the boss at the end of each level. In theory, the multiplayer should help extend its life, though at this point, it's unclear if online multiplayer is even functioning properly. Prerelease online test sessions resulted in multiple disconnects, and a day after release, attempts to both host and join multiplayer sessions on multiple connections have never resulted in finding opponents. Local network play has at least been successful. The initial eight maps included with the 360 version are included--though, inexplicably, subsequent maps available for free download on the Xbox 360 are nowhere to be found here. Should you find a match, you'll find the maps to be large and detailed. There's standard deathmatch and team deathmatch, as well as a Battlefield-type game called post grab, and fugitive mode, which pits all players against a single defender. But it appears that online multiplayer is broken for many, and the issue is widespread.

It's a testament to strong game design that even with numerous technical and porting issues, Lost Planet's single-player campaign makes it still worth taking a look. But as visually dazzling as it is, the PC version can't quite reach the heights of its console counterpart, thanks to inexplicable design decisions and broken online play. It's too bad these issues weren't ironed out prior to release, but if you can look past them, you're bound to get a lot of enjoyment from shooting down colossal creepy-crawlies.