ZERO ESCAPE: ZERO TIME DILEMMA REVIEW

A post of game review and reviews about ZERO TIME DILEMMA

Zero Time Dilemma is, in many ways, an ideal series-ender. As the final chapter of a beloved trilogy, the game had the odds stacked against it: Having played and loved the previous Zero Escape games, I came in with high expectations. Falling short of tying up the series' various loose ends and solving its most pressing questions could have left me cold.

But this finale — set between the preceding entries — manages to tell a stand-alone, engrossing story while wrapping up most of the biggest plotlines set up by the prior two Zero Escape chapters. It's a rare feat, although not one without missteps as the game attempts to balance a heavy narrative focus with challenging gameplay.

Like the previous games (999: Nine Persons, Nine Hours, Nine Doors and Virtue’s Last Reward), Zero Time Dilemma is a gory, time-traveling visual novel. The game stars a cast of nine, each of whom volunteered for what they thought was a research mission to Mars. Turns out, they've actually signed up for a sadistic set of trials that could see all of them meeting grisly deaths. This game of mortal consequences is led by a cloaked figure named Zero, who splits the participants into three teams of three, pitting them against each other as they seek their way out of the test facility. (Several of the major characters were first introduced in 999 andVirtue's Last Reward. You'd think they'd know better by now.)

Fully animated cutscenes unravel this story across three intertwining plots, punctuated by heavy choices for the player (as each team leader) to cast. Will you shoot your teammate? Which one? Will you press that button that may just save your team but kill 6 billion others in the process? Depending on how you answer, the characters have different reactions, and the narrative changes accordingly, leading to several gruesome dead ends or allowing the teams to progress further into Zero's death trap.

"Choice" is the operative term in Zero Time Dilemma, as every decision the player makes in the three plotlines has a unique effect on where the story goes. Thanks to a branching flowchart of nonlinear narrative fragments, the player can keep track of the various paths created by their decisions. The fragment system is a smart way to introduce more agency in a story-heavy game that sometimes left me feeling like a spectator, albeit an engaged one.

Fragments — and the cinematic way in which they play out — also ensure that the player will never be forced to read miles of text. That's important, considering the gameplay segments appear much less frequently. Along with the high-pressure decision-making, escape-the-room puzzles break up the story. They entail pointing and clicking for clues, solving equations and giving your brain a workout.

At their best, these puzzles are the game's highlight: They're challenging but not impossible, lengthy by design, divorced from the story while still contributing meaningfully to it. Finding your way out of Zero Time Dilemma's closed doors feels like a necessary addition, not simply a way to make the game more than an interactive novel. Completing these challenges often felt like a major achievement.

I say "often," because not all of the escape rooms are well-designed. Certain puzzles infuriated me with vague directions and wonky controls. The camera sometimes obscured hints I needed to keep going; one puzzle had me frantically clicking around the room for three hours, only to discover that the clue I needed was right in front of me the whole time, just slightly out of view.

Many of the later puzzles are simply trickier versions of previous ones, which started to feel repetitive by the end. The most commonly repeated rooms are often less reliant on in-game clues, and are instead more geometric in nature — and they were painful for me, as someone who’s not mathematically inclined. Whenever I got stuck in an escape room, it was either because I had no idea where to go next or just couldn't figure out a Rubik's Cube-style challenge.

These moments of desperation — and, sadly, the escape rooms themselves — are few and far between. Zero Time Dilemma has a lot of story to sift through, and in so doing it puts the traditional puzzle solving on the backburner. Thankfully, the story is so worthy of Netflix-style bingeing that I found the dearth of actual gameplay easy to forgive. Zero Time Dilemma tells the best story to date in the Zero Escape series, which, as a trio of visual novels, lives or dies by its narrative. The table-setting pseudoscience in the first third of the game can be annoying — new terms I picked up include "metempsychosis," "sophistry" and "morphogenetic field" — but the game becomes less talky, more shocking as it moves along.

Not everything makes sense as the cast learns more about the hows and whys of their imprisonment, and some scenes push the envelope a bit too far (without spoiling anything, this game isn't recommended for the faint of heart). But while I didn't always understand the technical aspects, the more I learned about the truth behind the cast's imprisonment, the more I wanted to ensure their survival. Supported by truly unexpected plot twists, the stories of Zero Time Dilemma's cast mates are what I kept thinking about, and want to talk about, more than anything else at the game's end.

ZERO TIME DILEMMA IS A FITTING FINALE, EVEN IF THE GAMEPLAY GETS LOST IN THE BACKGROUND

In some ways, that disappointed me. I was first drawn to the Zero Escape games because of their inventive puzzle design, something that suffers in Zero Time Dilemma. But I've loved following these characters the most over the past six years, and this concluding chapter serves them well.Zero Time Dilemma, above all else, is a finale that should please anyone looking for a great story — even if the gameplay gets lost in the background as a result.
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Tennis Champs Returns review

The new free games on mobile
PROS

Nice array of different venues

Daily challenges break up play nicely

Opening tutorial teaches every facet of play

CONS

Controls never really bed in

Takes far too long to get to the meat of play

And now we have reviews of it

The problem with tennis is, it's really hard. That's a sentiment almost every British player over the last 50 odd years would firmly agree with – all until Andy Murray came along and, you know, started winning things. Even then, the sheer stress involved with taking part in major tournaments where matches come thick and fast in a short space of time is a feeling that translates particularly well to mobile.

That's not because tennis is an easy sport to replicate on mobile devices – as Tennis Champs Returns proves, quite the opposite is true – but rather because the sense of frustration Murray and other pros must encounter when they lose a tight match has much in common with the anger that takes hold of gamers who come unstuck in their own tennis tournaments thanks to slippery touchscreen controls. As such, serving up a new, fresh way of controlling play is what Tennis Champs Returns puts front and centre, though sadly it's not entirely successful in that venture.

Tennis Champs originally made its mark on the Amiga many decades ago. As such, the game adopts a pixel-art style that's commonplace amongst retro-style iOS releases, with menu systems that do more to tap into games of old than they do anything particularly interesting in the present.

Before you can get going, however, the game takes time out to teach you the basics – from serving to returning, to even moving around the court. It's here that the game's twist on the standard control system comes into play. As well using a virtual thumbstick to control your movement, the game also employs two buttons to hit the ball – one for a standard, slow shot and another for a pacey but risky return. It's up to you to decide which shot to play, although, somewhat confusingly, using said buttons also takes care of some of the running for you when returning, with the thumbstick then solely taking control of where the ball lands if it makes it over the net.

On top of this is a separate power system: the idea being to lift your finger from whichever shot button you opt for when two bars meet in the middle of a little pop up gauge. It's a rather confusing system to describe, though thankfully in practice it all comes together to make some sense. That doesn't mean that mastering it is simple, though, as Tennis Champs Returns suffers from the same problem that has dogged almost every tennis title on smartphones; when the action gets heated, the tendency for your fingers to slide across the screen remains as likely here as in any other in the genre.

Seemingly in that knowledge, the developer has decided to break the action down into short and sharp nuggets of play. Taking part in the tournament in career mode, for instance, delivers a succession of tie-breaks rather than full on matches for your opening run, capturing the spirit of the game if not delivering it in its entirety until far later. What's more, as things stand you can only play as a man, with women characters said to be on the way in a future update.

This lapse, however, is indicative of just what Tennis Champs Returns represents as a whole. On the surface, it's a consummate tennis sim with one off matches, a full on career mode and daily challenges all on offer, along with a control system that promises to do away with the problems that always dog smartphone tennis sims. In practice, however, the games themselves are a little too light to stand on their own two feet and the control system, though in no way a disaster, isn't quite the simplistic revolution it bills itself as. As with many tennis sims, Tennis Champs Returns has much promise but is an imperfect experience as it stands on the App Store today, offering a glimpse of a new way of doing things but clipping the top of the net as it flies through.

Verdict:

Promising a fresh take but, in the end, falling foul of many of the hazards that hold tennis sims back on iOS, Tennis Champs Returns is no disaster but a slightly complicated control system and a generic approach to the rest of the games mean this isn't the big event it should be.

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Boom Beach review: Brother of Clash of Clans

BoomBeach is new free games from SuperCell. We are getting about it and have reviews. 

Take a gander at the top grossing games on iOS and one game that’s been there for an incredibly long time is Supercell’sClash of Clans [Free]. Combining freemium elements with base building and combat, Supercell managed to create a compelling system to encourage players to come back (and spend some money). Now, the freemium powerhouse has returned with the worldwide launch of Boom Beach [Free], the spiritual successor to Clash. Offering a similar experience in a different setting with just enough tweaks to make it unique, Boom Beach isn’t going to offer a radically different experience, but that might not be a bad thing in terms of approachability.

If you’ve played Clash of Clans, then Boom Beach is going to look pretty familiar to you. Players start out with a simple island base with the goal being to explore the surrounding areas and free the surrounding island natives from villainous servitude. You’ll free them by building and upgrading ships, namely a gunship and landing boats, that you’ll use to deploy landing parties and take out opposing headquarters. Freeing islands rewards both immediate and long term resources. In addition, islands are constantly being taken back, affording players an opportunity to retake and earn additional supplies. Eventually, the retaken islands become player islands which, provide even more resources along with medals, which are the primary measure of success.

Sounds simple, but you’d expect from Supercell there’s a bit of strategy involved. Landing boats can be outfitted with a wide variety of different units, each having pros and cons in terms of health, strength and weapons. Gunship weapons, as well as each of the landing units, can be upgraded as well as the ships themselves. Meanwhile, base buildings include the standard defensive mechanisms, as well as resource gatherers, structures that allow the aforementioned upgrades, and so on. Of course, all the building and upgrading is buttressed by a freemium timer system that applies to all facets of the game.

As someone that was a bit intimidated by Clash of Clans, I was surprised by how inviting the introductory phases of Boom Beach were. Currency is simplified at the onset with secondary currencies slowly introduced as you upgrade your headquarters. Premium currency, which plays the standard role of speeding up timers, doled out on a regular basis (although still a bit slow for my tastes). Even the game’s combat system is paced really well with a player’s zone of influence (and potential opponents) being small at the onset but gradually expands at whatever pace the player desires.

Of course, as friendly and interesting Boom Beach is, it’s important to note that it’s still a freemium game at its heart. The building, recruiting, upgrading and resource systems are all premised on timers, with the only alternative to patience being to use premium currency to speed up the timers. Also, once you get into mid-game and additional currencies start appearing, Beach has a nasty habit of pushing you to instantly upgrade fundamental buildings for said new currency. Considering the fact that combat only occurs when you explore new regions (which take coins and radar upgrades) or when conquered islands are retaken (which take time), long session players will quickly find that Boom Beach plays best in smaller, more frequent sessions. I won’t get into a theoretically debate about freemium, but all I’ll say is this style of play fits perfectly for my lifestyle, which is why it doesn’t bother me in the slightest.

Now, I’m a fan of the streamlined gameplay but it does come with some costs. As far as building bases is concerned, there’s some loss in customization. In fact, taking a glance at the top players it also seems like there’s some loss in terms of viable endgame strategies as everyone seems to have the same exact base layout. There’s also very little in social integration currently available, which I thought was a pretty big part of Clash. I’m sure such additions will get updated into Boom Beach eventually, but right now it’s a bit bare.

Regardless, pacing, balance and approachability are important facets to a successful freemium game, and I think Boom Beach succeeds well in both in its other non-base defense aspects. Assuming you aren’t too obsessed with the end-game or social aspects (and you don’t have an irrational hatred for freemium games) Boom Beachcontinues the showing seen in Clash of Clans. Whether it has enough staying power as its spiritual predecessor will depend greatly on the inevitable tweaks to the core gameplay. Meanwhile, it’s worth a shot.
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Calsh of clans: Game for everyone

Clash of clans is one of new free games of SuperCell.
We can play and now we are having reviews from it

This is a freemium game review, in which we usually give our impressions immediately after booting a game up, again after three days, and finally after seven days. However, Clash of Clans has been out for months, and I've been playing for a good long while, so I'm going to be doing things a bit different this time round...

I was introduced to the game by my main man Jon Jordan through the Pocket Gamer Podcast a few months later, after hearing about his love of the game, and the staggering amount of money he'd ploughed into the freemium title.

I've always been interested in freemium games, and I've sunk more than my fair share of time in them. But by the time I played Clash of Clans I'd become frustrated with the failing common to many freemium world-building titles: there's very little skill or strategy involved in success.

One small step for barbarian man

To me, Clash of Clans represents a tentative but significant step towards changing this, though it's a step that few take the time to recognise. See,Clash of Clans asks you to be good at the game as well as patient, and for that it deserves recognition.

Clans asks you to build a village and populate it with everything the warring tribe you're leading might need. A town hall for leadership, a gold mine for money, an army camp to hold your warriors, an Elixir collector to gather up this additional resource from the ether - pretty soon you've got plenty of architectural work to be getting on with.

As you build and expand your small camp into a burgeoning fortress you unlock more building types, but never enough to weigh you down with choices. Hit a high enough level and you can take over the Clan Castle, allowing you to forge allegiances with other players, upgrade your barracks, and create different types of unit.

There are more than enough types of unit to unlock, but not enough for any of them to seem perfunctory on the battlefield.

It's in the battles that you first appreciate the necessity for skill. The first few battles with the AI are easy-peasy. Simply build enough Barbarians to overrun the Goblin hideout, and watch them take it apart.

Then you're given access to archer units, and you're thinking, "well, this is easy, I'm storming through these."

Brick by brick

Then you run up against an enemy barricade with a few cannons and a big chunky wall, and you're done for. Your hand-to-hand units can't tear the wall down fast enough, and your archers are too busy plundering resources to notice that they're being fired on by cannons.

So you upgrade your Barracks and after a while you have Giants and Wall Breakers. Now you can smash through those same walls with a well-placed bomb, and your Giants are dismantling cannons with ease.

The game builds like this, requiring more and more sophisticated units, asking you to strategise and really think about which elements you should focus on building within your camp.

Next you'll find that having overwhelming numbers just isn't going to cut it - you'll need to specifically think where and when you'll deploy troops, and how they're going to interact with the enemy camps.

Lots of cannons guarding an entrance? You'll want an aerial unit to rain fire from above. Bomb traps lying in wait around the back? Go through the walls at the side.

There's even narrative justification for these systems of play, should you need it. You're wrangling a riotous clan, of course you don't have complete control over all your troops, but you can give general orders as their chief.

This, of course, is all training for when you first get raided by another real-life player. The first time you see your base wiped out, you'll watch the replay to see how it happened, rebuild, and perhaps shore up certain areas of your base. Then it's time to train troops and go show them who's boss.

Coming home

The pressure to continue formulating better defences or more deadly forms of attack keeps you coming back, and the well-calibrated match-making system ensure you'll never grow too frustrated or bored.

It's not a perfect game, of course - hence the Gold Award and not the Platinum. But the issues are few and far between.

Occasionally, the game will mistake you scrolling across your camp as you wanting to move a building, which can be a pain. And it's quick to boot, but seems to reset the loading process whenever you return to the iPhone's home screen and then jump back in.

It was never the best-looking game. It's not ugly by any means, but the presentation is all isometric 2D and the number of frames of animation could have been a little higher.

And perhaps it takes slightly longer than desirable to buildings to go up. It's not excessive, and it gives you time to walk away and think about how you want to move forward, but when you just want to get on and execute on your strategies it can be a pain.

But these are minor gripes. Clash of Clans is a superb game, freemium or otherwise, with more nuance than most give it credit for. That's why it's passed the test of time since its launch and still has an active community devotedly constructing elaborate fortresses in the hope of becoming invincible.

So go and grab it. It's free, it's easy to get into, and it's a superb example of how freemium should work.

That's our experience of the game, what's yours been? Let us and the rest of the Pocket Gamer Community know by leaving us a comment in the box below.
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Metroid Prime: Federation Force Review

We are having a game review about Metroid Prime. 

Metroid Prime: Federation Force is the first Metroid game in more than half a decade, coming hot on the heels of the series' 30th anniversary. Rather than walk in the footsteps of its forebears and thrust you into another adventure as spacefaring bounty hunter Samus Aran, Federation Force puts you in the boots of a no-name foot soldier and tasks you to complete nearly two-dozen short missions. You can play alone--using an item that boosts your strength to help even the odds--but you're highly encouraged to team up with other players locally or online.

Even though it bears the title of the renowned franchise, Federation Force is only tenuously connected to the Metroid universe, with its only strong links to the series being a few cameos and references. But it's the inconsistent gameplay and difficulty spikes that make it tough to love, rather than the tenuous connection to its beloved namesake.

First and foremost, this is a first-person shooter where you spend a lot of time fighting armed ground troops, flying pirates, and occasional space bugs. Moving and aiming work surprisingly well, and uses a combination of the 3DS analog stick and gyroscopic sensors. With a New 3DS system, you can use the secondary stick to control the camera for more traditional, console-like controls. Save for your modest walking and turning speed, Federation Force's mechanics are sound and work as expected from the get-go.

Rather than build up an array of powerful weapons as you progress into the campaign, you have access to a slew of weaponry practically from the start, including missiles, elemental ammo, proximity mines, and decoys. You pick and choose your loadout from ammo reserves prior to each mission, but you can pick up replenishments from item boxes within levels, regardless of your initial selection.

For the most part, you succeed by shooting what you can with whatever you've got, and if an ally falls, you can revive them by rapidly tapping a button next to their mech.

In multiplayer, everyone in your party pulls from the same ammo pool before heading into battle. With no voice chat online, you're left to communicate via impersonal, predefined text strings if you want to strategize loadouts with your team. You can see how breaking up offensive and recovery items pre-mission could facilitate forming roles within your squad, but missions fail to incentivize such behavior. For the most part, you succeed by shooting what you can with whatever you've got, and if an ally falls, you can revive them by rapidly tapping a button next to their mech.

Missions offer little in the way of exploration, with secondary objectives that feed into your score serving as the primary incentive to think outside of the box. Even here, Federation Force loses its head, since there comes a point during multiple missions where you aren't rewarded points for shooting enemies due to an imposed score limit. You can look for cracked walls and bust them open to discover equippable mods that slightly enhance your stats, but you end up with so many middling mods that they begin to feel like an afterthought only a few missions in. A few are helpful in a pinch, but most offer incremental, almost-indiscernible boosts. It doesn't take long before going the extra mile becomes an afterthought.

Simple puzzle-based missions, by and large, fail to match the occasional excitement of combat, but they break up the predictable stream of alien grunts nonetheless. These mini-challenges typically involve shooting balls with your gun to roll them from one end of a map to another, navigating around obstacles and incoming fire along the way. But there comes a point in one mission where you pick up a ball using your suit's tractor beam, and you wonder why you were forced to deal with the convoluted process of shooting the balls to and fro in the first place. It's a minor contradiction, but one that feeds into the game's overarching sense of disarray.

Though you spend most of your time suited up in a mech, you occasionally need to abandon it to sneak into tight spaces and flip an access switch. You’re unarmed and diminutive compared to the space pirates that stand in your way, and Federation Force forces you to play stealthily during these sections--benign diversions that neither thrill nor pose a meaningful challenge.

Federation Force doesn't shine as a single-player experience because mission parameters and variables are balanced for larger parties and remain set in stone regardless of your party size.

There are times, however, when the game is too difficult or too easy for its own good; it all depends on the size of your squad. As I reported last week, Federation Force doesn't shine as a single-player experience because mission parameters and variables are balanced for larger parties and remain set in stone regardless of your party size. I hit a wall about a third of the way through the game when playing alone and eventually teamed up with a coworker. Together, we progressed further in the campaign but found ourselves outgunned with only a few missions left. I was able to team up with a full squad (four players) this past weekend, and sure enough, we completed the final few missions without fail. It should’ve been cause for celebration, but victory came almost too easy. A boss that a team of two couldn't finish in 20 minutes was effortlessly pummeled into submission in less than five minutes with a full team.

I spent more time with the game after finishing the campaign, tackling missions with teams of two, three, and four players, and concluded that there's no perfect fit for Federation Force as a whole. Playing by yourself the entire time is too difficult to be fun during certain missions--your punishment for failure is having to restart the entire mission--but playing with a full squad makes even the game's toughest encounters too easy to appreciate. In a game with discrete modes for playing solo or with a team, it's reasonable to expect that the game would cater its difficulty levels accordingly. Save for an item that boosts your damage output and armor, you're granted no meaningful advantage when playing alone. Even if you get a stat boost when playing solo, you can't be in two, let alone four places at once, and you can't repeatedly revive yourself when you run out of health.

Federation Force is lopsided; it presents simple rules and scenarios, but the variables therein fluctuate with no discernible rhyme and reason. If you manage to somehow land in a mission with the appropriate number of people, boss fights in particular can feel exciting, but you shouldn't be penalized for playing with a squad of any size when the game casually allows it. You can take the time to seek out a team whose size meets your needs, but that's bending over backward to accomplish something that should be handled for you. Unless you know missions like the back of your hand, you may find yourself unsure of how big that team should be in the first place.

When you strike the right balance between a mission and the size of your party, Federation Force is a decent co-op shooter with standout controls that provides a few hours of enjoyment. Unfortunately, it can just as easily frustrate you or bore you for no reason other than its static difficulty. Metroid devotees may not find a game that aligns with their deepest desires, but that alone isn't cause for concern here. In fact, Samus groupies may be thrilled to know that a post-credits sequence appears to hint at a new chapter in the Prime saga. This tip of the hat may inspire warm and fuzzy feelings for a moment, but an implied announcement for a game people have been asking for doesn't wash away the bad taste of a game that nobody wanted. Expectations for Metroid aside, Federation Force fails to make a case for itself in the end.

And then there's Blast Ball: the soccer-like game where you and two other players face off in matches against bots or other players, shooting a massive ball with your gun in hopes of knocking it into your opponent's goal. Blast Ball is nothing short of a chaotic frenzy where everyone fires at the ball simultaneously, aching for total control but never achieving it. More than a sport, Blast Ball is a war of attrition. Your controls work just as well as the main game, but there's almost zero room for skill or nuanced play. Having more to do in a game for the sake of having options isn't an automatic victory. If anything, Blast Ball is an unnecessary reminder of how mediocre Federation Force is as a whole.
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FIFA 16 review

We are having about reviews FIFA 16. And then a post of game review.

AS PREDICTABLE as conceding a 90th minute equaliser when you need a win to go up on Ultimate Team, comes the latest FIFA game to coincide with the start of the new football season.

FIFA 16 burst onto the scene with a hail of publicity aided by high-profile tweets from a number of the game's top stars. 

And boy, it's good to have it back.

It's hard to know why I, and millions of other football fans across the world, get so excited about the release of a new game that is, let's face it, basically the same thing year on year. 

But we do and FIFA is back with it's usual raft of tweaks designed to keep the game moving forward as well as the usual staple of fan favourites. 

FIFA 16 Ultimate Team, career and manager mode, online pro clubs, challenges and team of the week features are all back for more. There is a brand new FIFA Trainer guide to help newbies learn the ropes, but it is also useful for experienced players looking to take their skills to the next level.

The first, and probably most impressive, thing you notice is the graphics. This is always the area where FIFA has wiped the floor with Pro Evo and built its reputation as the No.1 football game on the planet. 

Gradual improvement has been replaced by a huge leap forward and advanced face-mapping technology really bares fruit in the 2016 version of the franchise.

The star players do genuinely look like their real-life counterparts now and are, frankly, a work of art.

The hugely popular - and massively lucrative - Ultimate Team has had a few tweaks but it is still guaranteed to deliver plenty of controller-slamming moments.

EA Sports have worked hard on improving the all-round gameplay and it's paying off as the game gradually becomes tougher. 

For example, the first two goals I conceded on Ultimate Team were down to me assuming my player (I'm blaming you, Phil Jagielka) would simply hoover up the ball that was coming towards him and I'd be able to launch a swift counter-attack.

In fact he carried on running in a straight line, the ball went past him and the forward was through on goal. Twice. In the same game. Welcome to FIFA 16.

It's a steep learning curve and the reduced level of AI involved when controlling a player means the days of lazy defending - and attacking - are long gone. I lost count of the number of penalties I gave away early on by assuming that charging at the man with the ball would mean I would simply come away with it.

That isn't to say the general level of AI has decreased. Far from it. Across all other areas of the game the computer has become smarter and will make moves to cut off your attacks by holding their position or closing down space in a much-more realistic manner.

FIFA 16 feels like more of a chess match and has moved closer to the real thing in that sense. The art of goalscoring has become harder to perfect and hitting the back of the net feels more precious. Goals change games and if you give one away, a quick change in tactics from the opposition can mean you're in big trouble. And all of that is very much a good thing. 

There will be those who complain because you can no longer breeze past defenders and rely solely on pace. I am certainly not one of them. It's more about the skill of the player picking the right pass, the right touch, shot or cross at the right time. 

I was never a fan of the FIFAs where speed was king. Obviously it is still a useful tool but the playing field has been levelled and it's the small margins which now win games. 

And it's that which will provide the edge-of-the-sofa tension and smashed controllers across the globe for another 12 months.
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Review EA Sport: UFC 2

EA SPORTS UFC 2 REVIEWS

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BY JOHN ROBERTSON Ronda Rousey and Conor McGregor's starring roles on the cover of EA Sports' latest attempt at recreating the world of the Ultimate Fighting Championship is fitting. These are two of the sport's most renowned stars; blessed with the precision, dedication and desire required to lift them to championship glory. Yet in their latest respective fights they both lost to opponents most expected them to beat. They've got the moves and the talent, but in the vital moment they failed to improvise and fell apart. EA Sports UFC 2 is no different.

The real UFC is full of sentimental, if brutal, glory. An underdog can get lucky and beat the champion with the first strike of a bout. The most enduring star can win in a way that no one has ever seen before, furthering strengthening their legend. Ronda Rousey beat Cat Zingano in 14 seconds using a combination of dodge, counterattack and submission that most would think impossible. Such moments of shock and awe don't happen here. UFC 2 is too sterile, too rigid, and too predictable to ever feel like a genuine representation of a sport that has built a dedicated audience thanks in large part to the reality that anything can happen at any moment.

Of course, replicating this most fundamental aspect of sport is no easy feat for any video game - particularly one that must simultaneously offer both balance for casual players and hardcore simulation. It's reasonable to expect to be able to tangle with one another and have the superior, more skilled player coming out on top. Having the more skilled competitor being defeated by the first strike landed against them (whether that's in the first round or the third) simply wouldn't be fair in terms of game balance.

Picking Its Battles

So instead of attempting to be a genuine recreation of the UFC, then, developer EA Canada's approach is to provide an accurate representation of mixed martial arts' core mechanics within a visual wrapper that is impressive to behold. In this regard, UFC 2 can be considered a success.

Likewise, without question this is one of the most visually impactful sports games ever made, competing with NBA 2K when it comes to athlete likenesses and FIFA in terms of animation variety. Every tattoo adorning McGregor appears to be within a single pixel of accuracy, every one of Rousey's tightly packed upper-body muscles flexes powerfully as each jab is thrown. Combine this with the sheer variety of attacks at your disposal and it was nearly impossible to not be impressed by the visual spectacle even after hours of play under my belt.

Awkward moments are thrown up, as they were in EA Sports' 2014 UFC release, when a fighter's position is quickly and dramatically altered. This is particularly noticeable after you've just dropped your foe to the canvas with a solid strike, it Takes a second for your fighter to register that the target is no longer standing right in front of them. Throw a punch during this momentary disconnect with reality and you're treated to seeing a professional fighter look like a drunk as they harmlessly swat away at the air in front of their face.

Its Got Moves

Otherwise, the animations have been masterfully constructed in a manner that allows you total control over individual actions. It's when you're on your feet that things are at their most powerful; the best strikers able to execute combos as fast and as accurately as you can input them. Softening up your opponent with a few leg kicks before peppering the head and body with punches is an art unto itself and, as long as you pit yourself against quality opposition, one that takes significant practise to execute flawlessly.

Take the fight to ground with a wrestling or Brazilian jujitsu specialist, however, and the action is less impressive. Transitioning between positions of varying levels of dominance is assigned to the right stick, as it was in the 2014 UFC, with the 'full mount' position tending to represent the hallowed ground from which fights are generally won. Welcomingly, when the fight hits the mat a small icon appears indicating which position each stick movement will seek to secure. This takes away the boorish memorisation that was needed in the past and allows you to concentrate solely on outwitting your opponent and manipulating their body in such a way as to make defence difficult.

However, while the mechanics are well thought out in isolation, the end result is simply too strict and controlled to allow free-flowing combat. In reality, the best ground fighters move seamlessly, and often unpredictably, in an attempt to catch their opposite number off guard. The likes of Chris Weidman and Fabricio Werdum are, in reality, able to interlock a number of skills into a single motion that leaves both spectator and opponent confused - that doesn't happen here. Once the best sequence of position changes has been found with a specific fighting style it becomes a matter of repeating that consistently in order to notch up victory after victory against the AI.

What You'd Expect

Game modes perfectly reflect this predictability; the usual slate of career mode, quick fights and online ladders standing front and centre. Career mode is especially underwhelming, as you must undertake simple training mini-games in a bid to improve your fighter and win matches to move towards a title shot. It's entirely perfunctory, nothing more.

The most attention-grabbing new edition is Ultimate Team, an attempt to replicate the success EA Sports has seen through offering digital cards throughout the likes of FIFA and Madden. Here you can create a team of up to five custom-built fighters and compete with them, online or off, with a view to winning fights and collecting points that can be redeemed for packs of cards.

These cards unlock new attacks, fighting styles and stat boosts of varying levels of impact, which means that in comparison to Ultimate Team as seen in FIFA and Madden, the implementation here is underwhelming. There's little wrong with the underlying concept of adding a slight random element to career progression through not knowing what a pack might hold, but spending points to acquire a new type of punch is less exciting than ripping open a pack to find a playable Odell Beckham Jr. or Lionel Messi. Locking out fighters wasn’t going to work in this sport, given the comparatively smaller number of names featured here in comparison to team sport games, but withholding a punch from you until you've bought it rather than allowing you to earn it through training feels cynical and forced.

That is UFC 2's problem throughout: the fundamentals are right, but the spectacle and details that might have made it feel like the real thing are missing. The stand-up game might be technically brilliant, and the visuals genuinely eye catching, but it never lets itself go and allows its fists to fly. Everything is too structured, too robotic and, after 20 or 30 bouts, too predictable to tease you into suspending your disbelief and making you feel as though you're a UFC competitor.

Ultimately, then, this is perhaps the best example yet of how difficult it is to simulate certain real-world activities within a video game. If UFC 2 really did try to 'be' the UFC then it would fail in terms a balanced fighting experience, so you could argue that it's simulation attempt is doomed from the start. That's not to say that actual UFC fights are random in their outcome, but there certainly does exist a constant potential for surprise within them. That surprise, and the excitement it generates, is what's missing here.

The Verdict

While UFC 2 certainly looks the part, it doesn't feel it. Strikes are razor sharp, kicks are satisfyingly heavy, and each and every fighter is beautifully sculpted and recreated, but each and every element is too robotic and rigid to recreate the dynamism and unpredictability that draws me to real UFC fights. Those fights are often won by finding those spaces between the lines that your opponent hasn't thought to cover, but those spaces simply don't exist here. As a fighting game it's worth your time if you're seeking something other than the usual options, but as a recreation of the UFC it falters before the final bell.
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PGA TOUR REVIEW

PGA TOUR REVIEWS

AS MARK TWAIN ONCE SAID, “GOLF IS A GOOD WALK SPOILED”. IT’S QUITE PROFOUND AND FANS OF GOLF CAN CERTAINLY RESONATE WITH THIS SAYING. HOWEVER, WITH EA’S LATEST ADDITION TO THEIR GOLFING FRANCHISE, RORY MCILROY PGA TOUR, IT MAY BE MORE THAN THE WALK THAT IS BEING SPOILED HERE.

A post about game review. 

EA’s latest golf game comes at us with a new makeover. For reasons I’m sure we’re all aware, Tiger Woods is no longer affiliated with the long-standing golfing series, so instead they’ve teamed up with the new face of PGA golf: Rory McIlroy. What does this mean for the game? Well, not a lot really. Just a new endorsement and face to publicise their game. It has been two years since EA last brought us a PGA title, with Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14 being their last instalment on the Xbox 360 and PS3, and Rory McIlroy PGA Tour marks their first foray in to the current gen market with a golfing game. Unfortunately, it is rather apparent that the game is not utilising all the power that the current generation of consoles has to offer.

“BIZARRELY, WE EVEN HAVE A BATTLEFIELD COURSE ON THE GAME; PARACEL STORM… I SEE NO SENSIBLE REASON AS TO WHY I WOULD WANT TO PLAY GOLF ON A FIRST PERSON SHOOTER MAP. EVER.”

EA has certainly put out a clear message with their recent releases. We’ll release you a game first, limit what is available on it, and then stranglehold you with a list of promised DLC over a span of around two years. This was very clear with Star Wars Battlefront: only four maps, but promises of more over a two year period – at a cost of an extra £40. I digress, but I draw similarities to Rory McIlroy PGA Tour. As standard, there are only 12 maps available to play. Just 12. Previous titles had around 20 at release and they were all real courses. In this instalment, only eight of these course are real-world golfing locations. Bizarrely, we even have a Battlefield course on the game; Paracel Storm. It may be me and my desire for a golf game to be an actual golf game, but I see no sensible reason as to why I would want to play golf on a first person shooter map. Ever.

Since release, EA have released a further six free maps to the game, bringing its grand total to 18. With regards to the “genuine” maps, they are visually very pleasing indeed; playing 18 holes of St. Andrews is fantastic, with the course aesthetics mapped out fantastically. Not just St. Andrews, but all the courses as a whole are very well-designed with realistic graphics and a great attention to detail.

With regard to the actual gameplay, it’s clear to see that EA have put some work into ensuring the game controls as well as it could. Not dissimilar to previous PGA Tour titles, you swing your club by pushing the left analog stick back and then forth in as best as a straight line as you can get it, minimising the risk of over and under swinging. It sounds very easy, but even the slightest bit of deviation can send the ball off in to areas of no return. Digging deeper, there are more advanced controls that more seasoned players may wish to make use of, such as managing where you can strike the ball to gain more or less loft, should you need it. The controls work seamlessly, and the overall mechanics are very well simulated toward real life play.

“WITH REGARD TO THE ACTUAL GAMEPLAY, IT’S CLEAR TO SEE THAT EA HAVE PUT SOME WORK INTO ENSURING [RORY MCILROY PGA TOUR] CONTROLS AS WELL AS IT COULD”

There is a selection of pre-set gameplay styles to choose from within Rory McIlroy PGA Tour; namely arcade, classic and tour. Arcade is the easiest of the three. It allows the camera to fixate on the exact point where you wish your ball to land, and gives you the ability to add varying levels of spin to your ball whilst in mid-air, allowing you to change direction of your ball if you’ve hit one wayward. It also gives you the ability to add additional boost to your drive when taking your back swing. Classic mode makes things a little harder, in that the ability to spin and boost your ball is turned off and the swing method is changed to stopping the swing meter at three points to engage in that perfect swing. Tour is the hardest of them all: the ability to change the camera to the point of where your ball will land is turned off. The putt assist is also turned off, leaving you to play the game as you would on the golf course, with zero assists. The modes suit all types of players; whether you’re a high or low handicapper, there is sure to be a mode akin to your way of playing.

I’m afraid however, this is where the game peaks. Despite its great mechanics and great visuals, there just isn’t enough game. Take the Tour Pro career mode. I for one would assume this would be the most played mode of the series, but unfortunately it’s very thin on top. There’s no depth, no progression, and it offers no challenge whatsoever. I’m not talking as if I’m a seasoned pro, but it’s almost difficult not to progress in career mode, and when you do, there doesn’t appear to be any particular reason to progress. The only incentive, from what I can gather at least, is to unlock new clubs and outfits for your player, which doesn’t exactly give me much motivation if I’m being brutally honest.

There is another mode, Night Club Challenges, which involves playing on a golf course at night time, with floating neon signs and targets littered everywhere. The idea is to beat high scores by landing the ball in the centre of a target or pass the ball through a number of rings. As you progress, you are gifted different boosts which can aid you in various ways. The overall theme of it feels tacky and childish, but I’ll give it some slack in that the mode is somewhat competitive and can be fairly entertaining. Once again though, it doesn’t seem to conform with a true to life golfing game; it instead feels like I’m playing a Rocket League spinoff.

Overall, Rory McIlroy PGA Tour certainly does have its good points. The tight mechanics and gameplay cannot be overlooked and EA certainly has made good on that ground. Is it as enjoyable as the previous titles? No. It lacks the depth which its predecessors possessed and as a result, you’re left with little will to return. Regardless, this is the first half-decent golfing game on the current gen consoles, and aside from the gimmicky Night Club Challenges and inclusion of Star Wars Battlefront-themed courses, Rory McIlroy PGA Tour offers a level of realism that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else right now. Hardcore fans of EA’s previous PGA titles may be a little disappointed at the comparative lack of content and the disappointing career mode, but despite its flaws, there’s still plenty of enjoyment to be had.
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GTA 5 PC review

GTA 5 PC REVIEWS 
A post about game review

There are times when I look at Los Santos and think 'why would you even think to build that?' This is, appropriately, a thought that I often have about Los Angeles. In GTA 5's case, the tone is different: baffled wonderment as opposed to baffled, y'know, despair. Rockstar have created one of the most extraordinary game environments you will ever visit. I look at it and I wonder at the vast expense of effort required to render every trash bag in every back alley just so. I marvel at the care evident in San Andreas' gorgeous sunsets, in the way that sunglasses subtly alter the colour balance of the world, in the artfully-chosen selection of licensed music designed to accompany your experience. Everything about Los Santos demonstrates the extraordinary amount of thought and love poured into it by hundreds of developers over many years. The abiding irony of Grand Theft Auto 5 is that everybody who actually lives in
Los Santos hates it there.

This is the most beautiful, expansive and generous GTA game and also, by some distance, the nastiest and most nihilistic. Rockstar went through a phase, in Bully, Grand Theft Auto IV and the sadly console-bound Red Dead Redemption, of framing their protagonists as anti-heroes. GTA 4's Niko Bellic did some terrible things, but he had a downtrodden charm that helped you like him as you piloted him through the underworld. He was surrounded by people who were larger-than-life but ultimately, beneath the surface, people. Among those people were some of Rockstar's better female characters—Kate McReary, Mallorie Bardas, The Lost and Damned's Ash Butler.

Grand Theft Auto 5 does away with all of that, deliberately but to its detriment. Its trio of protagonists occupy a city full of vapid, two-dimensional caricatures, and they flirt with that boundary themselves. Michael is a middle-aged former bankrobber, unhappily married and on the edge of a breakdown. Franklin is a young hood, purportedly principled but willing to do almost anything for money. Trevor is a desert-dwelling, meth-dealing psychopath with a homebrew morality that sits uneasily alongside his capacity for violent cruelty and sexual aggression. The campaign explores their relationship through a series of heists and misadventures as they clash with every L.A. stereotype you might imagine—the bored Beverly Hills housewife, the corrupt fed, the bottom-rung fraudster, the smug technology exec, and so on.

Against this backdrop, it's only Michael, Franklin and Trevor that appear to have any kind of internal life. I get the impression that this is deliberate, part of the game's relentless skewering of southern California and indicative of Rockstar's waning interest in romantic anti-heroes. Trevor's introduction, in particular, amounts to a particularly explicit 'fuck you' to the characters and themes of Grand Theft Auto IV. GTA 5 is heartless in that way, and as a result I found the narrative difficult to care about. It is ambitious, well-performed, and the production values are extraordinary—but it is also derivative and brutishly adolescent, set in a world where the line between criminality and the rule of law is blurry but where it is always hilarious that somebody might be gay.

It's an R-rated episode of The A-Team where the 'A' stands for 'asshole'. The campaign's best moments come when your cigar-chomping master strategist, insane former military pilot and talented driver come together, and when you're given the power to choose how to use each of them. These heists are set-piece missions where you pick an approach and perform set-up tasks in the open world before setting out on the job itself. In the best of them, which occur later in the campaign, it really does evoke the satisfaction of having a plan come together. Perhaps you position Trevor on the high-ground with a rocket launcher, Michael on foot with a stealth approach, and Franklin in an armoured ram-raider. With a button press you can flick between the three, dynamically orchestrating a crime caper on your own terms.

It is also in these moments that Rockstar's most ambitious storytelling takes place. Your choice of character, crew, and even certain in-game actions have subtle effects on the dialogue. In an early heist, a crewmember dropped part of the score but, as Franklin, I was able to retrieve it—a side-objective that I'd set for myself but that was subsequently reflected in a later conversation between him and Michael. This is another example of Rockstar's extraordinary attention to detail, and if the rest of the campaign respected your agency in this way it might overcome its weaker moments.

As it is this is a very long game with a lot of filler. There's much driving from A to B, a lot of conversations in cars, a lot of gunfights with hordes of goons who show up just to run into your gunsights over and over. It's far richer in set-piece moments than its predecessor—drug trips, aerial heists, dramatic chases—and many of these look incredible even if they're light on actual interaction. In the best examples, you soak in the atmosphere and happily ignore the fact that you're only really being asked to follow the on-screen instructions. In the worst examples—insta-fail stealth sequences, sniper missions and so on—it's harder to ignore the shackles that are placed on the player in order to preserve the game's cinematic look and feel.

I spent a lot of my time with the campaign frustrated along these lines, bored of the same mission templates that I've been playing through since GTA III and making the most of the scant opportunities to play my own way, like Franklin's refreshingly open assassination missions. Then, inevitably, I'd be doing one of those rote activities—a heavily scripted freeway chase, perhaps—when the magic of that extraordinary world would creep up on me again. It'd hit me: I'm doing 150 km/h along the Pacific Coast Highway at sunset. The rock station is playing 30 Days In The Hole by Humble Pie. It feels incredible, a collision of pop-culture, atmosphere, music and play that is unique to GTA.

PERFORMANCE AND SETTINGS

Reviewed on Intel i5 760, 8Gb RAM, 4Gb GPU
Graphics options DirectX version, screen type (including fullscreen windowed), VSync, camera settings for first person, third person and vehicles, population density and variety, distance scaling, texture quality, shader quality, shadow quality, reflection quality, water, particles and grass quality, post FX, motion blur, depth of field, anisotropic filtering, ambient occlusion, tessellation.
Anti-aliasing FXAA, MSAA, NVidia TXAA, Reflection MSAA
Remappable controls Yes
Gamepad support Yes

Grand Theft Auto 5 ran at 50-60 fps on a midrange rig with most settings on normal or high. On a slightly better system, running a GTX 970, a mixture of very high and ultra settings could be used without framerate loss. I encountered a fair number of texture errors in multiplayer, however, and many players have reported frequent crashes.

Here, then, is the kicker: that forty-plus hour campaign with all of its flaws amounts to an optional fraction of the vast overall package. Step off the main trail and you'll find fully-functional golf, tennis, races—even a stock market. You'll find cinemas showing funny short films and fully-programmed TV stations. You'll find armoured trucks to rob, secrets to find, muggers to help or hinder, cults to encounter, vehicles to customise and collect. This is what it looks like when one of gaming's most profitable enterprises reinvests that profit into the game itself. Rockstar have, quite literally, gone above and beyond the Call of Duty.

The amount of work invested into the first-person mode is further evidence of this. It's not just a novelty alternative: GTA 5 is a fully-playable FPS, complete with detailed animations for everything from gunplay to getting out your phone. It achieves a similar sense of physical presence to Alien: Isolation, but in a vast open world. Steal an open-top car and go for a cruise in first person, steal a plane, or just go for a walk at night in the rain: there has never been an open-world game that offers this great a variety of atmospheric experiences at this level of detail. Hell, few games of any type have managed it. The only downside is that it's much more difficult to play, and that falling off a bike is so well-realised that it feels like really falling off a bike—people who get motion-sick in first person may suffer.

Did I mention that GTA 5 was also a cinematography tool? Unique to the PC version, Director Mode allows you to explore the open world as any character you want, in whatever circumstances you want, and then record, cut and remix those experiences into short films using a deep and accessible toolkit. As crude and exclusionary as the out-of-the-box campaign can be, the option to take this world and make something else out of it is always there, available whether you're knee-deep in the narrative or cruising south Los Santos with a dozen friends.

Right, yeah: GTA 5 is also an ambitious online game, a sandbox for deathmatch, racing and inventive co-op with MMO-lite progression features set in a world that is an order of magnitude more detailed than any of its contemporaries. The traditional multiplayer options alone amount to a feature-complete additional game. You can build your own tracks for races or use one of Rockstar's own, and configure your lobbies to account for different times of day, vehicle sets, weapon options—even radio stations. I've raced sportscars through the financial district, jetplanes through a windfarm, bicycles down through the hills below the Vinewood sign. There's also an attack-and-defend siege mode, regular deathmatch, and a hide-and-seek scenario that pits on-foot fugitives against hunters with sawn-off shotguns on motorcycles.

Freeroam is the glue that binds these various experiences together, offering GTA 5's full open world (albeit with a reduced pedestrian count) for up to 32 players. You can rob stores together, murder each other, set bounties on each other, even pay to send mercenaries after one another when you reach the right level. Your progression is expressed through your expanding selection of customisable weapons, the vehicles you claim and make your own, the apartments you buy where your friends can hang out to drink your booze and watch your TV. As elsewhere, it's the details that make it: on the TV, for example, you can watch police chases live. These aren't pre-recorded shows—you're watching footage of actual players, actually on the run, presented from the point of view of a news chopper complete with Fox News-parodying ticker.

These strengths culminate in heists, multi-part co-op missions similar in structure to their singleplayer counterparts. I've always loved asymmetric co-op, particularly the way that interdependency within a team creates moments where you get to shine both as individuals and as a unit. Heists are fantastic for this. I've had missions where my only job was to wait in a helicopter to pick up the ground team, but it feels amazing: I'm nervous for them, focused on what I'm doing, waiting for that one moment where I bring her in low and sweep them away with the score—a payout that feels earned in a way that videogame rewards rarely do.

Two major caveats hold me back from saying that GTA Online is good enough to justify your purchase on its own: co-op is rubbish with strangers and it's littered with bugs and connection issues. Reviewing the game on a midrange rig, the singleplayer mode was relatively stable. Online, I've had the world load without textures, crash outright, and every variant on lag, matchmaking bugs and disconnections. I understand that it's nowhere near as bad as it was when it launched on console, but it could be much better.

GTA 5 as a whole survives these problems because it is such a reliable generator of moments that transcend the script, the bugs, and its sometimes-galling linearity. This is particularly true of multiplayer, where the presence of other people injects energy and meaning into the open world. I've got as many examples of this as I have had play sessions, but here's one: having spent a chunk of my ill-gotten heist cash on a high-speed motorcycle, I break into the airport to see if I can reach top speed on those wide, flat runways. It's rainy and overcast, the rest of Los Santos lost in thick fog. I reach the chainlink fence at the edge of the tarmac and turn, and there, right in front of me, is an eminently-stealable private plane.

I hop in and take off with no greater plan than 'get into some trouble'. Ahead, on the map, I can see another player in a helicopter. I give chase, which takes us across the map and into the wilds of Mount Chiliad. Then, from a gully on the mountainside, a tracking rocket explodes upwards and blasts the helicopter and its pilot out of the air. There's another group of players up there, making their own fun, taking pot-shots at anyone unlucky enough to wander past. I buzz them, close, dipping down into the gully and over a ridge to avoid missile lock. On my second pass, they hit me. Smoke and flame pours from my engine and the prop slowly dies. I lower the landing gear, point my nose down the mountain, and attempt to glide her down to the freeway. It works. I feel no small amount of pride as I touch down in heavy traffic. Slipping from the cockpit, I cast about for something to do next. Then I am hit by a truck and die.

This isn't something I can repeat and it relies in no way on cinematic motion capture or cynical dialogue. It's an experience that stands alone, happily gamey, a moment immune to the cultural critique you might apply elsewhere. Moments like this are what push Grand Theft Auto 5 over the threshold from 'impressive' and into 'essential'. Like the city it both loves and hates, there are rough parts of town and people who will piss you off—but there's also the beach, the country, the skyline, the way the lights of the city play off the surface of the road in the rain. It's these ever present things that remind you why so many people might choose to spend so much time in this place. Rockstar did not need to build something this absurdly complex, this quixotic in its attention to detail, but I am glad that they did.
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