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Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Need For Speed: Shift

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

83/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 10

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Fight Night Round 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

80/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 09

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Last year, when I reviewed PES 08, I mentioned that FIFA wasn’t in the same league as PES, explaining “People don’t play FIFA because it’s the superior soccer game; they play it because it’s got all the teams and players’ people love, straight out of the box”. Although I only jumped on the PES bandwagon 3 years ago, I can see that PES has consistently been the better soccer game. Me and some mates still play PES 08 on a weekly basis (albeit on a far inferior console) whereas my copy of FIFA 08 actually has a fine layer of dust on it.

But when people rest on their laurels, as Konami has done a little with the last few PES games, a competitor can get the edge. And when that competitor is EA, the biggest publisher in the world, it gets very, very interesting. Because, if Konami don’t address the issues of that last couple of PES games, then I think FIFA will be the better game this year.

First thing you’ll notice is the fluid and organic player animation. Beautifully rendered, you’ll see them flow naturally from one move to the next as they move down the pitch. This is true of the overhead cams, and the closer third person perspective of be-a-pro mode. It’s also functional – you’ll notice a tired player leaning over with hands on knees. A player wanting a pass will throw their hand up. And a scoring player can now be made to do celebratory moves like the robot and belly slide.

AI is vastly improved, with players running into position and dealing intelligently with the ball. A player will trap a ball if it comes to them, or chest the ball to their feet, or leap over a sliding tackle and regain control over the ball. Players will run onto the ball, spring the offside trap intelligently, and call for passes when they’re in the clear. It’s not completely perfect – I’ve seen an opposition goal keeper kick the ball as my player was running past, and my player stopped the ball and scored. There are also the errant passes that go straight instead of to the side, but these feel far less frequent than other soccer games of the past.

The ball and the players have a real physical presence, as in past years and other games, but usually this hasn’t been implemented that well, with the ball bouncing off players at wrong angles and generally not feeling right. This time it feels almost perfect. Balls will die in open space, creating opportunities for faster pace men on your team. Get a strong player running with the ball, and they’ll athletically jostle for the ball, knocking a running player off their line and allowing you to tackle without resorting to a slide and invariably a free kick.

Speaking of free kicks, FIFA 09 is far more forgiving with play ons, with the Referee allowing play to continue. Once the ball goes out of play then cards are given, which can seem a little silly, but it’s better than the game stopping and starting. It’s still harsh with the Offside, giving it in situations that no linesman or ref ever could in real life, but it works both ways and has saved me as many times as hurt me.

As always, FIFA is packed with features. Manager mode is still here, and whilst it’s marginally better than last year and still relatively easy to use and understand, it still is not as deep as PES’ offering. With the copious number of teams and leagues to choose from, it’s a great long term game play option, especially if you begin in the lower leagues. Some people have issues with the AI controlled teams not trading players in and out, but to me that’s a minor gripe. Similarly Tournament mode has had some small tweaks, but feels as solid as last year. Some criticism last year were directed at the mode for not being realistic enough in terms of dates and calendars – I wouldn’t know if that has been fixed, as again, I’m not that much of a “real life” soccer nut nor that nit picky.

The Be-A-Pro mode returns, and this time around gets the most love. Offering you the choice to create your own player, his position, and play through four seasons from reserves to major, all the whilst improving the player, it’s another deep and interesting addition to the FIFA game. I made a player for Adelaide United in the A-League, and it was so satisfying whomping the ball into the net against Melbourne Victory, and then being called up for the reserves match to play for Australia against Slovenia. This year the feedback given on where you are meant to be is more direct and helpful, but it’s still difficult to play the back line well.

But where Be A Pro mode really shines is online. You can now play 10 on 10 in the BAP online, and with up to 10 people playing in a set position during a match, it’s probably the closest you’ll get to play the beautiful game for real. There is no lack of people playing, so you can always pick up a match. It’s a rush to nominate for the best positions, but the old adage is true – every player has their part to play. Sure, sometimes it feels like playing with a bunch of abusive under 5 year olds who’ll run off the field as soon as the icecream man drives past, but with a serious bunch of people the matches are just as intense as a real league game. Furthermore lag hasn’t been a problem in any of the game I’ve played, a considerable feat seeing as I had people from the UK, Canada, Australia and Spain in my games.

To aid in playing as a team on online games, FIFA introduces a Club mode, which is analogous to Clans. You have a bunch of people in the club, and these people can arrange matches against other clubs. On top of the online leagues and ranked matches, there is now almost as many options in Live as in single player, a real impressive feat.

One thing that really impressed me are the Achievements. Usually soccer games give you achievements for winning this league or that derby or completing the modes. In FIFA 09 they’re based on what you do in the actual matches, and this in turn helps you become a better player. For example, there’s an achievement for scoring a goal from a bicycle kick, and I’ve decided I want to get it, so I’ve been trying to perfect the bicycle kick. It’s helping me learn and play the game better.

I’ve already mentioned the fluid player animation, and the good looks don’t stop there. The stadiums look amazing, and player likeness is nearly spot on. The BAP player creator is robust and you can create good renditions of yourself, but they didn’t include a Tiger Woods import a photo option for your player, which is a little disappointing. Also disappointing are the menus – they’ve been standardised across all EA sports games and work a bit like the Xbox menu blades, but I’m still not sold on the whole idea.

Sound wise the game is equally impressive, with the thud off the ball sounding spot on, and crowds chanting your clubs’ name as you play, spurring you on. The commentary by Andy Gray and Martin Tyler can sometimes they fall behind the play and become a bit repetitive, but that’s the nature of sports commentary really.

Conclusion:
We’ll just have to wait and see if PES 09 delivers the goods to match this year, but EA have finally delivered a decent competitor in FIFA 09. The marketing team says there are over 250 changes to this year, and I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know this game is a vastly superior product to past FIFA games, and is a superb game. If you’re a FIFA fan, you will be impressed by the changes, especially online, and will count this as one of the best.

If you’re a past FIFA player who hasn’t liked the direction the game has been going, or feel its just the same old same old, pick it up and I guarantee you’ll be impressed with the depth and the way the game plays. I appreciate there are people who just won’t play FIFA because it’s Electronic Arts, or they only play PES Master League because it’s deeper, but I honestly think these people will be missing out on one of the greatest soccer games of this generation.

Pros:
Amazingly fluid and organic player animations
Excellent ball and player physics
Incredible amount of options and modes
Fantastic online play in Be A Pro Online

Cons:
Menus can be annoying
Manager Mode still lacks depth of other sports games

90/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Def Jam Icon

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When making Def Jam Icon it’s almost as if the developers had a checklist of rap stereotypes and ticked each one off. Aggression – check! Gun violence – Check! Crooked cops – Check! Scantily clad women who are gold diggers – Check! Gratuitous use of the N-Word – Check! Bling up to the eyeballs – Check! Mention of Tupac and Biggy – Check and Check! References to hiphop being more than all this – Check!


Usually when this is presented in a game, the check box for “really bad game” needs to be marked too, but in the case of Def Jam Icon, that surprisingly remains unticked. Ignoring all that rap stereotyped rubbish, what we have here is a solid fighting game that, whilst light on options is still a lot of fun, especially against someone else.

The first thing you notice though is the game menus are a little fiddly and annoying. They don’t seem logical – there is a game mode option, but it ignores one of the options, which is found under its own menu. But once you find your way around you have the options to do the career mode of Build a Label, or you can jump straight into the fighting through Throw Down and Beating with Bass. Throw Down is the main mode of fighting and it’s good to jump into this before attempting the career mode to get a handle on how to play.

Fighting actions are controlled by the face buttons. There’s a quick strike and strong strike, both high and low. Special moves are mapped to the right joystick, with moves reminiscent of Fight Night. For example, move the joystick to the left and then rotate to the right to perform a jump kick for one character, but the same move might be a back handed slap for another. Grabbing, possibly the most important move in the game, is also controlled by the right joystick. Blocking and countering is done by the right trigger, and taunts are made by pressing both bumpers. I was severely disappointed that Lil Jon didn’t scream out “WHAT? OKAY!” Dave Chapelle style with his taunts.

There are 6 different fighting styles with have pros and cons – for example Muay Fly allows quick song switching but it’s harder to break out of grabs, whilst Beatboxer can activate hazards with excellent scratch speeds, but has weak song shifting skills. “Wait, What?!” I hear you ask. “Scratching?” “Song Switching?” With just regular fighting moves, the game would still be pretty cool, but the fun comes from the interactive environments, which are a little different to usual fighting games. They pulse to the beat of the music, and on every heavy beat they strobe with force to lay some smackdown on you or your foe.

You do more damage when your song, chosen before each match, is playing. You change song by holding the left trigger and spinning the right joystick around until the character on screen switches hands, and then you rotate the left stick. This can be countered, so it’s best done when an opponent is laid out on the floor from a beat down or a throw. You can grab an opponent and throw them into a certain area, and if you time it to the beat of the song playing, the environments react and damage them. In the Club level for example, throw your opponent near the pole dancers and the girls will swing around and kick your enemy. Furthermore, if you time your throw with the beat and then DJ scratch (holding the left trigger whilst spinning the right joystick) you trigger the bigger beat to activate the environmental hazard and do more damage. In the club the speaker booms a massive sonic blast that sends your opponent flying across the screen.

I don’t think the “music as a weapon” premise is entirely apt though. You can still beat the game by using only fighting and countering moves. You don’t particularly have to switch songs to get the upper hand, or have any sense of rhythm to time throws and scratches. But the game makes it so you want to do these moves, because they look and feel cool. There’s a great sense of satisfaction in timing the scratch and sending you opponent flying or burst into flame.

The other modes are pretty much the same as Throw Down. Beating with Bass has no scratching disabling hazard triggering, so hits and throws have to be made more rhythmically. There’s also My Soundtrack mode, which allows you add your own tunes either streamed off a PC hard drive, or from a playlist on your Xbox360. This mode is great fun… Beating Sean Paul down to the sounds of REAL Jamaican reggae gave me a great sense of satisfaction, but nothing is better than beating Method Man to the sounds of the Spice Girls.

In Build a Label the objective is to sign up Def Jam artists and sell records to make money, and unravel a fairly trite story of intrigue. The way to sign artists is usually to beat the crap out of them, which is immensely satisfying. Once an artists signs, you’ve got to keep them happy by giving them money for parties and cars and lawyer fees and so on. All of this is done through the computer interface located in your “home”. You have emails that let you know who has the issue, what the issue is, and a simple Yes/No option to solve the issue.

You’ve also got girlfriends to attract and keep happy, and also the clothes and bling shops. The more money you amass, the more you can spend on Bling to get the girls and keep them happy. To get money, you have to budget for your artists’ records and releases. With releases, you determine how much is spent on promotion, radio play, and so on and the simple rule of thumb is the more you spend, the better you’ll do. Again, all this is done through the computer interface.

Once that’s taken care of, the game advances by allowing you to beat the crap out of anyone who bothers your artists, from pestering fans to talent poachers from rival record companies to corrupt cops, and so on. About ¾ the way through the career mode, you’re stripped of everything, and then have to fight the same 3 characters over and over. The last boss battle is a pain in the ass. The computer cheats by throwing you into the same environmental hazard every time, usually from distances impossible for the player to achieve. It is very, very frustrating, and apart from achievements doesn’t seem worth your while.

As a single player game, the game is let down by lack of options. Sure there are plenty of characters, and it’s great fun punching the crap out of bad rappers like Sean Paul, but with only three game modes, six fighting styles that are really quite similar, and 8 locations to fight in, it gets repetitive and dull particularly in career mode. The most fun with the game comes from playing with friends. Online or one on one in the lounge room, it is fun throwing each other about and triggering the environmental hazards. I’d actually go as far to say play this with a friend first then try the single player modes, just because the career mode especially may bore you too much and might make you put the game down and never pick up again.

Graphic wise the game is excellent. During fights, there’s no on screen meter for health, although there’s an option to turn it on. There’s a subtle tint to tell who’s in control – yellow when winning, or blue when your opponent is. This blooms out – shadows become deeper and shorter, light brighter – the more health lost, although when both you and your opponent are low on health it’s a bit hard to tell who is winning. The special effects are great, and the destruction you cause to the interactive environments feels natural, and seeing opponents fly across the screen as a result of you successfully scratching is immensely satisfying. As with most EA games, there’s a deep character editor with loads of options, and a heap of accessories to unlock so you can totally bling out your pimpin’ rapper.

Sound wise the punches and grunts and taunts of the characters are excellent, and the scratching sounds like you’re really doing it, but after a while the whole rap soundtrack feels stale. The N word and B word are so overused it becomes tiresome to hear them. Don’t we hear enough of that when playing on Xbox Live? All the artists who appear as characters have songs in the game, so if you like the Def Jam artists then you’ll obviously love the soundtrack, but the ability to play your own playlists is very, very welcome. In career mode, because you start with only one song and unlock more as you progress, you’ll hear the same tracks over and over. If I hear Mike Jones say “Mike Jones” one more time I’ll get medieval on his ass.

Conclusion:
For me, there’s too much ‘on paper’ that is wrong with this game – the music, the characters, the cliché’s, the lack of options and lack of variety. Yet, in practice and in spite of all this, I did enjoy Def Jam Icon. And a heap of my friends who also scoffed at it ‘on paper’ also enjoyed the game when we played against each other. The solid fighting with the unique music based environments lifts the game out of its rather weak premise and provides an enjoyable distraction. I can’t see myself playing it in a few months time, but I won’t be ashamed to say I enjoyed it either.

Pros:
Deep fighting system
Excellent graphics
Environmental effects brings something a little different to the fighting genre
Great fun against another person

Cons:
Illogical interface makes things harder than they should be
There are not too many options or variety in gameplay modes for single players
Career mode feels a little light and overly simple.
The boss battles in Career mode feel cheap and not a proper test of skill
The whole US Rap lifestyle clichés are perpetuated beyond annoyance

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 07

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Xbox 360 owners felt pretty ripped off by EA after the universally loathed Road to World Cup was offered as a launch title. Why they could have just slapped an Xbox360 sticker on FIFA 2006 is beyond me, as that was a fantastic game and easily the best in the series in a long while.

2006 FIFA World Cup improved the series greatly, providing a solid title that bode well for the future releases of EA’s franchise. Although it used the same FIFA engine as the xbox version, it featured brilliant presentation, a whole heap of options, and a gameplay system that somewhat refined the way FIFA has played in the past, a little for the better and a little for the worst.

Enter FIFA 07. EA has actually listened to gamers for once, redesigned the engine from the ground up for the Xbox 360. Here we have in actual fact a new game for our money, and this can only mean good things, right? Unfortunately a lot of what was looking promising in the old engine has been trashed, and I found the more I played the more I longed for the old version as I discover things that at first thought were cool, but suddenly become very annoying.

Like the physics on the ball. Finally the ball is completely untethered from the players, and has its own identity, which used to be a common complaint about FIFA. It bounces freely, and is deflected off various body parts in a natural and realistic manner. If you hit the ball with the edge of your player’s foot, it will shoot off at an odd angle. Spin and velocity can influence its direction. I have seen it spin under the cross bar and into the goal. However, at the same time you never feel as though you have control over the ball. It can receive a glancing blow from another player and scurry out of dribble range, bounce off the back of players’ head.

Combined with the AI, this gets quite frustrating. Many times you lift the ball in a pass to a player, and they’ll be running forward and the ball will hit them in the back of the head. When on a run forward, players never seem to turn around fast enough. It’s like players are on tracks, and won’t deviate from their runs, so if a ball bounces funny because of a deflection or interception, it takes too for the game to catch up. This sense of being somewhat behind the play appears to infect the whole game. In fact, because it’s so noticeable the commentary actually apologises for it!

“Commentary isn’t an exact science” quips Clive Tydsley quite often as the players scrap over the ball because they’re moving this way and that in response to your joystick movements and the ball bouncing of body parts. At first I thought this was funny and clever commentary, but after the 10th time in a match I realised it must have been included because this flaw!

Speaking of 10th time, I know soccer is a sport known for seemingly soft tackles and frees, but when you get your 10th foul and you’ve never hit the button to slide-tackle, it becomes incredibly frustrating. Players will push and jostle each other when running for the ball, and pressing the A button makes your player attack the ball with vigour, but if you tackle from any position than slightly in front of the other player, you’re issued a foul. Now, given your player is running on a track and will often run past the play because the response is slow, you player will be nearly always the player from behind the ball, so you’ll nearly always cause a foul when you tackle.

Some may argue that this is realistic to the game of soccer, but for a computer game it just doesn’t feel natural. You get worse at tackling and give away more frees the more you play. If it was a realistic play device it would work in such a way that the more you tackled the better you become. You’d figure out better strategies and a better way to play. I’ve played many, many games and am still not better at it. I’m better at corners and frees and passing and scoring, but this is a fault in the mechanics of the game.

The presentation of the game is superb though. The interactive loading screen with a keeper and your favourite player is great fun, and the option screens are very slickly designed. The ability to change not only team but an individual’s play style and level them up with skills is a very welcome change, allowing those who like the simulation side of soccer to tweak to their hearts content. You can also look at the stats a player has for an individual game, essentially checking their performance on the fly; their tackles, their main areas of play, where and when they commit fouls. And it has a greater impact on the field than the simulation in FIFA 06. Changing your formation or pinpoint the space a player should run when in attack can have a greater impact on the game.
Where the presentation fails is in sound. Whenever there’s a substitution, the sound stops completely. Sometimes the channels clash,

[NOTE: The rest is missing. I think the original file has become corrupted]

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

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The world of PC shooters was set alight by the introduction of Battlefield 1942. A massive amount of people could play an engaging shooting game that was fast, furious, and full of action. It shirked the realism aspect of other WWII games out at the time, and allowed you to fly a plane, drive a tank, then get out and shoot like a soldier. When you died, you only had to wait a few seconds before spawning into another soldier.

When Battlefield 2 arrived, its setting was placed in a more modern context, and new soldier roles allowed you to play a much more tactical game, but still kept the arcade fun of the original. Now that experience comes to Xbox, however the Xbox version of Battlefield 2: Modern Combat shouldn’t be compared to its PC counterpart, as DICE designed B2:MC for the Xbox from the ground up. It’s a similarly intense action shooter, yet provides a different and exciting gameplay experience from the PC version.

One aspect of B2:MC that is different is the single player campaign. Like many war games, you’re tasked with completing certain missions in campaign style. B2:MC is a little different to most in that it places you in the sides of two forces – NATO and Chinese – concurrently. Every few missions the game will swap you to the other side, and you’ll play a mission as the other side, complete with news broadcasts letting you know how insidious the other side has been. This negates the whole “good” versus “bad” ideal that so frequently occurs in these types of games, as well as allows you to experience quite a wide range of vehicles and weapons from time to time.

Each mission varies greatly in its objectives, and you’ll be tasked to blow up bridges or installations, defend an area, attack an area, and each encourages you to utilise a whole range of different troops, such as snipers or engineers, and vehicles. In fact, there are 5 different types of troop you can be – Assault, who is your typical on foot combatant; Sniper, who not only snipes, but can locate enemy troop locations with his “GPS Forward Observer”, and paint targets for missile strikes. There’s Special Ops, trained in stealth and sabotage, whose weapons are silenced. They also carry C4 charges, designed for blowing things like bridges off the face of the planet. The Engineer is Mr Fixit, who can repair vehicles with the blowtorch, and lay landmines to stop enemy vehicles. Failing that, he can whip out his rocket launcher, which is brutally effective against tanks and helicopters. And bringing up the rear is Support, acting as field medic, administrating health intravenously, and also able to call mortar strikes to devastate an area.

Missions help you rise in rank. The quicker you complete a mission, the less men you lose, the more enemy you kill, objectives completed, and so on, the higher your Combat Score. Medals are also awarded for doing certain things in a mission, such as Hotswapping (more on that later) a certain distance or number of times, getting so many sniper headshots, planting so many explosives, that kind of thing. At the end of a mission, time, kills and casualties are tallied up, along with any medals you’ve earned, and you are awarded stars for certain point milestones. The more stars you earn, the higher your ranking will go. Ranking gives you access to better weapons and equipment, as well as more health, ammo, and so forth.

B2:MC also allows you to pilot tanks, jeeps, boats, amphibious vehicles and helicopters. Run up to a vehicle, press B and you’re in and racing. AI Teammates can operate mounted weaponry, or by simply pressing the Black button you can switch to the mounted weapons while the AI drives. This is great for when shooting is more important than driving. However, the AI isn’t anywhere near perfect, and often drives into enemy fire, or occasionally gets stuck on obstacles, so being able to switch so quickly is a godsend in some missions.

Speaking of switching, something absolutely awesome in the single player game is Hotswapping. If you see a fellow trooper on the other side of the battlefield, simply pressing the Y button zooms you into that player. The player has to be in the line of sight, which indicated by the icon above their head turning white. This allows you to, for instance, snipe some guards from one position, Hotswap to a tank and attack another position, zoom into a Special Ops to breach a wall, and then hotswap back to the tank and roll into an enemy compound. It is a fantastic gameplay mechanic that works incredibly well and is a lot of fun to use, and it allows for some great tactical manoeuvres and is totally unique to the single player aspect of B2:MC. I just wish it were available in Multiplayer as well!

Apart from the single player campaign, there are minigames that allow you to increase your star rating by up to 3 stars per game. This include a hotswap challenge, where you have to hotswap from person to person travelling across a map; a racing challenge, where you drive or fly through checkpoints; and shooting challenges which test your accuracy with a particular weapon. These are also a lot of fun, and often more intense than the action of the campaign missions, and extends the single player game further than the rather large 20 mission campaign. For a game that is mainly meant to be for online play, they sure have catered well for the single player.

Online, the game is just as fun and addictive as both the single player, and PC counterpart. With up to 24 players Conquest is where you have to hold certain key control points on the map to get hold ‘tickets’, which are essentially remaining soldiers. The less control points the team hold, the quicker the tickets decrease. Unlike the PC version, you don’t have online bots though, just your human counterparts, so in that way it is a little tougher to capture and hold points. Capture the flag is the traditional capture the flag – storm an enemy’s base and steal their flag, and this seems to be the less popular online mode.

Getting into a game is pretty simple –Quick Match finds games quickly enough, and optimatch allows you to choose your favourite game type and map, although on the odd occasion I got a ‘server is full’ error when it said there were only 15 out of 24 players. I also got a few mysterious disconnections, but no more than usual for Xbox Live. Lag was non-existent, and voices were crisp for the most part. In fact, unlike other Live games, the talking was, 90% of the time, just about the game. Most of the players seem pretty serious about playing and having fun – there’s very little Team Killing, very little Griefing, which makes B2:MC all that much more enjoyable.

The maps are varied enough to keep you interested for a while. Some obviously suit vehicles more than others, but on the whole the maps provide a balance for all kinds of players. Snipers can set up on top of buildings and the like, but most buildings can be entered from below, and rooftops accessed by stairs, so there’s never a sense of the sniper ‘sweet spot’ that occurs in other shooters.

B2:MC isn’t going to win too many awards for its graphical presentation. It’s not that it looks particularly bad, it just doesn’t stand out. The interface is rather bland, featuring mainly text and a few 3D ‘army sim’ style graphics, but it’s not a shining example of a great user interface. The in-game graphics are solid, and the game moves so fast that you don’t really notice anything too bad, but it’s no Halo. Explosions look quite sad, as vehicles disappear in a puff of smoke, and often it’s hard to see where the tracers of enemy bullets are actually coming from. And there’s certain sameness about all the maps you play on, particularly in single player. However, there are nice touches, like smashed windows, graffiti covering bridges and disused city blocks, and the smoking remains of ruined vehicles.

Audio wise the game is pretty solid. Weapons sound different enough, and the clink and clank of tanks and other vehicles sounds authentic. Explosions, whilst looking weak, sound great. The voiceover for your fellow soldiers give them personality and vitality. However, one really annoying thing about the audio is the Chinese voice over in the mission briefing. It sounds like someone putting on an accent, and a rather bad one at that.

Conclusion:
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat may disappoint fans of the PC game who expect a PC port, but don’t let that put you off. It is still a fabulous game, with single players being well catered for, and online players having a similar, although more arcady and faster experience than their PC counterparts. And with Hotswapping being so damn cool and a hell of a lot of fun, it is sure to become common in more and more games in the future.

Pros:
Single Player well catered for
Excellent Online Play
Hotswapping is a very cool device

Cons:
May be too arcadey for those use to the PC version
Vehicles sometimes get caught on obstacles.
AI isn’t too good at driving.
Bad voice acting for the Chinese forces.

85/100

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

FIFA 2006

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EA get a fair bit of flack from their policy of releasing new revisions of their franchise games every 12 months or so and charging full price for seemingly small changes. Sometimes this is warranted, and other times it is not. The problem with the FIFA series is that football is such a well-loved sport, and EA has tried to buy the sport through exclusive licensing deals, that people often slag EA off before giving the games a really good chance. I couldn’t say I’m a football fanatic, but I do enjoy the sport, did play in my youth, and I have played all the FIFA series of games on Xbox, and it’s my opinion that FIFA 2006 is the best to date.

One of the primary causes of concern amongst football fans about FIFA was the scorelines. People on forums constantly whinged about how in “real football” there are no 4-4 draws, or 6-3 wins, and said that the FIFA game should reflect more realistic scores. I’m not going to enter a debate about how boring a nil all draw can be to watch, but for me this arcade score line made the game extremely fun. I come from a background of playing games like Sensible Soccer and Microprose’s International Soccer, which were lots of fun, had crazy scorelines and realism wasn’t the entire point. I’m of the opinion if you want “realism” in a soccer game, go play a game like Championship Manager – they’re made for geeks in glasses who obsess over numbers and statistics.

However, FIFA 2006 has indeed addressed this complaint, and it’s quite tough going to score at all in FIFA. This is both a blessing and a curse. For someone used to scoring high in matches, it can seriously put a dent in your ego to win by only a goal or two, and to have more draws than wins. However, at the same time that makes it one of the most intense FIFA games to date. Every strike has to be on target, every loose ball has to be won, and every time the opposition gets close to your goal square the anxiety levels rise.

Part of this is the result of smarter AI. It’s a subtle change over the previous release, but after prolonged play it becomes more apparent. The AI is tougher, sticks to the player, and plays much more aggressively. They’ll play advantage, but they’ll also play towards the sidelines when in defence when you’re in a threatening position. Speaking of playing advantage, I was shocked the first time the commentator said, “the Ref has given advantage” after a bad tackle. The ball was held up in play, the whistle blew and I was awarded a free kick. This could be in other games, but this was the first time I noticed it, and the first time it was an accurate reflection of how the play-on rule works.

Another reason the game seems tighter are the physics of the ball are a lot more realistic than previous FIFA titles. The theme song of this years release is Jamiroquai’s “feels just like it should”, and sums up the ball physics perfectly. It actually moves like a ball on a pitch, rather than a sprite in a game. When it rains the ball becomes slippery and heavier. When a kick is reflected off the gaol post it’s reflected in a real direction. And in addition, this year the player stats do actually seem to mean something. Fast players will be able to outrun slower players, tougher players will be able to force players off the ball with their body, and the strong kickers will be able to kick the ball more accurately.

However, there are some major problems with the game, holding it back from being a truly great football game. When the ball is kicked into midfield, the game suffers a quite noticeable framerate drop. It seems that having so many players in the midfield cause the game to stutter and slow down, which is really unfortunate. When there doesn’t seem to be much going on in the terms of onscreen action, especially compared to a shooter or racing game for example, it really does seem like an inexplicable problem. And it is enough to make a player have second thoughts about playing it. You do become accustomed to it, but I was ready to stop playing and give a dismissive review the first few times I played.

Another issue is the Team Management section. Even though I’m not a great fan of team management games, finding the statistic crunching to be rather dull, I am prepared to admit they usually do impact on a game. FIFA 2006 has attempted to bring in some form of team management, but it fails because it doesn’t seem to have too much an impact on your team, but enough to simply annoy you. This year, instead of gaining points for winning and spending it on certain coaches, you earn money from home ground ticket sales and sponsors. You then use the money to improve your coaching field, improve your grounds and pay your players.

However, choose the wrong sponsor and you could find yourself losing money every match, especially if you’re not getting wins every game. This makes it hard to improve your coaching line up, which in turn means your players don’t play as well, and their team and individual morale drops. This in turn affects team chemistry, that unquantifiable quality that means certain teams play better together, which is sadly given a score that you have to try to improve on. When your team is not playing well, crowd attendance will be down, meaning you lose more money, and sacking players doesn’t help team moral much either.

On top of that, you get wildcards, as per the Sims, where a scenario presents itself, such as “Management has heard rumours of dissention in your team” and you have to answer appropriately from a choice of three. Sometimes answering the question appropriately doesn’t seem to give a satisfactory result. It does all seem rather light, and there’s no option to turn it off in the main Manager mode. It only mildly impacts on your teams’ on-field performance, and makes transfers and recovery of players more difficult than perhaps it should be. EA should go all out with this mode and give a rich and deep transfer and management market, and give players the option to simply turn it off.

For those who like playing with mates, FIFA2006 has you well covered. Not only is there Xbox Live functionality with the ability to play in online leagues and track your wins and losses, but there’s also FIFA Lounge, which allows you to create a local league of mates on your xbox and rank you against each other. Lounge allows you to play a round-robin knockout game, or a full tournament, and also allows you to get “Cheap Shots” like issue Yellow Cards at the start of a match to really piss your mates off. Xbox Live games were fairly free of lag, but I had fairly regular server disconnections from the EA severs. Admittedly I didn’t do any of the set up things suggested when I first signed in, like opening ports and so forth, but then again I shouldn’t have to when most other games work fine. And that information should be in the handbook, not on a screen that can be quickly skipped.

Graphics problems mentioned above aside, the game does look quite impressive, with players looking much like their real life counterparts. The stadiums look great, and the shadowing on the pitch is very impressive. The crowd looks a little like 2D cardboard cutouts though, although the crowd roars and stadium ambience is excellent. When you’ve got the ball and the crowd are chanting out the teams name, it really does strive you on to excellence. As with any sports game the commentary can get a little repetitive, but this year the dropping of Ally McCoist and John Motson inclusion of Clive Tydsley and Andy Gray mean that there’s less inane chatter and much more action orientated discussion, which is very much welcome. The music that plays on the menu pages is quite a good selection of world beats, being mostly free of crap rap and rnb.

Closing:
Playing FIFA 2006 was a really good experience after I got over the initial disappointment of the framerate drop when the ball enters midfield. The game is a real challenge and a real improvement over last years’ release. The AI is especially tough, but never so much so that it becomes frustrating, and unlike previous FIFA games I never felt that the AI scored against me by using cheap shots or cheating. Likewise, online play is equally challenging, but again I never felt that a better player overwhelmed me. The Team Management section just doesn’t seem robust enough to me, which indicates that it will be seen as wasteful by the hardcore football fans, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Pros:
Overall improvement in realism from player representations to scorelines
Excellent and challenging AI
Great Ball Physics
The aftertouch plays are still a great inclusion
FIFA Lounge is fun – especially the ‘cheap shots’

Cons:
Heinous framerate drops in midfield
Team Management not robust enough
Bland stadium crowd animations
Frequent disconnection from EA Servers

82/100

inthemix.com.au, Review, Video Games, Writing

Burnout 3: Takedown

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Xbox
Not having played the previous Burnout titles, I didn’t really know what to expect from EA’s Burnout 3 Takedown. I was expecting something pretty special though, as this was EA’s first venture onto the Xbox Live! service. Whilst the game itself is outstanding, the online implementation is buggy as hell and ruins the experience overall.

Burnout 3 is a different type of driving game. Rather than racing around tracks trying to avoid other cars, taking the best lines and avoiding traffic, Burnout 3 encourages you to hit other cars and cause the maximum amount of damage possible. Starting off in the Burnout 3 World Tour, you race in different cities in one of two different types of event – “Race” and “Crash”. “Race” has a number of modes; Race is your typical get to the line first in the fastest way possible. The Grand Prix race is where you get points for where you finish in a series of races. Eliminator finds the last placed car in a series of races eliminated. Face Off is a one on one race where the winner takes the losers car, and Road Rage is where you have to smash as many rivals as possible.

During a Race Event, it is important to smash your opponent’s cars in order to get boost points and stay in front. Causing another racer to crash is called a takedown, and a slow-mo replay of the crash is displayed immediately afterwards, and it looks freaking cool. The car flies through the air, sparks flying off, and it looks awesome when you smash them into on coming traffic and see the cars pile up. However, if you are taken down yourself, the slow-mo is activated by the A button, and you’ve got a degree of control over your smashed car in what they call aftertouch. Here you can, if you are lucky, hit another racer and cause a further takedown.

Crash Events are single races where you simply have to crash your car into a bunch of other cars. Sounds simple, but you’d be surprised at how often you miss crashing. It is so easy when not trying to do it, but when you’re aiming to get enough points to get a gold medal, trying to hit all the tokens that double or quadruple your points and cash, as well as trying to hit the ‘crashbreakers’ that cause your car to explode allowing you to create more mayhem, can be really difficult. But the difficulty is never too hard, and that’s one of the joys of the game. I’m not normally someone who needs gold in every single race – if I can get through the game without winning the top goal I’m happy. But with Burnout3, I have to get gold. It’s just too damn addictive causing all the mayhem, trying to get that many more points to reach gold!

The game looks fantastic, and the crashes and carnage simply looks superb. The damage models on the car are fantastic; Chunks of metal get tossed into the air, glass smashes and sparks fly. The sounds of crashes is excellently done too, although the annoying “EA” soundtrack and DJ will be some of the first options to turn off. Luckily you can have your own custom soundtracks, which makes racing that more pleasurable.

The biggest let down is the Xbox Live! implementation. To be fair, this is EA’s first game to feature an online component for Live, but it is far too complicated and causes unnecessary stress for anyone trying to get a game. As the service goes through EA’s server and not the usual XBL service, every time you start a new session you have to log back into EA’s server, extending the time between races. There are problems with rankings not updating properly, problems with voice communication and even people seeing accounts been temporarily locked for no obvious reason. When you do get a game, races are relatively lag free, but the hassle getting in really puts you off.

Whilst the online implementation sours the game, Burnout 3: Takedown is still a very enjoyable racing title that offers something a little different from the norm. It looks and sounds superb, and the single player game offers an addictive and long lasting experience, and once you get on to the online component, lots of fun can be had.

Review, Video Games, Writing, XboxWorld

The Urbz: Sims in the City

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Without hyperbole, the Sims is the biggest computer game ever. It crosses every arbitrary marketing category you can think of – Age, Sex, Country, Income, and appeals to both the hardcore and casual gamer in a way that no other game can begin to touch. The move to consoles with essentially the same gameplay as to the PC version was a gutsy move, but it just didn’t sell as well as it did on the PC. EA and Maxis have decided to take a different route and rather than opting to simply port it’s the inventively named sequel The Sims 2 to consoles, they’ve invented a whole new game.

Enter the Urbz: Sims in the City. Taking its cue from the exclusive ‘Get a Life’ mode featured in the original Sims for consoles, the Urbz presents a much more goal-orientated gameplay than the Sims. The open style gameplay, the non-story focus that has defined the Sims franchise has been hamstrung, but that’s not a bad thing.

Like the previous Sims, you get to make your sim from a range of templates, which are quite mutable and customisable. The Sims have always has a “simness” about them, but this time they seem a little funkier, and more like a caricature akin to those Bratz dolls. Unlike the other games, you don’t get any clothes apart from the ones you’re given when you start. Furthermore, instead of choosing a neighbourhood, you and up to four other user controlled sims move into an 98th Ave, 3rd Floor Apartment, provided by your friend will.i.am. Yes, the will.i.am from Black Eyed Peas. Real Urban. It’s a very small apartment, and you have a few items in your inventory and $300 to spend.

The focus in the Urbz all about building your reputation throughout the city in order to become a big “playa”. To gain rep, you meet urbz and talk to them. The more urbz you talk to and the more often you talk to them, the more your rep builds. It’s the same principle as the “social need” in the Sims 2. To meet people you move a cursor with the left and when an urb is highlighted, press A to interact with them. You can move the camera around to get a better angle using the right stick. In fact, this is the way you interact with all objects in the game, and hasn’t changed much from the previous consol version. It’s relatively easy to use, although sometimes you can feel a little lost. In addition to this, there is a new interface tool in the form of the XAM. It’s an in-game PDA Phone that is used to display messages, to call other Urbz, and to keep track of your inventory, goals and relationships. Pressing the X button pauses the game and brings this device up.

When talking to any urb, you get a range of options that appear green, yellow or red, and this tells you how successful the option will be. This makes the game rather easy. It takes all the guesswork out, and you can build your reputation really fast just by choosing the green option all the time. Certain urbz will have skills to teach you, or tasks for you, and you have to be on friendlier terms with them to unlock the social moves or the tasks. One such task requires you to change another urbz’ appearance. To do this, you have to get friendly enough with the urb to invite him to join your “crew”, and you can then control them when you’re in the same district, or invite them to a new district. The higher your rep goes, the more things are unlocked – new social moods to show off to your friends or to gain new ones, new equipment used to boost your skills for working (more on that later) and new districts of the city.

But you’ve got to be able to walk the walk to talk the talk, and you’ve got to look stylish when doing it. At the start you don’t choose personality or starsign, but your social group. There’s a whole range of stereotypic “urban” groups here: There’s the ravers, with their glowsticks and neon that hang in Japan-inspired Neon East. There’s Kicktail Park where all the skater dudes hang out and grind the scenery. The Foundry is where all the arty types read Kafka and make Sculptures. The punks hang out at the Central Station train station, whilst the bikers like to hang at Gasoline Row. The hiphop and R&B lovers live on the rooftops of Skyline Beach, whilst it’s a lot more chilled over on Cozmo Street. The high rollers gather at the South Side Bridge, whilst the rich and gorgeous like the dizzying Diamond Heights. At first, only the district belonging to the crew you want to hang with is open.

Each district has own unique feel, and to get anywhere you need to fit in by buying new clothes and accessories to match the look of the locals. Each district has a bouncer guarding a VIP club that everyone who’s anyone hangs out at, and to progress through the game you have to get by that bouncer by being popular enough with a high rep, and also have to be dressed to impress. Clothes in the style of the district can be bought in each area in easy to find shops. But to buy the clothes, you need money, and luckily each district has a specific job for you. For example, at Kicktail Park, there’s a skate ramp you perform tricks on. At the Foundry you make sculptures. At Cozmo Street you’ll be working in will.i.am’s bar, whilst Diamond Heights offers modelling. All these jobs are completed in the same fashion – by following a sequence of button pushes on screen. These are really quite simple, even on the higher stages of the job. There’s three stages to each job, and to progress in a job you need to build up one of 3 skills – Artistic, Mental and Strength. These are built up with devices that are unlocked and can be purchased at cash registers throughout the city.

Unlike the other Sims games, building and object acquisition is no longer that important. Your apartment is more of a place where you build skills with the special items, sleep and shower. You can decorate it with items purchased from cash registers in each district of the city, including wallpapers and so forth, but you spend so little time there it doesn’t seem worth it. Your urbz’ needs, which like previous games need to be satisfied, are really easy to satisfy. Sleeping is quick – a few hours will fully recharge you, and your hunger and fun quotients deplete slowly and replenish quickly. Furthermore, in each district there’s a bed and wardrobe and sink anyway, so you can pretty much spend your whole time in an area without needing to go home.

The graphics of the game as mentioned before are quite stylised. The locations aren’t huge, but they are bright and colourful, even in the Artsy and punk areas. The Urbz look different from each other, but sometimes it is hard remembering who is whom, especially when they’re all partying in the VIP rooms. The interaction between the Urbz is often cute and humorous in that way only sims are. When as social move is activated, the camera zooms in and looks quite cool, and the animations are fun if somewhat a little cliché, like the ‘techno’ move which suits the ravers to a tee! There’s a little bit of slowdown when there’s a lot of urbz on screen, and the camera can sometimes get stuck looking at odd things when it’s zoomed in on a social, but it’s nothing too extreme. There are loading screen when ever you change location, clothes (either via a wardrobe or shop) that take almost too long however.

Sound wise the game is really good. Each district has it’s atmospheric sound – the Foundry sounds industrial, Central Station has trains and a tannoy, and so on. The Urbz speak in simmish of course, but in an interesting move EA has licensed music from popular artists the Black Eyed Peas, who re-recorded nine of their songs in simmis!. Will.i.am also recorded the other music in the game, which touches on popular existing tunes but gives them simmish lyrics – you’ll recognise quite a few tunes and find yourself humming along. There’s a range of music to suit each District

Conclusion:
The re-focussing of the gameplay makes it easy to pick up and play, and you can spend an hour or two with it without getting bored or feeling too involved. The mini-games, whilst repetitive, are fun, and it beats clicking the mouse button and waiting for a skill to increase. You won’t be sitting there for hours waiting for your urb to sleep, or get home from work, or shower, and so forth. The goal oriented gameplay may put off hardcore fans of the original games, having the Sims and all the add ons, as well as Sims 2 on PC, and I find the concept refreshing.

I would have liked the building and object acquisition to be a little more worthwhile than it is, as that is a big aspect of the original and brings out the interior decorator and architect in all gamers. The game does hold your hand a little too much, making it rather easy to play and to succeed, but all in all this is a game that is well suited to console gamers, as well as those who like the Sims franchise.

Pros
Much more goal orientated gameplay, but still has The Sims feel.
Oozes a unique and cool style in all aspects of the game
The music is a crack up

Cons
Building and Object collecting have been greatly devalued in terms of gameplay.
Can be a little too easy
The loading times seem a little long

83/100