Monthly Archives: November 2008

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Midnight Club Los Angeles

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Midnight Club 3 Dub edition was one of my favourite driving games. It was just so much fun racing around the city in blinged out cars, bikes and suvs. It wasn’t too easy, but it had just the right amount of difficulty to keep you interested. Although Midnight Club Los Angeles differs from Dub in that it is bigger, better looking, better sounding, and the online functions are smoother, the extreme difficulty of the game puts you off that “just one more race” feeling of its predecessor.

The story set up is you’re a hotshot from the east coast come to LA to participate in races and score lots of loot. As you race, you gain reputation which will unlock more races, unlock parts for you cars, unlock new cars and bikes, and reward you money so you can afford to upgrade your vehicle. Pretty standard fare really.

There are different colours of races – Green, Yellow, Orange and Red, meant to indicate the toughness of the race. I say “meant to”, because there doesn’t seem a whole lot of difference between green and red in reality. The difficulty of this game isn’t hard, it’s brutal, so be prepared to lose. Often. Be prepared to be leading a race from start to finish, and losing at the last second because you slightly swipe a car in traffic and go careening off the road. Often it’s better to just let go of all the buttons and come to a stop. Or select Start > Restart Race.

I found the physics to be really detrimental to my efforts at driving. When you drive really fast the camera blurs and the cars get speed wobbles, making it really hard to drive at speed, especially down curvy streets with parked cars on the side. If you so much as skim another vehicle you will lose control and start to spin. Of course once this happens, the natural instinct is to compensate, which makes everything much worse.

Moreover, even when you’re in the clear in a race, out in front by a number of street blocks, the ridiculously tight rubberbanding – the AI code used to make the other cars catch up to you – kicks you in the pants and will overtake you, even though mere seconds ago the car wasn’t even on your radar. Although I didn’t find myself ahead often, I was beaten enough times after leading the entire race that I’m positive the cars teleport metres behind you when you get too far ahead. AI Controlled cars seem to never hit parked cars or on-coming traffic as often as you do, either, but instead take perfect lines through traffic and obstacles. Even if you try and follow them, you’ll find often they make gaps that a normal driver could simply not make.

What makes this the more frustrating is you’ll get to a point where you simply have no option but to race the same race again and again and again. Yes, you’ll learn the race and the lay out and the shortcuts (the AI cars take these too, however) but it seems that no matter what you do, how well you drive, that it is simply luck that sees you win or lose, and not your skill, patience or knowledge of the tracks.

Another problem with the game is the map. The overhead “google maps” type navigation system looks quite slick, but it’s wearisome to use. You can’t get GPS style readouts at all, and often it’s not entirely clear where to go, especially in some of the “open” races or delivery missions. And the game has the problem of having some obstacles looking like you can drive through, and others which will bring you to a dead stop.

The annoying thing is not all the races are as bad as each other. Time Trials are ridiculously harsh, and races with more than 2 cars are controller throwing maddening, but it is the Delivery missions take the cake of everything that is wrong with the game. You’re just racing the clock; you are given a marker on the map, and told not to damage the car – what could be simpler? Yet the slightest bump will knock a huge slab of the damage meter, the time is preposterously short, and all the while you’re constantly pulling up the map to see if you’ve taken the right road to get to the location.

However Freeway races are really quite fun, as there’s only one other racer and up to 8 lanes of freedom to weave between traffic. It’s also easy to know where to go – simply stay on the freeway. And simply cruising around looking for the hidden packages to unlock the cheats is awesome fun! Cop chases are a thrill – they’re supposed to be right behind you! And swiping a car, spinning around, and zooming off in the opposite direction is often a godsend compared to the rest of the game.

Online racing is fun as well. Of course, being human opponents, you know the races are much farer, and lag never seems an issue. You can opt to simply cruise around Los Angeles, chatting with people and then propose a challenge which gets you into the races. You can also jump straight into a race from the menu. Races take the forms found in the offline game, but you’ve got the option of turning traffic off, as well as making your own races. There’s also capture the flag races, when you race to capture a flag and then race to another point to win. These can take the form of team games, and is comparable to my favourite xbox game – Midtown Madness 3.

No doubt about it, MCLA looks sweet. The city feels realistic, even if the driving doesn’t. There’s enough variety in the city to make you want to explore, from long highway straights to windy hilly roads. As you cruise around, you’ll notice advertising, but it’s subtle, like 7-11 branded service stations and the occasional Pizza Hut. No idea if these are in the same place in the real city of Los Angeles, but it does aid a little in navigation.

The cars all look great, but there are only 44 cars and bikes to choose from, which feels quite limited compared to other games. The customisation of vehicles is pretty deep though, allowing you to change the hoods, sides, wings, doors and so on, as well as use real world branded parts. Although not as deep as Forza, for example, you can even share and rank other people’s cars online.

Sound wise the game is also respectable. The cars sound grunty enough, and the screams of the people on the sidewalks as you cut corners are hilarious. However, the AI will taunt you during all races, and as you often race the same people and same races, it gets tired real quick. Also being based on the west coast, everyone sounds like a stereotypical gangster. I was really impressed with the music – lots of bass type music like hiphop, breakbeat, and techno, with a bit of heavy rock thrown in as well, but it will tend to repeat itself more frequently than in other games.

Conclusion:
Midnight Club Los Angeles is a decent game in all respects apart from the insane difficulty. The good races are great, and online modes are lots of fun. I realise some people like high difficultly in games, and get a great feeling of achievement when they beat the AI. However, in MCLA the difficulty borders on masochistic, and to me it isn’t very fun when you’re improving your driving, improving you car, to be beaten time and again at the last minute, and playing the same race over and over again.

Pros:
Great looking racing game
Deep customisation of cars
Realistic feeling city of LA

Cons:
Insanely difficult.
Physics and camera effects when racing fast hinder play
Map, whilst clever in design, doesn’t really do a good job
Repetitive and annoying AI taunts during races

75/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

PES 09

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When I played Pro Evolution Soccer for the first time about 3 years, I was instantly sold on it. Sure, the game had funny names for teams and players, and the presentation was poor, but none of that mattered because the gameplay on the pitch was so good. It was the first time I felt like I was playing a game of soccer that closely replicated the actual physical game. The player’s skill numbers actually felt like they meant something, the team play was terrific, and the game felt responsive and fun.

But oh my, how the mighty fall. PES 09 doesn’t feel like the same series I fell in love with 3 years ago. Although there have been some improvements in getting real teams and players and adding some new modes, the actual game itself seems to have suffered as a result. Although it’s on the same engine as it has been for the last 3 years, there is an enormous gap of quality between PES 6 and PES 09.

The first thing I noticed which has changed for the worse is the team play. I can’t understand why it has changed, but players seem to flock around the ball rather than play the field. They’re often out of position or worse, get in one another’s way. This is particularly true of defence, and it means the opposition will find holes in your defence more often than they should. Players no longer make decent runs, or will run straight into opposition players instead of seeking out open space.

Passing has changed so now you hold the A button for longer passes. This is a good idea on paper, but let down by poor implementation. Often a player will run to the ball, but it will suddenly decide it can’t get their and stop their run. And I mean stop to a complete standstill while another player gets the ball, or to simply watch the ball go out of bounds. PES has always played along the 8 directions of the joypad, but now it seems if the ball and player aren’t lined up completely, the game gives the ball up.

Worse still is the physics. The ball now simply doesn’t feel right. The ball feels ultra heavy – it will stop dead far sooner than it’s meant to, meaning through balls feel wasted most of the time. And although PES has always had a problem with the ball bouncing off players, now it seems even worse. Players scramble over the balls, with the ball bouncing off players like a pinball.

Then there’s the issue PES always has had that still haven’t been addressed. Like throw-ins, where the opposition has an exclusion zone preventing the player from positioning and pressuring during the throw. FIFA 09 allows players to jostle during thrown balls, and this artifice of PES makes it seem really outdated. Also trying to score from free kicks still feels as pointless as ever. Yes, you can score, but the ability to get it right still feels like luck instead of skill. And turning kicks at goals still fly over the bar every time, no matter how much or how little power you apply.

It’s not all bad, and you will still experience some of the brilliance of the former games. Although crosses seem a little weaker, volleys still look and feel awesome when they smash into the back of the net. The pace is brisker than FIFA, yet measured. Results are still far more realistic. Although 5-nil games aren’t unheard of in PES, the occurrence isn’t nearly as frequent as FIFA, even when playing on the easier settings.

PES 09 has secured the rights of the UEFA Championship League, which is quite the coup. You can choose to play this league right off the main menu, and like previous titles, the league mode is as great as ever. You will get sick of hearing the UEFA music though. And PES still has the better manager mode, and once you get into it, the deep gameplay will have you rapt. The player improvement and transfers and all the other things which make this mode great are still in place. And now even the menu system is slightly less convoluted as before! PES also has the better method of displaying of team and player stats, meaning you can tell how good a team is and where a player’s strength lies just by looking at the skill pentagram. This is far better than FIFAs 100 points system.

A new mode to tackle FIFA Be A Pro, introduced in last years FIFA, is Become A Legend. Like FIFA, you control one player and run them through their career. Unlike FIFA, you’re not limited by their seasons, but by their age, which means you can play your pro until retirement at age 35. However, it is the much poorer cousin to FIFA’s excellent offering. You will play many squad v squad matches in order to get to you main team, and these are just on the training pitch with no crowd and no commentary. Realistic, probably, but quite boring in actuality. You can skip these, but then you don’t get XP to expand the player.

You’re rewarded for the way you play like FIFA, but there’s absolutely no feedback on the pitch. It assumes you know the sport. Of course if you have poor positioning like offsides, slide too much and get carded you, you will get a bad rating, but if you don’t know much about soccer, you’re going to get a little lost. To help, holding the left bumper makes player go into position, but some sort of onscreen direction would be preferable.
The online system is sort of weird. You sign into servers which show how many people are playing, then from there look for a quick game or ranked match. It feels a little awkward. Unfortunately I’ve only managed to have one game against a friend, although it was much better than PES 08, being smoother with far less lag, it was no where near the quality of FIFA 09’s online connections.

The game looks and sounds like PES has for the last 3 years. Menus are a little cleaner and more intuitive, but not by much. The players look a little better, but I think the player animations on field have gotten worse. I’ve seen players animate for a big kick even though I simply moved the joystick left or right. I’ve also seen the ball pass through a players legs, and it looked like all the animations played at once with the player spazzing out. However, other animations look cool, like when players automatically spin past other players.

Sound wise the music once again is what the Japanese developers think is “cool” amongst soccer fans at the moment. None of it is by any recognisable group, and although it’s not completely terrible, it’s not fantastic by any means. Commentary is almost exactly the same as last year. There is a little more banter played at the end of the game and after goals and goal chances, but it gets repetitive really quickly.

Conclusion:
PES has always been the little game that could. It’s faced the might of EA and delivered a soccer game that has been superior for most of its lifetime. However, lately EA seem to have suddenly “got” what players want, and have dished up a mighty fine game in FIFA 09. On the other hand Konami have seemed to rest on their laurels, and for possibly the first time have dropped the ball and seen FIFA take the win.

PROS
– UEFA Champions League mode
– The usual deep Manager Mode
– Still a good game of soccer
– Less lag than previous PES titles.

CONS
– Team play, ball physics and passing seem to have gotten worse
– Become a Legend mode doesn’t show any on screen help during play
– No other real improvements to the game
– Commentary gets repetitive really quickly

79/100