Despite what comments I may make in this review, The Ball is an iconic game. It’s impossible to review this title without explaining (for those of you that might not know) the history of The Ball and its significance.

Up until recently the video game industry has one great, big, major roadblock. That was that the license costs for game engines and builders were astronomical…at least for average Joe. Many aspiring game devs (myself included) waded through the muddy backwaters of the internet to try and find engines we could build games on. The Unreal engine (which I’m sure you most commonly know from the Unreal Tournament titles and recently a vast number of releases including Gears of War, Enslaved and Darksiders to name a few) released its development platform 100% scott-free. You can legitimately grab yourself a copy and get building; the launch was the aspiring game dev’s wet dream. You could fully develop a game and pay the commercial licensing to Unreal only once it’s finished…it is, to all in intents and purposes the holy grail of Developer software. So where does The Ball come in to this?

Unreal launched a massive campaign to champion its new free platform, the winner of the competition being none other than The Ball. At that time the game was the shining icon of Unreal development, as well the example of what people could now do for free.

So a long time later Teotl Studios released The Ball as a full blown commercial game.  This is what I thought….

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Gameplay

The Ball really started life as a small indie project. It’s transformation to retail was arguably a leap too far. Unfortunately, the gameplay elements that make The Ball a potentially brilliant game cause many of its downfalls. The premise is fairly simple- you have a ball you can control, either by pulling it to you or firing it away from you. It can attach to objects you can then move (and it also comes in handy as a weapon).
One thing I did enjoy was the ingenuity of some of the puzzles.  Many of them were really challenging and a lot of time I had to tip my hat to Teotl. I definitely didn’t know a ball could so many neat things and, for the most part I really felt as though the developers sat down and thought through these tasks carefully. Some of the interesting elements were ones which added water. You had to start thinking not only in linear way but start focusing on layers above and below you. Given the physics, which were mightily impressive, you really needed to consider when and where the ball (and you) would go.
The team at Teotl did a great job conjuring up puzzles and tasks to complete with the ball and I can really see why a lot of critics want to compare this to the brilliant Portal title. Unfortunately, the similarities between controlling an environment altering object with a hand held super-gizmo ends there. If you’re going to compare The Ball to the Portal then there’s a bunch of elements The Ball seriously falls short on. One of my biggest gripes was that it’s incredibly easy to lose the ball. Worse still, there’s no way of easily locating the ball. There’s a distance counter, although if your ball is stuck round a corner and you can’t pull it towards you it’s about time to start searching. The game seemed to have a huge amount of dead-ends in its mazes. I constantly found myself asking “why the hell is this tunnel here?” There was nothing to discover or collect in these tunnels, really these dead-ends slowly ate away at my sanity until I developed a nervous twitch every time I was unfortunate enough to go down one. There was only one fate worse than getting lost down these passages though…..losing the damn Ball down one. I’ve already explained that if you do lose the ball it’s not always easy to get it back. Straight on to the creatures and combat- well, there’s not much to tell. The combat system is really, really basic. You just grab your ball and smash, simple. There wasn’t a fight where this wasn’t the case and the ingenuity of all the puzzles was lost on the creatures.
Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if all these underground creatures were former players who’d slowly lost their minds getting lost in the tunnels. I was pretty tempted to join them at some points.
I’ll admit, it felt satisfying mauling waves of creatures with a giant rolling ball. Grabbing the ball and waving it about like a wrecking crew was definitely entertaining, but, it kind of loses its appeal after you do it 9,000 times. At times I think the addition of the creatures was more of an afterthought, something the developers added in, hoping to spice up the gameplay. In some ways it did, if only to keep your mind from focusing on the nightmare of navigating each level.

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Presentation and Difficulty

Beautiful! This game just bursts with polished textures, gorgeous ambient lighting and tight models. There’s a reason this game won “Make something Unreal”. On the face of it The Ball is a perfect poster boy for the Unreal SDK; Teotl really goes to town with everything the Unreal SDK had to offer at the time of release. It’s not often I find myself really impressed by the environment around me but damn, in my opinion Teotl could teach the hard hitters in the industry a thing or do about environment design. So how difficult was The Ball? Well, it was ok. I think if you’re going to contrast The Ball to any other “similar “game, it really doesn’t stand up to say- Portal. The game elements certainly became a bit more diverse and interesting through the progression of the campaign, but it didn’t necessarily become harder. There were certainly occasions where I would think “well, that new approach is nice” but I never once found it much more challenging. Perhaps this says something about how intuitive the game was? I’m not sure whether the game got more diverse or just more….bearable. I’ll let you decide for yourself.

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Final Words

There have been a lot of criticisms dropped here about The Ball. And I think that Teotl may have done better to leave their title as the Unreal Mod that won them so much acclaim. Perhaps in putting a commercial sticker over their title they’ve (sorry for the pun) dropped the ball on this one. As I said at the start of this review- The Ball is a paragon of the Unreal development kit. Whether you know it or not, it stands as an extremely important landmark in the video game industry. I tried to put aside its legacy when I reviewed this title and judge it toe-to-toe with other fully commercial releases. I’ve come to conclude that The Ball (the game) treads the fine line(s) between indie, tech and commercial- and really falls short on all of them. I’ve also come to conclude that The Ball (the Unreal Mod) is a champion of the industry and well, we should all just take a moment to reflect on what it means. No? Just me…?

7/10 (for the art+ the significance of the game).

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Remember a time gone by when you’d buy a game on release day, and it just ‘worked’? I know, it was a long time ago. But it did happen, I promise.

I foolishly ventured out at midnight for the release of Black Ops – I was so disappointed to find the multiplayer wasn’t playable at all, and the single player only *just* ran with all the settings turned down.

It seems like these days a game is released in an unfinished state, and its often a .1 or a .2 version iteration before the game is near finished or working. Some might say we’re benefting from additional (and continual) development time, but I don’t agree.  I feel for the poor guy (or girl) who eagerly buys a game on release day, and plays through it before the game is patched.

They’re getting a sub-par experience to the guy who buys the game in a steam sale 8 months after release.   That’s not good for anyone!

Considering the Xbox version of most games come out in a far better state than the PC port of the same game, my question is – would you rather wait for a delayed release of a ‘working’ game, or should be just accept that we’ll be beta testing big releases from now on?

“Always bet on black” – Wesley Snipes, Passenger 57

With the words of the tax dodging thespian never more pertinent and the adventures ahead of me in New Vegas there could be no other option – SDG_LM was all in.

Fallout New Vegas immediately strikes out to differentiate itself from Fallout 3 by starting you in what appears to be the exact opposite of how three started. Getting robbed, shot in the head and then buried in a shallow grave is never the nicest start to your adventures but luckily you survived and now you’re out for revenge. Which in the Mojave Desert will be served hot, sweaty and with sand in your shoes.

You start off in the backwater town of Goodsprings and after an especially contrived character creation sequence you emerge squinting into the Mojave Desert wasteland. This lacks the punch of the previous fallout games escape from the vault and Oblivion’s outdoor emergence but then we’ve been in this world before and wasteland, like war, never changes.

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The More Things Stay The Same

Goodsprings sets the Wild West tone of the game but once out in the Wasteland you’ll soon settle into the usual Fallout3/Oblivion wanderings. The main quest to find your would-be killer leads you on a tour around the Mojave and the varied side quests along the way provide the real meat to the desolate bones of civilization. From helping a cult of Ghouls to deciding the fate of some particularly unfortunate vault dwellers the side quests can provide both comic relief and sometime genuinely tough decisions.

The main quest is an improvement on the first game and there isn’t a ball-achingly absurd conclusion to spoil things. The New Vegas setting also allows Obsidian to jazz things up a bit with The Strip, here you’ll find casinos to waste away all your profits and also see another side to wasteland living.

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You Want to be in My Gang

New Vegas does have a few new cards up it’s sleeve and the introduction of factions is a welcome one.  Most actions you take on quests will affect one group in one way or another and now that will dictate how that group responds to you in the Mojave. Quests difficulty can be completely altered by how lovely a faction thinks you are and some quest will have multiple conclusions where the easiest path may be to avoid your enemies even if it doesn’t provide the resolution you would like.  While these factions do add to the game, the ability to don a disguise to infiltrate enemy camps or wander unobstructed through the wasteland is a bonus however on several occasions these disguises wouldn’t make a blind bit of difference so you quickly resort to shooting first whenever possible.

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THEM!

Unfortunately you can’t talk about New Vegas without mentioning the myriad of bugs that the release version contained. By now we’ve all seen the numerous videos of invisible computers and bulging eyes but patches have been released and the game was very stable when I played it, only once did I have a game breaking issue that had me reloading a previous save game.

While it easy to overlook these issues when not affected by them, this is a major worry that more and more developers are releasing games that are effectively broken and is sure to cost the company sales in future releases.

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US!

Luckily the PC is a few levels above the consoles and includes 2 perks that the console versions don’t have and that is the MOD tools and the community. Already there are numerous MODS and fixes released by the superb community that both improve performance and de-consilificationallyfy the user interface. A list of the best of these can be found over at PC Gamer.

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The End is Nigh

New Vegas hasn’t been billed as Fallout 4, however the team at Obsidian have taken us back for more adventures in the wasteland and bugs aside have done a very good job. The dark humour of previous Fallout games is preserved and Obsidian have been able to use their knack to spin a tale to create a game that while retreading a lot of the same ground is better than its predecessor which means it’s very good.

9 out of 10

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Update #2:

Try disabling shadows – this seems to give the greatest performance boost.

After picking this up last night and trying it for an hour, here are my first impressions;

Huge lag

This is probably due to launch-night strain on the servers, but still very disappointing.  Up to 2-3 freezes and a couple of disconnects.

Party Up?

Despite the mass opposition for non-dedicated servers, the IWnet matchmaking allowed for the following:

- Start a ‘party’ (2 or more players on your friends list)
- Join a server together
- and be on the same team  of said friends.

There doesn’t appear to be a way of doing this in Black Ops.

I can’t ‘host’ a game of zombies

In World At War, I could host a game of nazi zombies – invite a friend into the game and also allow other people to join my game, again its not clear if this possible.
If it isn’t, this is again pretty disappointing.

Haven’t played the single player though!

This is just a quick first impressions of the multi player modes, haven’t even loaded up the single player yet.

Watch this space for more further impressions.

Update:

- awful mouse lag navigating menus between rounds
- and why does it show that awful video after every single game of zombies and drop you straight back to the main menu?!   I’m sure you can replace the .bik with a blank one, but you shouldn’t have to.

Possible fixes?

For the on-line lag:
From a steam forum poster (not confirmed by me)

“Turn off steam overlay in game it worked for me. The game was unplayable now its fine.
EDIT : Steam > Settings > In Game > uncheck “Enable Steam Community In-Game”

That’s right, 7 days from release date a group called ‘xbox360iso’ claim to have released a download of Call Of Duty: Black Ops.
Shame on anyone who downloads it, and hopefully they have programmed in something which backfires for the player who has an illegal copy (much like Arkham Asylum!)

That’s quite enough console-based news for this month.

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So how do you go about writing a review on a game that has received so much commercial success and community attention without repeating what everyone else has already said? It’s tricky, but there are still people out there looking for a slightly alternative view on things…..and so that’s what I’ll try to bring in this review.
I think the main concern of gamers is that Starcraft II would simply recycle what the developers previously made over a decade ago, all be it with a few new shaders, models and shiny bits here and there. Let me make it very clear from the start; it’s not.
What sets this game apart from the swathe of other releases in this genre is undoubtedly the campaigns ability to not only immerse you in the story- but to really give you a connection between the dialogue and the gameplay. Ok, so you can argue that the story of our centrepiece Jim Raynor is 100%, certifiably cliché. And it is, but then Starcraft II has never been so much about “Jimmy’s love story” and more about the entire universe, you know, the vibrance of the other characters and everything, which really shine through. Of course, Starcraft has also been about South Korean gamers being wildly overpaid to play the game for as inhumanly long as possible in any one sitting.

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CAMPAIGN

Although an RTS at its core, Starcraft II manages to incorporate a massive variety of mini game-eqse elements in its missions. No two levels are quite the same and most missions have a totally unique mechanic associated with it. There are so many examples to chose from, some are perhaps non-controllable and more subtle elements…like the appearance of a space colony or dig site that was modelled specifically for that mission alone. You won’t ever see it again, but for that one mission Blizzard have made everything feel so completely unique. They’ve certainly dedicated a ridiculous amount of time in to making this feel very obvious. Some elements (and without spoiling too much), are the entire focus of the mission, like the Drakken sun-powered-protoss-melting laser drill. Not to mention the awesomely fun Odin war machine……

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You could definitely argue that the mini game feel was perhaps lifted somewhat from Blizzard’s other releases. Does the phrase “dodge the goddamn fire wall” ring any bells? There are certainly heavy WoW elements within Starcraft II itself, and why not? The stylistic approach to the artwork, the designs and aims of the mini games are definitely not new inside of Blizzard. It boils down to the same adage that Blizzard has been putting across from the start on this project….if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Of course all the extra stuff Blizzard has been working in World of Warcraft definitely doesn’t hurt- the introduction of achievements certainly game me a lot of drive to repeat missions before moving on. Luckily, it doesn’t quite feel like a system that rewards you for even the most ridiculously mundane of tasks…there were still some tough achievements that took me a fair few stabs to get right.

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I was definitely impressed by the variety of extra options that had a direct impact in-game as well. There’s a fully customizable armoury you can use to upgrade your units. There’s a research lab that allows you to collect points to gain new units and dramatically change up the way you can approach a situation in game. You can purchase mercenary teams which you can deploy in the field…super powerful versions of your own units that can turn around a difficult spot very quickly. Not only that, but it’s the smaller things that really make these features stand out. It’s not a case of mercenary units getting a different lick of paint on their unit model, for example. They’re completely new, highly augmented and fortified models of your own units on the field. Even minor upgrades, such as increasing the collection rate of your gatherer units changes the way their tools look next time you dive in to a mission.

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For those lucky enough to play the multiplayer beta most would probably agree that the game felt highly polished even at the testing stage. Blizzard’s notorious reputation for taking their time with a release is certainly justified in Starcraft II. You just don’t see any of those “little bugs” that most developers end up trying to patch out within days of the game’s release. As of yet the only significant patches have tweaked some balances in the multiplayer side of the game….which brings me nicely on to my next area.

MULTIPLAYER

What is arguably a stripped down version of the single player campaign, the multiplayer side of Starcraft II was definitely built with a single focus in mind; it’s tightly tuned and extremely well balanced to cater for the elite gaming market that most of us already know about in the RTS genre. Starcraft I was certainly the forefather of professional gaming and Blizzard have certainly made sure that its predecessor follows suit. South Koreans will rejoice at the new combinations of units and the update to their decade long national sport…with online matches bringing an unprecedented level of elite (and elitist) players from around the globe. The revamped battle.net network certainly brings a fresh ui and some good social networking features to the whole thing…although have a link to post a notification on facebook for every time I get absolutely battered by another player is really not my cup of tea. Overall you couldn’t ask much more of the online experience; however the removal of LAN functionality to encourage players to purchase their own individual licenses is definitely a bitter subject for many people.

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FINALLY

It’s a Blizzard product- and because of that you expect a certain standard in every aspect of the game. I think it’s fair to say that they’ve once again delivered on that expectation. Is the Starcraft franchise strong enough to justify the company making 3 separate, full price retail games? (For those who don’t know, Wing of Liberty is only the first of three planned instalments of Starcraft II) The answer is probably yes. Is the lack of a LAN function enough to discourage players from buying the game? Not really. At the end of the day, regardless of some of the more unpleasant strategies Blizzard have decided to enforce…you’d be very very wrong not buy this game. In fact, if you’ve not already bought it I’d empty the piggybank right now and grab yourself a copy.

9 out of 10

I was debating with fellow Sudogamer writer SDG_LM about Minecraft.  He downloaded it, and loved it.   I downloaded it (during the free weekend), and well. . didn’t.  Not yet, at least.

Here’s how it went:

- – - – -

SDG_CMC:

Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

SDG_LM, I gave it a go, and was not impressed. Here’s some bullet points I made.

- No instructions, anywhere. Not on the website, or in the game menu.

- No introduction, nothing sets the scene or the tone or anything.   If it’s purely ‘open’ and ‘sandbox’ at least just say it is.

- No crafting table ‘recipe’ in the wiki. had to Google one.  No clues in the game menus that one even has to or should even ‘craft’.

- Night-time – WTf? What time?  Some kind of on-screen prompt, surely?

- So, I made a pick-axe, and I’ve collected loads of square blocks which represent materials. .  now what am I supposed to do?  And what’s my motivation for doing it. . ?

- – - – -

SDG_LM:

Re: Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

A – the website is pretty much down at the moment hence you getting to play the game for free. Secondly the game is in Alpha, it’s not even a beta yet! They are going to introduce a tutorial as can now be seen in the main menu.

B – Have you been stuck on a desert island for the last couple of weeks? Have you just arrived back after been rescued and been plonked in front of a computer with a game you have never heard of and just left to figure it out? No? You know what the game is.

3 – What? It’s in the name of the game. Could it be any simpler…Minecraft – both mining and crafting covered. The crafting of the table is in the wiki, it’s called a work bench.

D – As in life, look to the sun – it rises and sets in the same way that our own sun does.

E -  Build/Craft/Mine

You appear to be approaching this in a very obtuse manner. For years now I have heard you complain about the dumbing down of games on the PC because of consoles but now it seems that the dumbing down hasn’t been caused by consoles but just gamers have got dumber e.g. you. Games used to come with manuals thicker than the average xbox owner but now it’s all built in in tutorials and the scene is set not by a bit of text written by the most creative programmer but by cut scenes render in gorgeous Technicolor that cost more to make than the games themselves. What happened to the gamer who would throw the manual to one side and crack straight into the game to learn as he/she went along. What happened to the gamer who played point and click adventures and would link rubber chickens to pulleys? Where are you now? Complaining that the game doesn’t set the scene for you, that there are no instructions, demanding to know how the day and night cycle is represented!!!! What you need is achievements, hand holding tutorials and a win button.

We could ask that in the beta they add an elf to guide you round the world explaining crafting and that the sun rises in the east, he could have a funny accent and trip on the scenery. They can put a countdown clock in the corner and rather than having a random world have it set and provide a map. You can give you objectives and you slowly build up your skills as not to overwhelm you with too much information at once…or…we could treat you like and adult, a pc gamer, present you with the world and say have at it. Unfortunately you’ve turned around and said ‘Have at what?’, ‘tell me what to do?’ and ‘What is that blazing ball of gas in the sky?…..’

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SDG_CMC:

Re:Re: Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

I wouldn’t say obtuse is the correct word.
‘Cynical’ or ‘shallow’ would be more fitting

I think you’ve bought the hype, hook line and sinker.  I can’t believe all I’m reading about this game (not just from you) it seems that people have ‘fallen for’ Minecraft, declaring it an ‘important’ game.  It looks like a level one might find in a half-arsed HL1 mod. To be downloaded and cast aside like that one with the ridiculous fishing game.

I reckon had you stumbled on this game yourself, with no prior reading you’d probably have sent me a screenshot, laughed, and deleted it.

“Gamers have got dumber e.g. you” – not so.
Good games don’t need a manual.  I don’t need a manual to start playing an RTS (starcraft), an FPS, or a point and click.  There’s got to be a ‘point’ to a game, though (if there’s no manual).  There’s got to be motivation, a cause and effect.  Some kind of reward?

What you’ve got here (with Minecraft) appears to be as much fun as ‘playing’ with MS Paint.

The rubber chicken / pulley example is poor, because a point n click is essentially a linear game, with a fixed start and fixed end point.  The fun (the point) of that is figuring out how to get from A – B.

“What you need is achievements” – I think we both know, that’s not true. (I should link to your Xbox live profile here, but I won’t. . )

“We could ask that in the beta they add an elf to guide you round the world explaining crafting and that the sun rises in the east, he could have a funny accent and trip on the scenery.” – This is good idea, you should suggest it to the developer Here’s his email address:  notch@mojang.com.

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SDG_LM:

Re:Re:Re: Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

Cynical or shallow – they both explain it and yet while you are admitting to them you still fail to overcome you’re personal issues. You say I’ve bought the hype yet you’ve personally avoided it, you’ve not read the articles, the only opinion you have of the game is your own but you’d already formed that before you even tried it. Buying the hype is one thing. Buying the game and then playing it a lot is entirely another. Fair enough if I had bought the game, played for a couple of hours and then raved about it for all to hear but I didn’t, I bought it and then it was the only thing I played all weekend. I’m certainly enjoying the hype as it’s good to play a game that everyone is discussing and most are enjoying. Your HL1 mod comparisons hold no grounds and shows how truly out of touch with what this game is, a HL1 mod would be a level, designed by a guy in his pants and played the same as everyone else plays it. Minecraft puts you in a world generated randomly, nothing is the same as every other persons game, there are no world maps, no go here to find the treasure. It gives you a freedom to do and build what you want.

When was the last time you played a game without any hype? And surely you have to admit that there must be a reason for all the hype. Is everyone wrong while you are right? Did you play a HL1 mod years ago that did all this, laugh and then delete it?

You don’t need a manual to start playing Minecraft. I never said you did. There is a point to Minecraft – survival. When night comes if you have not built a shelter then you may die. Then it’s all human instinct from there:

1^st Day: What do I do?

1^st Night: Argh, hide from the bad guys

2^nd Day: I’d best build a shelter to protect from the bad guys

2^nd night: Safe now, what now? I would like a nicer shelter.

3^rd Day: Build a bigger shelter, maybe with a wooden floor. Windows would be nice.

3^rd Night: That’s better, I can move around and see the enemies outside. A nicer view would be nice.

4^th Day: Explore my surroundings, check out that waterfall. I would like that outside my house.

4^th Night: I’m going to move house.

5^th Day: Start contruction of my new house, need materials. There is a cave over there, I wonder whats down it….

That’s why the game is so good. You do what you would do naturally if you were in such a situation and yet everything you do is your own. I’ve explored a myriad of caves beneath my home in Minecraft. I’ve built staircases into the depths and know the different nooks and crannies (despite the basic graphics) on sight alone. I’m the only one who has ever been down there and nobody has seen them before. I’ve built my own home above them, with a viewing deck and windows wrapping around giving me a view of the sea and the beacon I placed on the hill behind my house. This is a game but it’s also a world I have created, that I have put my personal stamp on and reflects my personality. The pool of lava on the beach near my house was placed their by me testing my first bucket. To the west there are islands a couple of days travel away with torches in caves where I ventured on my first attempt to travel round the world. I may never return to them but if I do there will be there, the evidence of my travels. What other game can do this? FPS – retreading the same level as everyone, GTA – Liberty City is a realised as any in game city but nothing you do matters or counts for anything, SC2 – the same storyline everyones sees, the same tactics that have been used before, nothing indiviual just familiar.

The link to MS paint is pretty good. If you found a painting you’d spent hours on when you were 15 or a website or a scrapbook – you would have fond memories of it and enjoy the creativity you had when you were younger whereas thoughts of doom or starcraft would make you smile you’d have nothing to show for them. I could not play minecraft for another 10 years but if in 10 years time I found my save game and loaded it up again – the joy of running around my house and my caves would beat playing MW2 or SC2 anyday.

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SDG_CMC:

Re:Re:Re:Re: Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

You have a fairly romanticised view of this game, and in many ways I admire that.  Its almost a childlike naivity (in a good way) which I haven’t experienced in quite some time.  It’s when I first played Monkey island 1 in VGA 320×240, I remember thinking it was photorealistic.   This was because imagination and a sort of passion for the game was filling in the blanks.

Perhaps I’m lacking in this passion or imagination for Minecraft, but I’m at least closer to understanding what its about.  It sounds awfully like a tamagotchi of the mining/crafting world. . ?

By saying you bought the hype, I’m implying that the ‘hype’ coerced you into having these overwhelmingly positive feelings for the game, and having the ultimately rose-tinted views of the game.  Again, not a criticism.

Here’s another angle – If I’d read your description (below) of a game that had not come out yet, I’d think it was a cool idea. Genuinely.
I just think the execution is poor.   Imagine the same game but rendered through the (very good, even now) Unreal 3 engine (but keeping the simplistic ‘block’ design)?  I know you think I’m missing the point, but it would be more absorbing if it was fullscreen with proper light mapping, a nice sound track and good looking UI.

Similarly (you laugh), but a polished tutorial level would be a treat to get people ‘on-board’ with the idea.

Anyways, I think we can safely conclude (with the usual conclusion)  you’re right, I’m wrong.

- – - – -

SDG_LM:

Re:Re:Re:Re:Re: Subject: Minecraft 1 hour in.

Correct.

This is my crib:
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I share my thoughts having just spent an hour playing the new Pro Evolution demo on PC.

Having played the past few Fifas and Pro Evolutions, I’m afraid to say this doesn’t move the game on much from PES 2008.

Player movement

The player movement still feels very wooden and ‘staged’ in an ‘arcadey’ sort of way.  The player feel very ‘fixed’ in the directions you can move them, not the organic feel I’m used to, of Fifa 09-10.  Then there is still the usual quirk of players being ‘rooted’ to the spot for no reason when you make a long pass along the ground.  This demo of Pro Evolution 2010 also has some strange wooden ‘stuttery’ animations when going from a jog to a sprint, with the sprint animation not quite kicking-in when it should.

Graphics / Presentation

The graphics are not much (if any) of an improvement over the previous few versions of the game, on this PC demo of the game.  The settings (which can only be found by separately launching C:\Program Files (x86)\KONAMI\Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 DEMO\settings.exe only contact resolutions / aspect-ratio settings, and not the usually plethora of filtering / quality tweaks.

The menus are great, however, very quick and responsive compared to Fifa’s frustratingly slow system.

Download link:

http://dl.pes2011.konamionline.com/pes2011/package/PES2011_Demo.exe

Edit: This is lies, sorry!

Battlefield 1943 has been released on the PC, it would seem.

The Windows version of last year’s online multiplayer hit reported for PC duty today, somewhat unceremoniously, popping into EA’s online store. After moving 1.5 million copies of the thing to PSN and XBLA players—making it the “best-selling download-only game on PlayStation Network and Xbox LIVE Arcade,” according to EA—someone got around to uploading the final version.

New video showing a game mode called ‘wager mode’ – looks to be a fun take on the predictable online first-person shooter series, however encouraging a ‘credit’ system will surely be a target for ‘boosters’ and hackers. . Here’s hoping that’s not the case!

Armada 2526 is a turn based strategy game and upon first view this appears to be ‘Civilization IV in space’. The premise being to colonize different planets whilst managing research and diplomacy before engaging in warfare against other races.

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There are seventeen different races that can be played each with their own slight differences giving different strengths and weaknesses which gives it an ongoing playability factor with each game having a slightly different feel. However unlike Civilization the number of scenarios that you can play in is quite limited, there are only 4 one of which is the tutorial, which reduces the scope for different tactics to be employed which damages the re playability of the game.

As with Civilization the game starts with a bit of a gold rush where players attempt to grab as many of the free star systems as possible to give them better opportunity for resource. Unlike Civilization the resources available at each system are limited in their scope which reduces the tactical element of which systems to go for first. Some are more hostile than others making things more expensive and some have asteroid belts that can be mined but there is none of the complexity that Civilization delivers. For example which resources you have managed to obtain as no effect on the tech tree and what units you can use or technologies you can research.

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In the same way as in Civilization there is a trade off between routes through the game depending on choice of buildings and research options. For example you could place emphasis on mining to generate cash or technology that speed up growth, or you could research weapons and build ships with a view to warfare against your neighbors. This choice matters and has a marked effect on the game as concentrating on one area to the exclusion of the others will come back and bite you as you start to run of cash of planetary populations start rioting.

The game is quite absorbing whilst not being up to the standard of Civilization however there are a number of things that less this game down of which the primary one is the interface. The various pop up screens that are activated by selecting radial buttons for research and construction are not movable on the screen and only one can be opened at a time. Which means there is a lot of opening and closing as you move backward and forward from the research screen to the map screen and back and similarly with the system view where buildings and ships can be created. These screens are all interlinked and the game can get quite complex in the same way that Civilization can and not being able to compare the contents of these screens at the same time means that you’re constantly having to try and remember the content of one screen whilst flicking to the next. There were also some graphical glitches on some of the buttons when you hovered them which made the game feel a little unpolished. the other issue with the interface is that whilst it is functional it is not particularly pretty and fails to make you want to play the game. Due to the nature of the game you spend a lot of time staring at this interface and it could do with being cleaner and better designed.

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Another issue is the tutorial, this is quite a difficult game to just pick up and play out of the box and as a result needs a good tutorial to lead you into it. Whilst the tutorial does cover all the major areas of the game mechanics it doesn’t allow you to do things as you read often a tutorial box pops up which can be several pages which gives you a lot of information. You have to remember quite a lot of content before you can get back to the game-play and try out what you have just read which means that you are constantly have to refer back to the in-game advice as you have forgotten something in the three pages of tutorial blurb you have to just had to try and remember.

Lastly the warfare mechanism is a bit pointless. The game loads a separate battle arena around a planet in the same way that the total war series does but unfortunately the comparison ends there. This could have been used to give the game a different dimension to make it something special. Unfortunately the tactics are limited to what formations you have you ships in (a choice of 3) and how you group your ships, other than that it is purely a matter of which types of units you bring to the party and how many. There is little opportunity for clever play resulting in you beating a more numerous opponent. It would have been nice if the system you were fighting in had some sort of effect on the battle itself, possibly the planets magnetic field effecting different ships in different ways. This area of the game seems pointless and I quickly resorted to just auto completing the battles I fought as to do otherwise just results in additional load times as the battel arena is switched to. The other thing which lets this area down is it is quite poor graphically, again if this was better then you may enter the battle scenes purely for the spectacle but this is just another factor contributing to the pointlessness of this area of the game.

Overall the game is quite absorbing and once you mastered the tutorial, started auto completing the battles, and have got to grips with the interface is enjoyable. However the down sides to this game hinder the enjoyment. Never the less if you enjoyed the Civilization series and are looking for something a little different then you will probably get some mileage out of this game. However if you are new to genre then I recommend waiting for Civilization V due out next month as it is likely to be a much better game given that Civ IV which is now quite an old game managed to better in may areas than Armada 2526.

Sudogamer scores it  6/10.

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I was 10 when Alien Breed came out for the PC (2 years after the Amiga release), and I can just about remember playing it at a friends house. It was great. Hugely playable, ‘arcadey’ and satisfying. Alien Breed was release to critical acclaim, it was an important release. One can clearly see its influence in ID Software’s Doom (1994).
I believe a big problem with Team 17’s re-release; “Alien Breed: Impact” lies in our expectations. In the early nineties we didn’t care much for cohesive, compelling story-lines, ‘next-gen’ graphics etc, it was playable fun titles that utilised the meager horsepower of our PC’s (or Amigas) that drew crowds.

So to release a remake of a top-down mindless Aliens-themed shooter in 2010 and for it to be relevant and popular with today’s gamers is a difficult task, and for me it falls short.

Presentation-wise the Unreal 3 engine looks nice, really nice. The environments are appropriately strewn with space debris, and there’s are plenty of nice looking ‘triggered’ explosions and “cave-ins” occurring throughout.

The graphics aren’t a million miles from a top-down Doom 3.  The light-mapping is great, when you shine your torch down a corridor or through a broken window its casts a great eerie shadow of the objects blocking the light.   Its a nice touch that often overlooked in big-budget titles.

In fact a Doom 3 comparison is an apt place to talk about some of the short-comings of Alien Breed: Impact.

It feels like lots of work was put into a tidy looking game engine, the controls (and on the controls; bonus points for having the 360 controller work ‘out of the box’ including rumble), and the sound.  Which all exceeded my expectations.  But they forgot about the game.

The game play just wasn’t fun for me, or satisfying. The only intro to the game you get is a couple of (pretty poor) comic slides, then you’re straight into the action. And by ‘action’, I mean collecting diary logs (like Doom 3), and looking for key-cards. It isn’t edge-of-your-seat stuff. At least in Doom 3 (which was also key-card and diary collecting) it had the genuinely creepy / jumpy moments that kept your pressing on.

While writing this review, I actually got a couple of hours into the game and had to restart because I got stuck. How infuriating? I’d be happy to take the blame for simply being shit at the game, but I wasn’t stuck because of a tough boss or from running out of ammo. It was because I had missed a key-card, a faintly illuminated object on one of the samey rooms in level.  The in-game map is no help at all; it implies some rooms are joined that aren’t joined and vice-versa.

You can search the various human corpses littered throughout the levels to collect money, and there’s also random ‘piles’ of cash dotted around too.  Annoyingly you have to press and hold on each corpse / locker for a few seconds to ‘search’, which gets tiresome pretty quickly.  Money allows you to buy upgrades and ammo for your weapons.  This feels like a missed opportunity, because the upgrades just weren’t imaginative or significant enough to make you want to bother.  I ended up just buying ammo and saving the game, which led to a small rejoice as a save-point was an excuse to quit out and take a break.

I didn’t get the opportunity to play any co-op during my time playing Alien Breed: Impact, but I guess the potential might be there with some more imaginative level designs and puzzle-based bosses.

This re-release of Alien Breed is episodic. I guess we should hope for better from the following iterations, or perhaps a re-think at the pricing, at £12.99 on steam its definitely one people will put off buying until a Steam Sale.

I first saw Alien Breed: Impact demoed at the Eurogamer roadshow in Leeds, a guy from Team 17 came along and showed some footage, and spoke of why the game was so important to them. I recall him saying some pilot ideas had been thrown around in the years leading up to this release but were disregarded for various reasons. I wish this had been worked on a little longer, as its repetition and unimaginative game-play forces me to mark it down somewhat.

Verdict: Polished use of the Unreal 3 engine, good presentation – poor game-play, and level design.

5 out of 10.

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Evil Pirate L33ch3r vs. Honest Gamer

Obviously not, it’s illegal, it’s immoral, and it’s not even difficult to do these days.  In fact that last point is precisely why a lot of people do it. If Evil Pirate L33ch0r can download a full game over his home broadband connection in less than an hour, have it installed and start playing way before his good friend Honest Gamer, something isn’t right.

In fact, he is way ahead of Honest Gamer.

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Evil Pirate L33ch3r  is enjoying his nice new download way before. . .

• Honest Gamers’ ‘Amazon / Shopto / Whoever’ order has arrived, the game will ‘leak’ online (presumably review copies falling into the wrong hands?).
• Honest Gamers waited for their antiquated DVD drive to spin into life and install  the one or more DVDs the game comes on.
• Honest Gamer mistyped their CD-key for the 2nd time, before activating the game online, authenticating whatever DRM it came bundled with.

DRM & Install issues. Steam doesn’t always work.  The pirate is still winning. .

We are assuming that all of the above goes swimmingly.  There have been instances where the honest gamer gets stung.

This can be in the form of overbearing DRM (which remember, isn’t that bad) or the download service becoming crippled and useless (Steam in mw2 release download fail?  Steam, killing floor free weekend? Steam, any big release or free weekend?)

Pirate L33ch0r is also free to play without having a constant internet connection and he can install as many times as he wants.

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Honest Gamer is getting annoyed now?

Meanwhile (probably just after Honest Gamer angrily spots a Youtube video of his newly purchased game “OMG DIS GAME RUNS SO 1337 ON MAH RIG, LOOK AT MAH SPECS!!”) Evil Pirate L33ch0r has just unzipped his 35 200mb .rar files, installed the game copying and pasting the CD-key from the lovingly crafted ‘scene’ .NFO file.

He then goes through the excruciatingly difficult task of copying the Game.exe from that cryptic looking ‘crack’ folder.  Then he’s in.  Damn, that’s quick and hassle-free.

If you think I’m pro-piracy / anti-DRM, I’m neither.  I understand the need for DRM / content control etc, and I’m principally against piracy.

Do it like Radiohead?

A few years ago Radiohead sold their album ‘In Rainbows’ on a pay-what-you-want’ basis.  Over a period of only 29 days 1.2 million fans flocked to their website to  buy the album paying an average of $6 each. $7.2 million in 29 days is very good.

Obviously, games and music are different. One could argue that only an established artist can ‘get away’ with these sorts of arrangements.  Both true, but I believe that a ‘good game’ would still do well if offered in this way.

What I would like to see to discourage the widespread easy pirating

• Demos for every single game.  Preferably a timed demo of the full game, not a random or unfinished level.  I want to know exactly what I might be buying and I want to try it out in full.

• An on-line element.  Doesn’t need to be a ‘bolted-on’ multiplayer, but some kind of online interaction with friend lifts a mediocre game to being a good one.  Co-op is great.

• Guaranteed speed / stability of download service.   Surely Steam have enough money to throw more bandwidth at their service?

• A better download client.  I’m probably in the minority, but I dislike the Steam client.  I went from not minding it, to (post big update) hating it.  It’s bloated and slow.  It will end up becoming the iTunes of the PC game distribution platforms.  (ie bloated and intrusive)

What do you think?

Let us know in the comments box below what you think about piracy.  Do you do it, and how do you feel about it?  If you don’t do it, why? If you do, also why?  Thanks for reading!

As cringe-worthy as terms such as ‘next-gen’ are, if it means the Fifa 2011 will use the same physics, animation and lighting engine as the console versions I’ll be happy. Here’s hoping we finally get The Arena during the loading screens too!

“The EA SPORTS FIFA franchise is committed to investing and innovating for PC and this is a watershed moment,” said Executive Producer Kaz Makita. “We are delivering to FIFA 11 PC the high quality gameplay, innovative game modes and stunning graphics that have made FIFA the highest rated sports game on the PlayStation3 and Xbox 360 and winner of over 50 sports game of the year awards.”

It Pays to have Game! – Richard Branson is joined by Rob Segal, Billy Levy and Zack Zeldin as they unveil Branson’s latest venture at the international E3 Expo: Virgin Gaming, an online site for console gamers to network and compete against other players from around the world for cash, points and prizes. Photo: Berliner Photography.

VirginGaming was launched a short while a go -

“Gamers want something new, something interactive and something fun. Virgin Gaming is just that – access to play the best games in super competitive tournaments with anyone in the world and win the biggest prizes and the most rewards,” said Sir Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group, and gamer-in-training.  “Giving away over $1 million in cash and prizes this year is proof. We’ve had great success with Virgin Games and Virgin Interactive Entertainment and recognized the enormous potential of an online community of 40 million daily users.  I welcome gamers from novice to expert to join the online Virgin Gaming community.”

See more at their website:  http://virgingaming.com/