Category: Games

GT4

gt4
The much delayed GT4 was launched in the UK last week. I had no intention of picking this up – GT3 was a stale game that offered little over the previous titles that appeared on the PS1. The online section of the game had also been dropped – it is alleged that this will come out at some point but I doubt it.

However after playing Graham’s copy on Wednesday night I made my purchase…for the princely sum of 99p. Game are doing a bit of a bargain – trade in any 4 games (except for football and wrestling games) and you can pick up GT4 for 99p.

Onto the game – graphics are very impressive for a PS2 although the ‘edgy’ look is due to the lack of anti-aliasing. It’s down to preferences but I prefer the look of the Xbox racers. The options within the game are vast. You can get straight into some action via the arcade options but it’s the license tests and tune ups that most people will want to play. Here the game is massive with lots of car choices and potential upgrading. For me however this is the most flawed part of the game. It’s too easy to tune up your car and win races simply because your car out performs your rivals. To encourage the tuning aspect the handling and performance of the cars seem to be reduced so that you *have* to tune up whether you like it or not. The license tests can also get a bit dry. Handling is also more difficult with the PS2 pad – the lack of triggers forces you to use the right thumb stick for acceleration and braking – not the best. I’ve played GT4:Prologue with a steering wheel and if you have the room and the ability to set it up there really is no rival on any console.

Track selection is much improved over the previous games in the series. Highlight for me has been the inclusion of the Nurburgring (all 20.8km). This looks stunning – much narrower and twisty than the PGR2 version and with better textures than the Xbox game. Overall a worthwhile purchase for 99p – not convinced I would pay full price for it though.

 

WoW

I vowed never to buy an online game that a) charged per month, b) involved Orcs and Elves, c) made me worry about levelling up and the skills that I learn and d) consumed more of my time than is already spent on Xbox Live

But I gave in and bought World of Warcraft. Quite simply the most enjoyable online game, if not most enjoyable game I have ever played. Graphics and sound are good if not ground breaking. Half Life 2 put paid to that. What’s astounds is the sheer scale of the gaming world that is available to you and it’s non-linearity. The community aspect is second to none. Although the game doesn’t come with voice support Yahoo messenger with a headset soon gives you the ability to talk with your fellow players. There’s just so much to this game – different races and classes, so many occupations and skills available, an in game e-mail system as well as auction houses and some astounding set piece moments and this is a game I’ve only scratched the surface with. Recommended although only if you’ve got the time to spend on it. The WordPress upgrade will have to wait.

Edge-Online

My favourite games mag, Edge, has always had a really bad website. It’s redeeming feature was an active and sometimes intelligent forum but that fell by the wayside more than a year ago. After a period of inactivity Edge-Online has been updated and is now supplying daily’ish updates. It’s also powered by Movable Type so could be called a blog….kind off. Just need those forums back now.

Pro Evo Patch

It’s finally came out and it’s what you could call a mixed bag. Firstly, quitters are automatically awarded a loss. Yay! Second, it’s attempted to fix the lag issues. I say attempted as for me it seems to work well but I’m sure those with 128k uploads will still be laggy for any connecting clients. Thirdly, you can now cancel the goal animations directly after you score. Fourthly, that’s it!

Which is disappointing as it’s taken 2 months to produce. You still can’t cancel replays of offsides and near misses, you still can’t have manual player select, you still can’t swap L1/L2 and the ranking is still the same dumbass who’s won most type that isn’t the most reflective of who is best at the game. Rankings however have been reset – how annoyed the quitters and those that had played thousands of games to get to the top must be. Shame 🙂

However this is likely to be the one and only patch for PES 4. Roll on PES 5.

Cheats never prosper

Bungie (and I guess Microsoft) have finally acted with regards cheaters on the Xbox Live service by banning thousands of users who cheated in Halo 2. I say finally…Microsoft have acted before when people tried to access the Live network with hacked copies of games (PGR2 where the hacked cars were faster than the standard cars) but there has never been a real cull of people using Xbox Live. Until now.

The banning seems to have been due to two reasons – cheating in games and cursing including racial taunting. The cheating has really affected Halo 2. Using modems with stand by buttons players were able to host the game and then stop the upload to any clients connected while they ran around the map getting flags, dropping bombs etc. Happened increasingly frequently but thankfully the banning should curb it’s use. The second type is all to common, especially form Americans. Every second game usually has an American running his mouth off. To report this you can use the feedback service i.e. user x was cheating, user x was swearing but I guess it takes a fair number of reports before a ban, temporary or permanent is introduced. More info on the banning can be found in the weekly Bungie update.

This is great news. Xbox Live was better than multi player on the pc as the amount of patches and cheats in use in the pc land meant gaming never felt fair. Xbox Live brought that feeling back. I’m off to play some Halo.

PSP – First Hands On

Play-Asia won a PSP in an auction in Japan and has provided some of the first hand on impressions, pictures and videos. While I still worry about battery life (2-6 hours depending on task and whether you follow……the law) it looks good, will hopefully play good and unlike Apple gear will hopefully not cost the earth when released here. Roll on March.

Pro Evo 4 Verdict

pro_evo4
It’s been a few days now since I picked up Pro-Evo for the Xbox (thanks to Shakeel) and while the game itself is no different to the PS2 version, I though I would wait until I’d played a few online games before posting my thoughts. I almost know that before I write any more that the rest of the text could be seen as being negative towards the game and thus making it a no purchase for any doubters.

To be clear, I cannot recommend this game enough. It’s still the most accurate simulation of football that you could buy, for console or pc. The changes from previous version of Pro Evo are subtle but noteworthy but I’ve covered most of them in a previous post. Some other improvements:

  • Headers are now far more difficult – you can’t just run up the wing, cross and score. And there’s no easy way to cross and score unlike Fifa 05 (and basically every Fifa game before it).
  • Through balls improved again after they had been made ‘difficult’ in Pro Evo 3.
  • Shirt tugging drastically reduced compared to previous version. Likewise the dubious ‘hand ball’ which seemed to happen at least once if not more per game has been binned.

While the improvements are all good the real feature that sold the Xbox version over any other was online play via Xbox Live. This was the one feature that lifted the game above all the other Pro Evo versions but there were some worries about it’s implementation. Will it lag, will it allow four plays rather than two, will it provide a decent stat system, will it allow people to change playlists and therefore cheat their way to a win?

Unfortunately the online play hasn’t been implemented as well as it could have been. For example…

  • Lag. Well, not lag as such but generally a lack of smoothness for the client connected to the host. As a host I have never seen any lag. However as a client connected to a host I generally see a lack of smoothness and sometimes a very slight jerkiness with the play. Most noticeable during a free kick or corner and you are controlling the flight of the ball – moving left or right with the pad causes a stop start motion whereas when hosting the movement is silky smooth. Still playable but you’ve more chance of winning if you host. The good news is that this has been recognised as an issue with Konami and a patch is on the way. If this delivers the goods then the number one issue will have disappeared and when playing matches you will no longer need to have home and away legs to allow both people to host.
  • Quitters. Some of the first Xbox Live games allowed for people to cheat there way to some impressive stats and rankings. Early games allowed you to quit while losing so not registering a loss, or pause the game indefinetly, forcing the other player to quit first and damaging his ranking rather than the guy that is losing. Crappy way to play, but a cheat will always find a way. Annoyingly people can quit during a Pro-Evo game without a loss being registered against their name, or a win against yours. CRAP. One of the reasons I looked forward to this so much was to play other people and pit myself against others, good or bad, and also to see how other people played the game. I was hoping to learn different strategies and find new ways of playing the game. While this has happened to a certain extent, people quitting near the end of a game just leads to frustration. All because they are obsessed with stats and don’t want to register a loss. Konami haven’t even acknowledged the problem but hopefully they will address it in the patch. I would rather have no stats and hence people not quitting than the current situation.
  • XSN Support. XSN was Microsoft’s answer to EA Sports and their reluctance to use Live as a platform for their online gaming service. While still up and running, no new games will be added to the service. The ability to create leagues and tournaments via XSN would have been superb and a great feature in Pro Evo. Extra stats like goals scored and conceded, best striker etc would have been easy to add if XSN was used. Instead the tournaments will have to be run manually, with results posted via e-mail, forums and custom websites. An opportunity missed.
  • 2 Player Only. Maybe they had no option due to lag and system performance, but 1 on 1 is a missed opportunity. Pro Evo shines with four players. Suddenly more random play takes place, intelligent running, better use of through ball and ultimately a bigger laugh. Shame.
  • Sloppy Live integration. The game isn’t Live aware from loading, so to let folk know your playing the game you need to sign-in via a special screen. Halo 2, Ghost Recon 2 and others all sign into Live as soon as you start the game. Friends invites stay on the screen until you cancel them off – why can’t they disappear after 10 seconds like every other game?
  • Widescreen. Or lack off. Graphics are almost the same as PS2, right down to the fonts and the lack of widescreen. You could see at least 30% more of the pitch if they gave you a widescreen option….but no. Swine’s.
  • Commentary. Still poor so as usual I switch it off. Seemingly there’s some bugs caused by the lag mentioned above which means the same phrase is repeated over and over and over (bit like this post).

But for me, that’s about it. The game still plays as well as ever, except this time your opponents are more unpredictable and you no longer need to pop round someone’s house for a game. And while waiting for a patch, turn of commentary and also crowd noise as that seemingly reduces the lag your opponent will experience.

For anyone who loves Fifa – try this. Even do a 10-day Game rental in case you don’t like it. No other football game is as rewarding as this. No other online football game will offer this much of a challenge. No other football game has this much longevity. No other game will let you play Old Firm Blue vs Old Firm Green.

 

Half-Life 2

Picked up Half-Life 2 via steam on Tuesday. Played for roughly an hour……quite simply the most atmospheric 1st hour of any game I’ve ever played. Graphics are amazing but unlike other games the environment depicted is amazingly realistic and full of real world detail. This is helped by an impressive sound engine that not only delivers good in game effects but an impressive (so far) soundtrack. I’ve also been surprised twice within the first hour which is a good sign of more impending shocks. Story is also unwinding at a good pace. The havoc engine used for the physics also adds to the realism although some of the graphical lifting effects are a bit ‘rough’.

On the minor side, the loading times are very high and also pretty frequent. Steam as a delivery system was also brought to it’s knee’s on Tuesday but thankfully didn’t affect me too much.

Can’t wait to play more but as usual in the games industry…too many good games in the run up to Christmas means somethings got to be sacrificed…I wish it could be Christmas shopping but alas it will probably be Half-Life for the time being. Sneaky hours hear and there are the order of the day.

Halo 2 One Week On

This game just eats time. Played about 20 mins of single player – all the rest was online. The matchmaking mode allows you to take a party of four friends into 16 player battles and for one of the first times the games with the septic tanks and
Europeans are largely lag free. Some of the map randomness (lack off) is disappointing but apart from that its all good. It also really emphasises good team play – no point charging in on your own when there’s 6 guys waiting for you. It’s managed to keep me away from Half-Life 2…….almost :-).