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Originals

Circus Maximus

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Posted by: kombo

It’s games like this that make me love recycled trash. That, and people with 11 fingers. Yikes. I logged on to my favorite video game website today, only to be stunned by the variety of games being released with a variety of different concepts being released over a variety of different consoles. Seemed to me like the new “hit” amongst developers are “variety” games; a vaudeville of sorts. With all the successful different “new age” games, even including State of Emergency and Grand Theft Auto 3, you would not wonder why developers take the initiative to create fresh new ideas and products: they sell. Sadly, I must comment on the large number of new games that are just flat-out bad. The reasons are quite varied, from plainly unintuitive concepts to failed execution. Circus Maximus: Chariot Wars hits all those categories with a big “X” right across the board. Gameplay I don’t really understand the concept of this game. It’s just bad. Stupid. Moronic. Idiotic. Pointless. Foolish. Bad. With a maddening number of racing games on the market try to put drivers in the garage and under the hood, why would anybody try and think of putting drivers back into a scenario that happened thousands of years ago? Racing chariots—I don’t know, maybe it sounds exciting to some of you, but for the rest of the non-toga wearing people, it doesn’t sound to interesting to me. The game, like I mentioned up above, is about racing chariots in ancient Rome. The game makes an attempt at a story, but fails to provide a motive. You basically want to race, earn money, and become the best chariot racer in all of Rome. You do get to race all over the pleasing landscape of ancient Rome, including the Coliseum, the race track of every racing fans dream (Hmmm….). Winning those super-fun races earns you “dinari”, or money, so that you can compete in the next race! YAY. Circus Maximus has four modes for you to play: ·Circus: That’s arcade mode. Race in any unlocked level against 3 other chariot racers who are just as riveted as you are. ·Empire: Multiplayer. Work together with a friend who wants to commit suicide or fight each other. This one earns another “YAY”. ·Tournament: Career mode. Basically lots of races. ·Academy: The “Crazy Box” of Chariot Wars. Training and training missions inside here. I’ve been complaining a lot, so what is to complain about? Well, the Xbox controller has lots of buttons. Lots. And that’s a good thing! It enables developers to use them whenever they need them, and that’s a great thing. I encourage developers to use more buttons to make it easier to play games. I, however, do not encourage developers to create games in which you need to press every button at once. This is how the game plays: You control the chariot with the left analog stick. You control your warrior with the right analog stick. It’s getting sticky already, being as it takes two hands to do so with the sticks being so far apart. You will eventually need to use the triggers to make sharp turns. Now you have your hands all over the controller, in a carpal-tunnel conducing position. To maintain your speed, you have to keep your finger on the A button. Black, white, Y, and B buttons are attack command buttons, with Y being the block button. Take out your controller right now and try it: you will be in agony. If you DON’T press all the buttons at once, you are bound to fail at the game and be nothing more than a Circus Minimus. The developers at I have 50 fingers INC, did incorporate a nice auto-drive feature that lets you focus on attacking other chariots as they pass. Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a racing game? If you can’t drive, and just want to fight, go play a fighting game. While playing with my friend, he used the analogy of playing baseball on the bench, watching the active players. Riveting, no? Then again, you could always have a third-surgically implanted arm grafted onto your body. It’s a slightly expensive procedure, but you’ve got the cash, right? Racing is rather simplistic. Go around in an oval in a chariot. Exciting, isn’t it? Well, the game does offer various shortcuts to take, but they are so easy to spot you have to be conscious to see them—subconscious works too. I did think that the falling objects were quite cool at first, but then you realize that they fall in the exact same place at the exact same time on the exact same lap. It’s old, and a poorly implemented creative feature. The worst part about the game is that there is little to no entertainment value. Poor controls usually fall second rate if you are having a wonderful time playing a game. Subpar graphics even subside, as long as it’s a great experience. Circus Maximus isn’t particularly fun, however, as many factors ruin what might have been an entertaining experience. If you run into a wall, you crash, which totally takes you out of the race. Many races rely on simply luck, which is not a good component for racing games, which should require on skill. If you do somehow manage to get back in it, the combat is totally ridiculous. Even if you are practically stabbed to death, death does not exist, and you just get back into the race. It’s pointless. Graphics The warriors and chariots look pretty good. They have pretty good textures with adequate texture clarity. That’s where it ends. The environments are a little redundant and very boring, and they all feel like the same race tracks over and over. Being that there are only four chariots on the course at a time, slowdown is pretty nonexistent, which is a good thing. Animation isn’t bad, and horse legs move accurately, and chariot wheels roll nicely. Collision detection is also a problem. Hitting walls isn’t a difficult thing to do—go anywhere relatively near a wall. Collision detection is vital in a video game, making that a really, really big problem. Extras and extravagant after-race celebrations are also nonexistent. Chariot racing was one of the most decorated sport events in all of ancient history, with wine everywhere, roses flying, and screams echoing throughout the racing fields, all making it quite an experience to, well, experience. Circus Maximus lacks any form of that glamour, leaving it out and replacing it with… well, nothing. It’s really too bad, because that is where Maximus really could have excelled. Sound It’s never really been that important in racing games, so you can’t really be so harsh to this game for not excelling. The sound effects are nicely done. The grunts, screeches, and horse noises are accurately represented, and the male voices actually seem pretty good. The females, however, are beyond word. “Ohhhh yeah!” and “I’m a naughty girl!” are literally played time and time again. It’s horrible. The music is pretty good, although the sounds of trumpets and other music that was made famous by the movie “Gladiator” is all missing. Instead we get some lackluster grunts and screeches that supposedly make up the games audio soundtrack. The music isn’t too bad, but the taunts are just…hideous and crude to listen to. I hated Circus Maximus. That’s how I honestly felt about this product. I just wasn’t crazy about it. I did give it a fair shot, and I heard people actually liked it. I just didn’t. I don’t have 70 fingers or three hands, and collision detection in racing games MUST be good! Those are basic features in racing games. So where is it? I don’t know, maybe it will be in the next game. Or better yet, let there be no next game. --Kevin Ciok
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