Tag Archives: 2012

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Dragon’s Dogma

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Capcom’s Dragon’s Dogma could be describes as a Japanese Elder Scrolls. The development team behind it are comprised of some of the best game makers Japan currently has, and the scope of the game is quite ambitious. It has elements of Monster Hunter, Shadows of the Colossus, and of course the Elder Scrolls series, and if you like those games you’ll really enjoy Dragon’s Dogma.

Unfortunately I don’t any longer. Mostly because I don’t have the time to play huge, open ended games any more. Sure, I can make time for them, and tried with DD, but they’ve got to grab me immediately, and DD fails to do this. On top of that, there are a few things which let the game down, including the graphics, the constant chatter of the NPCs, to the tedious grind.

The story of Dragon’s Dogma is fairly interesting. It starts off with a dragon appearing, set on tormenting the province of Gransys, and after creating your character through the incredibly robust character generator, you stand up to the dragon, only to have your heart devoured and then come back as the Arisen. From here on in though, the story gets a little lost, and like other massive RPGs you’ll get bogged down in so many quests and side activities, it’s hard to focus on what you’re meant to be doing. The world you’re in isn’t radically different to any other world you’ve visited in RPGs, and I found it rather boring, to be honest.

During character creation you can choose from three classes, as such – Magic User, Bow User, or Melee user. Whilst the tutorial tells you the basics of how to play the game, it doesn’t give you a feel for the game overall. I don’t particularly like handholding in games, but here it’s unfocussed and only tells you the very basics of how to play. It doesn’t, for example, tell you that you can branch out and change your class relatively early in the game, and gives no hints to where to do this. I stumbled upon it by accident.

Something which really put me off was the graphics. I’m a rare person who thinks realism in games should be secondary to the gameplay, but even I balked at the seriously ugly graphics. I realise no sprawling, open world, go anywhere game can match the graphical fidelity of tightly polished arena shooters for example, but here feels positively last gen. Textures are very basic, the poly counts on models are quite low, framerate is really low, draw distance isn’t great, and everything seems to blend into everything else because of the poor lighting. The animations on the models are also really bad, especially when they’re talking to others.

The game features an upgrading system for weapons and equipment. Like the Elder Scrolls, the land you explore is full of stuff you can pick up. Some of it is lying in the world, others can be found by killing monsters. You can combine these to make better items such as better health potions, better weapons, and unique buffs. Many of the items can be gifted to NPCs to make them think better of you so they give you discounts and better information about quests.

One really cool thing about DD is the NPC system. These Pawns as they refer to themselves follow you around, fight for you, pick up items you may have missed, and tell you tactics on how to fight monsters and hints on where to go in missions. You get to create your first pawn much in the same way you make your character, and you can equip them in the same manner you equip yourself. Where it becomes really cool is when you aren’t playing the game. The game connects to other people, and when you’re offline your pawn can go travelling in other people’s games, earning equipment and experience to guide you in your game. It encourages you to equip your pawn with the best equipment so people choose to go with your pawn.

When fighting huge monsters, there’s a great ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ feature where you can grab them and climb up to a weak spot. Your Pawns will helpfully and constantly tell you when you can do this in a fight. This gives some epic battles as your pawns scramble around whilst you’re clinging onto the back of a giant hydra.

One of the bad things about Pawns is they’re not very smart. They will steal things you’re trying to pick. They tend to run off and attack things you can’t see. Part of that is the bad graphics. As mentioned, everything tends to blend together, so seeing enemies can be arduous. But to have them scream “goblins” and run off is highly annoying. Also, they constantly chatter, obscuring often important dialogue. They’ll constantly tell you how the tactics of how to kill the most frequent creatures “wolves hate fire!” and often tell you they know something of important, and when you click them to ask they say “we need to find the book”, which is the objective of the quest anyway.

To progress through the game you’ve really got to grind. I hate grinding in games, and it’s why I don’t often enjoy Japanese games. I prefer to be able to play the game from point to point. It doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy a linear experience, I just prefer that if I get tasked with doing something then I’m at a level to do it. If I get tasked with killing X creatures (a type of quest I hate in games anyway as I think it’s really lazy quest design) then I should be at a level to kill those creatures when asked to do the quest. If I get tasked with escorting a NPC to a place, I should be able to defend that NPC with my skills. DD tends to simply throw every quest at you and make you attempt it before realising your too weak a level to complete it.

This is compounded by the fact you’ve got to walk everywhere. There are no mounts, no quick travel. So, if you walk into an area you’re not equipped for following a quest, not only do you frequently die, you have to turn around and run away, often for great distances between the different quests. You’re simply stumbling blindly for a great portion of the game doing nothing except dying. I found it frustrating and tedious.

Conclusion
I know there are people out there who love games like Dragons Dogma, who love being able to forge their own path at their own pace. People who don’t mind grinding, killing the same types of enemies over and over again to get enough experience or equipment to continue quests.
Although I did know what kind of game Dragon’s Dogma was when I picked it up, I was hoping that it would be different, have something I found compelling, something I could get addicted to and want to spend my time with.

But for me, this kind of ‘old school’ gaming found in Dragon’s Dogma is simply tedious and not enjoyable. I no longer have the time nor the patience to grind through games, especially if the story or the world it’s set in isn’t compelling. There are other games out there to be played, games that don’t demand I put in hundreds of hours just because the designers want you to, but rather encourage it by being more interesting and better looking.

Pros:
Very large world with lots to explore
Pawn System is a unique and interesting system

Cons:
Demands too much of your time for too little reward
Looks very ugly
NPCs can be really dumb

70/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Trials Evolution

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Three years ago Trials HD, the motorcross physics puzzler platformer, snuck onto the XBLA market alongside heavy hitters ‘Splosion Man and Shadow Complex, but because of its simple yet quality gameplay coupled with tremendous amount of fun, it demanded attention. Xbox World gave it 90/100, one of the highest scores for an arcade game at the time, and fortunately for us the praise the game got then is still very relevant for its sequel, Trails Evolution.

It still has the “easy to pick up but hard to master” quality, and has that steep learning curve, but it’s not one that can’t be overcome with practice and determination. The checkpoint system is still wonderful, and the handling of the bike is superb. However, where it differs is it takes the great stuff of the original game and makes it more social.

This time they’ve refined the feel of the bike’s physics, so the already tight controls are tighter. There is less of the flighty feel of the previous game, and you constantly feel in control of the way the bike and rider will tip and fall. Not only do you scroll from left to right when racing, now the track will curve, and whilst you’re still “on rails” adding this extra dimension increases the enjoyment of the experience. In addition to this, the physics of the track can change. One track in particular moves about under you, so you need to put more acceleration in places for jumps that normally would require little. And there are some simply stunning tracks, with one of my favourites being Limbo, taking the black and white silhouette of indie darling Limbo and making into one of the most nefarious tracks to play.

Social is often a negative word when coupled with traditional or hardcore gaming. And make no mistake – Trails is a hardcore game. It makes you fail and encourages you to get better. It doesn’t hold your hand like so many other games, but will help you up when you fall. The game will teach through repetition, causing you to replay parts over and over. And it will only punish you a little, but give greater simple rewards, whether it’s another funny explosion when you fail, or scream from the rider as he shoots down a ramp, to silver and gold medals after the race.
Throwing the social aspect into this title enhances the experience greatly. There are three aspects to the social which I will call the ladder, the multiplayer, and the track creation. The ladder of the previous game is replaced with a devious and insipid new ghost like feature which shows your Xbox Live friends as dots along the track you’re on. As you race, these dots will be a constant nag at you to do better. They’re unobtrusive, but the best motivator to improve I’ve seen in a game.

When you’re racing along the track and screw up, restart at a checkpoint, and see one of the little white dots with a friend’s name on it wiz past you get a renewed sense of determination. When you see a dot get stuck at a point and you go flying past it, you’ll cackle with glee.
However, cackling with glee becomes a genuine chortle of mirth with multiplayer. Racing in real time with 4 people online or together in a room is laugh out loud funny. There are two modes, one with races on a 4 line track; the other which tests your skills against one another in a ghost-yet-realtime mode on any single player track.

I much prefer the 4 player as although you can’t influence each other, I’m sure the expectation of performing well is far more relevant in this mode. It’s gripping, in that you know one little mistake can cost you the race. It’s incredibly funny watching people stack it on a jump you totally nailed, and being able to play it 4 player offline as well makes it an ideal party game, because merely watching it makes you want to play as well. The Online ghostmode has this competitive feeling to a degree, but even though it does occur in real time it doesn’t bring out the same fervor in people that racing alongside one another does.

The last aspect of the social game is the ability to make your own tracks. The track creator is quite complex to use and would benefit greatly from the use of a mouse and a decent tutorial. Yet the creations already online are brilliant, and like the competitiveness of the racing itself, the quality of the tracks makes you want to do something just as good. After you’ve played a track you get to vote on it, and the best ones show up in weekly showcases. One of the best I played was Shadow Redux, which used the physics of shadows to interact with the real world items for a complex and rewarding ride.

Conclusion:
Trials Evolution is fantastic fun. Its simplicity and beguiling depth encourages replay, and the addition of social functions encourages a competitive streak in even the most placid of players. It’s the perfect sequel to an almost perfect game.

Pros:
Everything that was great about the first title is here.
Refinement of the physics gives a deeper sense of controls.
Great new tracks which will challenge and amuse.
The addition of social features adds competitive fun to the title.

Cons:
Bloody hard to put down! (not really a con)
Music could be better, but it’s better than its predecessor.
95/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

I Am Alive

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Ubisoft’s I Am Alive has so many good ideas that it should be brilliant, but then proceeds to undermine that brilliance with poor choices. The central conceit of I Am Alive is the world has gone to shit after the Event, a cataclysm where earthquakes rocked the world and caused cities to crumble, leaving survivors choking on toxic fog. Our hero travels cross country for a year to return to his ruined hometown of Haventon, obstinately to find his wife and daughter despite, you know, all the earthquakes and post apocalyptic desperate vigilantes, etcetera.

Immediately on starting the game, the influence of every post apocalyptic movie in the last 20 years is apparent. Abandoned cars on broken highways. Torn apart bridges. Crumbling skyscrapers. Skeletons just lying in the street. Trolley carts everywhere. Apart from being hackneyed and incredibly grey / brown, the world is also curiously static. Sure, I’ll concede the world is meant to be drab and sad looking after it ends, but the choice to not have physics on objects and debris makes the game world unbearably dull. Climbing about on skyscrapers is a breeze, but you can’t open a car door or climb on top of it. There are wire blockades which after a year should be rusted, and even if not could easily be climbed over or through. The only movement is cloth, which flutters nicely in the wind, but walking into trash cans stops you dead in your tracks.

The climbing mechanic is quite interesting. You have a health bar and a stamina bar, and your stamina bar decreases the more you climb. The more you exert yourself, the quicker the bar empties. If it empties, the bar itself decreases, meaning you have less stamina. Erode your stamina too far and it is game over. You can regain stamina by pulling yourself up onto a ledge and standing on it, placing a piton (a climbers hook) into a wall, or use items which you find around the world. Most of these items are in plain view, so exploration of the drab world isn’t really rewarded. Also, when you get into certain areas the land becomes dusty and you lose stamina slowly but steadily. The only way to avoid it is to climb.

One of the biggest issues I found when climbing was the unresponsiveness of the controls, especially when moving horizontally, as when you’re crossing monkey bar type climbs. Often you’ll switch camera view, and start climbing the wrong way. There is also a problem with vertical movement, and you wrestle with the controls when jumping upwards or sideways. As you are climbing your stamina bar is decreasing, so you dick around trying to get the controls to play nice, all the while getting more stressed at losing stamina.

You also have a life bar, which depletes if you fall too far, or get hit / shot by enemies you encounter. Although you’re armed with a machete and a gun, ammo is limited so you have to choose your fights wisely. This is a great idea, and makes the player think about being stealthy and patient as you move through the world, listening for clues of the presence of other people. Or so the game would have you believe. However, most fights are in fact unavoidable, and most end up occurring in the same way.

You can draw your gun and threaten an enemy, getting them to back up to a drop so you can push them over, or get close to slash them with the machete. Usually there will be three guys, one with a gun and the other armed with machetes or knives. You end up in most fights simply shooting the guy with the gun and slicing the other two. In some fights there’s a “tough guy”, and shooting him will make the other guys surrender, at which point you can knock them out.

The game also has a frustrating save system. I understand the developers are trying to make the player stressed to a degree, and careful in how they play, and that’s fine. However, when part of that stress comes from issues outside the player’s control, it’s simply nasty. The aforementioned difficulties with climbing can cause you to slip and fall, meaning you have to retry from the last checkpoint, which are quite far apart.

Moreover, you’re limited in how many retries you get from the checkpoint. You start the game with three retries, and by helping people (usually simply by giving them things in your backpack you’ve discovered in the world) or completing one of the main missions, you’re rewarded more. However, if you use all retries, you’re taken right back to the beginning of the chapter, and these are spaced way too far apart.

For example, I completed a difficult climb which took about an hour, I was rewarded with a cutscene. I thought cool, chapter done, and turned off my xbox. When I returned to the game, I was at the start of the level, and had to spend another hour climbing. Again, this would be fine if there were multiple approaches to levels or encounters, but it’s really quite linear, so replaying is just a chore.

The game also suffers from minor technical issues, such as clipping and poor animation. On top of the control frustrations and lack of life in the world, as you’ve only got the main character to focus on when you jump and clip through a girder, or walk through a shaft of light and cast no shadow, it’s probably more apparent than usual here. The music score is dynamic, and as you get hurt or lose stamina, the music rises dramatically. Again, this is a great idea on paper, however it’s poorly implemented. The choice to have it occur every time you lose more than half your stamina, which is every time you climb, means it loses any dramatic impact it might have had.

Conclusion:
With so many great games on XBLA let alone on disc, it’s hard to recommend I Am Alive. It feels like it never reached its full potential. Maybe with more time or a bigger team Ubisoft would have a classic like Assassin’s Creed on their hands, but unfortunately it falls flat on too many levels.

Having said that, Ubisoft should be praised for taking a risk and releasing something beyond the endless shooters, and hopefully despite its mediocrity we’ll see an update or a sequel which addresses some of the main concerns.

Pros:
Potential to be great, but let down by poor mechanics and controls.
The balancing of stamina and health is an interesting mechanic.

Cons:
Story is contrived and trite.
World is static and lifeless, and not in a cool, “end of world” fashion.
Poor climbing controls.
Linear path through all the levels.
Fights tend to play out the same way every time.
Technical issues.

69/100