Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dragon Age Inquisition Preview

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A day before PAX Aus, Xboxworld was invited to a preview of Dragon Age Inquisition at the very cool venue of Rutherglen House in Melbourne, down one of the city’s many laneways. Decked out like a hunting lodge with wood panelling walls and paintings covering every available surface and toilets and other rooms hidden behind seemingly innocuous panels, the portraits of the characters of the game blended in well with the surrounds.

My first shock was there wasn’t an Xbox One version of Dragon Age Inquisition playable. So this preview is based on the PS 4 / PC version. My second shock was just how nice the Playstation 4 controller was to use. This is why I don’t have either incidentally – every time I make up my mind to buy one or the other another reason crops up to change my mind. I’ll probably save up and get both during the inevitable Boxing Day stocktake sales.

Diving into the game, I was impressed by the depth of the character creator. I could have spent hours sculpting my Qunari Warrior, but instead I just pressed random because I wanted to jump straight into the game. And starting the game, it felt instantly familiar. The familiar ancillary characters from other games look better than ever thanks to the Frostbyte Engine, the sweeping orchestral sound track, and the wonderful environments took me to a place I have wanted to explore and learn more about since first setting foot many years ago.

But Dragon Age Inquisition didn’t grab me like it should have. Nothing immediately leapt out at me, shook me by the shoulders and said “you must rush out and pre-order this game”! Maybe I’ve spent too long in the mobile /indie space, where the market is so competitive you need to be grabbed by the balls right from the get go, otherwise you’re likely to wander off.

Maybe it’s because I chose to play a warrior, when my usual class is mage. I did this to get through the preview tutorial as quickly as possible, but now I kind of regret it. Don’t get me wrong, the combat felt nice, and I loved switching between real time and tactical battles so smoothly, but I found that I was sticking with my party caster more than my main character, with the melee combat not feeling as visceral as I would have liked. Magic has always been a far better mechanism in these games, and I’m definitely going to roll a mage when the game comes out.

And maybe it’s because I’m tired of the “Misunderstood Hero Trope” fantasy games so often use to tell their stories. Not giving too much away, you start out as a prisoner with a mystical ability and at the end of the tutorial wind up a hero, but then have to continue to prove yourself again and again and again. You know, just once I’d like to play a fantasy game where everyone realises, after I do something bloody awesome that no one else has been able to do, that I am actually bloody awesome, and everyone should love me, and stop double guessing me.

However, this criticism was short lived, because after the tutorial portion, the game opens up immensely and I got a glimpse of the variety of missions available, the fairly comprehensive crafting system, and a small hint at something darker within the storyline through some of the characters I met. It feels like there is great depth to the game, and it’s clear with the slow start this is a slow burn kind of game, as I do keep thinking about things I experienced during my brief time with the game, and I’m keen to get back to it.

I absolutely loved Dragon Age Origins. I’m one of the few people who enjoyed Dragon Age 2 for what it was. Hell, I even liked the Facebook game Dragon Age Legends! And from the small amount of time I spent with Dragon Age Inquisition, I know I’m going to be spending a lot of time with the game.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Magic 2015

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Magic the Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2015 (from here on in called Magic 2015) is the latest iteration of Stainless Software’s attempt to bring Magic The Gathering: The Card Game (from now on referred to as simply MTG) to screens. Whilst the previous versions were well received, the game has never been without its faults, with often fun features from one version cut and replaced with others of questionable value, and some design decisions which made the game somewhat unwieldy.

Until this year, Stainless could kind of rest on their laurels, as there was no real competitor. The previous “official” MTG games before Stainless were atrocious messes which completely ignored the card aspect altogether, or were woefully inadequate for playing online against others. Other Collectable Card Games (CCG) which were brought to screens were ok, but none could hope to match the complexity and artwork Wizards of the Coast brought the MTG series, nor have the polish Stainless brought to the screen versions.

But this year Magic 2015 has a competitor. Blizzard’s Hearthstone has leapt onto screen and into gamer’s hearts (and wallets) with an unexpected ferocity. When it was first announced Blizzard were going to a CCG the internet collectively went “wha!?” Little did we know that Blizzard not only had a completely serviceable online CCG in terms of playability, but that the humour and style of the Warcraft universe would be so suited to this new way of playing together. And Blizzard’s amazing understanding of gamer attitudes to multiplayer matches and buying items online created a fantastic and fair system for people to compete on an even level.

Magic 2015 starts you with the tutorial, even if you’ve played before and know the rules of the game quite well, you can’t skip it. For those who have never played Magic and reading this, you play the game with a deck of cards classed into 2 major types – land and spells. Lands grant you mana, in which you use to cast spells. Spells include Creatures, Artefacts, Instants, Sorcery and Enchantments. Each type of spell can only be used at particular points in a round. The tutorial walks you through all this, and for total beginners it’s really quite useful, but it doesn’t introduce you to any of the new types of cards and combinations that the new 2015 card set brings, so in that respect it’s annoying to be forced to play it.

After playing through it, you get to choose a deck of two colours. These starter decks are not unlike the starter decks they offer at expos and in stores. They’re functional and work reasonably well to play, with a usual spread of decent monsters and other spells. What it doesn’t provide are any special land cards, nor any artefact cards. There are some cards which work in good combination, but on the whole these decks are based around getting creatures out and killing your opponent before they kill you.

The real joy of MTG comes from deck building. Getting the right kind of cards and combinations that make your deck really competitive when playing with others. Whilst the deck builder in Magic 2015 is quite good, allowing you to see all your cards, filter by colour and type and so on, there is a real issue with this usually great part of the game this year. In previous Magic games, as you progressed in the game, battling various planeswalkers in the story mode, you’d unlock their decks to play with. This year, however, you’re not rewarded decks to play with, only booster packs. The issue this brings is you’re locked into a decision which you might regret. For example, I started with the Black / Blue deck and I found it rather weak, but because you only unlock boosters when playing through, I found I couldn’t change my deck around too much and felt like I was stuck.

The solution to this this time around is to grind through the “explore” mode, which is indeed a grind and just feels like a pointless add on to destroy your time and force you to buy cards, or to opt into the monetisation method and buy more boosters. Whilst this is precisely the same method of monetisation for the physical card game, it works because you can sell or trade cards you don’t want with other players. With Magic 2015 being digital and not offering a way to trade, it really becomes a matter of “he who spends the most money wins”. Even though the boosters are cheap, you have to spend about $20 on them to be assured of the cards you really need to flesh out your deck to truly competitive levels.

Previous Magic games gave us other modes, like the two headed Giant mode, Revenge, and Arch Enemy modes. All these modes are conspicuously absent, meaning the replayability comes purely from the online mode. As someone who doesn’t like online games and usually only plays with friends, this is a real head scratcher of a decision. These previous modes were fun, and although they swapped them out one year to the next, removing them altogether just seems like a stupid and ultimately a brand damaging decision.

Lastly and something I find most surprising is the game itself is drab. The menus are really plain and need a lot of clicks and swipes to get through, and quite often become unresponsive. The sound will stutter as different areas load, and overall it’s doesn’t feel technically competent. The cards themselves are amazing and feature some true greats of the fantasy world illustrating them, but this amazing artwork that used to adorn the loading screens and story screens has been replaced by black and white images. These images are still great, but they’re not really helping to sell the brand. Considering the amazing artwork on the cards, it seems a shame not to see them in the game wherever possible.

Conclusion:
Maybe Stainless couldn’t cope with making this game work on all platforms. Maybe there were design decisions and issues between them and Wizards of the Coast. Maybe we’ve been spoiled by Hearthstone. For whatever reason, Magic 2015 feels unfinished. When they could have re-skinned Magic 2014 and just added more cards and would have fans flocking to play, taking away modes and adding in questionable monetisation methods means many fans are going to be disappointed, and will be hesitant to pick it up again next year.

Pros:
Great looking cards as usual.
Great tutorial for new players
Deck Builder is really robust.

Cons:
Unpolished interface
Removal of some of the cool modes of previous games
Questionable monetisation strategy

60/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Tony Hawk’s Project 8

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Never before have I had so much difficulty deciding if I like a game or not. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Tony Hawk franchise, and Project 8 is one of the best Tony Hawk games in a while. But the problem I have is that even with the new skate tricks, the new completely open world, the new graphics engine that makes things look prettier than ever is that it still feels just like every other Tony Hawk game.

On the one hand, this is good – the Tony Hawk games have always been great at creating a skating simulation yet I still feel there needs to be something more in the game to keep me interested long-term.

The story in Project 8 is a little light, but serves its purpose. Tony Hawk is in town, and is seeking the top 8 skaters for his competition. You begin ranked at 200, and have to work your way up the rankings by skating and tricking around the city. The city isn’t a real location, but rather an ‘Anytown USA’ type amalgamation of previous locations found in the series. The city is huge, and although certain areas are locked at first, once it’s opened up is completely skateable. If you’re good enough, you could grind around the entire area, from the starting point, a white washed and picket fenced suburb, to the capital district complete with faux capital building and beyond, to a hardcore industrial SUV factory.

To help you achieve ranking are the various pro skaters and celebrities who direct you to perform in skate shows, as well as try to achieve different activities around the city. This time around instead of choosing which level of difficulty you’ve going to try to attempt activities there are Spot Challenges. With these it’s all up to how well you perform the moves. For example, there’s a task early on which requires you to natas spin on a number of poles. Get a certain number of poles, linking them with manuals, and you’ll get an Amateur ranking. Spin on a few more, and you’ll get Pro. Tricks are conveniently marked too, so grinding lines have graffiti spots telling you how far to grind before you’re awarded with Amateur, Pro or Sick. It allows a much better flow to the game, and you can re-try tricks to get better scores and thus a better story ranking.

Each Tony Hawk game introduces a new feature, and the new ‘Nail the Trick’ mode is especially cool. At any time, you can click the controller joysticks and you’ll go into a bullet time slow motion, with the camera zooming in and the joysticks becoming your feet. Moving the joysticks will flip or rotate the board, and you can do any number of awesome moves. It’s tricky, as you have to get used to a whole new timing mini-game, moving the sticks back to their original position at precisely the right moment, or you’ll bail in spectacular fashion.

But now even bailing is fun. If you stack it, you can bail out and cause massive damage to yourself, racking up a hospital bill and breaking bones. Pressing Y bounces you along and whilst only having minor impact on the overall game, it’s still fun bouncing along racking up points for failing to being able to pull off moves. Whilst the hospital bills are weighed in Stokens, the in-game currency, money doesn’t play any role except to tell you how gnarly you are.. Stokens are gained by impressing the locals in the area with tricks, as well as knocking people over and stealing from them. But if you don’t skate away quickly enough, they come after you and knock you off the board, stealing all your hard earned cash.

One of the biggest changes to the game is the updated graphics. Finally here is a Tony Hawk game for the Xbox 360. The graphics are great, and although the character models sometimes look a little off, it’s probably more to do with the Uncanny Valley effect than something wrong with the graphics themselves. When you go into “Nail the Trick’ mode, in the slow motion you can see the wheels of the board spin independently as you flip and manipulate the board. Moreover, the board is completely separate from the skater – not that the game ever felt like you were riding with your feet nailed to a plank, but it gives you a better sense of freedom from the board now as it is a completely independent entity.

Tony Hawk games have always had awesome soundtracks, and this one is no different. Featuring Australia’s own Wolfmother, punk like The Ramones and Sonic Youth, to rockers like NIN and Ministry, to hiphop from Ugly Duckling and Hieroglyphics, plus a few oddities like Gnarls Barkley and Toots & the Maytals. But on top of that the sound engine has been totally reworked. You can actually hear the wheels spinning independently on their ball bearings. You can hear the wheels clacking over the joins in the ramps. And you immediately notice when the surface underneath your feet changes through the tone and pitch of the board.

Even with all the new stuff packed into the game, I have to admit that maybe I’ve had enough of the Tony Hawk games. Which is a really hard thing for me to admit, and I’m sure that Tony Hawk fans will lynch me for saying so but I found myself getting bored really early on in the game, and simply didn’t feel that addictiveness that is often found in the series. I guess it’s partly the fact the series has been so damn good at representing skating in computer game form. But I just felt I was doing the same thing over and over, and although the difficulty was ramped up, I never felt the pay off was worth the effort.

Whilst most of the time the game played smoother than the proverbial, there were a few times where I encountered some really odd bugs and framerate drops. Once I was grinding along the edge of a locked area, and all of a sudden I was shot high into the air, just floating in space. Another time I was getting air and did a flip, and the flip animation bugged out, so I was caught in a continuous loop for about 3 seconds. And sometimes, especially when you do a spine transfer from a ramp into a wall, you can find yourself stuck, and you go back and forth hitting the back of the ramp and front of the wall.

Online is the game’s biggest let down. There’s only one new mode called “walls” which is like the light cycles in Tron – as you move a wall is formed behind you. Hit another player’s wall, and you are out of the game. Unlike Tron though, you can hit your own walls without penalty, so it’s much less of a challenge. The other modes are trick attack, score challenge, combo mambo, graffiti, and horse. There are a heap of online leaderboards and achievements, but I’m not someone who is really all that competitive, and would like something more than the usual lists of ultimately useless numbers.

Conclusion:
Not being a skater this series has allowed me to live out my fantasies of being a hella cool skater thrashing and grinding and getting wicked air. And Project 8 takes it to a whole new level of authenticity. You can hear the different pitch and wail and see the wheels rotating independently when you go into the air during “Nail the Trick”. But even with all the new bells and whistles, I was left feeling Project 8 needed something different, something more. Truth be told, I became bored with the game rather quickly, and being the fan of the series I am, this rather disappointed me. I’m not entirely sure what is needed, but the series definitely needs something more to get me to excited about the next one.

Pros
spot challenges allow a continuous feel to the game
‘nail the trick’ is really awesome
excellent new graphics engine
superb use of sound

Cons
the multiplayer modes offer nothing new
the entire game can feel repetitive
a little buggy at times when doing tricks

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Omerta: City of Gangsters

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Omerta is, according to Wikipedia, a popular cultural attitude and code of honour that places heavy importance on a deep-rooted ‘code of silence’, non-cooperation with authorities, and non-interference in the illegal (and legal) actions of others. So, if you’re a gangster, and see another gangster do something terrible, you are not meant to say anything to the authorities. A similar thing exists in the game development world, where game developers aren’t supposed to be critical of other games. Of course, this gets broken all the time, and I’m about to break it again.

Because the game, Omerta: City of Gangsters, is the sum of all my fears with recent developments in video games. It takes all the crap iPhone / Facebook game ‘features’ and puts it into a full priced packaged retail box, and expects people to be ok with this. Well, I’m sorry, it’s not ok. Not in the slightest. Thankfully it doesn’t do the ultimate sin of iPhone / Facebook and charge for the ‘privilege’ of playing piecemeal, but the mechanics are the same.

Let me explain. Omerta teases you into thinking it is a strategy game. It has a small city map, representative of a neighbourhood in Atlantic City circa 1920, populated with little people walking about, with large icons scattered across it. You have a headquarters, and you have a bunch of goons to do things for you. In the first level of the game you have to establish a Speakeasy, in order to sell illegal alcohol to make some money for your empire. So you click the icon for “joint” and send your little dude out. It’s cool you can watch him actually do this. Then you wait, and the icon changes and a pop up tells you it’s now yours. Then you’ve got to click again and select a Speakeasy. And wait. Once this is done, your “dirty money” value increases slowly. The next task is to set up a brewery to supply to Speakeasy. So you select a goon, click on the icon, wait, click, wait, click, wait, and then click OK when it pops up finished. Rinse and Repeat.

Later, you’ve got to earn “clean money”. Yes, another different currency which can be exchanged for the first currency, usually at a loss, and accompanied with a period of waiting. But the process of setting up places to earn this second currency is exactly the same. Click, wait, wait, click. You can upgrade all the buildings you own by spending cash (either dirty or clean) and luckily here you don’t have to wait, but given the interface here I suspect this wait period was taken out.

Anyone familiar with the ‘Ville type of games will recognise these mechanics, and maybe that’s what the people behind Omerta wanted – an accessible strategy game for all audiences. But it makes absolutely no sense on the Xbox platform. We’ve got some really good quality strategy games on the xbox, and no one, absolutely no one, is crying out for Farmville on the console. Hell, if you absolutely need to play this type of game with a controller, there’s an inbuilt browser so there’s no reason to buy Omerta.

If there is one redeeming feature it’s the combat sections. Even though here they’ve completely ripped off Fallout 1 & 2, by assigning Stats to characters which determine initiative, Action(AP) and Movement(AP) points, and even the types of weapons and perks for characters, it’s still a fun system after all these years. If you haven’t played Fallout 1, it’s a top-down hex-based ‘dice’ system. The computer rolls dice and adds your player stats to see when you can move, how far you can move, if you can see an enemy, if you can hit an enemy, and how much damage you do to that enemy. Omerta removes the grid system, but else it’s pretty much exactly the same. And it’s fun, and to be fair the designers have tried to shake things up with missions now and then, like with the boxing missions where you can’t use weapons apart from fist weapons. But they do get repetitive really quick.

Although the world you play in looks ok, there’s nothing exceedingly impressive from one level to the next, and it all rather looks the same. This criticism applies to both the various neighbourhood screens and the combat sections. In the Neighbourhood screens, the icons on the main world view aren’t distinctive enough, so it’s easy to not be able to find various places you may need to. For example, it may tell you to upgrade a hotel, so you zip about the map looking for it and often can’t find the icon. The minimap is hopeless and is useless for navigation. There are coloured dots indicating if a place is yours or not, but it’s cluttered and some are different sizes without having a reason for the size difference.

Being set in the 1920s the sound track is groovy gangster jazz, and the voices are all typical ethnic “wise guys” and “slapper girls”. But the music and sound suffered from a terrible skipping. I can only hope this is due to a dodgy review copy CD pressing and not actually in the final game, as there still hasn’t been an update for it and it is incredibly distracting.
There is multiplayer and co-operative, but I never once got past the “looking for games” screen. Again, I can’t be sure if this is an issue because I have a review copy, or if it’s simply broken. I suspect the latter because it didn’t even tell me “sorry, no games found” – just sat on the search screen until I exited it.

Conclusion:
If Omerta had a persistent world in single player, rather than neighbourhoods which you played then left never to have an impact on you again, or more in depth strategy system when it came to earning money and resources, action cut scenes rather than stills, ok, so it still wouldn’t be the greatest game ever, but it would have been worth spending time with.

After playing two or three levels though, I knew I had seen all I had to see and simply persisted because of the review. Which is sad, because I really wanted to like Omerta. It’s a great idea by a small company and given the climate of games development at the moment it’s precisely the sort of thing we should be supporting. But by choosing to develop the game in this simplistic, “accessible” way, they’ve probably alienated the very people who would support a game like this.

Pros:
Cool battle mechanics (even if they are completely copied from Fallout)

Cons:
Boring mission structure
Overly simplistic strategy based on facebook waiting games
Confusing icons and maps
Stuttering audio
Online functionality never worked

55/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Fight Night Round 3

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I’ve always enjoyed EA’s Fight Night series. The ‘Total Punch Control’ system was an instant hit (no pun intended) with fighting game fans and it was this feature of the series, even more so than the graphics that drew me and many other gamers in. Fight Night 2004 introduced us to this brand new and alternate style of control that successfully ended the reign of the ‘button masher’ and replaced luck with actual skill if you were to get the most out of the game.

Unfortunately it was light on in the Career Mode and this was addressed to some extent in the sequel, Fight Night Round 2 which added options to choose trainers, select intro music and lighting effects for your fighters ring entrances. More options in games are usually welcome, but these new features were mostly a matter of style over substance and resulted in little replay value for the game once complete. In my previous review I said the career mode took a bit of a step back. Unfortunately this is the case in the Xbox 360 version, so while we have a game that showcases some of the most amazing graphics ever seen in a sports game on any platform, is that enough to warrant the $100 + purchase price?

It has to be said, the graphics in the Xbox 360 version are amazing, I mean like ‘Holy Shit’ amazing. We’re always looking for that ‘WOW’ factor in new games and when you see the first knock down replay with your victims drool splurting out, the glazed look in his eyes and the skin of his cheeks rippling from the impact of your punch in super sexy slow motion you’d be forgiven if you climbed up onto your roof shouting “YES, next-gen is here!”… or something like that. The truth is that this version of Fight Night 3 looks absolutely amazing and the team at EA Sports have created the most lifelike characters outside a pre-rendered cut scene ever to grace a video game. Most of the time before a games release we’re shown trailers and screenshots that are rarely indicative of the final version, and we all know how damn annoying that is right? But this time around everything you’ve seen is exactly how good Fight Night 3 looks.

The artwork on the Fight Night boxers is so detailed that it’s possible to see every pore plus every bead of sweat on their bodies and in 720p on a nice sharp widescreen, giant television it’s amazing how great everything looks. The lighting is also extremely realistic with reflections and highlights glistening on the boxers’ sweaty skin and it’s also used effectively in each of the stadiums that your fights take place in. Throughout the bouts your fighter will also suffer cuts and bruises but the animations of the blood dripping down the faces aren’t really that smooth as I was expecting. It’s a small point but with the amazing detail packed in everywhere else it does stand out when you see it.

EA secured the rights to all things ESPN last year and this is one of the first rounds of EA Sports games to make use of the licence. Fight Night 3 sports a number of different game modes with the ESPN classic one being the newest addition to the series. Classic matches from the annals of boxing history are selectable so if you’ve ever wanted to relive Ali versus Frazier you’ll be in your element. To continue the fine form of the graphics, even the historical boxers such as Ali look the best that they ever have and once you retire your normal Career mode fighter, you can even go up against him.

The Career mode is where you will spend most of your time and creating your Boxer and building him in to a lean mean fighting machine is plenty of fun. The training modes aka mini-games return with the Combo Dummy, Heavy Bag and Weight Lifting all contributing in their own way to different areas of your fighters’ skills. The option to ‘auto-train’ is there if you’re in a hurry but the performance increase will be almost negligible at best so it pays to spend a bit of time going through them, and unfortunately, while something different to the bouts, repetition is the killer here as after signing a contract, training, fighting a match, signing a contract, training and fighting a match gets old fairly quickly and this is the biggest complaint I have about Fight Night 3. Except for fighting and training, there just isn’t much else to do.

Yes, I realise, it is a fighting game but the Career mode has no story as such and is just you taking your created fighter to the top. With more use of the ESPN licence, the ability to perhaps pick sponsors, take part in promotional events (at least some choices to make) and a little bit of narrative with some story moments between you and your rivals, Fight Night 3 would have even more interesting to actually play through and possibly helped to create more of a bond between you and your character. As it stands though, the excellent graphics keep drawing you back in and you probably won’t stop until you have all the Live Achievements and have retired at least one or two fighters.

If the Career mode does eventually get boring you’re able to jump online and punch on with your Live buddies in either ranked or non ranked matches. In a number of matches against Deathgod there was no lag and knocking the snot out of your mates, and then getting the snot knocked right back out of yourself is loads of fun, especially when those slow motion, skin rippling replays kick in with their over the top, bone crunching sound effects. With winter coming up Fight Night 3 will be one of those games dragged out on cold rainy days for plenty of online action because with the great graphics and the ‘Total Control’ system, smacking down your mates becomes even more enjoyable than ever before. The lack of lag was a nice surprise, especially after some negative experiences with other online fighting, and some other recent EA Sports games.

There are also a couple of new moves thrown in this year as well. The Flash KO has the ability to put your opponent into a daze giving you the opportunity to throw in a few quick punches and knock him down before he can react. It’s one of the longest punches to make so in return leaves your defences open but is pretty effective if you can pull it off. The other new move, the Stun Punch immediately puts your opponent on the defensive requiring only one more solid punch from you to put him down and forces him to block or parry while he regains his composure. They’re both effective moves, but even more so if used after a parry from yourself and the final training mode, Sparring, is the perfect spot to practice them. I think a couple of the matches that I’ve played online (against strangers) and been slaughtered in were due to being on the receiving end of these new moves so I can speak for how effective they can be when used properly.

The audio in Fight Night 3 does a good job in the fights with blows sounding full of bass and oomph. In the slow motion replays the impacts sound awfully painful, even (it must be said) a little over the top. The commentary gets repetitive but this is fairly indicative of most EA Sports games so while a slight let down, wasn’t unexpected. It reacts well to the onscreen action though so it does a great job in that area. The music is the standard hip-hop stuff that EA must have purchased in bulk a few years back and is still trying to use up. While it suits the game it’s a bit light on this time with only 12 music tracks included, but as it’s only on during the menus it’s not a real issue.

Final Thoughts and Score
This is the first EA Sports game for the Xbox 360 that we’ve reviewed so far. We’ve played a few of the rest (with reviews coming soon) and Fight Night 3 is easily the best looking out of the bunch. It shares a bit in common with other EA Sports Xbox 360 titles though being that it’s a bit light on in the features department which is a bit of a letdown, especially in the online modes. I’ve gone on about the graphics but it’s got to be mentioned again just to drive the point home that this is one damn sexy looking game. Everything is photo realistic and EA have really delivered the goods here, when you see it in motion it looks amazing.

The only complaints that can be levelled at Fight Night 3 are the points already raised. The Career mode needs to be built upon, especially with the heavy duty ESPN licence attached to the game. A bit of story telling wouldn’t go astray either, especially to help create a tighter bond between you and your self created on-screen character, but other than that, the amazing graphics and fighting engine hold everything together creating the best looking boxing game ever and a real showcase for the 360’s power.

Pros
Amazingly realistic looking fighers
Lag free online play
Fun training games
‘Total Control’ beats button mashing
Bone crunching sound effects

Cons
Career mode gets repetitive
Some more online modes wouldn’t hurt

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 14

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Every time I tell people I’m writing a review of FIFA, I get the same joke “why don’t you just cut and paste last year’s version?” This year, this joke pretty much hits home. FIFA is at that point where it can only improve in incremental steps, or due to something like a next gen engine change, fall drastically from grace.

Fortunately the current generation engine hasn’t been changed, but with the next gen being provided essentially for free with the Xbox One, it’s a big ask to get even the most ardent fans to buy something which isn’t drastically different from last year’s iteration.

This is not to say EA hasn’t tried to spruce things up. This year the presentation is much cleaner, feeling as though it’s been made with swiping and touch screens in mind, and to that end it works very well, even with the controller. There’s very little going backwards and forwards through menus, with the interface being constructed more like the Xbox360 tabbed interface than the previous menu and button clicks. And now you can simply press X to save on any screen in the Career mode, which makes things for an obsessive saver like me so much better.

As to the game itself, slight adjustments have been made to make the game play smoother too. The AI has been smartened up, making use of space and runs more than any other version. And this doesn’t just apply to attacking – the back line works better and more realistically than in this FIFA than any other game to date. It does tend to cause far more off-sides from ambitious forwards in lower starred teams, however, which can get tedious.

Players tend to react more realistically to the ball, flicking passes and making subtle back heels without as much player intervention – a few flicks of the sticks will have the more fancy players doing moves which would in previous incarnations require a button dexterity only a few dedicated fighting gamers can match. There can still be issues with the ball physics and player reactions – I’ve seen a ball stop dead after hitting a player in midfield which just seemed odd, but I think it stood out because it was so unusual. More often, the more mid-rated players can step clumsily and overshoot runs, but it adds a level of realism which is not often seen in soccer games. Compare a top draw Man U vs Arsenal game to say Melbourne Heart and Adelaide United, and there is a gulf of difference, with far more clumsy action in the latter type of match, and this is reflected in FIFA well.

Speaking of rating players, this year the trading in Career mode has had a bit of an overhaul. The focus is now on hiring scouts and selecting skills and positions you’re interested in rather than overall attribute scores. At first I found this extremely frustrating as I only know a few names of stars, so didn’t know who to scout and if they were worth the money they asked or the time I was putting into scounting. But then I learned how to use the scouts – Villa (my usual side) need a pacy forward, so you can search the world for a pacy forward with an attack orientation, rather than just go for Messi who, let’s face it, will never slum for the likes of Villa. With a bit of luck and a bit of money, you can find the players you want and develop them, giving longevity to the career mode.

Ultimate team gets a bit of a shake up too. Being able to find classic players like Pele makes opening the packs far more exciting, and being able to search for players and consumables is much more refined making the process much easier. A new kind of consumable called Chemistry Styles which changes aspects of player’s playing style. For example, applying Brick Wall to a defender adds to defence and strength, whilst adding Sniper to a forward adds precision and range.

One thing I am very, very happy to see return is a more gameplay focused achievement list. Rather than Achievements like “play a game online” or “win 10 games” we see a return to “Score with a Dipping Volley”, and “Straight Arm a Defender to Protect the Ball”. It’s a subtle change, but awarding people for skill rather than persistence is always good game design. It makes me think about trying to chip a goal keeper, or running my defenders forward more often.

Speaking of skills, the new skill games are great although are much harder than previous in previous games. However, even more discouraging is the load times. In what may be a first, it’s not a criticism that it’s too slow; conversely, sometimes it feels the game loads even before the skill game has even started, and being keen to jump into a game means you often skip the skill games!

I’ve never been a fan of FIFA online, as the match making has always pitted me against a gun playing Barcelona whilst I stupidly chose Villa or Adelaide, and it’s humiliating being beaten 7 nil by a lad whose voice has yet to break. This year though I had no trouble finding a game, matched with a fellow Aussie so lag was minimal, and I think it matched us well as we drew 2-2. It probably helps that I’ve finally overcome the “Moderate NAT” issue that’s plagued me for over a year though.

I’ve always liked the soundtracks in FIFA, and this year is no different. The addition of Nine Inch Nails was a welcome surprise, although admittedly the track “Copy of A” is no “Closer” as Trent is a little older and wiser and has realised not swearing can be just as powerful a statement.

Commentary wise I was a little disappointed and confused. Last year during some matches, there was another commentator team of Clive Tyldesley & Andy Townsend for cup matches to complement Martin Tyler & Alan Smith, but this year they’re gone. Tyler and Smith do as good job as always, but when a player is retiring they constantly repeat the same thing over and over. Which is confusing, because at other times I hear completely unique commentary about players, coaches or teams, and if they talk over each other, or miss something, the commentary seems to react rather smartly, with Tyldesley apologising, for example.

Conclusion:
FIFA 14 can be seen as a refinement of a game which was pretty near perfect. It’s a refinement which grows on you after repeated playing, but is rather too subtle for even the biggest FIFA fan, especially with the anticipation of the next gen version with the potential power the new generation offers to everything from graphics to AI, combined with EA’s fancy new Ignite engine. Then again, it’s better to be mildly disappointed with a great game than to see a good series suffer, as happened with the transition from Xbox to Xbox360.

Pros:
Smoother interface
Great animations which leads to subtle gameplay improvements
Being able to save with a single button press
Chemistry styles adding more depth to Ultimate Team

Cons:
Frequent offsides
Repeating commentary

80 / 100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Call of Duty Black Ops II

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The annual release of Call of Duty rolls around again, and to try and make things fresh we find ourselves battling terrorists in the near future, as well as the immediate past cold war era. We return to Alex Mason, the hero of the first Black Ops, and journey through the creation of the story’s main enemy, Raul Menendez, the leader of Cordis Die, a hacktivist organisation with sinister motives. We battle through Africa, Afghanistan, and Panama. Then, as David Mason, Alex’s son, we battle in the near future through Burma, Pakistan and the Cayman Islands, Yemen and Haiti. Oh, and also on the huge USS Obama. All in all, it’s just another gun boner shooter with a typically boring and trite “America Fuck Yeah” storyline to go along with it.

The gameplay isn’t anything new – single player still spends half its time taking control away from the player in a desperate attempt to make everything seem action packed and cinematic. I just find it tedious and annoying. Yes, I realise this is fundamental to the Call of Duty games, but it doesn’t mean I like it. Treyarch have tried some things differently, like giving you control of the bad guy on occasion, and also offering branching storylines based on players actions. I like the idea, but not the execution. Simply put, branching doesn’t have much impact on the gameplay, just the story, which is baloney and simply not engaging enough to care about.

Another new feature of single player is Strike Missions. These maps are small, almost tower defence like battlegrounds. Taking control of troops, drones and turrets, you have to secure areas by stopping invading forces or taking control of various areas on the map. These missions also impact which ending type you get, and can’t be replayed if you fail them too many times. At first, I tried to play these like a tower defence game, placing forces at various choke points and so on, but doing this is guaranteed failure. The AI is simply terrible and although appearing as a strategy based game with overhead tactical map and hotswapping characters, it’s better to simply zoom out and take control of the various troops and run and gun around the maps.

Of course, single player isn’t why people buy COD games, and I’m glad to say even though there are no huge changes in the way you play multiplayer, it’s still a damn lot of fun. There is a plethora of modes to play from the traditional death match to team death match and capture the objective / king of the hill modes. There’s a new multi-group capture objective mode, which amps up the action by including more teams to complete against, making the already hectic action seriously adrenalin pumping.

The killstreak rewards have been altered to allow players like myself to unlock more rewards. I never used to get rewards because I’m not very good at killing – my ratio generally sits at 3 deaths for every kill. However, I am really good at defending and taking objectives and Treyarch have refined the allocation system to help players like me and those that work well in teams to actually win rewards. To be honest, it works, as I don’t think I’ve played multiplayer more in any other game this year.

Zombies also make a return – after all, there’s no point cutting modes when it’s easy as having endless waves of zombies attack you, but it seems out of place. There’s a single player campaign, but I just couldn’t get into it. I guess I have zombie fatigue and I don’t think I’m alone as you can have up to 8 player zombie multiplayer, but no one ever seemed to be playing these maps.


Conclusion:
The problem with COD:BO:II is obviously it will be compared to not only all the previous Call of Duty titles, but Halo 4, Battlefield 2, and Far Cry 3; and to put it bluntly, it’s not as good as any of them. This is not to say it’s a bad game, it’s just not different enough from previous Call of Duty titles. The story isn’t memorable, the maps and weapons aren’t any different to what we’ve previously experienced, the gameplay is near identical to previous games, and when it’s not identical it falls flat and fails to impress.

Multiplayer is where the series has always shined, and with Black Ops II multiplayer shines brightest – it’s almost the sole reason I’ve given it the score I have. It’s fast, furious and fun, with enough different modes to keep most people happy. The change in reward structure will disappoint some players, but entices cooperation and team play amongst others, and attracts those who usually get bored of being pwned by people with a lot more time to play.

Pros:
Excellent multiplayer
A plethora of multiplayer modes & rewards
Branching story ideas are good for those into the story
Strike Missions are interesting idea..

Cons:
Boring story which is badly written and overly trite
Branching doesn’t impact gameplay
Strike missions could have been a lot better in implementation
Zombie mode is boring

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Assassin’s Creed III

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Returning to the Animus for the 5th time (not counting the spinoffs) Ubisoft Assassin’s Creed III forsakes the Old Continent of Altair and Ezio for the shiny new continent of America during its formative years. Once again we are thrust Forest Gump Like into the world of Templars and Assassins and Precursors, where every major personality and event is somehow influenced by these shadowy organisations and in particular, your main character.

Like all things American, this time it is bigger, brasher, and more in your face than ever before. But don’t go into thinking this is all “America, Fuck Yeah!” as it still stays true to the Assassin’s Creed philosophy, honestly and truthfully deals with the subject matter (well, as honestly and truthful a video game set in an alternative historical timeline can) and never lets you forget this is an Assassin’s Creed game.

We start the game with the ‘present day’Desmond Miles who is hiding out with his trusty sidekicks, the snarky Brit Shaun Hastings, ubergeek Rebecca Crane and his dad, William. Truth be told, I didn’t really understand why his dad was there as I never bothered with AC Revelations. Anyway, they find their way into a Precursor vault and send Desmond back into the Animus to find the key which unlocks the vault so they can save all of humanity. The story asks a lot of you, such as to remember plots, characters and devices from 5 games, and on top of that throws new characters, and a re-cap would have been nice, but it’s noticeably missing.

Travelling into the Animus in the Precursor vault, which is located in New York State near an old Native American Indian burial ground (or some such) you’d expect the story to start with the guy on the cover, Ratonhnhaké:ton, or Connor as he’s known to people who can’t say his name (which is nearly everyone not of Native American Indian descent), but surprisingly you don’t. However, telling you who you do start as kind of gives the story or at least part of it away. Let’s just say he’s an experienced assassin but someone you’ve not encountered before. This prologue helps you get back into the skin of the Assassin, helps you relearn the controls and the moves you’ve invariably forgotten, and also sets the scene for what will become the American Revolution.

Eventually after the prologue chapters you inhabit the memories of Connor as a child, then as a surly teen, then as a recalcitrant young man. Connor is not as fun as either Altair or Ezio personality wise. He’s much surlier and more of an outsider and rebel because of his mixed-race heritage. He’s rash, bold and unconsidered, much like Desmond. It doesn’t make him unlikable, but he feels more like a teen trying to find and forge his place in the world, unlike the Europeans of the previous game who were trying to make sense of it. The story does tackle some of the contradictions of the formation of American political system – the fight from tyranny and oppression of the British when they themselves owned slaves and terrorised the Native Indians, but does so fairly and is never unnecessary awkwardly in your face about it.

Where he improves on Altair and Enzo is in missions. Each mission given feels different, and you never feel bored playing him. The variety in length and use of abilities was very welcome, and although overall most missions were easy, I only came across on which was frustrating. Unfortunately this came at the end of the game, and really let down the last sequence which should be the best and most satisfying. I also felt slightly let down by the finale with Desmond. Like with Mass Effect, and players being invested in this character for so long, it feels like it could have been handled better.

During the early portions of the game with Connor is where it really opens up and gives you a great sense of the New World. There is a mindnumbing variety of things to do in the game – The usual collect the feathers/trinkets/treasure chests/courier/assassinate and synchronise points which existed in the previous games return. Rather than through cities across rooftops, here you find yourself ranging through the Frontier, leaping from shear rock cliffs onto trees and careening across stout tree limps and leaping with faith into bushes. Hunting and gathering tasks appear, with clues which lead you to find and trap certain animals to collect certain skins, reminiscent of Red Dead Redemption.

There are the Wilderness missions, much like the hunting missions involving looking for clues, where Daniel Boone (he of the Racoon Hat) will tell you tall stories about things such as Sasquatches. There are Forts in both Boston and New York along with the Frontier which you can take over either stealthily or with brute force, as well as convoys to raid. There is a homestead to upkeep, and people to recruit both into the assassin’s guild as well as to help out around the homestead. There’s also a creation/trading system, so not only can you simply sell all your gathered skins to shop keepers, you can create different things you’ve gathered as well as buy from your homesteaders, and send them on convoy trade missions to receive a higher return. The creation system is also tucked in here, so you can create a heap of things to help you thought the game. I found this system to be over complicated and fiddly, and could have been much more user friendly.

Then there’s the sailing, which is simply a blast. It feels reminiscent of the old Pirates game, just faster and more action packed. You avoid rocks when close to shore and huge waves whilst out to see, trying to blindside enemy ships with cannon fire, or ramming into them, or shooting them with mini-cannons. Some missions require you to disable the enemy ships with chain cannons, and then board. Here you swashbuckle your way across the boat, aiming to kill a certain enemy or group. There are also pegleg missions, which involve collecting trinkets then returning them to a swarthy ol’ sea dog to receive instructions to find a hideout, which are like the AC II catacomb sections of running and jumping.

There is a lot more besides, because it is really a huge game with many things to do and keep you interested. So many times I would plan to go to a mission, but get sidetracked on the way by this or that – say a random convoy, or chancing upon an animal I needed to hunt – and I’d spend 15-20 minutes faffing about, but I never saw it as wasted time. There was always some kind of reward for doing the side missions, whether it is in-game money and unlocks, or achievements.

When you’re done with all of this, there’s multiplayer too. The multiplayer aspect is like a game of deadly hide and seek. You and your opponents look like the NPCs throughout the map, and by watching the NPCs and noticing behaviour which is ‘abnormal’ as well as taking in the audio and visual cues you hunt your prey whilst being hunted yourself. You score points for your approach – if the enemy doesn’t see you you get reward more points and increase in level, unlocking more costumes and items, like most other multiplayer games. Whilst it’s nice to have something different from every other multiplayer game out there, and the game is fun if somewhat a little unfulfilling, I’ve always felt Assassin’s Creed multiplayer was unnecessary for the series because the single player experience is so well developed.

Like all massive open world games, Assassin’s Creed III isn’t without its faults and glitches. None are game breaking, but some are incredibly frustrating. It still has the issue where you’ll try and run in a certain direction but simply run up a wall, or do a dead stop. The NPC following skill leaves a lot to be desired, and some NPCs obviously fall through the world, appearing as icons on maps but not findable. Speaking of icons, there’s far too few indicators on the map when you need them. Guards appear as simple red dots, and you never know if it’s one guard or a group 8. Many side missions aren’t shown on the map at all, and it’s near impossible to discover them unless you stumble over them by accident. When on horseback the amount of collision with rocks and NPCs makes them feel useless in terms of speed in areas crowded with people or trees – so nearly all the time.

The game is probably the best looking one thus far, with excellent character animations, although Desmond’s backpack as a weird clipping issue which annoyed me no end. It has a great looking wilderness, and cities full of bustle and their own charm thanks to a new physics and AI system. The Caribbean when fighting sea battles looks amazing and the new weather effects are really cool – the way rain trickles down cart grooves and pools on dirt roads is a really nice touch. Voice acting throughout the game is superb, and whilst some of the lines are corny, there is some great characterisation of well known historical figures. As previously, the Animus’s history lessons are very well written and full of Shaun Hastings’ (who supposedly writes it) trademark snark, and if anything even more so because of the subject matter at hand… the British did lose the war and the colony, after all. If every history books were written in this style, I think a lot more people would be into history.

Conclusion:
Assassin’s Creed III is a pretty damn fine game. It loses none of what makes the series fun with the translation to another time and continent, and creates a whole new set of experiences which define the franchise. The biggest issue, if there is one, are the small technical issues, but these niggling technical issues only seem worse because everything else is such a great experience. And If I really was pushed I would also mention how the surly lead character isn’t as likable as maybe he could be, as he doesn’t have half the charm of Altair nor the wit of Enzo, but I think that speaks more to their solid characters than a deficiency of Connor, his characterisation, or the writing of this game.

Pros:
It’s still the great Assassin’s Creed action and fun.
Enormous game with lots to do and experience.
Much variety throughout the main missions.
Great looking and fun to play naval battles.
Fun multiplayer.

Cons:
Ending is a little weak.
Some small technical issues now and then.
Connor is not as engaging as Altair and Enzo.

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dark Souls 2

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I dove head first and blind into Dark Souls 2. I thought this would be the best way to approach it. I haven’t played the other games in the series, and have read very little about it; a review here and an “arty critique” there, but nothing really to make me think I knew about the series.

What very little I did know about Demon Souls and Dark Souls was this: they were hard, and a lot of my gamer friends really enjoyed those games. And after diving headfirst into the game, I’ve come to know Dark Souls a little better, and come to two conclusions: Yes, it is hard. In fact, it’s very hard. The other conclusion is I have changed in my gaming preferences and habits.

One of the things people rave on and on about this series is lack of handholding. I agree, handholding can feel highly insulting and demeaning to players. In cinema, there is an adage – show, don’t tell. Movies where this is put into practice always top critics and filmmakers “best of” lists. This adage applies even more so in games. Let the player explore the mechanics themselves. I’ve nearly come to blows with a producer with a business background (opposed to a gaming background) who wanted to put a tutorial in our game because they couldn’t figure out how to play it. I screamed “you learn how to play it by playing it”! Developers spend months and months refining these mechanics, and to then put the player at the start of the game, halt the action and tell them exactly what to do is insulting to the people who designed the mechanics, the people who designed the levels, and the people who are playing the game.

So I was overjoyed when I was dumped into Dark Souls 2 and had no idea what to do. I ran around pressing every button and ran into everything just to see what would happen. And I was honestly surprised when I peeled back the first fog layer and found a stone telling me how to swing my sword in a traditional “this is a tutorial and this is how you play the game” fashion. Although I do admit it was very useful, and I got a few precious souls that would help me level up later. And I laughed when I had my first death and received the achievement “This is Dark Souls” after missing a jump, which was totally my fault for not reading the instructions properly. And I laughed again when I approached a huge hippo creature and whacked him with my sword, and he turned around, grabbed me and bit my head off. I thought “this is cool”.

That feeling quickly dissipated however, when I first got to Majula, the newbie main hub area. I was just exploring, took the wrong corner, and was attacked by three little rat things. I swung my sword and tried to block their attacks, and it didn’t work. I was just thrashing about madly and in return they hit me with such force that I died almost instantly. I thought to myself ok, maybe I need a different tactic, and tried to kill them again. My different tactic was to focus on the enemy by pressing the right joystick. This focused on them, but again, I couldn’t hit them and I died really quickly. So I just avoided them from that point on.

However, little did I realise that my health bar was now at 50%. So off I went, exploring the world of Drangleic, and when I got to the Forrest of the Fallen Giants, I got my ass handed to me. Time and time again. By the same “lowly” zombie creatures you first meet way back in the training level. After two hours of being killed right near the campfire, I gave up. It was just too hard and too annoying to get killed by the same mobs in the same places over and over again.

The next night, I rolled a cleric, thinking healing would help me. Nope. Same thing happened, I got stuck in the earliest part of the Forrest of Fallen Giants, again. This time, apart from not being able to hit anything, my spells would never cast. In desperation, I jumped online to learn how the fuck you are supposed to play this game.

Now, this brings me to my first issue with Dark Souls 2. As it is, I don’t have a lot of time to play games. Sad, but true. Everyone at XboxWorld donates their time to do these reviews, and get nothing but your love and the game in return. Moreover, I’m one of those people who plays 3 or 4 different games at one time, sometimes on the Xbox or PS3, sometimes on the PC, and yes, even on the iPhone. You could call me a gaming slut. So having to spend 40 minutes on watching a LEARN TO PLAY video, along with reading countless forum posts and walkthroughs isn’t what I call a positive use of my time.

It’s not that I want to be handheld, as I made clear above, but at the same time I don’t want to spend my time learning about the game outside of the game. I want to be shown in game how to defeat the game. I found this disconnect to be disconcerting. And I HATED it.

In this way though, Dark Souls is reminiscent of an MMO. Quite a few of the MMOs I’ve played have difficult parts where it’s not clear what to do or how to do it, so you jump online looking for hints, or ask in chat (and generally get a chorus of “google it!”). And like a MMO, DS2 is not a game where you can really give just one review, because your feelings towards the game changes over time, as does the game experience itself. The hints people leave in the world, the fact you can invite players or be invaded on any given play session, and the constant updates to the game when you load guarantee an evolving experience.

And of course there is the grinding, a staple of the less fun MMOs, where you have to kill the same things over and over and over and over again just to level up. The Dark Souls series is based around this mechanic. Which is fine, if you have the time to grind, which I don’t feel I do have, and why I’ve stopped playing most MMOs which feature it. I do like the fact that if you are killed you go back to where it was and collect your souls so the time is not totally wasted, but of course that means you’re covering the same ground over and over any way.

Yet as I played more and more, getting better and better, I started to enjoy the game more, and I learned how to play. I still feel the game is not supportive of my game style, which is exploration, as I found myself simply stuck at times, even with the aid of a walkthrough. Even now I’ve played the game much more and feel comfortable with the stamina mechanism and developing a rhythm to my attacks and dodges. I know when to consume the precious life giving pickups, know to restore your health with the rare effigies (but not at a campfire!), found areas where it’s relatively easy to farm souls, know how to get back to the campfires with the bones you find around the place, and definitely know not to hit any barrels, because you don’t know which ones will explode and which ones won’t.

Although I am playing better, I still feel the controls are wildly inaccurate. The lock on will switch focus mid battle, even if your foe is not dead. Swings which look like they are going to connect miss by miles. And in a game which is as unforgiving as DS2, this is unconscionable. There are times where I die and it’s definitely my fault, because I’m not managing my stamina, or I’ve run into an area with too many creatures, and I can handle that. What I can’t handle is fighting against the controls, struggling to do what I know I need to do an being unable to do it. It’s worse in the boss fights, or should I say fight, because I’ve only managed to do one successfully.

My final comment on the game is the graphics are terrible. They’re muddy, pixelated, clip through one another, don’t appear on the surface they’re meant to but float above it, and just not up to standard for a game released in 2014 on any platform. It’s really disappointing to see such an underwhelming looking game come out this late in the Xbox360’s lifecycle. Sure, some of the set pieces look great, for example when you emerge out of the early cave system and experience Majula for the first time, and admittedly it’s the last thing you’re thinking about when playing the game as you’re looking at your stamina and health bars and making sure you’re connecting with the enemy, but really there is no excuse for it.

Conclusion:
I hated Dark Souls 2 at first. HATED IT. I thought it was too hard, too unforgiving, and too involved to have anyone but the most hardcore to enjoy it. And in some sense I still think this, but now it’s with a sense of grudging respect. After reading about the game, learning how to play, and becoming involved in the Dark Souls community, I understand where it’s coming from and it’s place in the gaming strata. It’s not a strata I find myself in very often any more, which makes me somewhat sad to be honest, but at the same time everything changes, and although this game isn’t aimed at me any longer, I can’t begrudge those who it is aimed at.

Pros
Tough game which ultimately becomes rewarding
Plenty of replayability
Helps develop a community of people who are willing to help

Cons
looks very ugly
most of the replayability is forced on you.
Controls are not as precise as a game this demanding warrants.
is very, very demanding in difficulty and of your time

Score 80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 13

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It’s far too tempting to write off the yearly update to FIFA as an easy money spinner for EA. After all, how different is each yearly game, really? Yes, different players, a few new or different teams, a few new stadiums, different leagues, different modes all make the game different from last year on paper at least, but ultimately, isn’t it just the same game?

Well, yes and no. If you think of FIFA as a simulation of soccer, not just a game to play, as a simulation each change – no matter how small that brings the game closer to feeling like a real game of soccer can be seen as an achievement and worthy of an upgrade. Last year I said the player physics were good, but to be brilliant they probably needed more time. This year they’re much closer to brilliant. It seems that in FIFA 13, everything that started to come together last year has actually come together.

We’ll start with the physics. The ball is completely its own entity, and players react to this entity in the way real world players would act. So, for example, if the ball is dropping to a player’s head, he will header it or chest it down onto his feet. When the ball is at his feet, he will move the ball left and right, rolling it behind him if attacked from the front. And all of this is natural, as in the player knows what to do and when to do it without any extra controls needed – no need for manual dexterity on the controller as much any longer.

This physics based approach also makes things such as slide tackles viable options for players, as the player will curl around to get at a ball. Yes, sometimes the player will tangle up legs and draw a foul, but that’s soccer. It goes the other way too – being rough in defence with continual jostling for the ball will result in fouls, and I’ve found being far too aggressive in the box will give away stupid penalties, entirely of your own making.

Players feel noticeably sluggish when tired and appear prone to more relevant injuries. A fall from leaping up to intercept a corner may see the player fall and injure his arm, a slide may crunch an ankle, and an ill-timed lunge may pull a calf muscle. And yes, these physics additions were introduced last year, but the refinements to it are wonderfully subtle. There’s very little accidental collision between members of the same team unlike last year, and no odd falling on top on one another and doing the hump.

Switching player positions within teams feels different as well – a forward feels different from a midfielder which feels different from a defender. The AI has been improved significantly with through passes and runs being far more dangerous than ever before. Having said that, FIFA has moved the game back to being a team sport, where all the players are valuable, so you don’t have to simply play the well known teams and feed the ball to the big star players to have fun with the game and opportunities to strike and score. Battles can occur in midfield, and bringing on fresh players at the right time feels finally like a useful tactic.

There are still things which break this sense of simulation, of course. The free kicks, penalties and corners still feel like pressing the button and hoping for the best. And I still have no friggin’ idea of how to make my keeper dive for a penalty. The lack of certain teams and certain divisions always annoys fans, although personally I find my favourite teams are always there and couldn’t care less about some Eastern European team I’ve never heard of and likely never will being missed out. There’s still a lack of stadiums, and it’s disappointing the A-League stadiums still aren’t there although the team’s have been in the game for a few years now. Surely EA have a few grand to throw at various Australian Sporting organisations so something like Hindmarsh Stadium (or Melbourne Rectangular Stadium) could be made available to play in. I mean, it’s not like the Reds don’t need the money.

And of course the focus on teamwork has the downside of making the Play As A Pro feel far less exciting as previous years. Playing as a forward, I felt a little less like the hero, and resorted to more passing and tackling and teamwork and less one on one showboating than previous years. And the fact you can’t start as a Player-Manager in the Career mode really disappointed me, especially when I began in Barcelona and was put up for trade after my first match. Why allow the player to play for a team when you’re going to be traded? It’s worse though playing in the lower division or minor league teams – you can’t organise your backline, switch tactics, or trade weak players for better ones.

Of course, to do all that you need to play the regular campaign, so although you can import your pro and play as the pro, it still doesn’t feel as personal as the last few years. The campaign has been improved though with more options, more off field drama such as players begging to be played, injuries, but it’s still pretty much the same as previous years. And trading can seem a little odd, with players going to teams which they probably wouldn’t go to in real life.

The online play is still much the same and there are tons of online modes – Seasons, a revamp of the Head to Head mode, which sees you have to play and win 10 online games to rise to the next division tier. You can play the usual one on one matches, the online Be A Pro returns where you join a friends team, and FIFA Ultimate Team also returns online. To be honest though, because I’m not great at online, I haven’t delved into the game as full on as others may have. I’ve played 4 games and found it smooth for the most part, and full of young kids with foreign dialects who delight in kicking your arse.

This year more than previous years, I’ve found the FIFA Ultimate Team far more appealing than other modes. It is still trading cards/players and purchasing and applying consumables to keep your team competitive, and ultimately it feels like it is nickel and dimeing you in order to have the best possible, especially when playing online. However, maybe because I opted to pre-order and get a new set of gold cards every week, I feel more engaged with it. Because I don’t have to go to much effort because cards are handed out free, and I don’t have to spend much money to adjust my team to participate in the various cup challenges, I’m rewarded more coin which I don’t care so much about spending 150 coins on a health card to fix an injured player, or bidding 500 coins on a gold contract card.

And something must be said of the mini-games which replace the arena mode loading screen. These are fantastic at teaching and improving playing, and are much like real world training simulations. One of the FIFA’s once offered achievements for doing certain moves during the game, like scoring with a bicycle kick, and whilst I still think that’s a great idea, this might just make up for removing those. The different tiers of bronze, silver and gold mean you’ve got a lot of mini-games to encounter and participate in when waiting for a game to load, and often I’ve found myself replaying these instead of pressing start to play the game.

Lastly, I have to commend the commentary and the way it adds to the idea of a simulation. Although it does tend to repeat itself a little and you hear the more common comments repeated earlier in a play through of a season or competition, the throw away to commentary on other matches, the cup/league wrap up after a match, and the sideline report on injured players gives you a greater sense of participating in a competition with other teams in a real sport, or at least watching it on the television. It’s just a little touch, and one could argue they could concentrate on the commentating more, but I think it’s great.

Conclusion:
There is just so much to like about this year’s FIFA and the series is still making important improvements that justify the annual purchase. It’s finally the game last year should have been, and although there are some niggling little issues, overall it feels like a solid simulation of the wonderful world game of soccer.

Pros:
Best FIFA ever, best soccer game of this generation
Physics simulation is superb.
A massive load of modes to keep fans happy

Cons:
A little lag in some online games.
Matchmaking in online games still not perfect

90/100

Gigs & Mixes from the 2020s. Writing from the 2000s.