Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dante’s Inferno

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Dante Alighieri’s La Divina Commedia, of which Inferno is the first part, is considered amongst the world’s greatest pieces of literature. It codified the medieval concept of Heaven and Hell into human understanding and cast Satan as a victim of his betrayal of God, a very powerful theme picked up by Renaissance art. The phrase “abandon hope all ye who enter here” and a host of other well known phrases are taken from Dante’s poem, and he inspired and has been quoted and paraphrased by countless others from Chaucer to Pope Benedict XVI. The imagery and allegory of the poem lend itself to interpretation, so it is of no real surprise that eventually it would become the basis of a video game.

In the poem Dante simply takes a stroll through Hell with the Roman poet Vigil, fainting quite often and then coming face to face with Satan who is represented in his ugliest form steadfastly refusing to stop flapping his wings and hence frozen in ice unable to move because of his own pride (as the poem is about Contrapasso, or poetic justice).

Which when you think about it doesn’t really inspire a confident story for a videogame so developer Visceral Games have taken some liberties with the original text. Instead of a poet, Dante becomes a Crusader who decides to fight Death to rescue his beloved Beatrice, whom he betrayed. Beating Death and taking his scythe as his own, Dante descends into Hell in order to win the soul of his loved one back.

Dante’s descent into Hell starts off well. Kicking the crap out of the Grim Reaper, you gain his mystical scythe and learn one of the neat things about Dante’s Inferno – punishing or absolving the souls of those who reside there. When in combat, pressing the left trigger will grab enemies, and you’ll have the option of punishing or absolving smaller combatants. Bigger enemies, like the Minotaurs, required a bit of beating up before a prompt to squeeze the Right Trigger appears to punish or absolve. Punishing souls upgrades the Unholy path concerned with the scythe, whereas absolving upgrades Beatrice’s cross.

The rest of the gameplay of Dante’s Inferno is exactly like God Of War on the Playstation. You have a fixed camera for each scene. There’s a light and heavy attack with a main weapon on the X and Y buttons respectively, and a ranged weapon using the B button. You avoid attacks using the left stick. You gain health from containers, and can upgrade your attacks with items. There are environmental puzzles to overcome by pushing objects and during boss fights and in some cinematic moments you’ll be forced into quick time events – timed button presses.
Not being the hugest fan of God of War, I found the same frustrations with that game here. Sometimes you’d miss something attacking you because of the camera angles. The button presses in the QTEs were never intuitive, and if you weren’t on the ball you’d fail and have to repeat the sequence. You’d walk or puzzle through to an arena which would become locked off, and you’d have to fight a number of bad guys until it became unlocked. To me it’s just doing the same thing over and over.

It’s confounded in Dante’s Inferno because you are doing the same thing over and over. Although there are many enemies to fight at one time, there are only about 5 different types of enemies, and once you learn their attack sequence and upgrade your weapons to about 5th level, you just end up going through the motions to get through the game. I honestly finished the game simply by mashing B to fire off Dante’s Cross attack.

And this is really disappointing because the enemy design is fantastic. The unbaptised babies are awesome with their horrendous knife arms and big heads. The gluttons are disgusting with multiple faces in layers of fat. The lust demons are just the right combination of sexy and horrible. Some of the set piece design is highly reminiscent of HR Geiger, the mash of organic and material, the grotesque and erotic.

Adding to the clever creature design is fantastic sound design. The screams and howls of the damned constantly echo through Hell. Each level has its specific yells when you climb on the walls of souls (which you do every freaking level!) – Greed has people demanding you give them your cross, whilst in Anger you’ll hear all kinds of threats of violence. The rest of the voice acting is less impressive, with Dante himself being damn whiny, although Satan is suitably smarmy.

The environmental puzzles throughout the levels are never too challenging, involving locating switches and moving and jumping on boxes, with environmental exploration rather predictable – you see where you have to go, and simply go. Worst of all is the rope swinging and chasm jumping areas. So many times, due mostly to bad camera angles, you’d make a leap of faith from rope to rope or chasm to chasm, and more often than not that faith was misplaced.

Another problem with Dante’s Inferno is God Of War made you want to experience the world of Ancient Greece. Although we know about it through school and television, GoW has a unique and interesting twist on that understanding which made us want to explore their take on it, with Kratos himself being an intriguing character. Dante on the other hand has no redeeming features. He’s whiny and his motivation seems shallow and trite. Even though he mentions it every chance he gets, you never really feel he’s motivated by his love for Beatrice. And Beatrice doesn’t seem worth saving either – she just bitches at Dante the entire time for betraying her.

To make matters worse, Hell is so repetitive. This is Dante’s Inferno, an amazing poem describing the nine levels of Hell as they descend away from God! There’s a feeling of descent as you trapeze down rope and fall down holes, but then you simply go into corridor after corridor, room after room. You never feel as though it’s all a complete, intertwined universe. The game never really gives you any sense of the scale of the Inferno, except in the set pieces. And admittedly everything is meant to be drab and dreary in the underworld, but the colour scheme of next gen red, brown and black gets so tedious that you just begin to ignore it all after a while.

But I think the greatest injustice is there are levels called Greed, Lust, Anger, and they’re just backdrops to button mashing. Dante’s Inferno is a Contrapasso, a symbolic instance of poetic justice, wherein the punishment fits the crime. False prophets have their heads on backwards. Satan’s pride keeps him frozen. How cool would it be to have some kind of gameplay device that incorporated being tempted to give into anger and have you punished for it, or tempted you with shiny items in Greed that made the game extremely difficult if you pursued them? Instead we have the same button mashing enemies to kill. Sure, in Lust the backdrop is a giant Cleopatra with tongues as nipples, but apart from a short environmental puzzle to solve to get rid of her, it’s simply mashing buttons and killing tonnes of enemies like the rest of the game.

Conclusion:
Dante’s Inferno could have offered more. It’s heavily influenced by God Of War, but never seeks to do anything to differentiate itself from its influence beyond a superficial weapon development tree that has ultimately no impact on the game or the story. The enemy design, whilst interesting, was subsumed by the repetitiveness of the game and level design. La Divina Commedia is such a great source to stage a game from, but the writers clearly didn’t understand the material deeply enough to make the best use of it for gameplay purposes. In short, Dante’s Inferno could have been a fantastic new IP for EA, but when it comes down to it; it’s just a generic GoW clone.

Pros:
Excellent character and set piece design
Nice skill development
Excellent sound

Cons:
Bland level design
Very repetitive combat
Poor use of static cameras
Poor use of the source material

70/100

Event, Faster Louder, Music, Review, Writing

J-Rocc & Breakestra

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J-Rocc & Breakestra

Due to Melbourne’s fantastic transit system, and the wonderful work of the Roads Authority of doing road works on a Friday night, I missed the first act at the Corner and a big swath of J-Rocc’s set, which needless to say I was not happy about. However, my frown was turned upside down as J-Rocc, who alongside DJ Babu forms the musical backbone of the Beat Junkies, was spinning some wicked beats in true hiphop style.

Quickly cutting beats and juggling records, J-Rocc played an epic set, playing up to the crowd by dropping classics like Can I kick It, White Lines, James Brown, Ordinary People, and 3 is the Magic Number. J-Rocc was a close friend of J-Dilla, and played many of his tracks in tribute to the deceased DJ. But it wasn’t all hiphop – he dropped some Buju Banton and even played Safety Dance at one stage!

Although the crowd were loving it, throwing their hands in the air and cheering when J-Rocc did the robot on stage, the roar as Breakestra come to the stage showed why everyone was there. Letting people know they had a new album out From Dusk Til Dawn, the Kid Named Miles led the band through an epic two hours of non-stop funk. If you’ve never experienced Breakestra before, they’re a 10 piece funk group, inspired by classic funk and soul of the 60s and 70s, but address it with a hiphop attitude. Whilst they don’t use any pre-recorded samples, they’ll drop live samples into their sets. For example, they’ll drop the iconic horns from Marva Whitney’s Unwind Yourself, better known as the horns from DJ Kool’s Let Me Clear My Throat, and then bust out one of their own tunes.

Dropping some funky stuff from the Meters, they introduced Afrodyete, a guest singer on the new album whose poise and powerful voice in reminiscent of the great Tina Turner. Unfortunately Mixmaster Wolf couldn’t join this tour, but Miles and Afrodyete performed the songs he generally sings on admirably. As the band continues to morph its way through beats and breaks, combining their own records such as Get It right and Getcho Soul Together, they play stuff from the Jacksons, James Brown, Stax, and more. I especially loved it when they played Jimmy Castor’s Just Begun into the incredible Bongo Band version of Apache, a mix of tunes I like to play whenever I get the funk out. Another stand out is Miles’ rearrangement of Johnny Cash’s Ring Of Fire which is simply groovy!

Although Breakestra is essentially just Miles and Wolf, with a rotating group of musicians on both albums and tours, their professionalism and cohesion as a band is evidence throughout the show. Myles is proficient on bass, guitar, and cello, as evidenced by the track Me & Michelle. Drummer Jason Pitkin deserves a special mention as well. Stopping only twice, he did a phenomenal job at keeping the beat going for the entire show.

Whilst I’m sure the crowd would have wanted the band to play from dusk to dawn, they concluded it after what felt like a very short two hours. The energy and professionalism they have on stage is just phenomenal, and once it had ended it felt as though everyone went to the merchandising stand to get a souvenir of the incredible show they had just been a part of.

Event, Faster Louder, Review, Writing

Red Bennies Saturday Launch @ Red Bennies

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I really didn’t know what to expect with Red Bennies. I knew the venue was the old Viper Room, a notorious nightclub associated with drugs, guns and violence, and the new owners were very keen to banish not only the clubs’ past, but rather improve the whole overall image of the South Side. From the effort put into the opening Saturday night, I dare say Red Bennies will quickly establish itself as one of the coolest places to be in Melbourne.

Walking up the stairs, it quickly became apparent Red Bennies is aiming for a classy crowd. There is brass and silver everywhere, a large glass smoking area upon which is a balcony fitted with a small bar. There are two well stocked bars either side of the small dancefloor, and a small centre stage catches the eye with its luscious red velvet curtains. There were beautiful women draped in delicious finery, and gorgeous men looking like they were born in their suits. I was dressed in a hoody and jeans and as you can imagine, I felt a little underdressed, but there was no snobbery from these new gentiles.

The wait for the bar for my complimentary champagne was rather long, but this was because the cocktail staff lovingly creates drinks to order. There are no premixes or frozen slushy drinks here! Although I didn’t order a cocktail, the drinks appear to be reasonably priced. I got change from ordering an Asahi which is a rare thing these days.

Emma Peel was on the ones and twos, looking as amazing as ever and spinning some fine funk and rare groove. There were a few people dancing, but the hubbub of people talking wasn’t eclipsed by the music so it was perfect for catching up with people. Projected on the stage curtains was some old b&w films, adding to the decadent 1920s feel of the venue.

The MC announced himself and came onto stage. I didn’t catch his name, but he had the crowd in his palm by doing the old dividing the crowd into two and getting them to cheer trick. He told a fair few jokes, many of which were cringe worthy, but not nearly as cringe worthy as hammering two forks up his nose!

Grant Goldie was introduced, and he proceeded to dazzle the audience with his Yo-Yo skills. I felt he was very Chaplin-esc in the way he moved and interacted with the crowd – no talking, just a silly grin and a glance here and there. Once he was done, a trapeze lowered and Tank was introduced to the crowd. She wowed everyone with her burlesque style swing set, showing amazing strength and agility and no doubt putting a few hearts into a flutter.

Emma Peel kicked off the music again with some fine funk, and got people up and salsa dancing to her cool funk. After too short a while, for I could watch Emma spin for hours, Cookin’ on 3 Burners took to the stage. Inspired by the Hammond Organ funk groups of Jimmy Smith, Reuben Wilson and Jimmy McGriff, Lance Ferguson (also of the Bamboos), Jake Mason and Ivan Khatchoyan entertained the crowd with their high energy funk. Amongst their original compositions they dropped their cover of Cars by Garry Numan, which was a crowd favourite judging by the reactive shout that came from everyone.

Kylie Auldist stepped out, resplendent in a nice gold trimmed dress, matching the class of the place brilliantly. She did a few of her own tracks, and a few Cookin’ On 3 Burners tracks, concluding with a brilliant rendition of Push It Up which simply blew my mind. The only issue I have with their set was it was too short. I would have loved to hear an encore or three.

Next up was a 70s pornstar styled DJ playing some very funky disco and soul from the likes of Aretha Franklin. I didn’t hear his name announced unfortunately, but would love to hear him play again.

Although I loved the venue, the music, and the crowd present on Saturday night, I do have one reservation about Red Bennies. I fear the special zaniness of the launch night will be eclipsed by the mediocrity of having to run a commercial enterprise. I loved seeing acrobats and burlesque and beautiful women dressed up to the nines whilst listening to some great music, but I have to admit I’m a rare breed. Hopefully though Red Bennies can appeal to more people like me, and be one of those special places which help define Melbourne as a cultural Mecca.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Assassin’s Creed II

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Assassin’s Creed was one of those games that showed a lot of promise. It was a refreshing story set mostly in a time that’s never before been explored in games, and setting the game in the Animus, visiting the memories of relatives was not only a clever way of presenting the game to the player, but opens potential as a series instead of just a standalone title. The title’s hero, the acrobatic Altaïr, was well designed and had some great moves. However, it was let down by repetitive gameplay, sometimes awkward combat, and a frustrating lack of cohesiveness to the whole experience.

Assassin’s Creed II starts off with Desmond Miles escaping the Templar controlled Abstergo research facility / prison setting of the first game, and taken to a safe house with a new Animus, this time run by the much friendlier bunch of people aligned to the Assassin’s Guild. This time, the search for the ancient technology delves into the memories of the life of Ezio Auditore da Firenze, a likeable rogue living in Renaissance Italy, whose merchant family become involved in the conflict between the Templars and Assassins.

Unlike Altaïr, Ezio is not trained as an assassin from the start of the game, so instead of having a bunch of skills and losing them like in the first game, as you progress through the game you gain your skills and weapons of the trade. This makes the game far more enjoyable, as the first hour or so you get to just run and jump and brawl at your own pace, exploring the city of Firenze (Florence) and getting to know the character of Enzio and his allies. Enzio is a lovable rogue like Han Solo or the Dread Pirate Roberts; quick of wit and good of heart. When it does come time to fight and assassinate another person, the progression seems natural to both the story and the character of Enzio, who’s motivated by revenge and not any other shady purpose.

As likeable as Ezio is the real star of the show is the world he inhabits. Renaissance Italy is alive in this game. The streets are crowded with people going about their business, and unlike the first game you can blend in with any group, instead of having to wait for priests. Admittedly most are just walking around in circles, but the paths they follow and clever placement of guards hides the fact these are predetermined cycles, and make you believe the people have a purpose beyond hiding you. You can now enlist the aid of courtesans to hide you and distract guards, and the thieves and thugs return and appear far more able than the previous game.

Like the first game, the free running aspect truly shines. Jumping up to the rooftops and sprinting across tiled roofs and making leaps of faith into straw bales is still a tonne of fun. Paths are made far more obvious, and you don’t seem to make as many mistakes. The tall spires of Italy’s Churches make for some excellent vantage points, and the absence of Templars just standing around doing nothing at the bottom of them make exploring the verticality of the city much less of a chore.

There are a bunch of side missions to do, such as assassin contracts, races, and beating up cheating husbands. These are pleasurable distractions from the main quests, and net you some coin. Adding to this is the Assassin Vaults, six locations spread throughout Italy where you have to use Ezio’s athletic skills to get to remote vaults to unlock Altaïr’s armour. These Prince of Persia style puzzles will have you jumping and running and swinging, trying to get to a certain point before the time runs out. Whilst a little frustrating especially when Ezio jumps the wrong way from a wall jump, these challenges break up the other action of the game well.

There is also an economy of sorts. Enzio is given refuge in his uncle Mario’s home. Just as an aside, when Ezio meets his uncle it’s one of the most humorous moments in the game. Mario’s home is run down, the city in disrepair, but by gaining money from side missions and robbing chests, you can improve the citadel by upgrading buildings and beautifying the building with Renaissance art from the likes of Bruges and Da Vinci. As you improve the citadel, you gain access to better weapons and armour.

What I haven’t mentioned is all of these things are optional. You can just simply follow the story line quests, and zip through the game. But these activities unlock better items and make the game easier that they’re all worth doing. Also, they’re just a hell of a lot of fun. And the main missions themselves are quite a bit different from before. There is a heap of variety this time; you don’t simply do the same bunch of tasks to find and then kill the bad dude like the last game. This time you can bash your way through guards, leap from a rooftop, sneak up to your mark and then shoot him, or climb up a big tower and dispatch him. There’s even a part where you fly over a fortified wall in Da Vinci’s flying apparatus!

The fighting has been refined too, made simpler but more engaging. Taking a leaf from Arkham Asylum, the fights flow more fluidly, relying on timing and grace. You won’t get all the guards piling on at once; rather they’ll wait for an opening before attacking. Countering is still the best way to dispatch an enemy, but you can disarm enemies and use their weapons against them. This is particularly useful against heavily armoured foes.

There are still some issues with movement in the game. Sometimes Ezio will leap the wrong way from a wall jump, or will miss a beam you’re aiming for, or won’t edge around a wall properly. There was one particular tower where I would try and jump up to a higher ledge, but he would jump backwards into a leap of faith. There are also some minor clipping issues when fighting, and I once got trapped in some unfinished mesh because I evaded into the chimney of a roof, but these are really minor bugs and didn’t deter my enjoyment of the game.

Otherwise the game looks great. Ezio’s movements are graceful and elegant. The recreation of Renaissance Italy is superb, and the costumes and characters feel authentic. The inclusion of real life persons adds to this greatly, but the authentic sounds make it greater still. From Ezio’s footsteps on the tiled roofs, to the shop assistants yelling, to the sounds of the forge, it all creates a sense of realness. The only problem is the Italian-English accents, as it’s a little hackneyed in some parts.

Conclusion
After Assassin’s Creed, I was a little worried that the series would simply fade away. So many other Ubisoft games have suffered because of sequelitis, but the premise was interesting enough that I would like to see its conclusion. Playing Assassin’s Creed II, one can’t help but think Ubisoft really did listen to the criticism of the last game. Everything has been expanded upon and improved. That which didn’t work well was removed, and that which did was left in and improved upon. And the work done to improving the game has made it into one of the better games to come out this year.

Pros:
Great continuation of the story
Excellent amount of variety both in main missions and side missions
Likable character living in an excellently created world that shines both visually and aurally
Superb game mechanics of the first game refined

Cons:
Some minor graphical issues
Accents can sound a bit hackneyed.

90/100

Event, Faster Louder, Music, Review, Writing

Hilltop Hoods @ Festival Hall, Melbourne

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I’ve never really got the sense Festival Hall was all that big until I saw Vents One and DJ Adfu on stage. With the pair on the sparse stage in front of the massive crowd, they looked miniscule. Plus they had a hard task, opening up for Australia’s most popular hiphop act, the Hilltop Hoods, and it was clear the crowd weren’t going to suffer fools lightly.

However, Vents One is one of my favourite Aussie rappers; intelligent, witty, with the right amount of aggressiveness in his rhyme delivery but with an exciting party vibe, and every time I see him he has rocked the crowd. Melbourne was no exception, as he and DJ Adfu bounded across the stage they got the crowd jumping with their rawkus rhyming, busting out tracks such as Hard To Kill, Five Minutes to Midnight, NBC, a new track called Rollin’ Balls, and even getting the crowd singing along with Love Song (aka the NaNaNa song).

As soon as they stopped however, the chanting for Hilltops started, and was loudest coming from the underage area. It was phenomenal and I haven’t heard that kind of noise since seeing the Hilltops perform with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. When DJ Debris stepped up on stage, and the video screen behind him lit up with decks and a mixer animated in the style of their record sleeves, the crowd went nuts.

Suffa and Pressure bounded out on stage, dropping Super Official to open. With the screen lit up, and the guys jumping around and busting out their hits from State of the Art, they filled the stage with their presence, seemingly growing in stature, no longer eclipsed by a giant, almost empty stage. They busted out Still Standing, speeding their rhymes and beats at the conclusion of the song to a blistering pace, welcomed from the roar of the crowd.

Feel The Vibe had everyone with their hands in the air, and had one of the longest pauses between versus that made the crowd scream with delight when Pressure dropped it. In between songs Debris dropped Dance of the Sugar Plumb Fairies and they shot out t-shirts to the crowd. They busted State of the Art over Led Zeppelin’s I Wanna Give You My Love.

But this was only the beginning. Pressure and Suffa both dropped rhymes acapella during Last Confession, showing they’ve still got the skills to pay the bills. Nose Bleed Section was a crowd favourite, as always, followed by a new tune For the Ladies. And for the Light You Burned, easily my favourite on the album, they brought both Vents and Briggs (who played earlier but whom I unfortunately missed out on) out for a verse each. And I’m still astounded at how well the boys sing on this track!

After a short intermission, the words “Hill” “A” “Toppa” appeared on stage, and the lights rose to show these were LCD Screens the back of their hoodies, before dropping the hillatoppa track. She’s So Ugly followed, with Suffa lambasting the press for being so negative about hiphop culture. They called out the dude with the Hilltops tattoo and told him it was his round, and finished up with Clown Prince.

Being an Adelaide boy, I swell with pride when I think of how successful the Hilltop Hoods have become. From rhyming in the back yards of mates in the Adelaide Hills and weird festivals with less than 200 people, to headlining festivals and selling out their own shows, it’s hard not to be proud of their achievements. Many other Australian acts cast aside their roots when they reach a certain level of fame, choosing to go the easy route option to get cash, and ignoring those who supported them. The fact the Hilltop Hoods support lesser known local acts like Vents and Briggs who had beginnings similar to them, bringing them in front of the huge audiences they can now command, show that they’re as committed to the Australian hiphop scene as they ever were.

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

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Fight Night Round 4

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It’s no secret that EA’s Fight Night revolutionised boxing games. Moving the control scheme away from the buttons to the control sticks was a genius move, and has allowed EA to pretty much dominate the genre since first coming out with it. However, with Fight Night Round 4, it’s apparent the franchise needs something special to continue being held in such high regard. It’s not that Fight Night Round 4 is bad in any way, it just lacks the punch (pardon the pun) of the previous entries.

All the good stuff of Fight Night Round 3 is here – the awesome graphics, improved with much more realistic levels of sweat, and fantastic lighting of rings and boxers; the great sound giving the visceral realism the game is renowned for a bigger impact; and the robust fighter creator which creates eerily similar facsimiles of those with XboxLive Cameras.

For the actual in-ring gameplay, the punching system has been revamped with a new physics engine, and each punch landed feels more solid and powerful than previous titles. Some punches have changed – the haymaker is now mapped to a button press and a hook movement with the joystick, which means players aren’t accidentally throwing them at opponents so much. Likewise, body punches are no longer modified by a button, but instead mapped to the normal punch controls, promoting their importance and use against opponents. Parrying has become a solid block, and there isn’t a momentary opening from blocking – you’ve literally have to fight for openings. Now more so than ever, you need to time your punches when in the ring, get into a rhythm of punching, dodging and counterpunching.

Counterpunching is the key, and the camera will alter slightly and a sound will play, indicating if you can land a punch, it will be more powerful than a normal punch. Landing the punch is often harder than expected, because the opponent will know as well, and can get a good block up in time. This of course can work against you, as an opponent can counter a counter, so you’ve got to be forceful yet tactical when you fight.

Career mode, called Legacy, is where you’ll spend the most of you time. You can choose a boxer or build your own, and build up your stats through fights and training, winning bouts and series and belts until you’re the Champion. Whilst it’s a pretty solid game mode, there are some issues with it. Firstly is its length. I found it simply too long to maintain my interest. I like games to progress quickly, so found the way you win round after round against the early nobodies, and then suddenly hit a brick wall of toughness that is impassable seemingly no matter what you try to do. The amount of time I’ve been stuck at 30, and knocked out with seemingly weak punches and cheap shots is annoying at best.

I realise the trick is to fight lower ranked boxers to build up stats, but I’m far too impatient for that, and I think many other gamers are too. It just feels unnecessary, like a way to prolong the career mode rather than to actually give more substance to it. To make matters worse, the minigames which improve your stats are often overly difficult. Each different type of game gives you a range of stats, but none give you a change to raise all your stats. To get the full range of stats, you need to do very well in the minigame, and some of them feel impossible to achieve more than a mediocre score. Skipping gives you half the bonus, but when it’s only +5 or +6 a stat per mini game, your stats are going to take way too long to raise in such a manner.

So you might choose the bag to rise your heart and chin stats one time, and even though you string moving to 10 zones together in a row, still come out with a grade of “bum”, which gives you half points. And as you can only train once between fights, and fights need at least a month of recovery, you simply fly through the years and it feels like you’re not developing quickly enough. I realise I may be judging this too harshly, but to me games are all about achieving something. If I’m punching above my weight, I should be rewarded, not punished with cheap shots and hard minigames.

There’s also a fight mode, where you can play against the computer with your favourite real life boxers, or two player which is still as much fun as ever. The hits and bruises are as hardcore as ever, and if you have a bunch of mates around watching, you’ll get the same oohs and ahhs as if you’re watching a real boxing match on TV. It’s not quite the party game Rockband is, although it in nearly just as fun playing as it is watching. Online the game is as good as its predecessor, with little lag. Boxing games seem to attract a hardcore crowd online, so prepare for some smacktalk.

Sound was mentioned briefly before, and it’s still great, with impact sounds sounding heavy and forceful. Additionally, there has been some great work integrating the soundtrack into the whole game.Whilst being full of the usual EA tracks, spanning multiple genres such as hiphop, funk, and rock, with some being good and others not so good, during loading screens the tune that was playing in the menu is cut back and looped, and later continues with a different effects process depending on if you’re in a ring, a stadium, or the gym. It’s a subtle but clever way of making you feel as part of the game or story, and not just jumping from menu to menu.

Conclusion:
Fight Night Round 4 is a solid game, different enough from its predecessor to warrant a play through, but I’m not completely convinced there’s enough of a change to make someone who loves Fight Night Round 3 to change. The changes appear more subtle, and whilst technically it’s a better game, I didn’t get as much fun out of it this as I did Fight Night 3.

Pros:
Great boxing action, refined for a more tactical style of game
Great to play two player
Fantastic visuals.
Awesome use of sound

Cons:
Minigames too difficult
Feels like they’ve made things deliberately too hard to prolong gameplay in Legacy mode.

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers

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Wizards of the Coast have tried to capture the hearts, minds and wallets of Magic the Gathering Xbox fans before, with Magic the Gathering: Battlefields. Whilst it was an interesting game, it didn’t really translate the actual skills, knowledge and indeed obsession that the collectable card game requires.

So knowing that the Magic the Gathering card game is best representation by the actual cards themselves, this time around they’ve used what they’ve learned from MTG: Online, and made it suitable to an xbox audience by offering it as an Arcade download. It’s presented a little like UNO on XBLA, with a playing surface that players lay their cards down onto, with graveyard (where you discard cards) to the side and your hand revealed only to you (and your partner in co-op games).

The game’s presentation is great. The cards are revealed to you as they’re played, and squeezing a trigger brings them up close so you can read them in better detail. Each card is played with an effect, so for example a flying creature hovers over the playing field, a healing artefact sparkles blue, scratch marks appear when a creature hits. A clear and precise representation of which creature is attacking and which creature you’re blocking with makes tracking plays easy. The paintings from the cards are reproduced here, and it’s fantastic to see these in high definition. I still chuckle at the Pacifism spell imagery.

There are various modes available to the player on starting the game. The robust tutorial will help new players or those who are a bit rusty. Once you’ve got through this, there is a Challenge mode which sets up a one turn play in which you have to play the right cards to win. These are really helpful in understanding the game mechanics better, and I strongly recommend this for new players before getting into the longer Campaign mode.

Presenting you with a range of starter decks, Campaign mode sets up a tourney with the selected deck against progressively harder AI. As you defeat each enemy planeswalker, you unlock more cards. As there 16 rounds fighting against 9 enemies, you’ll unlock 16 new cards for your deck, as well as the decks of your enemies. Unlocking all the cards for all the decks will take quite some time, giving the game a long shelf life for obsessive fans. There is also Co-operative Campaign, where two players on a console can go head to head with the AI.

The AI is quite clever, as it knows its deck and the rules very well, using these in a very logical and rehearsed manner, but it can do silly things, like attack a creature instead of a player, or play certain cards too soon when a human player might hold off. As all games there is also a bit of luck in who gets what cards out when, and the AI flounders as much as a player does. However, after unlocking a couple of decks, playing the same AI over and over to unlock more can become a little tedious and predictable.

However, this is all really a prelude to the online games. Online you can play 2, 3 or 4 player all against all, or two versus two. There’s also a special mentoring system, where a player can come online and see your hand, and suggest how to combat enemy players.

You can tailor the starter decks with your unlocked cards for off and online play, but you can’t create your own from scratch. Whilst the more hardcore MTG players may baulk at this, I think it’s a clever decision. It reminds me of the sealed deck tournaments we used to play – you’d always have some idea of what you’d get in a standard pack, but sealed decks even the field between players. In the games I played, although I’m not exactly a noob I am very rusty, I felt I was beaten by a skilful player, and not someone who was lucky or had the right deck.

One of my biggest complaints about the collectible card game is you’ve got to spend so much money on getting your deck to how you want, and with new editions invalidating your favourite cards (essentially forcing you to buy more) it becomes untenable for all but the most dedicated players. The xbox version gets around this by standardising the decks, allowing you some leeway to play a deck you like, with winning really coming down to your skill (and a little bit of luck) and not simply the amount of time and money you have.

Yet even new comers will find they can play against a seasoned pro and the games will feel fairer. This system allows anyone to pick up the game and play on a relatively fair basis. Someone picking the game up in six months time will have the same cards as someone who got the game at launch (assuming downloadable card packs don’t get released in that time), meaning there isn’t a disadvantage in arriving to the party late.

Conclusion
Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers will scratch the itch many ex-MTG players have. Although completely accessible to absolute new comers, the game seems just as well designed for those of us who used to play but got sick of the constant revisions and releases and unfairness that came with the collectable card game. It might not go far enough to simulate the game with the inability to customise the starter decks limiting some enjoyment of the game, but otherwise it’s a great way to pass the time.

Pros:
Excellent Presentation of the MTG card game
Easy to pick up and learn
Fair amount of replayablity with unlockable cards, co-op and online modes

Cons:
Can’t completely customise your own deck
AI can feel too logical and predictable
Unlocking everything can become tedious.

80/100

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