Tag Archives: 2010

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Shaun White Skateboarding

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Taking influences from many sources, Shaun White Skateboarding seeks to forge a new path for skateboarding games, and adds a few new twists on an old genre. It attempts to muscle in on territory held by Activision with Tony Hawk on the one hand, and EA’s Skate on the other. Instead of knocking out the competition, it gets squished in the middle, making a little noise but ultimately being ineffectual in making itself really stand as a contender.

With the story of SWS appearing far more developed than in Skate or any Tony Hawk games, you find yourself in the world of the Ministry, a faceless, boring bureaucracy which insists everyone to behave in a regular manner, not dream nor imagine; not be exceptional, not be outstanding. It’s a dystopian view of the corporate world, not dissimilar to the one found in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, but nowhere near as clever.
As public enemy number one, presumably because he is exceptional and outstanding, Shaun White is arrested, and hands you his board. You transform from corporate slave to gnarly skateboarder dude, and then through the help of some friends, seek to free the whole city from under the corporate grey mundanity of the Ministry’s grasp.

You do this by skating, of course. Your main objective is to colourise the world, and in this way it is a bit like DeBlob on the Wii. As you cruise around on your board performing tricks, the world around you goes from drab and lifeless greys to full colour and life. Trees sprout from the side walk. Cars are splashed with bright colours. Walls become covered in animated graffiti artworks. The more tricks you pull, the wider your area of influence becomes. The wave of energy ripples out from where you land the tricks, shaking the cars and trees around you, reminiscent of Blur’s area effect weapon.

The trick system is very familiar to anyone who’s played Skate. You flick the Right Stick to pull off moves in the air, and modify with the face and trigger buttons. However, it feels like Skate –Lite. The tricks are easy to pull off, and the game guides you to land safely most of the time. It’s only in extreme circumstances, like falling from a great height or not completing a flip that you ‘bail’.

There’s also a Flow meter down the bottom of the screen, and filling up the meter means you can use Flow to influence certain areas of the world. For example, see a swirly yellow line in the middle of the street means there is something, usually a ramp or jump, which can be influenced to appear by landing a trick when your meter is in the yellow zone. Blue swirlies indicate objects which need you to be in the blue zone, and likewise purple indicate the highest amount of Flow you need to unlock the area. This also applies to the pedestrians who populate the world. Get your meter up and you can influence yellow and blue business people to become brightly clothed snap happy photographers and skaters.

Flow is the main weapon used in the story of the game to unlock more areas and further the story along. There is more to do than just build flow though. There is an XP system, and by completing challenges around the world you gain XP, which is used to unlock more skate tricks. The more tricks in your arsenal, the more flow you build up.

The best bit of the game is creating ramps and rails out of thin air. Around the world you’ll see hazy green icons, and running up the ramp icon creates a ramp. Riding onto the street icon creates a wide path which can be manipulated up or down, creating bridges and the like. Jumping onto a rail and sliding onto the rail icons creates a rail which can get you up to higher places. At first the rails follow a determined path, but later on in the game you can manipulate the paths how you wish. This innovative approach to extending levels vertically works very well, making you feel some real freedom in making your own paths through the world.

There are also a host of things to smash, walls to wall ride, and tickets to collect, all of which grant achievements, experience and / or unlockable clothing and skate boards and accessories. The latter seems to be lacking somewhat in “real world” brands especially compared to Skate and Tony Hawk, although the subtle advertising in world (such as the Wendy’s shop fronts plastered with the Wendy’s logo) points to paid advertising in the game. As to why the advertising wasn’t more “skate culture” orientated I can only surmise that other companies had exclusive deals with the other franchises.

And despite the cool new things you can do in the game compared to the other skate games, about 5 or 6 hours into it things get rather dull. The story slows down, the new area is already full of colour so doing tricks is just morphing the world into ramps and jumps, and you feel like you’re simply going through the motions. I still like to fire up Skate and try to pull off new tricks, but the simpler trick system in SWS means there’s nothing to actually master.

The graphics of the game look decidedly underwhelming. Although the effects and colours are great, and the main character animations are smooth enough, the animations of the albeit numerous pedestrians are very basic. You’ll see the same animations over and over again. The in-game cutscenes look very basic, with low polygon models and atrocious lipsynch.

Although the game never takes itself seriously, with caricatures of stoner skateboarders throughout, the story script won’t be winning awards for creative writing. The dialogue is delivered well enough, although I often had problems in cutscenes where the voice would drop out entirely. The ancillary voices are repetitive to the point of annoying. It’s unintentionally funny you’re helping this repressed and conformist world to free itself, and everyone runs around saying “Hi, my name is Dave” and “Fight the Power!” Musically the game also underperforms compared to the other skateboarding franchises, being full of typical skate/punk/pop music with nothing too outstanding to make note of.

Multiplayer games simply do not exist. After more than an hour waiting over numerous nights, I didn’t find a single game. I admit it could have been one of those silly moderate NAT issues which sometimes occur with Xbox Live games, but I would have thought I’d have seen at least one person try and join my game. As it stands, not one person joined my on line game, and I never once saw anyone playing online.

Conclusion:
Shaun White Skateboarding provides a great deal of fun for a few hours, and then seems to collapse on itself. The ideas contained within are innovative in terms of a skateboarding game, but grow stale after a few hours. The ease of pulling off tricks, the poor quality of the characters and animations and music and dialogue all contrive to make the game lesser than the sum of its parts. Which is a shame, because given the state of the Tony Hawk franchise, the video game skating world does really need some fresh ideas.

Pros:
Interesting concepts
It’s fun creating your own paths through the world.
Easy to get the hang of tricks

Cons:
Poorly executed concepts, which grow stale after a few hours
Poor character animations, especially in cutscenes
Tricks are possibly too easy
Dialogue is too repetitive

67/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2

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The Force Unleashed underwhelmed people across the galaxy last year. Although it’s ever so fun to grab and throw storm troopers off balconies, the incredibly repetitive game play and shockingly badly boss fights, designed to show off the DMM physics but which ended up showing the limits of both this new technology and the imagination of the game designers, saw the game get reamed in the press, and have rather low sales for a new Star Wars franchise. Force Unleashed 2 seeks to address some of those concerns, but does so only half heartedly.

The story involves the clone of Starkiller, bought back from the dead by Vader and trained as a dual lightsaber wielder simply because it looks cool. Breaking out of your prison and escaping the Kamino cloning facilities, you rush off to find your old mate General Kota in an effort to find the love of your life, Juno Eclipse. Your journey takes you from Kamino to the Trade Federation homeworld of Cato Nemoidia, Dagobah, and then back to Kamino via a Rebel Frigate ship.

The locations look amazing. From the rain falling in Kamino, to the wealthy majesty of the upside down bridge cities of Cato Nemoidia to the fog covered swamp of Dagobah, the game looks less like a game and more like a Star Wars movie. I have to make special mention of the Frigate ship, which although empty at first creates a legitimately spooky feel, at least until the first wave of new enemies arrives.

However, for a game which is meant to be a sequel, there are less locations than the original, and when Dagobah is essentially an interactive cut-scene with no action to speak of, you feel cheated. The game will take you a little over 5 hours to complete and although there is an unlockable “unleashed” hardcore mode and at least one alternative ending, the short and rather contrived story and limited locations make a second play through an option only for the serious fan (or seriously bored).

The action of the game is still the same – you simply button mash your way through room after room of enemies. This time though, you start with nearly all your force powers, and there is also dismemberment, which on top of the force push/grab mechanic, is damn fun to do. There is a little more Arkham Asylum finesse to your button mashing for flourishes and kill moves. It’s almost as if the designers had something special in mind for these moves, but then that got left out of the game.

There are variations to enemies this time around to make things more interesting, but they’re rather easy to dispatch once you’ve figured out some can only be hurt by lightsaber, and others can only be hurt by certain force effects. The fact these appear in groups together on the same levels gives you a little more pause for thought, but when you realise the guy you’re sabring isn’t getting hurt, you simply mash the force buttons instead.

Two new enemies appear in FU2 and need require special mention. The little scamping robots in the Frigate level, although they do little damage and are easy to dispatch, are almost annoying as Halo’s Flood. And while the Rancors are gone from the game, the new carbonite and fire droids are almost as annoying and repetitive to battle. You take their shield away with a button mash minigame, use lightning or saber throw, and then quicktime event to dispatch them when their health is low.

The infuriating boss fights are still present, and while it’s much easier to not fail now, they still seem designed to prolong gameplay instead of creating fun. The boss fight with the Gorog on Cato Nemoida is straight out of the God Of War handbook, and admittedly would have been fun if I hadn’t played it in every adventure game since God Of War. The Terror Droid on the Rebel Ship is annoying because not only do you have to contend with the Flood-bots, you’ve got to do a force puzzle to pull things out of their sockets, and then put things back into the sockets to complete the battle. It just seems so pointless.

There is an annoying jumping puzzle right near the final confrontation stage that will make you curse and throw your controller, and once you think it’s done, there’s an additional bit to extend the gameplay out even more. When I saw this bit, I turned my Xbox off in disgust. Seriously game designers, if you’re going to make jumping puzzles in 3D action games, you need to get your camera perfect. Otherwise they just upset and frustrate players. And if you’re going to make the player restart, make it at the point they fell, not where the level starts.

And if you insist on making a jumping puzzle like this, make it lead to something awesome. The final confrontation is so repetitive for the most part that you’re thankful for the simple button mashing quicktime events it feature, and positively ecstatic when presented with the only “light / dark choice” moment in the game.

Conclusion:
The fact this game is named “Force Unleashed 2” is a misnomer. There have been minor tweaks to the game play, little change to the animations of any but the main character, rampant re-use of assets and props, and at a little over 5 hours of game play, you know this project was rushed out to make the most of the fading light that is Lucas Arts Star Wars franchise. It really should have come as an add-on for the original game, and not as a full priced, stand alone product.

However, despite the story being rather lame, the game being too short, overwhelmingly repetitive and frustratingly annoying in most of the boss fights, I can’t say it’s a completely terrible game. I found myself happily mashing buttons for 5 hours straight. Because not matter what the rest of the game does, it’s still too much fun to pick up a flailing Stormtrooper and fling him off a ledge to his doom.

Pros:
Playing with physics is always fun
flinging stormtroopers to their doom is always cool
The environments look amazing

Cons:
Too short
Too repetitive
Too derivative

65/100

FULL DISCLOSURE:

At Krome Studios in 2007, I worked as a tester on the PSP, PS2 and Wii ports of Star Wars The Force Unleashed.

I did not work on Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 at all in any capacity.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

PES 2011

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Pro Evolution Soccer used to be king of the hill when it came to soccer games. FIFA, whilst glitzy and loaded with cash, couldn’t match PES for the realism and all the fun of the World Game on a home console. However, starting with the2009 versions of the games (which were actually out in 2008), we saw the tables turn, with PES playing catch up ever since. This year is no different, but the gap has closed significantly.

It begins with the 360 passing. Quick and effective passing is what soccer is all about, and whilst it’s been good in PES in the past, it needed work. It always felt in PES that players were glued to the ball and running down invisible bits of string, with passing being based on algorithms and logic, instead of timing and forethought. However, it’s changed now to be much more flexible, and indeed harder. Now there is a power meter as well as the ability to send the ball in any direction. You must practice and get used to it, otherwise you’ll feel like passing has devolved. It wasn’t until I realised holding the trigger modifies the passing allowing you to target the ball better that I began to understand why I was passing through balls instead of passing succinctly.

This year’s game is played at a slower pace than what most PES players would be used to, but this is an improvement to the realism of the game. It complements the new passing moves and the new power meter. This makes the game slightly more tactical, which means the “ping-pong” action of the game, always a criticism of PES, almost doesn’t exist any longer.

PES 2011 retains the card modifiers for star players, and for the most part works well. Messi, although a great player, doesn’t have superpowers in real life, and the card modifiers for him don’t make him unstoppable. They add an increased depth to the way the player AI handles certain situations, but there is never a sense these star players are overpowered, just good at the game.

However, the improvements are let down somewhat by the AI and ball physics. To explain my complaints with the AI, it’s best to use examples. On a run up the field with a defending player, such as Puyol, players will do a dead stop rather than run offside. However, forwards are always faster than defenders, so this means if you dribble past the line of defence, your players will be at a standstill at some points and not running up into support. Conversely, when you’re defending, your players will run back from the player with the ball, meaning they’ll lose their marks, allowing attackers into the goal square.

Ball physics still needs a lot of work, as I’ve seen the ball bounce off a player into touch at right angles to that player, who was facing away from the direction of play. I’ve also seen a corner being headed directly upwards, which then neatly fell at the player’s feet which was volleyed into the goal. Whilst it makes the game more unpredictable, and in some ways a lot of fun, there are times when the bounce can put you at an extreme disadvantage. Particularly true is near the end of the match, when your players are tired. Last minute goals which end up in tied or lost matches are far too common in PES to be put down to simple luck.

There are plenty of modes of offer, with the Champions League and Copa Santander Libertadores (South American League) being playable, as well as being able to form your own leagues and competitions. The Master League is still incredibly in depth, seeming to take more from football manager games but applying it to how you manage your club. The menus are less obtuse and confusing than before, making it easy to get in and edit tactics, team formations, individual positions, man marking and the like. However, leaving it all to the “coach” also works just as well as getting your fingers dirty with the minutia of PES Master League.

This year the Master League goes online, and I have to be honest and say I never really gave it much of a go. I like being able to jump online, play a game, and then forget about it. If I wanted to manage teams in an in depth fashion, I’d play an online football manager. However, the few games I did have were pretty good compared to my experiences in previous years. There was an awfully long wait to get to a game, but once in it was only a little laggy, and certainly not unplayable as PES has been in the past.

The Be a Pro – sorry “Become a Legend” mode introduced a few years ago is back, but it still feels like a terrible rip off of FIFA’s mode. There’s still no ongoing notification of how you are performing during a match, which makes it very hard to develop your Legend. Personally, I think they should drop this mode and concentrate on the team game, which has always been one of PES’s strong points.

This is one of the best looking PES games in years. On field animation is great, especially with the teams licensed for the game. Other teams don’t fare so well and at times some players look a little stiff, robotic and bowlegged. Replays look fantastic, as there is a motion blur applied to the camera, and you can see players heads follow the ball as it whizzes past them. The crowd animation is still poor, and it lacks the vitality of other sports games. The ability to modify teams and now stadiums is a welcome addition, but it still feels silly to call the teams North London and Pompy.

The sound is great, for the most part too. The players call out to each other, and the authentic crowd chants and drum beating capture the authenticity of a real soccer match where the animation doesn’t. The music this year is great – no weird no-name Japanese trying to be westerners pop, but actual licensed music from Elite Force and Shihad, amongst others. However, this too is let down by the commentary. Dull, repetitive, and often not following the course of play at all. I don’t think it’s particularly the fault of John Champion and Jim Beglin, but more so the way commentary is arranged and triggered.

Conclusion:
To be brutally frank, in the preceding years PES seemed wishy washy, unsure of itself in light of the more powerful FIFA. This year, they’ve gone back to the drawing board, worked out what PES did well, what FIFA does well, and tried to make the better game. They succeeded in making a better PES, but it’s not the best football game available this year. In essence, it’s a poor man’s FIFA.

And whilst calling PES 2011 a “poor man’s FIFA” may be an insult to long term PES players, I think it’s a very admirable quality to have. Konami don’t have the teams and Leagues EA can secure, don’t have the resources to dedicate to upgrading and improving the game and engine like EA can, nor even supply as good a commentary or soundtrack as EA, but even so PES 2011 is a damn impressive attempt at a fun soccer game.

Pros:
Great new passing mechanism
Incredibly in depth Master League
Master League can now be played against others online.
Relatively lag free online play

Cons:
Bad commentary
Still has some AI issues
Ball physics still feel unrealistic and unpredictable
Some dodgy player animations

81/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

R.U.S.E.

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When I first heard about R.U.S.E. I was pretty excited. A game which promised being able to fool the enemy into thinking you were attacking from the left flank, only to hammer it on the right and other similar tactics was something I thought I could really get my teeth into. I was a little apprehensive at playing it on console, as Real Time Strategy games on consoles are always hit and miss. Very few console RTS games have succeeded in being able to bring the ease of selecting and controlling troops as well as base defence and resource collecting as well as their PC counterparts. R.U.S.E. succeeds in this where so many others have failed.

R.U.S.E. is set during WWII. Two generals, USA’s Major Joe Sheridan and Germany’s General Major Erich Von Richter, fight for control over Europe, positioning troops and bases at strategic points across a map and try and take other points, then wipe out the enemy. There’s some silly rivalry and a plot twists to make the campaign seem more than some random maps stitched together, and the cut scenes which stitch up the battles are well done though, being fully animated and voiced, but the story isn’t really going to be that well remembered, and their intrusiveness when things start to get interesting is intolerable.

The main action of the game occurs on a table which represents the battlefield. All over the battlefield are troops, represented as tokens, and you move the tokens about using the controller. Surrounding the table is your base of operations, full of radios and clatter of Morse code machines. However, when you zoom in closer to the table the tokens come alive, no longer represented as coloured chips, but as troops and equipment. You see tanks rolling over fields, infantry moving through woods, planes dog fighting and the flash of artillery. It’s really clever design, made better by the ease of the controls. One of the joys of R.U.S.E is how easy it is to control your troops. Select a unit by clicking on it with the A button, and move it’s “ghost” to where you want it to take up position, and it does it. Select a “stack” by pressing X, and they’ll move in formation to where you direct them. The AI takes care of the rest, and does a pretty good job of getting them from A to B with little micromanagement.

Like most RTS games, the strategy comes from building your base, deploying defences, and building troops to take objectives. R.U.S.E uses a rock/paper/scissors approach to combat, with each kind of unit being strong against one type of unit and weak against another. It’s simple but it works. In addition to this, field of view and terrain up the ante. Infantry are weak against armour (tanks) and moving them into a field near a tank will lead to lots of dead soldiers. However, in woods and swamps infantry can hide and ambush armour. Buildings and woods block line of sight for many units, so placing two artillery units either side of a town allows better opportunities to attack and destroy approaching troops.

The twist on normal RTS comes in the form of the ruses, which is somewhat apparent given the title. Ruses allow you to mislead the opposition into thinking something different is going on than what they see. For example, you have a heap of infantry you’d like to move into a wooded area in order to protect the nearby town from an armour convoy. You use your Spy Ruse to make sure it is armour; you use the Radio Interception Ruse to see where they’re going, and you use the Radio Silence Ruse to move your troops without the enemy knowing.

Later in the game, Ruses can become incredibly complex. You create fake armies and fake blitzes in order to fool the enemy into thinking you’re attacking one location, when you’ve really got your sights on another. You can draw the enemy into attacking your fake base, whilst you mobilise from your real base. You can use the Terror Ruse to make all the enemy flee into a column of tanks you’ve moved behind the enemy force. It is this level of depth that makes the game shine.

Unfortunately, this level of depth takes so long to arrive via the campaign it will probably be best to skip straight into the Battles and Operations. The battles are small skirmishes, reflecting the online component of the game, whilst Operations recreate famous scenarios from WWII, such as Operation Seelöwe (Sea Lion), the German’s ambitious plan of invading the UK.

Although there is a multiplayer component, there is a lack of online games being played. That’s partly due to Halo Reach tying up the Xbox, and Star Craft 2 occupying the minds of RTS gamers. Furthermore, games take a long time to play, and only the most time rich and dedicated R.U.S.E. fans will stick around for the entire game.

Conclusion
R.U.S.E is by no means the greatest game you’ll play. It’s campaign in slow, the battles can take too long, and after a certain point all the games against the AI play out the same. And if you’re simply not into RTS games, then there’s nothing here to change your mind. However, if you are a fan of RTS games, you’ll find one deep, lengthy and engaging game to sink your teeth into. Moreover, it has enough new original gameplay elements to be truly influential in future, especially when it comes to RTS games on a console.

Pros:
Amazingly easy to control and play
Great graphical representation of the battlefields and units
Lots of options for types of games

Cons:
Campaign takes too long to get going and has a story too silly to be engaging
Battles take too long to complete
No one playing multiplayer games

74/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Grand Theft Auto IV: Ballard of Gay Tony

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Grand Theft Auto IV was criticised in some circles for being too serious, losing its sense of fun and humour to opt for a darker, grittier tale. Whilst I can see where this criticism came from, I for one liked the new tone as it turned the game from a farcical look at modern Western life found in San Andres and Vice City, to a more satirical look at the condition of modern man. GTA IV’s Ballad of Gay Tony attempts to address this by adding more farce into the tale, but still manages to keep its satirical side.

The Ballad of Gay Tony sees you step into the shoes of Luis Lopez, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic. Luis is part owner of a couple of clubs with his friend and mentor “Gay Tony” Prince. The recession has hit the clubs hard, and Luis and Tony are in a little bit of bother with money, and get into some bad deals with some bad Mafioso types, setting the scene for the entire game.

Luis is a really likable character. He’s much more likable than Johnny Klebitz of The Lost and the Damned, more relaxed than Niko. Like Niko, he’s a product of his upbringing. He makes mention of the fact he’s a contract killer, but doesn’t seem to have as many issues with it as Niko did. He admires and respects Gay Tony, and as Tony succumbs to drug addiction it is hard not to side with Luis, even though you soon realise he’s making as big a mess as Tony.

The game itself plays like GTA IV, obviously. The mission structure is the same – generally drive somewhere and then blow everything up. The game also takes you to many of the set piece locations of the original title. You’ll find yourself in the middle of a bank heist, deep in the diamond heist, searching for a kidnapped Gracie, and having a shootout in the Museum. However, these are often presented in a different way to previously seen. Instead of running through the museum, you see a cinematic, and then are placed into a helicopter and have to escape.

Many characters seen in the first game and first DLC crop up here and there. You’ll see Roman try and get into the club a few times. Gracie, the loud mouth hostage, is Tony’s best friend. The Irish mobsters Gerry and Packie will feature in more than a few scenes. Brucie Kubbutz returns, but is a side kick to his even more annoying older brother Mori, who suffers Brucie’s insecurities but magnified ten times because of his short man syndrome. And of course Niko and Johnny appear frequently.

The effect of these two things on the player is to make the world seem more coherent and whole. The stories are weaved brilliantly together, reconnecting GTA IV and making the conspiratorial nature of the game seem much deeper and more intense. You’ll never know who your real allies are, and moreover, you’ll begin to rethink the outcomes which occurred in the other two games.

To spice things up a little, Rockstar have introduced more outrageous weapons and vehicles to the game. My favourite is the explosive shell shotgun, although sticky bombs are rather fun as well. Yusif, the ridiculously rich Arab will have you flying in a gold coloured attack helicopter. They’ve also brought back the parachute. This brings a verticality to the city that was previously absent. No longer are helicopter rides just about getting somewhere specific – you can jump out and parachute to the top of a building or the ground safely. I’ve gone to the tallest building just to jump off. The parachuting base jump minigames are even more fun, testing you skill as you fly through hoops or ride a bike off a building and then try to land on a moving flatbed.

Another fun new introduction to TBOGT is night club management. You go from point to point in the club, watching people dance looking for trouble. Trouble comes in the form of drunks, who you throw out. You’ll often get a call from the other club where you’ve got to go help out a hapless star who is caught with their pants down, or drive an English prince to find some hookers. When you’re not working you can play some drinking minigames and even participate in a dance off, which sees the whole floor doing a bus stop routine and sounds lame on paper, but is a lot of fun to pull off.

The new music is gregarious disco and dance, and whilst it’s a little clichéd to have “Shake Your Groove Thing” by Peaches and Herb and the like associated with the Gay scene, it’s also just fun music in general which adds to the overall lighter tone of the game. Not much is made of Gay Tony’s gayness, either. When people do start throwing around the homophobic slurs, it’s often directed at Luis too despite his repeated protestations of the contrary, and you’ll find yourself wanting to hurt those guys just for being dicks. And in most cases, you get to.

Conclusion:
In TBOGT you’re still as ruthless a killer as Niko and Johnny, but there’s a larger sense of fun and play here. Whilst never as ridiculous as Vice City or Saint’s Row, it has a very similar feel. Whereas GTA IV was almost like a moral play, TBOGT plays much more like a comedic tragedy. It takes itself seriously, but presents a much more laid back sensibility to the player, giving them a chance to have a bit of fun in between the gritty reality of gangsters and money.

Pros:
Great story line
Great reuse of characters
The parachute opens up the vertical city
Fun new minigames

Cons:
Helicopters don’t have missile locks
No changes to the core game

85/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Brand New Heavies @ Trak Nightclub

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Judging by the crowd at Brand New Heavies at Toorak’s Trak nightclub, Melbourne’s baby sitters must have been raking in the dough on Friday night. I’ve never seen a crowd like that at a funk event in Melbourne. The average age of the crowd was 40 plus, and although I’m no spring chicken myself, it was the oldest crowd I’ve been part of since Devo. Not that this is a bad thing; contrary, it’s great to see Melbourne’s mums and dads can get out amongst it and still know how to party!

The Trak is an awesome venue. The converted cinema is very large and open, very classy fittings and a crowd to go with it, and I was treated very nicely by the bar, door, coat room and security staff. I mention it because I’m the first to admit I’m a bit “street” (read daggy) I love my hoodies and trainers and couldn’t tie a tie to save myself. I did make an effort though to dress up a little, as I heard the Trak was a little exclusive, and although I still felt very under dressed, I wasn’t treated any differently by the staff or patrons; the same cannot be said of some clubs down the road on Chapel Street.

I arrived, checked my coat and got my first very reasonably priced beer. For a classy joint, drinks are really well priced! They even have waitresses who wander about and serve you where you stand, which is awesome. Electric Empire had done maybe one song by this time, and although I had never even heard of the Electric Empire before, their soulful rhythms and great sound has made me very interested in tracking down their album. They’ve got that smooth, sexy sound, similar to Curtis Mayfield or Al Green. The single Always was a highlight, as was the Latin influenced percussion solo.

DJ Eddie Mac played some great funk and soul classics, including the Bamboos, Gangstarr, James Brown and Jamiroquai. Much of the crowd were singing along happily, and running into people they obviously hadn’t seen in ages. It was a little like a really cool and classy school reunion.

Next up was Paris Wells. I thought this was an interesting choice of support act. Paris Wells is best described as a soul blues rocker. She has a fantastic voice on her, and her stage antics were quite amusing, and I couldn’t help but be reminded of a rooster as she strutted about on stage with her coiffed hair and feathered outfit. Some of her tunes were great. Let’s Get It Started (not a cover) is almost ska with its bouncy lyrics. Fuck Your Soul is intense. However, she just seemed a little out of place for the vibe of the night.

The Brand New Heavies came on after a brief interlude with Eddie Mac, and it was apparent right from the start the awesome sound we had for Electric Empire and Paris Wells was simply not happening for them. There was a problem with Simon Bartholomew’s wahwah pedal right from the beginning, and it simply didn’t sound right for the entire night. N’Dea Davenport also had difficulty with feedback from her microphone. This meant the band didn’t sound as tight as a funk band should, and to me it was a little disappointing.

This didn’t dampen the spirits of the band nor the crowd too much though. After all, this was the Heavies’ first ever tour of Australia, and considering they started in 1985 and first became popular in 1990 we’ve waited almost 20 years for this, and everyone was singing and dancing along and having a fantastic time. They did plenty of their hits, including Midnight at the Oasis, Mind Trips and of course Dream On. Jan Kincaid knows how to play the skins, and I always love it when a drummer takes lead vocals, whilst Andrew Levy looking funky in his sparkly top and dark sunnies shows why slap bass is the best way to play the 4 stringed guitar. N’Dea hasn’t lost any of her spunk either.

I was lucky enough to go to the Saturday night performance too, and although the crowd was a little younger, but not by much, the sound was perfect for the Brand New Heavies the second time around. They truly shone on Saturday night, and any disappointment was washed away. Highlights of the second show included the band’s solos, which were perfect the second time around, and the encore with the crowd chanting the refrain “whoa year” of their last song until they came back and did an unrehearsed version of Forever.

Sure, waiting 20 years to experience to see a band live can dampen even the highest expectations, and I’m not going to say Friday night was a dud by any means, as the band performed brilliantly despite the sound issues. But I was worried if I wasn’t impressed at the second show, they’d be another band who lost it as they aged. But that worry vanished the moment they came out for the second show, and I can honestly say the Brand New Heavies are one of those bands who are truly amazing live, and they’re up there amongst the greatest funk orientated bands I’ve seen.

Event, inthemix.com.au, Review, Writing

Espionage – One Year of Operations – Feat. DJ Marky and MC Lowqui @ Hi-Fi Bar

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(14/09/2010)

One year on, and Espionage is still going on strong, and with Marky rocking the Hi-Fi bar it was sure to be a special night. And my lord was it good. In the words of many a junglist MC “OH MY GOSH!”

To kick off the night Dust and Fiend went back to back, and these two fine ladies know how to rock a dance floor. Sure, their set suffered from the Melbourne habit of people not coming out until the main act was on, but frankly those people are idiots for missing rocking up late. Playing a blend of cool liquid beats and then raising the tempo and deepening the bass to get bodies moving, their music was as exquisite as they are to watch.

But don’t knock me as a misogynist – JPS and Nam are pretty easy on the eyes too, although I think they’re sweeter on the ears, especially as they played some of my all time favourites, such as Drop It Down by Calibre, True Romance, and Alien Girl by D-Bridge (and thanks to the random who shouted out Alien Girl! when it kicked in… it would have been annoying me for days not knowing the name of this awesome tune!) What I especially like about JPS and Nam is they’re entertaining and play as real DJs – they tease tunes and play with the crossfader, even spin rewinds. They’re not afraid to have fun with the equipment or the crowd.

Speaking of fun, MC Lowqui was certainly entertaining, warming up his vocal chords and hyping up the crowd for Marky during the Operatives set… not that Marky really needs an MC to hype the crowd, as he does a damn good job at that himself. His stage presence is immense, and he throws the positive energy right back at the crowd with his antics. From air drumming, to blowing kisses to the girls, to scratching with his foot, to hooking up a telemetron (probably not be its real name – a little gold and silver scatchy pad thing that you scrub on to make scratches) to turning the turntables upside down to scratch, Marky is simply one of the most entertaining dnb DJs to watch.

And the music he plays is simply awesome. It’s all “party” music, from the salsa soaked beats of Marky’s own productions, to the old school sounds of Top Buzz and Prodigy, to the even older sounds of late 80s house (and here I reveal my age by saying I remember seeing that played in the late 80s!). Even his hiphop set is party material, designed to get the booty shaking with classics from Tribe, De La Soul, M.A.R.R.S, and Run DMC.

My notes for Marky’s set seem to be missing for the good part of his set (why does the note taking app on iPhone need an internet/phone signal – and why do I have no reception in the Hi-fi?) yet one there says it all – “Bukem”. This simply reminds me to note that Marky and Lowqui bounced off each other, each of them in step with one another as if they had been working in collaboration for years, like Bukem and Conrad do, and it was a pleasure to witness these two professionals working together. The next note says “Crowd Surfing”, and pretty much shows how much fun JPS and the rest of the crowd were having.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Crackdown 2

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There are certain brands which, due to a number of factors such as quality of product and level of marketing, which step beyond their genres, they begin to define those genres. Take for example Coca Cola. Even if you don’t like Coke, I’ll bet when you order a Cola based mixer drink you say “Rum and Coke”. There are other brands too – Liquid Paper, Hoover, Google, iPod. It’s the same with videogames too. Certain games have come to define genres. Pacman, Puzzle Quest, Mario Cart, Doom, God Of War, Resident Evil and Grand Theft Auto, for example.

Whilst the quality of those games could be argued until the end of time, saying “it’s like Mario Cart” instantly gives you a frame of reference to talk about another game. One of the best examples of this in recent times is XBW Shane’s review of Red Dead Redemption. In many ways it is superior to GTA, but in defining it as “GTA Deadwood” he nailed it in a simple and concise manner. You might have a different opinion to Shane about GTA and Deadwood, but even so your knowledge of those products will influence how you react to his review, and the game itself.

Crackdown could have been one of these genre defining games. It differed enough from GTA to make it stand out from any other GTA Clone you’ve played. Yes, it was a free roaming open world set in a city with cars and pedestrians you could kill, and the missions involved driving to places and destroying all the enemies in a given area, but the skill progression and the collection minigame were so distinctive they could have began to alter gaming landscape with gamers describing other games as “Crackdown Clones”, providing they made good use of what made Crackdown so good in the sequel.

Unfortunately, they’ve dropped the ball, and given us the first game only with less to do and less to see. Pacific City, itself quite a defining quality of the first game with its neon filled streets and high-rises, has undergone what I like to refer to as “next-gen browning”. The city has fallen into decay, and as such the art has lost the distinctive edge of a super city and in order to give the look of the city a “gritty edge” the art team simply made everything an uninspired rusty brown colour, something featured in every next-gen game since the PS3 and Xbox360 appeared on the market.

Moreover, the layout of the city is exactly the same. There’s nothing new to see or explore. There are new underground areas, but these are just big arena areas. Although other games have done similar in using the city over – GTA’s mini episodes spring to mind – there is still enough new stuff to see and do to make it worthwhile. They also have incredible stories which drive you play the game.

The story in Crackdown 2, what there is of one, is since you’ve visited in the first game, the place has become a mess. Although you brought down 5 gangs to bring peace to the city previously, that was all for naught as a new terrorist organisation has risen from the ashes to threaten the city’s Peacekeepers. On top of that the city is overrun by zombie mutant freaks at night time. The only way to stop it is to re-introduce the Agency’s most effective weapon against crime – the Agent.

Like the first Crackdown, your agent starts with middling powers and work your way up by using your skills to gain orbs. Shooting the enemy with guns builds up your weapons skills, unlocking more powerful weapons and making your firing more accurate. Doing hand break turns and J-Turns, drifting, and running down enemies in vehicles increases your driving skill, unlocking more vehicles and giving more control when driving. Using explosives like grenades unlocks better grenades and rocket launchers, and increases the impact of explosions. Punching and fighting makes you tougher, and unlocks ramming and ground punch abilities.

The most fun of the game is from agility orbs. Like the first game, these are dotted around the city, enticing you to explore by jumping from building to building, gaining the ability to jump higher and further as you gather more orbs. Unlike the first game though, their position isn’t as logical as before, and there’s a little bit more of hide and seek going on. To give this aspect of the game a bit of a twist, there are “rogue” orbs, orbs which have an avoidance field and are difficult to catch. At first, these orbs are great fun to chase either on foot or in a car, and you can spend a good half an hour running around trying to grab one. But eventually it gives way to frustration, because no matter how high your driving or agility score, they’re designed to move away from you, so if you had difficulty catching one at the start of the game, you’re going to have the same amount towards the end of the game.

They also haven’t fixed up some of the biggest frustrations of the first game. Some buildings look like they have ledges you can grab onto, so you’ll leap onto them and end up sliding all the way to the bottom. Or they have overhangs you can’t get past, so you jump and hit your head and fall. And this entire jumping agility thing means there’s almost no point to driving. There’s an amazing list of songs on the car radio which you’ll never hear because you’re rarely in the car for more than a few seconds. You’ll hit other cars, flip over or otherwise crash. Or you’ll be shot at by other vehicle, get out (as you can’t shoot from vehicles) and have your car destroyed.

The lack of multiple gangs means no bosses, and that was part of the fun of the last game. In the first crackdown, as you took down bosses, the enemy became less effective at fighting you. Now all you have to do is capture base points by killing all the enemies which appear on the map when you stand in a certain zone and press the back button. They’re also pretty stupid AI wise, and will mill around in groups just waiting for you to kill them. They’re only a problem if they’re armed with rockets or grenades, in which case they’ll just spam you. Otherwise, it’s simply a matter of jumping around and shooting them.

The Freaks are even more tedious. Every night, the streets become flooded with zombies. Like Dead Rising, there are so many on the screen you’re amazed at first. But they’re so dumb they pose hardly any challenge later in the game. Simply get in a car and drive though them. And if you stick to the rooftops you can pretty much avoid them altogether.

There are two basic scenarios you need to do to proceed the story and subsequently the game – capture a base which shoots a laser beam into the sky, and when you have 3 beam together you jump into the subterranean part of the city and kill all the zombies which attack a bomb device. That’s it.

Part of the reason the game is so simple is it’s designed for four players in mind. Obviously you can’t have too much of a complex GTA scenario like drive here, blow up this, drive to a next check point, and kill that, if the game is designed for more than one person. Although having said that Red Dead Redemption seems to do a pretty good job of doing precisely in its Multiplayer. So they’ve made the game as mindless as possible so you can have as much fun with other players.

And yes, it is fun with other players. It’s only a little more fun doing the missions still, as they don’t get any harder, but still the added fun of simply having another real live person with you makes it marginally more enjoyable. And doing things the designers probably had in mind, but didn’t make any use of. Like picking up a car when your friend is in it, and throwing it off a bridge. Like dropping a cluster grenade near an orb your friend is after. Like chasing each other around in choppers.

But what I can’t understand is why didn’t the designers utilise this more effectively? Surely in play testing they would have noticed people playing the game in this manner, so why not design co-operative missions around this – design chopper races; design timed missions where you’ve got to knock down as many freaks as possible, make the game co-operative in the mission design. I don’t want to call the designers lazy as it’s very hard to make a good game, but it’s clear the design is precisely that. Rather than identifying how players generate their own fun in a game and directing their design towards that, they’ve designed a game where it’s as open as possible but with so little to do, so players have to create their own fun.

Conclusion
Maybe I’m being a little hard on the game. The original Crackdown was flawed genius. It came out of practically nowhere, and was bought by the truckloads because of the Halo3 Multiplayer Beta offer. However, the game was unexpectedly compelling and fun, even if it felt a little rough and unfinished.

Crackdown 2 still feels rough and unfinished. In fact, it feels even more so than the first, especially when viewed as a single player experience. Multiplayer improves the game, but it still feels vacant and simple, and doesn’t develop a good story or good mission structure to encourage you to play the game, just a little incentive to tool around in the city for a few hours blowing shit up.

Pros:
Keeps the addictive agility orb collection game and spices the orb collection with “rogue orbs”
Heaps of things to blow up and kill.
Fun Multiplayer
Fantastic soundtrack

Cons:
You won’t hear the soundtrack because you’ll never be in the car long enough
Unconvincing story
Boring, repetitive missions
Stupid AI
Many of the problems of the first game not addressed

68/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Alan Wake

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World famous author Alan Wake has writers’ block, so he and his nyctophobic (scared of the dark) wife decide to holiday in Bright Falls, an idyllic ex-mining town in rural America. You’d think, he being a writer a fan of Stephen King and having written episodes of Twilight Zone rip off ‘Night Springs’, he’d be wary of holidaying in a rural town surrounded by tall mountains and deep forests. After all, nearly everyone knows they’re all full of some kind of unholy-and-ancient-darkness slash portal-to-the-other-side, or at least rednecks and bears. But no, he doesn’t even google the town, but heads there cluelessly, and of course something terrible happens. His wife gets abducted by this darkness, and it’s up to Alan to save her.

Alan Wake almost succeeds at creating a classic horror game. At first, the game is very creepy. The town has that disturbing Twin Peaks charm, full odd characters that you get to revisit throughout the game and discover more about. The surrounding forest and mountains, full of old mines and logging farms have that Stephen King vibe, as if the very elements are in league with nature to confound and upset Alan and in turn, the player. On top of this, the game itself creates the feeling that nothing is ever quite right, and you’re never sure what is dream, what is real, and what is psychosis.

Most of the time you’re on foot and the game encourages you to explore the wide playable areas looking for pages to the manuscript Alan is writing. The manuscript echoes the story of the game, and although I personally think reading text in a game is a cop out – videogames are a visual multimedia experience and reading pages of text on screen bores me – this works here because Alan is a writer and it does recreate the Stephen King self referential mentality of many of his finest books.

There are also environmental hazards to overcome in typical 3rd person adventure style, which are generally easy to figure out. There are weapon caches to find, and TVs and Radios to tell you more of the story. The TVs show episodes of the aforementioned Night Springs, which are quite long, whilst the radio informs the player of what’s happening in the world of Bright Falls. There are signs about the town and surrounds revealing a history of the town, all which create a very real sense of place for the game. And with a cheeky nod to Twin Peaks, you’ll find coffee thermoses scattered across the landscape.

The game uses light and dark to brilliant effect, and most of your time is spent in the dark, so you’re always under constant fear of attack, and this creates and excellent way to progress the story. As light is a source of healing and every light post is a checkpoint, you actually begin to fear being in the dark too long in the game.

The first level is a dream, and here you learn the basics of how to fight what are known as the Taken. The Taken creep from the shadows, and are imbued with unholy darkness. Equipped with a torch and a gun, fighting them involves a two phase attack. Shining your torch at them nullifies their dark power and stops them momentarily, and you can boost the torch’s power with a simple button press, although this depletes the battery power so you’ll need to stock up on batteries. Once their power is gone, you can pop a cap in their ass, as long as you have enough bullets. Dropping flares keeps them at bay, and bright light kills them outright, so flash bang grenades and flare guns become your most powerful weapons, as they light up the dark and vanquish foes at once, as does flashing car or spotlights onto them.

The Taken also manifest as poltergeists, and at various points in the game you’ll find objects imbued with darkness hover and fling themselves at you. These often take a bit more of time to take down, especially the larger vehicles you’ll encounter, although ducking behind posts and rocks can shield you a little whilst you shine your light onto them and drop flares and flash bangs.

There are also a few driving sections, and these are fun as well. Considering the game is a 3rd person action game, the car controls quite well. And as there’s nothing more fun than running people over in video games, it’s even better when they’re darkness imbued zombies, as you speed towards the Taken, turn your high beams on, and mow through them faster than Ash’s zombie killing machine from Evil Dead 3.
However, like many other horror games before it, the need t make Alan Wake a videogame ruins the overall vibe of the story eventually. Whenever there are enemies nearby, there is always a ‘tell’. Like in Doom 3, there’s always a sound to alert you to an enemy’s presence. In this case it’s music, and the game also takes control of the camera and zooms out or pans around to show you your enemy. At first, this is really cool and alarming, but eventually it becomes so much part and parcel of the game you forget to be scared about it.

Boss fights are signified by the game environment opening up into a wide area, with flares in emergency boxes lying about on the trail toward them, and as you near the “you’re about to be attacked” music plays. It happens so often in the middle part of the game the dread I felt wasn’t legitimate fear, but rather boredom at yet another fight where I had to point my torch at a bad guy/thing then shoot him when he stopped emanating darkness. Towards the end, I just wanted to advance the story, not face hordes of bad dudes just because the designers wanted to make the game an hour longer.

There is one exception to this occurs a little past midway in the game. I don’t want to give too much away, but the most fun I had in the game was at the Old Gods of Asgard’s farm. What seems like it would be a similar scenario to previous levels turns into something quite different and a hell of a lot of fun.

Also annoying is Alan keeps losing his equipment. You collect a shot gun, flare gun, flash bangs and a high powered torch during a level, and it’s likely to be gone after the next cutscene ,without any real reason for this occurring other than to annoy the player who likes to hoard things. Sure, “I lost my gun in the fall” is a perfectly legitimate reason, but losing them after going to a police station? Obviously the evidence cupboards need better locks in Bright Falls!

And although a minor annoyance, you can listen to all the radio and read the pages you’ve collected in the Extras menu, but you can’t watch any of the episodes of Night Springs outside of the game. This isn’t a game killer by any means, but I would have loved to watch the shows outside of the game in another menu, as they were quite entertaining.

Conclusion
It’s worth spending a few hours alone in the dark with Alan Wake and just the glow of a TV screen. It’s certainly better than most of Stephen King’s recent book to film outings. The game creates an excellent and believable sense of ‘reality’, as much as horror story can. You’ll suspend your disbelief for the most part, and there are some very cool and spooky moments early in the game that will really put you on edge.

It’s just a shame that because games cost so much to make and sell to the consumer, and game developers have an expectation to give players their money’s worth, extending the gameplay aspects of the game tend to ruin the vibe of the story later on. I guess it’s unavoidable as no game has really been able to create the legitimate scares of a horror story throughout its ten plus hours, although I’m pretty sure a ten hour long horror film would also be rather hackneyed by the end of it as well.

Pros:
Excellent use of light and dark both in fights and setting the scene
Great story development through the use of collectables
Very good sense of Bright Falls being a real place. Well, as real as a horror story town can be.
Lots of clever nods to the horror genre
Cool driving levels with solid controls even though it’s primarily an on foot 3rd person action game.

Cons
The creepiness of the game’s early levels gives way to a “been there, done that” feeling.
Player has all their cool weapons taken away and has to go get them all again every level.
Ending is not very satisfying and screams sequel.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Blur

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Bizarre Creations’ Blur is one of those games so simple in its premise you wonder why it hasn’t been done sooner. It’s best described as Project Gotham Racer meets Mario Cart, and takes the best things of all those games and shoves it in one neat little package.

Like Project Gotham Racing, Blur has “real world” locations such as San Francisco, Tokyo, and Barcelona, with fake tracks in each of those cities. The cities look vibrant and real, full of neon lights and flowing banners and glass towers and trees and dirt on the off-road tracks. Also similar to PGR, it has fantastic looking licensed cars from Ferrari, Lotus, Ford, Volkswagon, Landrover and more. As you zoom about the race tracks, you take damage from other racers and crashing into walls and such, and the more you get hit and smashed, the more damaged your car looks. But that’s where the realism stops and the fun starts.

The object of single player is nothing new to racing game enthusiasts. Race to win and collect “lights” for first, second and third place. The more lights you have, the more events you unlock in each division. Each division is owned by a particular racer with a particular car and mod, but more on that in a moment.

There are also bonus lights to pick up via two means – Fan Runs and Fan Targets. Driving through a gate icon found on every track opens up the Fan Runs where you must race through slalom style to get more fans. Fans are otherwise rewarded for clever driving and using pickups on other racers. Fan Targets are how many fans you must win to unlock a light. Fans are the currency of Blur, and by winning fans you unlock different cars and mods. It’s similar to Kudos found in PGR. As you do certain manoeuvres, you’re rewarded points. However, unlike PGR there is more to it than simply slick driving.

Like Mario Cart, there are pickups on the track at various locations. These come in the form of offensive and defensive, and cause all kinds of mayhem when racing about. The offensive pickups come in the form of mine, barge, shunt, bolt, and shock. Mines can be shot forward or backwards, and remain on the track until someone hits them with their car or another weapon. Barge pushes the cars around you away from you. Shunt is a homing beacon, which whirls into the car targeted in front of you, ala the red shell in Mario Cart. Bolt is like the green shell, a “dumb” forward or reverse firing missile which is devastating if you manage to get 3 hits in a row with it. Shock shoots columns of lightning into the front runners path, causing mass destruction. Defence involves shield, repair and nitro. Shield protects your car from other effects. Repair repairs damage, and nitro boosts you at speed.

However, to view the pickups so simplistically won’t win you many fans. All pickups can be used offensively or defensively in the right situation. Use shield and nitro to ram into other cars. Fire nitro forward to “air break”, allowing you to avoid collisions and then speed out of danger. Deploy mines, barge and bolts to destroy shunts and mines. Your score will rise even higher due to the fan multiplier when you’re driving well and use the pickups in combination, such as drifting around corners and bolting cars. There are also Fan Favourites, which give you a time limit to perform a certain manoeuvre such as nitro slam another car, or drift well around a corner.

There are nine different divisions in single player, and to be eligible to race the owner of the division in a One on One Race to own their car, you have to do more than just race. For example, in the Fan Favourite division you must complete 5 Fan Demands, Complete 2 Fan Runs, Complete 4 Fan Targets and Win Event 5 with one x5 Fan Combo. Once you defeat them, you unlock their car and their mod. Mods do a range of things, such as increase the number of bolts you can fire, and armour plating.

There are 3 varieties of races other than One on One – Checkpoint, Race, and Destruction. Checkpoint is a timed race, with stopwatch and nitro pickups only. Race is a regular blur race against 10 or 20 other cars, whilst Destruction arms you with bolts only and places cars in front of you to destroy. Each car destroyed add more time to your race. Whilst on paper this seems like not a lot of variety, the fast paced nature of the game means you never get bored.

Single player, whist quite difficult and a little shallow compared to other racing games, is still loads of fun. Bizarre Creations have recognised this to some extent, and allowed the creation of challenges between friends. Just amassed an enormous amount of fans? Set up a Nemesis on the leaderboard and challenge your friends to beat you. Got all the lights on expert? Send a message to facebook or twitter to brag about it. It seems worthless at first, but seeing your friends beat your hard work with what appears to be ease spurs even the least competitive person to try the race again, and this simple yet effective method of creating depth has worked.

But even so, racing multiplayer is where the game truly shines. Four player split screen will fill a room with the same laughter and entertainment as Mario Cart once did, and even the best driver can be taken down by a well placed mine right on the finishing line, meaning it’s accessible to everyone.

In Online Multiplayer there are different race modes, including racing with no mods which is rather boring to be honest; Team Racing which makes the game feel like Midtown Madness but with power ups; to a smash up derby arena fight which is quite possibly the best thing since Destruction Derby on the original Playstation. Furthermore, Fans and Mods are slightly different. Taking a leaf out of Modern Warfare’s book, Fans act as experience points and Mods act as outfits. As per single player fans unlock cars and events as you go up fan levels, but you’re only racing for fans, not lights.

Mods are different from single player as there are more of them and they have more effects, such as converting shield hits to power ups, and causing mines to explode into 4 mini mines, and defensive stuff like make your car harder to home in on. You can assign 3 mods to a car, and you have 4 mod groups to customise and apply to your car, so like the weapon kits in MW you can find the mods which suit your play style best.

There are also car and rank challenges, again which improve your car and are rewarded by playing the game online. This adds enormous depth to the multiplayer game, especially in team games where users will complement each other with some equipping their cars to win the race, and others equipping to take battle to the other team.

Conclusion:
The fun of Blur is unparalleled in any other driving game. It could have been simply Mario Cart in real looking cars, but Bizarre Creations have looked hard at what is fun about racing games, what is fun about competitive play, what is fun about online gaming, and worked out how to get all of that in one game and more importantly, get it to work well and remain fun.

Pros:
Looks awesome
Simple yet fantastic take on a motor racing game
Incredibly fun to play split screen
Quite some depth to the multiplayer
Cool use of social networking tools

Cons:
Single player is quite difficult
Can’t race split screen online

90/100