I chose MMV4 mostly out of nostalgia. I remember, way back in the day, when a friend and I would huddle round his Playstation and boot up MMV3, and I hoped that V4 could capture some of that fun, only for PC. As I booted up the game, I saw that much was the same. It had stuck with the cartoony menus and graphical scheme, and the controls were as simple as ever (only 7 keys are used in the game - 4 of those you'll actually use!). I also, however, was immediately struck by the knowledge that this was, in fact, just another rushed job.V4 excels, however, in unlockable content. There are 4 tournament styles, ranging in difficulty level, and each one consists of 4 heats, each heat built up of 3 races. Judging by the fact that each new track will be wilder and amaze you, and render the terrible controls useless on your first go or two, there's slightly more playtime than you'd expect here. When I read the manual as I was installing, however, everything seemed a lot sunnier. I practically fell off my seat when I saw that there were 750 unlockable cars, each arranged into racks and boxsets, but then I saw that out of those 750, there were only around 20 cars of different quality- the rest are just reskinned versions of a previous car, but strangely enough, I couldn't find a single good looking one in most of the sets!
Having said all these plus sides, however, I'd have to point out that the weaknesses somehow manage to outweigh them. What should have been a welcome arrival back into the gaming world was instead a cheap cash-in, virtually identical to it's predecessor in every conceivable way. Although it has fun in it's core, it's really nothing new and no care has been taken over the PC version's release. Here's an article from my latest novel, entitled ''How not to port a game from console to PC''.
Never, ever, EVER make the player type their name in by moving a cursor with the movement keys and hitting enter over the letter or number they want. What is this, a GameBoy? Never take away the means for a player to edit the graphical options of a game. The menus in this division should not consist entirely of ''Camera Style” Never map the controls so that it's virtually impossible to maneuver a car straight. This gentle turn up ahead doesn't need a high-speed 90degree turn, believe it or not. Use halfway decent physics, or try at least! If your game is powered by the world renowned Havok Engine (believe me, it's true!), the player shouldn't have to wonder what your tech-team were smoking when they implemented the friction or gravity. Never make the mouse redundant. EVER.
As you may have guessed, MMV4 has failed to adhere to any of these basic guidelines. All cursors and menus in the game are controlled by your arrow keys, and strangely, some menus require you use Enter to select, where others use the D key, meaning I've lost data which could easily have been saved if the programmers had put any effort in. Having said all this, MMV4 isn't a terrible game. V3 was virtually a masterpiece- it was fresh, exciting and original. V4 seems like... it's limping somehow. If V3 was the big blockbuster movie, V4 would be the fourth sequel. Or the TV series spinoff. Although there is fun to be had from a quick whizz around the kitchen table, this game really doesn't have enough to keep you interested, even accounting for the unlockables and multiplayer, or even the map editor, which is virtually redundant.
As a result, I would say that V4 is something you should buy for a young child, maybe 11 or under, but then again, you probably would have done that anyway. It's fast paced style means that whilst being played, nobody will lose track, and the difficulty settings are all just hard enough to keep people guessing, meaning it's never either impossible or a walkover. This is the sort of game that could it's true quality when played for 15 minutes before dinner with friends, or for 5 minutes while the news comes on between a movie. And that's the worst part about the game: it could be so brilliant, but is instead banished into the realms of mediocrity. It'll be forgotten in a month or two.
I'm 14 and I'm a student. I've always lived in South London, and don't plan on changing that anytime soon. I enjoy poor horror movies and good comedies. I love MMOs and FPSs mostly, but I play pretty much every genre there is.
