Monthly Archives: November 2009

Event, Faster Louder, Review, Writing

Australasian World Music Expo @ Hifi Bar

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Rocking up to the Hifi Bar on a very warm Thursday night, we were greeted by a packed house, digging the sounds of an invisible DJ. Not entirely sure where they were playing from, maybe the top bar section, but it was a nice blend of afro and dub beats. Fairly appropriate, given this was the opening night of the Australasian World Music Expo.

AWME is the Australia-Pacific region’s premier music industry conference and showcase of Indigenous, roots and world music. It features films, talks and shows concentrating on music from our neighbours and the more far flung areas of Australia. And it also has a hell of a lot of talented musicians who come to showcase their skills at gigs like this.

Not long after grabbing a beer, the first of many drinks I had to consume to combat the heat of the underground venue, Dubmarine stepped up to play. Hailing from Queensland, this young group of musicians funked it up with their own take on dub reggae, jumping around and generally having a grand ol’ time. I recognised some of their tunes, including Point The Bone, probably from PBS radio. Cat Walker, the female vocalist, has an amazing voice for such a petite girl. D-Kaz the lead singer has a very interesting stage presence, reminding me a lot of the front man of Adelaide band Bliss. Don’t worry if you don’t know them – I’m old and they disbanded in the late 90s – let’s just say he has an over-abundance of energy.

We wandered outside for a smoke, and got to talking with some of the sizable crowd outside. Now, I don’t smoke myself, but my friends do, and I really don’t like this smoking outside business. It really kills the vibe inside the club. Sure, it prevents you from getting lung cancer or at least smelly clothes, but at what cost? After all, this is a reggae gig, there needs to be a haze of funky smelling smoke above the crowd!

It also invites trouble as drunken wankers walk past and hurl abuse at you for no good reason. Good thing the bouncers moved him along quite quickly, but if people are wondering why there’s an increase of violence, this is why! If we were all inside, there wouldn’t be any drunken wankers hassling us for having a good time; not at this gig anyway.

Heading back down we were greeted by the sight of 17 people gracing the stage, showing up how tiny it really is. The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra belted out some great African rhythms, with the girls shaking their thang and the guys jumping around. About half way through they were joined on stage by Tumi, a South African MC who was quite good, with what I heard any way. I’m not sure if it was because of where we were standing, or the size of the band, or just poor sound engineering, but they sounded quiet and muddy severely disappointing given the venue’s reputation, and worrying given the Red Eye’s need for good bass sound.

However, when the Red Eyes did take the stage, the sound was back to its superb self. I saw the Red Eyes open for Easy Street All Stars, and was very impressed with the authenticity in their sound. Here was no different, as they played their more popular tracks like Rude World and Arms Over Jordan amongst others, plus a new track called Curious. The band is tight as the proverbial, and lead vocalist El Witeri has an amazing stage presence, a real old school feel like Mick Jagger, as he prances and struts around stage. Although I have to wonder if he is sponsored by bonds, as every gig he rips his singlet.

The Mad Professor joined them on stage half way through. I thought he was just going to DJ, but was pleasantly surprised when he started tweaking their sound live on stage. The sound this man can get out of a live band is incredible. Running everything through about half a million filters, the bass became phenomenal, and the effects on El’s voice and the horns section simply astounding. They did covers of tracks such as A Little Way Different by Errol Dunkley – which was sampled by drum and bass pioneers DRS and Kenny Ken and the reason I know the tune – plus Waterhouse Rock, originally done by Big Youth, amongst others I knew, but couldn’t tell you the names of. I thoroughly enjoyed this portion of the gig, but was exhausted after jumping around all night. I left when the Mad Professor and the Red Eyes took their bows and exited the stage, but the crowd was screaming for more, so am unsure if there was an encore.

Given this was the opening night of the Australasian World Music Expo, I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to Womad. Sure, Womad is held over 4 days outside in Adelaide’s beautiful parklands, but the vibe of the crowd was exactly the same. It was hot, people were drinking, but they were happy, excited, gracious and fun. ‘United by Music’ is a phrase hippies like to throw about so often, but this was honestly true of this gig. It’s just a shame it could have been ruined by an idiot outside the venue, but hats off to the bouncers for making that scenario not come to fruition.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Need For Speed: Shift

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The Need For Speed franchise has had its ups and downs over the last few years. Some people enjoyed games like Hot Pursuit and Undercover but others felt the whole cops and robbers thing was a little dull and uninspired. Need For Speed: Shift (NFSS) attempts to change direction and bring track racing back to the world of NFS. It does an admirable job of it, but with a whole heap of other racing game franchises competing for your dollar at the moment, does it enough to distinguish itself from the pack?

When you start NFSS you have a practice race which tests your driving ability and then sets the games difficulty based on how well you drove. There are options such as assisted cornering, showing the race line, automatic gears changes amongst others which will give people of all different skill levels easy access into the game. This is a great way to introduce the game to the player without using a silly tutorial and allows you to get used to the controls and pace of the game.

Like so many other racing games, the set up is you’re a career driver, and you have to earn points and money to be able to compete in the later tiers of racing. You begin with a modest amount of money with which you purchase a modest car in which you race against other modest cars. However, after a few races, you’ll start getting invites to other types of races, where you can race not so modest cars. This breaks up the monotony of the early driving quite nicely.

Winning a race isn’t the be all and end all of this game. When you race, you’re rewarded points for how you are driving, similar to the Kudos system in Project Gotham Racing. However, unlike Kudos, you get rewarded points for precision as well as aggressive driving. Precision driving points are awarded for overtaking cleanly, following the correct drivers line and taking corners well. Aggressive driving points are rewarded for knocking bumpers, drifting, hitting on overtaking, and spinning opponent cars off the track.

I really liked this system. It rewards you for driving how you want to drive. If you want to nudge every car off the track whilst risking your own, then you’re rewarded for it. If you want to get out in front early and do a clean lap, then you’re rewarded for it. You’re never punished for doing something, nor is the points system designed to punish you for driving one way or the other.

Reaching the podium lands you a certain number of stars, and reaching a certain amount of points also nets you some stars, and also completing bonus objectives, such as spinning out 4 opponents, or completing a clean lap, will gain you a star. The amount of stars you have determines how much money you earn, and also unlock higher tiers.

There is an incredible amount of variety once you open a few more tiers. There’s one on one drag type races, supercar races, time trials, endurance races, regular 1, 2 or 3 lap races and much, much more. The game doesn’t feel like an out and out simulation, but it’s not too arcadey either. It’s a nice blend of the two, and the difficulty levels help you refine your preference better. The difficulty of the actual races is a little off, however. There are some races where you can blitz the field and get all the stars, and other races in the same tier, even in the same categories, that are ridiculously hard to come out on top. You might still win, but you’ll have trouble getting all the stars, or conversely, you might get all the bonuses, and not reach the podium.

But the biggest downfall of the game is the drifting. Oh boy, does it suck. When racing in a normal race, you can drift around corners fine, and it feels like it should. In the drifting races, there’s a whole new HUD meter which isn’t really explained, and a whole different feel to the car. It’s like someone has reversed the oversteer settings, and instead of flowing naturally around the corners, you wrestle with the controls and spin out, or don’t spin at all. Luckily, there is enough racing in the game to get points to unlock tiers for you to avoid it altogether.

The game carries its Driving Level onto online races, and will match you with races of your level, and racing in online races will also improve your driving level. It’s really quite clever, as it makes the modes of the game seem cohesive. Races I drove in were all but lag free, but I was driving against Australians in the middle of the day. Also, I’ve had a few races online, none which I came first in, but it’s showing up as only 1 win in my driver profile.

Graphically the game is great and the in car view has to be seen to be believed. The motion of the driver, the look of the different car dashboards, to the way the side blurs as you gain momentum forcing you to concentrate on the road ahead is truly fantastic. It’s one of the few games where I want to only race in the in car view! Another great effect is when you crash the screen jumps and distorts, not unlike Burnout (with the smashes in the replay also pay a nod to the burnout franchise).

Conclusion:
Need For Speed: Shift is a welcome entry into the world of track racing and a step back in the right direction for the series. The biggest problem is the game doesn’t do too much to distinguish itself from the other excellent racing games available lately. Everyone already has their favourites – some like V8 Supercars, some like Forza, others like Gran Turismo and NFSS comes at a time when people may be unlikely to change back to the series.

On the other hand, the Need For Speed fan may be put off by the return to fixed maps, traditional car racing and no free roaming. But there is some damn good fun to be had with this game, and whilst I’m aware people only have so much time and budget to play games, racing fans may be doing themselves a disservice if they miss out on this.

Pros
awesome in car camera
incredible amount of racing
great points system

Cons
too much like every other racing game
the drifting is a total failure

83/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 10

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Developers and Publishers get a great deal of flack over sports games. The general sentiment is that they just give a slight makeover to the graphics of the game, put in new team line ups, make minor tweaks, and re-package the last instalment which they sell for full price to a gullible public. Whilst this has been true in the past, last year EA did something astonishing with FIFA 09, providing a whole new way of playing the beautiful game, making giant leaps in replicating the sport of soccer in video games, and blew away the competition. In fact, I’m going to go as far to say FIFA 09 was so good that would be absolutely fine if EA rested on their laurels and just did a roster update.

However, EA Canada has shown the EA of the past is radically different to the EA of now, and worked hard to make FIFA 10 the best soccer game ever. Admittedly the changes are subtle to the uninitiated, but the changes do make it a whole new ball game.

One of the most important changes is you are now have completely free movement of players with the control stick. No longer are your players limited to the 8 axis of the stick; you can curve your runs onto the ball when up forward, you can zig zag run when you have the ball, you can put a nicer curve when kicking and passing, you can pass to people more accurately, and most importantly, you can make runs down the touch line and make adjustments without the ball going out of play. The change doesn’t sound like much on paper, but it makes the game so much better. Going back to FIFA 09 feels like stepping into the dark ages of Microprose International Soccer.

The player AI has been improved as well. Everyone is in constant motion, and plays flow beautifully from one moment to the next. If you make a pass, players will now step over the ball if another player is in a better position to advance the ball or score a goal. Players will rarely be caught off side, and if they are it’s because the AI pulls the opposing team up-field. Defenders will step into intercept crossed balls. Opposition players are marked correctly, and your player will return into position if you pull them to help attack. Goalie AI has improvements too. In FIFA 09 I found the keepers dives impossible to beat, but now the keeper moves a little more out of his box and liable to make more mistakes, making it feel much more of an authentic game.

The ball physics have also been refined for the better. Kickers can curve and spin the ball with much more precision, and the ball moves far more naturally than any previous soccer game. I’ve scored a Beckham style corker of a goal I never was able to do in FIFA 09 because of the way the ball floated in the air.

All of this combines to bring you one of the best simulations of the soccer ever seen. In fact, the game is so stunningly accurate to ‘real life’ that my flatmate mistook it for me watching a real match. It’s not just the graphics, which are superb as usual, it’s everything – the way the teams work the ball, the way individual players look and behave, down to the commentary and the crowd noise. Yes, even the commentary sounds authentic, with Andy and Martin sounding like they’re actually at your match. Sometimes the game will slip up and get names wrong or misinterpret a cross, but there is a much bigger range of comments and banter, and I’ve only heard a few lines repeated.

Off the field there have been changes too. The addition of Virtual Pro allows you to build up a player, who can look like you, and be played across multiple game modes – no more waiting 4 seasons to get your star out of Be A Pro and into Manager Mode. You’ll even build up your players’ stats in the Arena mode. The menus have remained largely the same, which is a little disappointing because they’re still awkward to navigate, but with so many options it’s hard to think of a better way of managing them.

There’s a set play editor, which I’ve fiddled with but didn’t really get the best use out of. Accessed through Arena mode, which itself is more robust this year with options available from a couple of button presses and quicker to load, you can set up plays from corners and free kicks. It’s quite complicated and fiddly, you have to select individual players and then record where they go with no kind of copy and paste function, but hardcore coaches will have a grand old time with it.

I have to make mention of the EA Game Face here. Like previously, you could put your ugly mug on your pro player. Last year, you used the Xbox Live Camera in game. This year you use the EA Game Face web application. Annoyingly, this application went down for a few days at launch, and unfortunately only works for windows PCs. If you don’t have a decent front on image, you’ll need a camera or webcam that works on PC to generate it, although you can use any picture on your hard drive to generate the image. Most annoyingly, it takes twice as long as the in-game method and ties up your PC for that entire time. Whilst I appreciate being able to use any image, they should have stuck with the in-game method for simplicity.

Be A Pro is slightly different this year. It’s still a season with points rewarded for how you play to the position you’ve selected, with bonus points awarded for achieving the coach’s objectives. However, you gain points as you play and they’re assigned automatically. Play defensive, become a more defence based player, with better stats in running and tackling. I am not so fond of this as I feel it’s taken something away from the player – sure it’s good that it builds up based on the way you play, but if you wanted to become a better crosser, you’re going to have to cross the ball more often, which reduces your shot count, for example. I preferred building up my players the way I wanted, RPG style.

Manager Mode has had some changes which make it feel more realistic, and as always, these are very welcome. Transfers are much more realistic – there’s no more 90 ranked players being traded to 2 star teams. You have the option of an assistant coach who will swap fatigued players around, and works well for the most part. However, there are still issues with it, such as playing players out of position reducing their effectiveness more than it should, some teams missing players they should have, but these are minor gripes that will only bother the hardcore players. For me, it worked great.

Live Play mode sounds interesting. For some MS Points it allows you to follow your favourite team and replay games that have just been played throughout the season based on their current form. Don’t like the fact Chelsea beat Aston Villa? Play it again and see if you can win. Although I love soccer, I can’t see myself getting into this mode – it took long enough to get through the other modes!

Online is superb as always. The Be A Pro matches can be limited to 5 v 5, so you don’t have to wait for 10 players and fight over position… although everyone still wants to be a forward. It’s still great as an attacking midfielder though because I’ve got man of the match a couple of times and didn’t even have to score. Like last year; play your position and get rewarded. Returning is the friends’ league which allows you to play with friends, ranked matches to show your skills to the world, and the head to head matches, and all of it is relatively lag free. There are still people who rage quit in ranked matches, but I think we’ll see that until the end of time.

Conclusion
I had a real hard time reviewing this game – I simply couldn’t put it down. I’ve got other games to review, and they’re running late because of FIFA 10. It’s a beautiful game to play, full of awesomely exciting moments. It’s a game which needs to be played to realise the difference between this and last year’s game, because screenshots and even videos don’t do it justice, but once you get the controller in your hand and you’re playing, you’ll never want to go back to a previous version.

Yes, there are flaws here, but depending on your level of involvement with soccer games, I’m not sure if they’ll really bother you. Sure, the menus are annoying. Yes, Game Face should be part of the game. But I found them to be rather minor. And of course, if you want a true to life manager sim you’re going to find issues, but why are you not playing Championship Manager? However, if you want to play soccer, want to cross, pass tackle, slide and score against the computer or against a real life person, then you’re not going to get better than FIFA 10.

Pros:
360 degrees control changes the way you play game
Every time you play it’s exciting and fun.
Incredible sense of realism from all aspects of the game – visuals, controls, AI and sound.
Virtual Be A Pro allows you to play and improve your Pro in different modes concurrently
Great amount of options and game modes creating a great depth to the game
Loads quicker than ever to get you in the game

Cons:
Manager Mode still not quite up to a standard people are hoping for
Some may be annoyed that you can’t adjust stats for players as you want to.
Menus are still fiddly
Should be an option to use the Live Camera to import your face as well as Game Face.

90/100