Racing Games: Need For Speed World and Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise
Burnout Paradise is another of my favorites. It's a shame that developer Criterion Games got redirected to the Need For Speed franchise. While Most Wanted was great in its own regard, and indeed the spiritual successor to Burnout Paradise, it lost a good measure of Criterion's cheeky attitude in the process.
Regardless, Burnout Paradise still looks fantastic, and it's a wonderful example of a console port done right. The game runs well on entry-level hardware; we were able to set it at the tablet's native 1280x800 resolution, albeit with minimum detail settings.
In my opinion, an analog control stick is essential for racing games, and the SteelSeries Free works like a charm. Unfortunately, GestureWorks' Gameplay profile for Burnout Paradise didn't work for us, though the developers got it working on their end.
I'm happy to say that Burnout Paradise is very much playable on Dell's Venue 8 Pro.
Need For Speed World
Free-to-play MMOs aren't limited to RPGs; EA entered the fray with Need for Speed World. You can spend virtual winnings from street races to buy cars, upgrade your ride, and customize paint jobs and liveries. The game oftentimes feels like pay-to-win. Still, you can get a lot of enjoyment out of the title without putting any cash into it, so long as you don't mind the grind.
The worst thing I can say about this game involves its terribly limited gamepad options. The list of supported hardware is very short. Its a complete mystery as to why Need for Speed World doesn't recognize generic Windows gamepads, but we weren't able to get it working with the SteelSeries Free. And I couldn't get the game to launch with GestureWorks' Gameplay controller enabled. So, I took it for a spin with the Bluetooth mouse and keyboard combination instead.
We set the game to the tablet's native 1280x800 resolution with the level of detail set to Low (one notch above minimum).
The game runs smoothly on a tablet. I noticed a few dropped frames at launch, but performance was consistent after that. Of course, latency issues are more of a worry during multiplayer races, but that problem is just as prevalent on the desktop.
