The year 2023 is coming to a close. And as time carries on into t??he new year, we've got even more games to fill our endless backlogs, ranging from small surprises to our most anticipated known launches.

Really, 2024 is already shaping up to another big year for games. Right off the bat in the first quarter, we'll see RPG fans eating well with the likes of Infinite Wealth, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Dragon's Dogma 2, and Persona 3 Reload.

Princess Peach gets to take the stage, and Ubisoft might deliver a bit of a surprise with Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. Also, we'll (probably) see the launch of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Skull and Bones. That's just in the span of January to March!

But what are we looking ??forward to, here at Destructoid? We've put together a list of our most anticipated game of 2024 to this unranked, unordered list. Not to provide any sort of definitive must-watch, but rather, show you a smorgasbord of potential games to keep an eye on.

Our most anticipated games for 2024

Eric Van Allen: Metaphor: ReFantazio

I already won big last year, with my most anticipated game turning out to be the thunderous hit of the year. Not that this is a competition or anything. But I think we're in a particularly good era for role-playing games, and of all the good RPGs already on deck for 2024, Metaphor is the next one I have my eye on.

We've been in a real good spot for high fantasy lately, so this SMT take on the genre already had me intrigued there. Then it roped me in with incredible menus and art. Now, in a recent dev video, the team has highlighted a cool hybrid of action and turn-based combat, as well as a time management system that's very reminiscent of Persona. (Fitting, as Metaphor's got some big Persona ??names on staff, including director Katsura Hashino and char?acter artist Shigenori Soejima.)

Odd name aside, Metaphor: ReFantazio looks primed to be a Persona-caliber hit in the RPG space next year. Even against the likes of a new Like a Dragon and Vanillaware tackling tactics, I know thi?s is the one I'm extremely eager to dig into.

Zoey Handley: Chicken Police: Into the Hive

Each year, it's easier for me to pick a known quantity for most anticipated, rather than one I'm hoping lives up to its ambition. I picked Pikmin 4 for 2023, which came and went. It's great, truly. I very much enjoyed it. But then I moved on. It didn't leave a lasting itch. So, while Hollywood Animals looks great on paper right now, Chicken Police: Into the Hive feels like a safer bet.

I loved 2020's Chicken Police: Paint it Red. The noir photomanipulation aesthetic gives it a unique? look and feel; it's the passion behind the narrative that still sticks with me. There's a lot of lo??ve behind the world and characters, and you can feel that craft throughout. It makes the odd misstep, but earnestness is often more valuable than lawlessness.

This carried through to the recent small prologue game, Zipp's Cafe, which has only made me more excited about Chicken Police: Into the Hive. I don't know if it's going to be polished, impactful, or innovative, but I'm almost ?certai??n that it will be exactly what I want.

Timothy Monbleau: Visions of Mana

Picking a most anticipated game for 2024 was honestly really tough, since there are a lot of promising RPGs on the horizon that are right in my wheelhouse. In 2023, I had the chance to try out Persona 3 Reload, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Dragon’s Dogma 2. And frankly, I’m looking forward to all of th?ose.

However, I often find that my most anticipated game isn’t necessarily the one I think will be a slam dunk, but the one I just want to be good the most. And from what we know of 2024, nothing compares to Visions of Mana on that front. It’s Square Enix’s first all-new console Mana game in well over a decade, and the little we’ve seen so far looks appealing. I love the vibes and the designs so far, and if the gameplay can continue the upward trend of quality we’ve seen between the Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana remakes, this could turn out to be a real hit.

Also�if I’m being honest, I really wanted to put Ys X here. However, I can’t exactly do that without any guarantee that it'll actually come out in English next year. So I’m also kind of picking Visions of Mana because it’s the most similar-looking title to Falcom’s flagship series that’s on my radar right now. I’m not saying that’s a good reason to pick Visions of Mana as my most anticipated game, bu??t it undoubtedly is a reason.

Steven Mills: Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth

Wow, 2023 was an amazing year for games but 2024 is already looking like it's going to be just as good, especially for RPG lovers. It was hard not to join Eric here and go with Metaphor: ReFantazio. I'm a huge fan of the SMT formula, but Metaphor's setting has me even more interested.

But after much back-and-forth, I went with Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. Being able to explore the world of Gaia on current-gen systems is going to be a blast. Cosmo Canyon? Costa del Sol?! The Gold Saucer?!?! As great as Final Fantasy VII Remake was, it feels like it's going to end up being an appetizer compared to what Rebirth has in store. More importantly, it looks like the narrativ?e will feature even more mystery and chaos in the story we all know from our childhoods, and I'm all for it.

I'm also very excited about the upcoming Factorio expansion, Factorio: Space Age. I have over 1,000 hours in the base g?ame and still find myself going back in with various mod packs. The expansion looks as though it will expand on the base game with another 60-100 hours of content while also building upon the core systems that are already there. As I said, 2024 looks like it's gonna be a great year.

Smangaliso Simelane: Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2

Hellblade: Senua’s Saga is a project that tries to do something a little different from your average game. It attempts to depict psychosis, but in a way that is authentic and utilizes different senses. The result is a work of art that is sometimes overwh??elming but never sacrifices authenticity.

I love Hellblade, but it is rough around the edges. It features puzzles that are frustrating to solve, and the combat leaves much to be desired. Well, we have a sequel on the way and it looks like we’re going from an experiment??al AA game to a fully-fledged AAA title set to outshine its pred?ecessor.

We haven’t seen much of Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2’s combat and gameplay yet, but the visuals are stunning. This is Ninja Theory’s chance to improve and fully flesh out the innovative ideas introduced in Hellblade. My hopes? are high that we’ve got s?omething special on the way.

Andrea Shearon: Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail

Endwalker put a nice bowtie on some of Final Fantasy XIV's biggest threads, bringing one of the realm's biggest battles to a close and bookending some of our earliest beginnings, harkening all the way back to A Realm Reborn's theme song, "Answers." Now, it's time to start fresh with a new expansion in Dawntrail.

In a year where I backed off my usual FFXIV routine, it's nice to look forward to another big adventure with Dawntrail's breezy summer ambitions. As more of a hermit, swamp creature kind of gal, version 7.0's summer vacation-style episode wasn't my cup of tea at first, but it's grown on me. If anything, I've learned to trust the process when it comes to XIV, and at some point, it'll deliver on the emotional turmoil and extensional crisis story beats I? crave.

Though a journey focused on Meracydia is my dream, I'm excited for what's to come in Tural. Dawntrail era updates include major improvements to FFXIV visuals, new glamour features, two DPS jobs, and the return of one of my Endwalker favorites, Erenville. Throw in a couple of?? dragon cameos and more awkward Estinien mo?ments, and I promise I won't complain again until 8.0.

The post Destructoid’s most anticipated games of 2024 appeared first on Destructoid.

Come write for us, as we expand

Things have been pretty crazy in the gaming sphere as of late (take your pick!): but there's great news to report on the Destructoid front. Our owners �the GAMURS Gro?up �are looking to expand the site and provide us with the tools we need to grow. As a result, we have a bigger freelance budget!

If you're not familiar with Destructoid, we cover a lot of the irreverent and offbeat video game news that a lot of other sites pass over: but we also hit the big stuff with that same irreverence and offbeat tone. We're also one of the biggest review outlets out there and allow for a large degree of creative freedom, so there's a lot of room to let your personality shine. Some of the most famous members of the gaming industry have written for Destructoid in its ??lengt??hy 16-year history, including Ashly Burch and James Stephanie Sterling.

We're also looking at building out a guides program, with plenty of work for folks who play newer releases. Our rates vary along with the content, ranging from $15 to $80 dependin??g on the length and type of story, with many posts fitting around the $25 range.

What are we looking for in a prospective freelance writer?

• Someone who has experience with keeping up with new release games and live service titles
• We are actively looking for people to cover Destiny, Call of Duty, and Apex Legends with authority
• Familiarity with WordPress/blogging platforms
• The ability to write quickly and accurately
• Someone eager to learn and incorporate feedback to build their writing skills
• Willingness to write at least 25 posts per month
• Previous freelance/writing experience

What do we want in your application sent to recruit@jbsgame.com?

• The subject line of your email must read: "Destructoid freelance guide writer 2023"
• Describe what games you have done guide work for in the past, and what games you actively play now that you feel you could speak to with authority
• A brief cover letter in the body of your email
• Your resume/CV (as an attachment) or LinkedIn profile (choose one)
• At least two links to samples of your writing
• Links to your personal website/portfolio/blog, podcasts/videos, and/or any public social media accounts you would like to share

Please allow us ample time to respond, as we expect quite a lot of entries! Even if we don't get back to you quickly, we will file all resumes provided to us, and we may be in co??ntact at a later date.

The post Destructoid is hiring freelance guide writers! appeared first on Destructoid.

Optimize your online connection with ExitLag

[This week Destructoid is brought to you by ExitLag, a tool for gamers struggling to fix issues with high ping, lag spikes, packet loss, and bad server routing in online games including Apex Legends, Valorant, CS:GO, and over 500 other support title?s. This is a sponsored post.]

There's nothing worse than playing a game and feeling like your fate ultimately isn't in your own hands. That's true of single-player games, and it's especially true of tense, team-based online games like Apex Legends. When you're in the hom??e stretch, you don't ever want to worry about how your connection is holding up �you wa??nt to play all the way through without any hiccups.

In search of a real solution, it's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of possible fixes only to end up back where you started. So before you go too deep, l??et ExitLag handle the hard work for you?? �it'll find the optimal route to give you a more stable server connection while you're gaming.

If you win, it's all yo??u. Congrats! If you lose, well, you won't be able to blame lag this time.

What is ExitLag? And what can it do?

The goal of ExitLag is to provide an optimal onlin?e gaming experience, especially for players who don't live close to their favorite game's servers or have issues with their ISP's routing.

Using? its proprietary algorithm, ExitLag can?? help with lag spikes and other common connection problems that gamers face �it finds the ideal route for your data in real-time.

And since this proxy service sends connection packets through different routes simultaneously, if one route becomes shaky while you're in the midd?le of a match, the backup routes will keep you in the game without missing a beat.

Beyond real-time route optimization, ExitLag also has bonus features like an FPS Boost and Multi Internet opt?i??on to give you additional peace of mind during higher-stakes ranked matches.

The best settings for reducing lag in Apex Legends

As one example, here's how to optimize Apex Legends using ExitLag.

After downloading ExitLag and installing it, you can scroll down the game list or use the search bar to pull up Apex Legends. From there, select your preferred game region ("A??ll regions" is an option, or you can get more granular), and ExitLag will analyze and sel?ect the best routes.

You're all set. You can boot up the game and let ExitLag work its magic,?? or you can double-ch?eck the Tools tab to make more fine-tuned adjustments. First, let's look at the General settings.

Recommended general settings

ExitLag also comes with an FPS Boost, so if you're trying to get the smooth??est possible game experience, you can toggle on your pref??erred frame-rate-boosting settings, as shown below.

Recommended settings for improving FPS

Try ExitLag for free today and lower your ping

Best of all, you can take ExitLag for a test spin to lower your ping in Apex Legends and see the results for yourself. There's currently a free three-day trial, with no credit card required.

It's as easy as signing up with your email, downloading the software, picking your favorites from the supported g??ame list, and applying routes. ExitLag will handle the r?est and you're good to go.

The trial should be plenty of time to try out your favorite online games?? and see an improvement. The software handle??s the heavy lifting, so you can spend more time gaming and less time fiddling. Using the Account tab, you can see how much time you have left on the free trial.

For more information about ExitLag, check out the FAQ and supported games list.

The post How to easily improve your ping in Apex Legends appeared first on Destructoid.

Not your everyday JRPG

[This week Destructoid is brought to you by Metal Max Xeno Reborn, out now for Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and PC (via Steam). This is a spon??sored post.]

The long-awaited Western release of Metal Max Xeno Reborn is finall?y here on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PC, and Pochi the cannon-packing pooch is calling your name.

Not only can you "pet the dog" in this post-apocalyptic open-world JRPG from Kadokawa Games, he's actually an active part of the squad! Some might even say Pochi is the MVP. Together, you'll face ferocious oddball threats like dinosaur battleships, massive sand sharks, and missile-armed rhinos. This isn't your average JRPG tank adventure, that's ????for sure.

Metal Max Xeno Reborn is one of many RPGs in the lovably outlandish Metal Max series, which dates all the way back to the early '90s on Famicom. If you're looking for an easy entry point, Reborn is definitely it �it's a new-and-improved remake of 2018's Metal Max Xeno for PS4 and PlayStation Vita. In an ongoi?ng war against the supercomputer NOA,?? you'll join the fray as Talis.

While exploring the wastes of Tokyo Bay on foot and in a fleet of heavy-duty vehicles, Talis will band together with fellow survivor??s to fend off machines and save what's left of humankind.

Real-time vehicular action in the post-apocalypse

Best of all, the skirmishes in Metal Max Xeno Reborn tak?e place on the open-world map, so you can choose your moment to strike and even gain the upper hand from afar. The game's dynamic combat system blends fast-?paced real-time movement with turn-based JRPG sensibilities.

As your party gains experience points and scav?enges for parts, you'll learn new combat techniques and have more heavily-armored toys to play with �customization is the name of the game here. Just don't forget to feed Pochi some snacks while you're out there? grinding!

To take down the big boss monsters of Metal Max Xeno Reborn, you'll need to exploit weaknesses to burn, freeze, and beam, among other elements. And when you're picking out the ideal engine and weapons for your dream tank loadout, you'll also want to consider special trait chips �they offer powerful bonuses like a multi-shot and increased critic??al chance. Who doesn't love to land crits?

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnLA0Yo4eaI

As the launch trailer shows, this game's cult-classic vibes are front and center. If you're looking for something different in the JRPG crowd that you can sink your teeth into, Metal Max Xeno Reborn could be your new jam. Don't sweat it too much, but humanity ?is counting on you here.

You can cozy up with your monster-hunting, machine-blasting, apocalypse-canceling crew starting today. Metal Max Xeno Reborn is now available on Nintendo Switch, PS4, and Steam.

The post Don’t miss Metal Max Xeno Reborn now that it’s on PC, PS4, and Switch appeared first on Destructoid.

The Semi-Finals are tonight on Twitch

Another gaming talent search is underway for promising young content creators across the United States and Canada as Enthusiast Gaming and e.l.f. Cosmetics have teamed up for a 2022 Collegiate Edition of the Rising Sta??rs streaming competition.

After making it through the audition round, up-and-coming content creators have been competing?? for a top spot, and the end is in sight. This time around, there's a $100,000 USD prize up for grabs �but first, the participants will need to get through the Semi-Finals, which will be streamed today on Twitch starting at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.

The six semi-finalists �napoellis, BailyGoat, Jeffrey, pipluptiny, KeeLoker, and JeyG �will be duking it out later today in front of the Rising Stars judges, host, and everyone in the Twitch audience. You can tune in and show your support for your favorite collegiate creator on the lgloyal and elfyou Twitch channels. No pressure, y'all �you g??ot this!

The winner will land a $100K ??Content Creator Sponsorship with Luminosity Gaming, and the two runners-up are taking home a $2,500 USD college gran??t, courtesy of e.l.f.

"We are thrilled to welcome e.l.f. Cosmetics as our first Rising Stars co-creators, building on the success of properties including Gamers' Greatest Talent and Luminosity Aca??demy," said Enthusiast Gaming CEO Adrian Montgomery. "We are looking for a diverse mix of up-and-coming creators from colleges across the U.S. and Canada, who will have a chance to learn from top gamers and mentors as they compete for a spot on our Luminosity Gaming roster."

Following today's festivities, the live finale for Rising Stars: Collegiate Edition 2022 will take place ne?xt Saturday, March 19.

[Disclosure: Enthusiast Gaming is t??he?? parent company of Destructoid.]

The post Rising Stars: Coll??egiate Edition is searching for the next great streamer appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[This week Destructoid is brought to you by Onmyoji. Here’s a quick note from our sponsor.]}

Boasting gorgeous character designs, top-notch voice talents and an exhilarating combat experience, Onmyoji has been engaging players across the globe since its official launch in ?2018. Not only does the mobile RPG feature strategic battles that unleash ??players' inner tacticians, but it also scratches that itch of character collecting with stunning shikigami.

Netease's hit title is currently celebrating its fourth anniversary, but if you haven't joined the bandwagon jus?t yet, here are a few more reasons why you should.

Engaging Japanese-themed narrative

The free-to-play anime-style RPG is more than just character progression and your average genre ?elements �the game also hooks players in with a captivating narrative about humans, demons and a world on the brink of destruction. The titular Onmyoji hold the key to this seemingly insurmountable task �these gifted humans can read the stars and connect the two worl??ds as well as tame wild spirits for the sake of peace.

In the midst of malevolent spirits and an epic struggle for power and dominanc??e, can you?? restore order and bring peace back between the two worlds?

Breathtaking visuals

The high-quality graphics of the game add to the appeal of the narrative, as each character is go??rgeously animated in 3D with an authentic Japanese-inspired art style. Character designs are pure eye candy, so collecting a new unit is as satisfying as the last.

There are hundreds of shikigami that players can summon as well, each one with unique skins, histories and skills. These add to a player's customisation options when it comes to buil?ding the most powerful team roster.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-aG9MOtd1PE

Adrenaline-pumping combat

With a powerful lineup of characters on your squad, you can engage in thrilling PvP ??and PvE combat as you strategize the best moves to execute for awesome in-game rewards. You can also switch seamlessly between your PC or your mobile device to fully enjoy the game, keeping the progress of your character no matter where you are.

Strategic turn-based battles are made more engaging with legendary voice talent among the ranks of Rie Kugimiya (Full Metal Alchemist), Jun Fukuyama (Code Geass) and Yuki Kaji (Attack on Titan) to name a few. Plus, the stirring musical score that serenades you in the background is masterfully created by legendary composer Shigeru Umebayashi of House of Flying Daggers and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny fame.

Madcap multiplayer mayhem

O?f course, you can enjoy all these with an online buddy with the game's multiplayer options. You can socialize with other players using the game's Location Based Services (LBS) Networking, as well as chat with pals with the Real-Time Commentary function.

If you're eager to give the game a go and see what the fuss is about, you can download Onmyoji on the iOS App Store and on the Google Play Store for Android devices a??s a free-to-play game ??with in-app purchases.

The post Onmyoji: Reasons to play Netease’s epic Japanese-themed RPG appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[This week Destructoid is brought to you by Onmyoji. Here’s a quick note from our sponsor.]}

It's been four years of connecting the human world with the demon world to tame the spirits in a turbulent land, and Onmyoji is thanking its loyal fans for their support with tons of exciting events during its fourth anniversary. Restoring balance can be exhausting, so to help players keep the peace, Netease's mob??ile RPG is giving away special goodies both in and out of the game throughout the month.

A disillusioned Saintess and a ninja fighting for justice

Should you keep your inner flame locked up inside you, or should you unleash the unholy fire and revel in your blazing glory? SSR Suzuhikohime is the Saintess who, frustrated by an unresponsive god, releases herself from her own shackles to reveal the altar's lies. You can discover more about her story in her special character CG on Facebook. SP Ninja Yamausagi, on the other hand,  "dives below dark night shuttles between dream and reality" to keep the peace and f??ight for jus??tice in Hei-an Kyo.

After the February 23rd update, this ninja legend can be obtained for free simply from clearing [Ninja Tricks]. There will be plenty of chall??enges a??nd tasks to complete to acquire not just SP Ninja Yamausagi but also Exclusive Illustrations, Event Exclusive Frame and more.

Special guaranteed summons and a rate-up chance

During the One Free Summon event from February 23rd to March 1st, the first Mystery Summon each day will not consume Mystery Amulets. On the other hand, the Fiery Chime event will reward players with Orochi's new skin Shivering Shadow, Skill Daruma and more until Marc?h 8th. During the B?lessed Amulet event until March 6th, players will have the chance to nab a blessed amulet with a self-selected SP/SSR. SSR Suzuhikohime also has a 2.5 rate-up from the summons pool.

An IRL celebration and an in-game Time Machine

Plenty of new skins and exclusive discounts are up for grabs in the limited-time skins store during the event. There will also be a fourth-anniversary Time Machine feature that lets players look back at their favourite moments in the past year and bond with random SSR/SP units. Plus, simply participating in the event will give away a random SP/SSR shikigami for free and Kagura's new skin Graceful Serenity. For a limited time, Onmyoji will also exhibit Seimei Ice Sculpture Works at BANKEI Ski Resort in Sapporo, Japan from ??February 19th to February 20th.

If you're eager to join in on all the fun, you can download Onmyoji on the iOS App Store and on the Google Play Store for Android de?vices. It's a free-to-play gam??e with in-app purchases.

The post Happy 4th anniversary, Onmyoji: Here’s what players should expect from its latest update appeared first on Destructoid.

Cblogs of 9/11 to 9/17/2021

-NinjaSpeed wonders which Sonic game will get the "remastered" treatment next.

-Kerrik52 reviews Blasphemous as part of the?? long-running Traveller in Playtime review blogs series.

-My Enormous Hairy Downstairs Kitchen shares his thoughts on the artfulness of Resident Evil Village.

-Sam van der Meer thinks God Hand is the clear c??hoice for the greatest game of all time (Front Paged).

-GoofierBrute discusses The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse as pa?rt of this blogging series about Games ??that Time Forgot.

-Black Red Gaming reviews WarioWare: Get It Together on the Nintendo Switch.

-PhilsPhindings discusses the similarities between the soundtrack of Sonic the Hedgehog and Funk/Disco music.

-ChronoLynxx opens this week's TGIF community forum for op??en and random discussion?.

Thanks to Lord Spencer for providing us with the recap! A slim run this week, but they're all gems and we really appreciate them. If you want to see your own writings recapped (or even promoted) on the front page, head over to the Cblogs section. It doesn't have to be an epic, but if you have takes on games �old or ne??w �then feel free to share with us.

The post W???hich Sonic the Hedgehog game deserves a full remake/remaster? appeared first on Destructoid.

We burned through a handful of PvE levels and (most of us) lived to tell the tale

It's 2021 and we're still craving a new Left 4 Dead �if not the real thing (come on, Valve!), then at least a suitable fill-in. Back 4 Blood might just be up to the task. I hope!

Ahead of the open beta (August 12�6) and even the early access kick-off (August 5�), Jordan Devore and Chris Cart?er were a??ble to take on the shambling hordes in several PvE campaign missions. We were supposed to try the PvP too, but uh, more on that below.

Chris: Ha! Like I'd try PvP even if I had the chance.

But seriously, our test ran into some PvP-related issues. So our team forged ahead into PvE while everyone else tried to figure it out, and we nearly cleared the entire first act. My first reaction? Surprise. Back 4 Blood was more fun than I thought it would be.

It really shows just how much better the systems are with full team voice chat when everyone is in sync. In case anyone hasn't been following along, Back 4 Blood features teams of four (Back 3 Blood?), and everyone can choose to take a different weapon or play a different role dynamically. The entire session, as a team, we were saying things like "hey I have rifle ammo, anyone got shotgun bullets?" (ammo is in a mass pool in your inventory like Fornite, and everything you own, including cash, can be dropped). We even pooled money to buy team upgrades. It's all light strategy stuff, but plays out so well, and will come in handy for PUGs (pick up groups), especially wi??th the radial ping menu.

As for our experience with the game itself, it started off fairly simplistic on the standard setting in the first act, but a few stages in, it got way more intense. By the time we got to the objective-based missio??ns that asked us to plant bombs on a giant boat, we were losing people. Oh, about that! There may or may not be an amazing story about that level.

Jordan: I would say that it took a bit for us to feel challenged on the pre-set difficulty option, but once we did, Back 4 Blood started bringing back some of those tense-yet-fun memories from the old Left 4 Dead days. The ship?? was probably the first real example.

After snaking our way through multiple crowded floors, reaching the top, and catching our breath on an overpass, we were told we'd need to double back and plant two bombs further down. Problem is, a few of us were suffering a near-death-by-a-thousand-cuts, and then one of our teammates got knocked overboard, to their demise, by a special infected (known in-universe as a Ridden). In the chaos of it all, I honestly couldn't tell you which archetype it was �one explodes, one launches phlegmy sniper shots, another is a tall club-armed tyrant �but long story short, Chris and I instinctively booked it.

I accidentally jumped off the deck but somehow ?fell into a lower windowsill and survived, only to try and revive one of our fallen squadmates who was along for the wild ride while Chris beelined it for the detonation site. Somehow, someway, he finished the job. It was the first time we didn't all make it to the safehouse. Sure, we had some overwhelming horde moments before this zone �it felt like we set off literally every mob of crowd-alerting crows we came across �but this was our first "intense" PvE setpiece.

We also had some run-ins with a fog modifier? and a window-boarding last stand.

Chris: It was a perfect storm: a storm?? that only I escaped from??. And it was a thrill!

I vividly recall the murmurs of all of my teammates saying "guys I think I'm in trouble," and running past one of them (haha!) on the ground, being mauled to death by a giant swarm of zombies I had no hope of clearing out with 50 rifle bullets on hand. At that point, Jordan, you were on a completely differe?nt level with no hope of escape. But since all we needed was one person to survive to clear it, it was all good. There was so much confusion I don't think anyone realized I was still alive until?? I announced it on comms.

The subsequent fog level you mentioned was also a ton of fun. On high settings, the light effects were very nicely done, and at one point I had to move a bit to see a shadow of a zombie to get a good line of sight on it. We don't see too many high-budget zombie games these days. There was a bit of wonkiness, though. On a later level, on a farmstead, a few of us ended up falling o?ff a bridge (you automatically hang off in a really gamey?? way in an incapacitated state while someone "revives you" [pulls you up]). It reminded me of all those PS2/PS3-era games where you'd instantly die if you put even one toe in water.

That jank was few and far between though, and Back 4 Blood leans into some arcadey elements regardless: more so than a few other zombie shooters before it. Take the skill/card system for?? example!

//youtu.be/C4Epmnk8G4Q

Jordan: You can never really know how "replayable" a game will be until you've truly lived in it, and a couple of hours with a beta can only tell you so much, but I do like the general concept of cards, decks, and semi-randomized events (once again curated by a shadowy Game Director) in Back 4 Blood. Since we were able to power through q?uite a few PvE levels in our preview sessi?on, we had a lot of opportunities to select new cards to bolster our survivors �sometimes a modest boost to HP or stamina that can ultimately add up, sometimes a flashier upgrade like turning my melee bash into a fast combat knife.

Given that I had plenty of rifle ammo, I maaay have gone a bit overboard with th?e stabbing, admittedly. It's hard not to spiral into overconfidence and let your guard down. A bite here, a bite there, and suddenly your health pool is mysteriously low.

While I didn't have a super good read on what everyone else was choosing from their shuffled stack, communicating card selections in between each story level and planning decks so they specifically complement each player's specialties will be important if you want your whole team to pull through. I feel like you had a card that let you regenerate your health, though. I was so jealous. I should've taken the time to build out a custom deck from Fort Hope (home base) before we began our PvE match, rather than use a starter deck, because I never pulled anything like that. But I did?n't want to hold up the crew.

I got more of a sense of card variety (and actual impactful trade-offs to weigh) from a recent trailer, so I'm hoping the full game in October �barring a delay �can deliver. Progression is going to be a carefully watched topic given Turtle Rock Studios' missteps with Evolve. I hesitate to even invoke that name again, because Back 4 Blood seems destined to avoid that specific fate, but there are other, smaller ways it could still go awry (especially under ??WB), even if the gameplay itself is giving people what they want.

Chris: Yeah, communication is key, especially if someone has 1499 gold and needs just a bit more for a team upgrade. In PUG groups I can see people selfishly starting a round or running into danger constantly, but Back 4 Blood has the right amount of communication wit??hout becoming a?nnoying.

But to speak to your replayability point, Black 4 Blood seems like it'll be a really great first playthrough. The question is whether or not the progression system is going to hold long-term. Based on semi-recent history, I'm not betting any money on it. But there's so much they can do with things like the fog modifier and those overarching events...I really hope this doesn't become another Evolve with so much promise that's cut short.

Always-online is going to cut a group of people out immediately, as is a lack of split-screen (which has become commonplace the?se days). We'll see! After playing it, I'm more hopeful than I was.

Jordan: My beta impressions tell me that this is probably the closest anyone's come to rekindling the Left 4 Dead vibe since that series just became a vehicle for character cameos in other zombie games, which is a great starting point, but my gut tells me that the??re will be caveats to deal with, especially the fine print you just referenced.

I've come out of the preview feeling positive about Back 4 Blood, though, whereas before trying it, I was mostly apathetic. I ignored most of the trailers th?is year.

I'd encourage everyone to try the open beta �specifically the period starting Aug?ust 12 that doesn't require a pre-order �to see what's what. Barring tech issues, this should be a fun, memorable beta experience. Just maybe stick to the two PvE maps.

The post If nothing else, Back 4?? Blood should be a great first playthrough appeared first on Destructoid.

_{[This week Destructoid is brought to you by Alchemy Stars. Here’s a quick note from our sponsor.]}

Alchemy Stars, a revolutionary new strategy RPG, is officially out on June 17! Combining strategy elements with card collecting in stunning art and animation, Alchemy Stars kicks off its official launch aft?er garnering?? more than a million sign-ups during pre-registration.

With its unique tile-connecting gameplay mechanic, Alchemy Stars lets players use different characters with their own attributes to match tiles and colors in a world where magic and technology collide. The one-of-a-kind combination of elemental attributes and tactical attacks makes for a refreshing combat experience.?? All this is done in a beautiful anime art style that combined the talent of 150 artists to ensure the character designs are top-notch in full Live2D with breathtaking environments.

The pool of diverse characters to choose from also makes the gameplay even more engaging, as each character has their own own qui?rks and personalities. You can even interact with them by sending them gifts and chatting with them to improve the relationships between you.

//youtu.be/gyzR3qsMm2k

To top it all off, Alchemy Stars features an epic storyline that chronicles the battle between Aurorians and Eclipsites in an adventure that takes you through darkness and light. If you just can’t wait to get into the game, you’ll be happy to know that there are several launch events you can sink your teeth into, including guaranteed pulls for 5-star and 6-star characters and daily login bon?uses.

Alchemy Stars is now available to download on the App Store and on Google Play for free with in-app purchases. You can visit the official website to learn more about the game.

To provide the best gaming experience, the U.S. version of Alchemy Stars: Aurora Blast is also available on both iOS and Android. Alchemy Stars: Aurora Blast pro??vides players a different internal game package.

For the latest news updates please follow Alchemy Stars on social media:

Global: //twitter.com/AlchemyStarsEN

US: //twitter.com/AlchemyStarsUS

The post Alchemy Stars, the highly antic??ipated strategy-slash-card collecting RPG, is now available on Android and iOS appeared first on Destructoid.

Auditions are open until May 2 and then it's onto live judging

TikTok, Enthusiast Gaming, and e.l.f. Cosmetics are hosting a big talent hunt with a head-turning grand prize up for grabs, and — wait. Hold up. For once, the competition is laser-focused on gamers.

TikTok Gamers Got Talent is a seven-week live series (complete with celebrity judges) that kicks off Sunday, May 9 at 7:00 p.m. Eastern — but first, auditions. For a crack at the $25,000 prize, you'll have until May 2 at 11:59 p.m. ??ET to send in a TikTok video?? showcasing your talent. Open-ended, we know.

@luminosity

Got a talent? Show us what you got for your chance to be featured in our live show. Powered by: @elfyeah ##TikTokGGT ##Contest

♬ original sound - Luminosity Gaming

What exactly are the judges looking for? TikTok Gamers Got Talent submissions will be scored based on "?entertainment value," "quality of presentation," and "level o??f skill demonstrated."

A little more fine print: the competition is open to the US and Canada, it's a clean talent show (no swearing!), and your entry needs to be all ??about you — so no pairs or groups, and keep the kids out.

Once this audition phase wraps up on May 2, the top contestants "will share their talents live in front of a rotating panel of celebrity judges" in weekly episodes culminating in a grand finale on June 20.

If you haven't been on TikTok lately (or... ever), you might be shocked by how pervasive gaming culture has become on the platform — iconic video game music and sound effects, in particular, have taken on a whole new life. To put a ridiculous number on it, "#Gaming has over 105B views on TikTok globally."

The jbsgame.community is full of creative folks, and we??'ll be rooting for you. Make us proud.

[Full disclosure: Enthusiast Gaming is the parent compa??ny of Destructoid.]

The post Someone’s winning $25K from TikTok Gamers Got Talent, and it could be you appeared first on Destructoid.

Valve is back

Every so often we tackle dual reviews, where two authors share their takes on a game and provide a single combined score. What better game to bring that concept back than Half-Life: Alyx, the first new Half-Life game in ages.

Gather around as Chris Carter sha??res his thoughts with the Val??ve Index version of the game, while Brett Makedonski plays it on the Oculus Rift.

Half-Life: Alyx (PC [reviewed with a Valve Index and an Oculus Rift])
Developer: Valve
Publisher: Valve
Release: March 23, 2020
MSRP: $59.99

Chris Carter (Valve Index):

I still can't believe I played a new Half-Life game. It took Valve long enough, but we're here. And yes, it does feel like a new Half-Life, thank you very much!

This is 2020: we're past the era where high-profile VR games are assumed tech demos, as some recent big names have shown us. Valve is equally up to the task with Alyx, and gives us one of the most technically impressive VR games to date, especially on a high-end rig. Even something as simple as looking up at the sky through glass in its opening moments will be enough to elicit a jaw-drop from veteran VR players, and of course, those who are coming into the hobby blind. Ha, through the looking glass! I'm going to be super vague here on story details as I'm sure a lot of you have been walking on eggshells around Alyx coverage.

Whether or not you're new to VR, Alyx is extremely accessible with four difficulty settings and three movement options, all of which can be swapped at any time. Even if you go for full locomotion (read: FPS movement with the left analog stick), a clever use of a "jump" teleport mechanic allows you to easily re-orient your setup without having to back out into a main menu. Playing standing the entire time (I need to be able to instantly tur?n around!), it's one of th??e most comfortable VR experiences I've had the pleasure of being a part of.

You know what's uncomfortable (in a good way)? How creepy this game can be at times. You're not just fighting the Combine threat (which, to be frank, is a bit old at this point but they'll do), you're navigating droves of Xen creatures like Barnacles, Headcrabs and Zombies. Seeing all of these up-close, right in front of your face, is enough to scar some people for life, and frankly, reinvents them for a new era. I literally don't even look up when I get caught by a Barnacle, preferring to blind-fire my ??pistol at them: I hate them that much. Out of the 100+ VR g??ames I've played in my lifetime, this is one of the most terrifying worlds I've been a part of.

The story is a mix between things you've seen before and new developments. A [speaking] Alyx is the main star, which is possibly the most new thing on offer, but there's plenty of mostly tasteful fanservicey things sprinkled in. You have to give it to Valve though, it all feels authentic, even minute gameplay choices. Puzzles rule in Half-Life: Alyx, and I'm not even talking about the typical "hand crank" or "button pressing" lite??ral puzzles.

You can grab a giant barrel with two hands and chuck it at something then run away. Or you can stack boxes like that one scene from Home Alone 2 ("solid as a rock!") to get somewhere. All of that, which requires no jostling and no UI, is accomplished by moving your hands around in the VR space, or by naturally grabbing a??nd fli??cking items toward you with your Gravity Gloves.

So I'm coming at this from a different perspective on the technical side, which is pa?rtly why we have two reviews. I own every current major VR headset on the market, and have been playing VR games consistently since 2016. While Valve knocks it out of the park in the story departmen??t, they still have work ahead of them when it comes to VR controls. Again, Valve did a great job here, but I have a few hangups.

A lot of current VR designers are getting away from excessive menus, in an effort to keep inventory management more natural. So when you need a pistol, you grab it from your hip. If you need a shotgun, it's on your back, and an SMG is on your chest; that sort of thing. In Alyx, you need to navigate a small "+" shaped menu with a button press to swap between those three aforementioned weapons and your multi-tool (which plugs into stuff and? solves puzzles). When you're walking around, it's an annoyance at worst. During the heat of a really intense firefight, it can be a problem and hamstrings fluid combat.

That said, the two-hand system is extremely versatile, and squeezing a grenade with the Index remotes or triggering individual finger movement is wild. There was one moment where I was sticking my hand into a med bay for healing, and using the other hand to grab items in that same room while looking around. That's not something you can typically do in a non-VR game, and Valve did right by the modern VR fantasy. It feels justified as something that needs to be VR. Just a word of warning: if you're using the Index, charge your controllers between sessions! This is a long game (my first run took me 10 and a half hours, with a near 100% completion rate) and those thi??ngs can run out of juice after a long session.

My Half-Life: Alyx experience can best be described as "joy." Joy found in playing another Half-Life for the first time in...forever, and joy found in natural puzzle solving. This is legit, folks. A 10-12 hour Half-Life mig??ht finally be enough for you to spring for a VR headset.

Brett Makedonski (Oculus Rift):

Half-Life: Alyx is a Half-Life game. That's a sentence I was terrified I wouldn't be able to write. I was worried --convinced nearly -- it'd be a glorified tech demo or an impostor wearing a Half-Life mask. As it turns out, a silent man wielding a crowbar is not necessarily criteria for a Half-Life game.

Sidekick extraordinaire Alyx Vance slides into the star role's spotlight like she had been the lead woman all along. Passed the torch (crowbar?) from Gordon Freeman, Alyx leaves her own mark on Half-Life, providing observational commentary and occasionally chatting away on a two-way radio. It's natural and fitting. Valve deserves credit for having the confidence to pull off a protagonist swap, especially considering how strongly and passionately people associate Half-Life with Freeman.

However, Valve's greatest accomplishment with Alyx is that it managed to craft a narrative that's essential to the Half-Life canon. This isn't an inconsequential side-story of different people in a different time. (Remember: It takes place prior to the events of Half-Life 2.) It cleverly interjects itself into existing storylines, filling in gaps and giving new perspectives. Starting with Alyx out to save her father (Eli Vance, the name probably rings a bell) after he's abducted by the Combine, it quickly unravels into a whole bigger thing. Alyx is such an indispensable Half-Life game that I legi?timately feel bad for any fans who are without the means to have a virtual reality ??setup.

It doesn't take long with a helmet strapped to your head to understand why Valve was so insistent that Alyx be a VR game. VR truly elevates Half-Life, bringing the world of City 17 alive in incredible ways. The opening minutes had me fascinated, watchi?ng Combine patrol units police the streets. That fascination ??never waned, whether it was carefully peeking around rafters to look straight up at a barnacle's horrific maw or knocking around the heads of now twice-dead zombies like the psychopath I am.

That immersion, VR's inherent ability to place you inside worlds, is what makes Half-Life: Alyx so special. In the 15 hours it took me to get through the campaign -- I evidently played much slower than Chris -- I never once felt at ease. I had plenty of flashbacks to Resident Evil 7, as I dreaded every upcoming encounter and scrounged for resources that always seemed in perfectly short supply. More appropriately, Alyx constantly conjured memories of Half-Life 2's Ravenholm. We don't go there for a reason. Alyx is a masterclass in unnerving environment, and the whole thing ?is just so fucki?ng intense.

Virtual reality can be a double-edged sword, even if the pros definitely outweigh the cons. Valve implements an awkward weapon-wheel menu that can lead to unintended weapon swaps. It's frustrating to fail thanks to your own flailing during battle or when a particularly feisty headcrab sends you into a panic, and you switch to the wrong gun and it's out of ammo. Also, the limitations of VR are evident in the design as Half-Life: Alyx rarely sends you into large-scale battles. It'd be too calamitous and disorienting to have bullets flying at you from all directions, so Valve us?ually confines Combine fights to waves of three. It's still intimidating.

There are also obvious seams where Valve designed Alyx to cater to innovative interactions that VR affords. For instance, a new alien flora is i??ntroduced out of nowhere in service of framing a later chapter around using the tracking controls t?o avoid a hazard. It comes off as neat if not a little gimmicky. Don't worry: The rest of that chapter is superb in every way.

Although I didn't play on the Valve Index, which Alyx was specifically developed for, I didn't notice any real drawbacks to playing on the Oculus Touch controllers. It quickly becomes second nature to use the triggers for the Gravity Gloves to coolly fling things toward you, catch them, and then toss them. You'll do this many times, and you'll eventually feel like a badass when it's effortless and smooth. Oculus Rift with Touch contro??llers is a perfectly suitable and valid way to play, and that's presumably the case for the other compatible VR headsets.

Half-Life: Alyx is an accomplishment no matter which way you spin it. It's a technical marvel as a generally excellent VR game. It's a narrative triumph in how it brilliantly navigates a new protagonist to add vital pieces of canon. And, it's an incredible adaption of a cherished series to a platform that does nothing but enhance what makes it special. As I took off my headset for the last time, I found myself thinking Valve can't keep us waiting another decade-plus between games. Half-Life: Alyx reinvigorated my love for Half-Life. We can only h??ope it similarly reinvigorated Valve.

_{[This review is based on a retai??l build of the game provided by the publisher.]}

The post Review: Half-Life: Alyx appeared first on Destructoid.

Finding a licensed superhero game which stays true to the source material while still managing to be fun is ridiculously hard. Just ask a fan of Superman how they feel about the assorted attempts to bring the Man of Steel to consoles and you're likely to hear groans of contempt coupled with regretful sighs. Batman has fared ??better, with most of his games at least play??able if not necessarily good experiences.

Batman: Arkham Asylum works to? change all that and works very, very hard. Does it make up for past failures in conveying the world of Gotham's avenger? Join Conrad Zimmerman, Anthony Burch and Jim Sterling?? for the review by clicking below.

Conrad Zimmerman

Unfortunately, the biggest issue comes from the story. I started to have my doubts when the goal of Joker's grand scheme began to come into focus. Without delving into the salient plot points, it just didn't feel like the sort of plan I would have come to expect from the villain and spent more than half of the game waiting for the other clown shoe to drop. It never does, however, and Arkham Asylum suffers a bit for it.

What would otherwise be merely a missed opportunity winds up tarnishing the experience in the game's climactic final battle. This is done by continuing the main ploy out to a conclusion befitting a far less formidable foe. While it is in the very nature of the Joker as a character to be chaotic and act in unexpected ways, the actions he takes in the games' final minutes seem uncharacteristic ?and are a massive letdown in the name of creating a stereotypical "boss encounter" to finish things off.

It's a tragic conclusion to an otherwise strong plotline that succeeds in offering just enough of the Batman world without being overwhelming. While there are a few supervillains Batman must face throughout, Arkham Asylum manages to avoid an all-too-common trap by not cramming the game full with as many of the Rogues Gallery as can fit. Instead, they are sprinkled throughout at a nice, even pace and make sense in th??e context of the plot. Each character is there for a reason -- though they may not necessarily be part of Joker's plan -- and not once is there the sense that these characters exist solely to be thrown at the player.

There are, in essence, three major components which make up the gameplay. You'll spend a considerable amount of time trekking through the grounds, exploring all that Arkham Asylum has to offer. Hordes of prisoners wait for you to march in and pummel ??the consciousness out of them in combat-centric rooms while other locales? require you to employ stealth to avoid a quick death at the hands of armed inmates.

I'll be talking primarily about the combat mechanics. Exploration and stealth aspects of the game will be covered in more de?pth by Jim and Anthony respectively. To sum up my thoughts on them, I found the stealth gameplay to be excellent fun instead of simply making me tense, which is nice. Exploring the island is enjoyable to a point and a side-quest where you must find answers to Riddler's queries is neat, but it's nothing to get too excited about.

As for combat? Fighting the escaped inmates of Arkham and Blackwater Penitentiary is exceedingly fun and will make you feel like a badass. The combat controls are simplistic and satisfying, placing a greater emphasis on timing attacks than button com??binations. Batman basically has one button to attack, one for countering attacks and a third to stun enemies. Certain enemy types have restrictions on how they must be attacked -- knife-wielding foes must be stunned before being struck, for example -- but it's reasonably easy to start a chain of attacks and keep them going.

As you build a combo, Batman ceases to soften enemies up and delivers a powerful strike with each press of the attack button. The longer you can maintain a chain, the e??asier the going is as combatants drop to the floor after every attack and the more experience points (more on that in a moment) earned. Strategies exist to keep things moving on a combo for groups of inmates large and small but you can probably brute force your way through just about any encounter with the? game's thugs with little difficulty.

After about thirty seconds of getting used to the rhythm of combat, performing long strings of moves becomes second nature. On all but the hardest difficulty setting, enemies indicate when they are about to attack and should be countered so it's easy to fall into the groove of offense and defense. It feels like you're choreographing a ballet of pain as Batman drops one bad guy after another. Once the enemy types which need to be stunned or dodged before you can hurt them start showing up, battles get more challenging but that basic rhythm to fighting remains unchanged, allowing for a fluid and comfortable progression of difficulty. As you fight bad guys and solve puzzles, you'll earn experience points which fill a meter near your health. Once you've earned enough points, you'll be able to upgrade some of Batman's abilities. There is not a huge list of items to choose from, a benefit in my personal opinion but may be considered lackluster by so??me. These upgrades provide more health, some more complex attacks and improvements to Batman's gadgetry, such as a Sonic Batarang which can attract enemies to its location.

Speaking of gadgets, Batman has some excellent equipment. What's great about the gear he carries is how versatile it all is. Batarangs, the Bat-Hook and the extremely cool gel-based explosive all have multiple applications for their use. So, unlike some games where the player collects various kit and has to constantly switch between them, Arkham Asylum k??eeps the amount of item collecting down. You'll still switch inventory items somewhat frequently, but there are at least less of them to deal with and th?ey're all fun to use.

Once you've reached the conclusion of the campaign, you are free to load your saved game and return for some post-game exploration of the island. I'll let Jim explain why you might care and simply comment that while I appreciate the opportunit??y to find things that I missed the first time around without having to start a new game, Arkham is boring without anyone to fight in it. In my post-story gameplay of about three hours, I've encountered two lunatics to fight and the lack of action makes me loathe to continue.

In addition to the campaign, Arkham Asylum has a collection of "C??hallenge Maps" where you can test your skills and post scores to the leaderboards. These challenges are bite-sized chunks of specific gameplay, either brawling or stealthily clearin??g a room of enemies. They're excellent to just pick up and play after you've finished the single-player mode and will really refine your skills in the event you choose to play on a harder difficulty setting.

At the end of the day, I will admit to being angry and disappointed at the finale of Arkham Asylum and the Batman fanboy in me wants to tell you that Eidos ruined everything. Fact is, they have made a great, great game here. Even the boss battle at the end, the only thing I can honestly say I hate about this title, would probably be enjoyable provided one was willing and able to see past its relationship to the rest of the game. It is ?absolutely worth your time and money.

Score: 8.0

Jim Sterling

Conrad has pretty much covered everything so I'll be brief as I can. Batman: Arkham Asylum is a good game. It's a great game, in fact. Very few videogames come close to truly capturing what it feels like to be a particular superhero, but as? players silently stalk their prey, hang from gargoyles and screw with the minds of villains, they will truly feel as if they're donning the cowl of the Dark Knight himself. 

The game is full of incredibly memorable moments. Standout selections for me have to be the tense game of cat-and-mouse in Killer Croc's lair, the var??ious interview tapes dotted around Arkham that shed light on each villain and, of course, the improbably amazing battles against The Scarecrow. In fact, Scarecrow threatens to upstage Joker throughout the game, which is no mean feat, and as a Scarecrow fan, it's something? I appreciate immensely. 

Arkham Asylum is brilliant in places, but there are problems. For me, the biggest issue is the fact that the game is a collect-a-thon, to the point where it overwhelms. The aforementioned interview tapes are one thing. They're great to listen to. The various "Riddles" throughout the game are pretty great as well. The Riddler will send you cr??yptic clues describing various objects and scenes that you can "photograph" to earn experience points. Some of these are very clever and it can be cool to hunt them down. However, there's just so much of it. Interview tapes, Riddles, Riddler trophies, Arkham symbols, secret maps and Joker Teeth are strewn about the levels and it becomes almost disheartening trying to track them down. The game didn't need to hide behind so many secrets. This kind of busywork does not equal gameplay value to me. 

The game also suffers from a very tight camera that feels far too claustrophobic, seemingly humping Batman's back at every turn. The dark lighting of the game and the fact that enemies are difficult to make out means that most of your time will also be spent in Batman's "detective mode" which turns everything blue and highlights villains easily. As u??seful as the mode is, it's a shame that so much of the game is spent using it, since nobod?y wants to play a game that's almost entirely blue. 

These are just minor aggravations in what is, essentially, a great comic-book title. Batman: Arkham Asylum takes what you know about licen??sed videogames and then completely disregards them. It's fun, it's consistent and it's clearly been made with love and attention. And once again, let me just ad?d that Scarecrow is amazing.

Score: 8.0

Anthony Burch

Arkham Asylum is the single most fun stealth game ever made.

Period.

Yes, your enemies can sometimes feel as if they're about as aware of their surroundings as Helen Keller. Yes, the stealth sections don't become legitimately challenging until about three fourths of the way through the game. Even with these considerable faults, Arkham's stealth sequences are more briskly paced?, creatively designed, and frustration-free than those found in literally any other game I can think of.

Apart from the odd sniper plaguing the grounds outside Arkham's buildings, the stealth bits usually take place  in relatively large rooms full of gargoyles batman can grapple to, vents he can crawl through, and walls he can blast through. Where even some of the stealth genre's best games (Splinter Cell, Metal Gear Solid) typically revolve around memorizing enemy patterns and staying hidden, Arkham Asylum's stealth sequences focus more on the art of picking off enemies one by one. So long as you stay on a gargoyle, in a vent, or directly behind a grunt, you will never be spotted. Gone is the frustration of waiting thir??ty seconds for a guard to turn around before making your move, only to immediately get spotted by another guard you never saw, replaced instead by the sheer visceral thrill of glide-kicking a thug into submission from the air, spraying explosive ge?l near his body, and detonating it when his six buddies run over to check on him.

Though some of Batman's later gadgets are a bit too useful for their own good -- the multi-batarangs, in particular, are too powerful to be fun -- I had a tremendous amount of fun, both within the campaign and in the challenge rooms, experimenting with different ways to take out my enemies without being seen (one of my personal favorites: knocking out a dude near an electric door, then glide-kicking the first guy to check on him straight into the current, instantly incapacitating him). More than I would have thought possible, Arkham's stealth made me truly feel like Batman -- striking from the shadows with quick precision before grappling away, taking out enemies with a satisfying mixture of strategy and reflex. Again, the enemies do act a bit too stupid at times, which makes the stealth a bit too easy until the Joker starts forbi??dding you from using the deus ex machina-esque gargoyles more than once in a round, but even the easiest stealth sequences remain damned satisfying through the sheer Batman-esque power and creative freedom afforded to the player.

Given Arkham's satisfying-but-shallow combat, incredibly boring and repetitive bosses, and downright horrendous conclusion, I feel comfortable in saying that the stealth gameplay is the single coolest thing about the game. Or, alternately, Batman: Arkham Aslyum is the single coolest ?thing about stealth gameplay??.

On an unrelated note: if you're deciding between 360 and PS3, get the PS3 version. The Joker's combat rooms may just be a re-skin of Batman's, but his stealth gameplay is entirely different -- with a gun, a chattering-teeth bomb and no grappling hook, he could no??t feel more different  than the Dark Knight (in a good ??way) when it comes to stealth.

Score: 8.5

Overall Score: 8 -- Great (8s are impressive efforts with a few noticeable problems holding them back. Won't astound everyone, but is worth your time and cash.)

The post Review: Batman: Arkham Asylum appeared first on Destructoid.

Nobody likes Nazis. Apart from German people, obviously. That's why it's always so much fun to shoot them, and why you can't keep the Wolfenstein franchise down. id Software, Raven Software, Pi Studios and Endrant Studios all want a piece of that sweet fascist pie, with Wolfenstein for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 bei??ng the fruit of their collective labor.

Wolfenstein has been created by four studios, and most peo??ple can tell you that in terms of game development, too many cooks?? can indeed spoil the broth. Is this the case with the latest in the Reich-pounding series, or have the four studios been able to create a sense of order and efficiency that would make Heinrich Himmler proud? 

Marc?h in step with Jim Sterling and Brad Nicholson a?s they tell you.

Wolfenstein (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PC)
Developer: Raven Software, Endrant Studios, id Software, Pi Studios
Publisher: Activision
Released: August 18, 2009
MSRP: $59.99 (PS3/360) / $49.99 (PC)

Jim Sterling (Xbox 360)

Everybody knows that America s?ingle-handedly won World War II, which is why it's up to gum-chewing, stereotypical American soldier B.J Blazkowicz to save the fictional town of Isenstadt from an emerging Nazis threat. Teaming up with resistance troops, Blazkowicz must thwart Germany's latest occult dabbling, stopping them from harnessing the power of The Black Sun. Armed with a Thule Medallion that grants him special powers, Blazkowicz will liberate Isenstadt and save the world. I wish I was American!

The story is lame but easy to ignore, with the focus being primarily on guns and glory. The majority of the German troops are little more than moving targets, more than happy to be blasted in the face by y?our highly effective arsenal of weapons. Raven Software has done a great job of creating a varied and satisfying range of weapons, from standard rifles and machine guns, to more eccentric particle cannons, Tesla guns and time-slowing energy cannons of ultimate deathness.

Progression through the single player revolves around using Isenstadt as a hub, from which other areas can be traveled to. There was potential here for sandbox-style elements, multiple paths and a variety of subquests. Raven ignored all thes??e opportunities, despite employing elements such as waypoints and quest-givers, which gives the illusion of a game that's far less linear than it actually is. Players can explore the map for gold which they can spend at the Black Market and upgrade their weapons. There are also hidden Intel items around each map which shed more light on the story and can unl?ock further upgrades. 

Wolfenstein starts off rather badly, with the first few sections of the game being rather boring and as cookie-cutter as an FPS can get. Surprisingly, the poor quality of the game is not consistent, and the more Wolfenstein's campaign goes, the better it gets. What begins as a dreary and dull experience slowly, surely becomes quite exciting and satisfying. Games usually end up the other way round, so it's a nice surprise that Wolfenstein actually improves over time. 

The game's main contrition is the aforementioned Thule Medallion, which confers a number of special abilities, unlocked during the course of the campaign. Blazkowicz starts off with a power that allows him to see the world through a supernatural haze ??and see enemies better, as well as pass through secret walls. Later on, he gets the obligatory time-slowing ability, then a shield, and finally a power that increases his damage and allows him to shoot through enemy shields. These powers can also be upgraded at the Black Market. These "Veil" powers are basically culled from other shooters and collected almost as a "best-of," but there's no denying that they become essential for some of the game's tougher sections. 

Wolfenstein is mostly balanced and fair, although there are a few lazy portions of the game where the developers felt that simply throwing a ridiculous amount of goons at you was an adequate way of making the game difficult. Having to face off against respawning, ridiculously fast Nazi skeletons that can murder you in a few hits is not very fun. Fortunately, most of the game is challenging without being cheap, and the variety of enemies, such as cannon-wielding armored foes and shield-generating sc?ribes, makes for fun, slightly strategic battles.

The game is solid, but plays it very "safe" from beginning to end. It sticks to the roots of a very standard, traditional FPS, sometimes to the point where you wonder why it was made. It's certainly not as epic as Halo, as gritty as Killzone or as tight as Call of Duty. However, it's good at what it does, and what it does is stick to?? the basics and provide plenty of Nazis to shoo??t in the head and throat. Yes, throat kills are in the game, and they're as sick and gurgly as you might expect. 

The single-player is good at what it does, definitely. However, the multiplayer is another story. Worked on by Endrant and not Raven, it feels like a completely different game. The characters have no sense of weight, the combat is dull and repetitive, and the whole experience is slow, stuttering, laggy and simply badly made. Earning cash with kills to spend on upgrades is a nice touch, but ultimately there is no reason whatsoever to play it. Stick to the single player, complete it, and then consider Wolfenstein finished. 

That's the message I want to convey here. This iteration of the Wolfenstein series is a single-player game. The multiplayer is so tacked-on that it should be ignored completel?y. Fortunately, the single-player is good enough to stand on its own, and keep this game a worthwhile play. Whether its worth your actual cash is another story, but if you like shooters and hate Nazis, then there are far worse things you can do than spend time with this title. 

Score: 7.0

Brad Nicholson (Xbox 360)

This exists for the folks who think shattering Nazi faces and annihilating occult-powered creatures is a blast. Bordering on mindless, Wolfenstein takes narrative cues from a post-Return to Castle Wolfenstein universe and heaps chaotic combat on the player as if it were still the late '80s. Solid mechanics as well as the welcome addition o??f the Veil powers holds it above water in this shooter-saturated climate, but there’s nothing of substantial substance separating this from its brethren. The series’ h??allmarks and general FPS tropes shackle it.

If someone put a gun to my head and forced me to summarize this game critically in a few words -- and in this case, it's kind of like that (minus the gun) -- I would say: Wolfenstein is a bare-knuckle, mundane FPS with a bit of style and a few original and largely untapped features. Brimming with monster-closets, confined level structures, and the odd idea that almost every set-piece location needs to end with a dubious boss with an obvious environmental weakness, Wolfenstein fails to impress in the "Original Shooter" category. It exists and delivers within its basic shoot??er niche, and nothing more.  

There are several interesting, but underdeveloped mechanics present. The open-world map system that allows the player to travel freely to objectives is bloated and flat. Isenstadt possesses no unarmed peoples and offers nothing to the player in terms of extras. It functions as just another level -- filled with respawning enemies, no less -- to traverse on the way to another level to kill things in. This same idea applies to the Veil powers, which operate as additional weaponry in the quest to kill every Nazi and creature walking the streets of the universe. There are a few puzzles to use some of the powers with, b??ut the game tells you what to do and how to do it 90 percent of the time, leaving little to the imagination in terms of solving. The occult powers may have been more interesting if there were repercussions to slipping into the Veil or if usage was more limite??d in some fashion.

Underneath the gibberish narrative -- complete with senseless progression -- and the simple gib-fest combat lies a competent shooter. Wolfenstein might not do anything special, but it does deliver some raucous fights and a type of franti??c, old-s??chool experience most current-gen titles have strayed from.

The single-player component takes around seven hours to complete, but a decent-sized multiplayer portion offers some padding. Like Tides of War, it has three game modes: Objective, Stopwatch and Team Deathmatch. Objective is aptly titled: one team defends an o?bjective -- usually some sort of coveted device or object -- from the opposing team’s grasp. Stopwatch is the same thing, except ?the teams switch offensive and defensive sides in timed intervals.

In a curious move, Endrant streamlined the objective-based modes, allowing most objectives to be stolen without having to break down layers of environmental defensive structures like the wall. Engineers can still crack alternate entrances to the final objective, but their TNT role is largely ignored. And this is a shame: part of the team aspect was communicating on w??hat needs to be done within the immediate objectives. Now it’s just a mad dash to whatever shiny trinket is supposedly being protected.

Joining the Engineer are two additional character classes: the Medic and the Soldier. On top of handling explosives, the Engineer can dispense ammunition packs while the medic can fire off health packs as well as heal downed party members. The soldier just ... kills people with heavy stuff like the rocket-filled Panzerfaust.

In terms of balance, it’s brilliant. Each class brings something unique to the table. But -- and there’s always a ‘but’ with this Wolfenstein -- the sprawling, occasionally misshapen levels (there are quite a few, actually) tend to discourage the close-knit team-based play that is needed for all the class benefits to have an effect. Finding an ammunition pack is rou??gh work in the majority of the environments, even if you’re crying for one. And that also feeds into the player count -- t??his game is six-on-six maximum.

The netcode struggles under the weight of the small player count. E?very match will have some sort of latency, varying from impossible-to-play to discouraging. Perhaps knowing that the code base was bad, Raven Software pulled back the visuals in this mode, killing?? the sheen and the majority of the detail work on the character models. It looks so last-generation that I actually thought something was wrong with my console. Pixelated blood and frame-stripping is something we shouldn’t see in a non-retro FPS.

On the upside, there are decent weapons and a Veil progression system behind the action. Killing foes and taking objectives yields cold, hard gold that can be spent on numerous upgrades. Spending cash requires an iron stomach. The frequent disconnects, poor visuals, and latency-ridden play soil an underwhelming mode, completely inferior to all the other Wolfenstein titles. It feels dated, just like t?he SP component, and while fun can be had, there isn’t much in terms of nuance. It's ju?st a shooter.

Score: 6.5

Overall Score: 7.0 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

The post Review: Wolfenstein appeared first on Destructoid.

Telltale games kicked off their Tales of Monkey Island episodic series with a bang in "Launch of the Screaming Narwhal." We came away very impressed with the inaugural effort??, praising its wit and gameplay and firmly recommending a purchase.&n?bsp;

Today, the second episode in the series, T"he Siege of Spinner Cay" is available for download. We managed to get our grubby mitts on it and give it a run through. Can it hit the high bar set by its predecess?or or does it come up short? Read on as Conrad Zimmerman and Brad Nicholson deliver a review.

The Siege of Spinner Cay (WiiWare, PC [reviewed])
Developer: Telltale Games
Publisher: Telltale Games
Released: August 20, 2009
MSRP: $34.95 for the full season on PC / 1000 Wii points per episode

Conrad Zimmerman

"The Siege of Spinner Cay" picks up right where Launch of the Screaming Narwhal left off. Having unwittingly released a voodoo pox ??upon the Carribbean, Guybrush is on his way to the Jerkbait Islands to learn the secrets of La Esponja Grande, a magical sea sponge purported to have the power to cure the rapidly spreading ailment. Meanwhile, he continues to be pursued by The Marquis De Singe who is determined to have the mighty pirate's pox-infected hand. And what exactly is going on between Elaine and LeChuck, anyway?

The story this time around is passable, but doesn't off?er much in the way of a payoff. This episode seems to be predominately focused on planting seeds for future chapters in the tale. This is fine, but results in a bit of a lull after a much stronger opening to the series. Taken on its own, it is not particularl?y compelling.

It's still funny, at least. Spinner Cay has considerably less fan service than the previous installment, allowing the humor to stand on its own without relying on established jokes. For the most part, it can, though I wonder exactly ?how much longer Telltale intends to drag out a running gag involving Guybrush's pyrite parrot because I'm starting to get a little tired of it by this point.

Gameplay remains unchanged in this chapter, which should come as no surprise. That said, there are som?e issues which did not manifest themselves as severely in episode one. First is the travel map. Guybrush has quite a bit of ground to cover in this game. The Jerkbait Islands consist of a cluster of three landmasses which can be traveled between by raft.

The largest of these islands features a jungle similar in nat??ure to that of previous games in the series. There's no need to follow a convoluted route to reach anything (thank God) but it would have been nice to provide a faster mode of travel between significant screens in the jungle after you've been there the first time, as has typically been done. The lack?? of one makes wandering through the same screens over and over monotonous and a bit annoying, especially if you're getting frustrated with a puzzle.

As is often the case in a Monkey Island game, puzzles largely revolve around using or combin?ing items to accomplish a goal. Once more, nothing about the puzzles is out of the reach of the player. All puzzles have pretty clear solutions and a little tinkering with items in your inventory will usually provide some insight if you're lost. That is, of course, provided you have the items you need.

On several occasions, I completely missed something I needed to pick up. In most instances, this is totally due to inobservance on my part but there are a couple th??at I failed to find due to the environments. I should not have to scan the mouse over every bit of screen in case something can be interacted with and there are items that are small enough and blend in with the environment enough that they struck me as being far too easy to overlook, even when I have a very good idea of what it is I'm looking for.

Finally, I had some trouble with the mouse controls for the game, something which I found to work to my satisfaction in Launch of the Screaming Narwhal. The mouse felt unresponsive in some areas of the game and in others Guybrush would walk in the complete opposite direction than the one I was drag??ging my mouse. Eventually, I abandoned the mouse altogether for movement out of annoyance.

These problems would be easier to overlook if the content of the story were strong. Since it is not, it's drawn them into sharp relief and make the game feel somewhat disappointing. I'm hopeful that the series will come back with a vengeance in episode three, but The Siege of Spinner Cay is not what I had expected from Tales of Monkey Island after such an excellent beginning.

Score: 6

Brad Nicholson

Last month’s chapter was a tight narrative-driven experience. Oozing charm and stroking nostalgia with iconic characters and interesting puzzles, it pushed all the right buttons for fans of the no-longer-so-forgotten franchise. This chapter isn’t so different. It’s obvious that the devs spent some time with the Special Edition re-release of Monkey Island because of numerous throwbacks -- “How appropriate, you fight like a cow! -- to the original. A steady stream of funny lines, several compelling plo??t reveals and numerous clever puzzles complete the package, but a few bad design choices pollute this otherwise borderline good chapter.

Total Score: 6.5 -- Alright (6s may be slightly above average or simply inoffensive. Fans of the genre should enjoy them a bit, but a fair few will be left unfulfilled.)

The post Review: Tales of Monkey Island, Chapter 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

After a short run against the Washington Redskins, the dreaded notice came up: “B. [Brandon] Jacobs is going to be evaluated by team doctors.” The New York Giants subbed in their smaller, faster running back, Ah??mad Brads?haw, while I sat on the edge of my seat, wondering if Jacobs was going to be okay. After two or three plays, a graphic informed me that Jacobs had suffered a strained hip, and that I could put him back in the game -- although the risk of re-injury was “medium.”

I took a chance and brought him back in. On the next play, I called an off-tackle run to the right side, figuring I’d test his hip for any adverse effects. Jacobs took the handoff from quarterback Eli Manning and ran to the right, toward the open field. A Redskins cornerback attempted to arm-tackle the big man, but Jacobs brushed off the defender and continued forward. A few yards later, two Redskins grabbed hold of him, and then another one added himself to the pile. All the while, Jacobs kept his legs churning??, trying to gain a few extra ??yards.

The first defender lost his grasp on Jacobs; that lapse allowed the halfback to break free, and then he was off to the races. But I noticed, with a mix of amazement and concern, that Jacobs’ gait had, indeed, been affected by the strained hip. He was running like a deer that had been wounded in the leg, clutching the injured hip with his free hand while running as fast as he could down the sideline. He scored, and to celebrate, I somersaulted into the end zone. (Watch it all unfold here.)

The story that Samit just related is only possible in two places -- real life, and EA Sports’ Madden NFL 10. It proves the degree of dedication of EA Tiburon, the development team, to their motto: “if you see it on Sunday, you’ll see it in Madden NFL.” How well did they succeed? Find out below, where Brad Nicholson and Samit Sarkar review Madden NFL 10 with an assist from Destructoid’s Video Director, Rey Gutierrez. (For Samit and Brad’s initial impressions, head here.)

Madden NFL 10 (PS3 [reviewed], 360 [reviewed], Wii, PS2, PSP)
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
Released: August 14, 2009

Samit Sarkar (PlayStation 3 version)

Sports simulations need to offer great gameplay, to be sure, but to provide a top-notch, accurate simulacrum of a sport, I always say that a game needs to get “the little things” right. This fastidiousness is demanded by sports fans, and with Madden NFL 10, EA Tiburon delivers the goods. Hand towels for quarterbacks; team-specific colors on cleats and gloves; Super Bowl patches on jerseys; proper placement of single-digit numbers on certain teams’ helmets -- these are the kinds of details that Tiburon has added this year, and while they may seem insignificant, they each bring Madden one step closer to the NFL.

Tiburon completely changed up the presentation in Madden 10. Gone are the labyrinthine menus of years past; options have been reorganized so their placement is more logical. Games themselves now feature loads of cut scenes ?that bring a broadcast-style look to the proceedings -- for example, you might see fans buying merchandise or filing into the stadium. And the playcall screen has been streamlined so you can see the field while you’re picking?? a play. All seven referees can be seen on the field; they’ll collaborate on decisions (like whether or not you got a first down or crossed the plane of the end zone) and call in the chain gang. Everything has been designed to increase your immersion in the football experience.

The developers gave the on-the-field action the same boost in realism as everything else. Quarterbacks have specific throwing animations, so Ben Roethlisberger’s arm motion in the game looks like, well, his real-life throwing motion. After an “almost” play -- where the last man tackled a guy to save a touchdown -- the guy will pound the ground with his fist while he’s getting up, as if to say, “Damn!” But easily the most significant gameplay improvement is the new Pro-Tak animation system. It&rsquo?;s not just a marketing buzzword; this is a true game-cha?nger, the most important addition to the franchise in years (perhaps since the Hit Stick and Playmaker).

Pro-Tak allows for up to nine players to be involved in a gang tackle. Players can procedurally be added to a pile, and the player being tackled still has control over what happens. In my Brandon Jacobs story, I was able to break free because Jacobs has very high “strength,” “break tackle,” and “trucking” ratings, and because I kept pushing the right analog stick for??ward. Just like in the NFL, a runn?ing back can keep his legs moving, and if he’s strong enough, he can move the pile to get those few extra yards for a first down. But if the pile is moving him backward, and he’s still up, the referees will blow the play dead.

More realism from Pro-Tak comes in the form of “procedural steering,” where offensive linemen can “steer” defensive linemen to the outside, thus allowing for the formation of an actual pocket for the quarterback. That’s never been in a football videogame before, and gamers are going to have to get used to not dropping back 20 yards as soon as they snap the ball. Tiburon has also implemented animation blending for the quarterback. In the past, if he was hit while throwing, he’d either get the ball off or tuck the ball as the sack animation began. In Madden 10, you’ll see plenty?? of lame duck throws where t?he ball pops into the air -- maybe too many, in fact.

Another important change this year is the game speed, which Tiburon turned down (the default in the options menu is “slow”). At long last, you actually have the time to hit a hole before it closes up and scan your receivers before the rush gets to you. But Tiburon’s most pervasive change is the overhauled ratings system. The game contains more ratings than ever, like separate short, medium, and deep accuracy numbers for quarterbacks, and the dev team spr??ead out all the ratings. There’s a palpable difference between the elite players and the middling ones; you’ll have a much tougher time taking your team to the top if your starting quarterback gets injured and you’re forced to u??se your 67-rated backup QB.

In other words, the ratings matter this year. Not only that, but teams will play like their real-life counterparts. The Vikings will run it down ?your throat with Adrian Peterson, while the Dolphins wi??ll sprinkle in the wildcat with Ronnie Brown. You’ll have to adjust your game plan for each game, just like NFL coaches do every week.

Unfortunately, a few nagging issues from past Madden games remain, and?? new ones have cropped up. Receivers still don’t seem to have proper sideline logic; I’ve yet to see anyone make an effort to get his feet in??-bounds. Tom Hammond’s commentary is barely serviceable -- and sometimes inaccurate -- which is a shame, since his booth partner, Cris Collinsworth, is such a good analyst. The game also has a strange preponderance of penalties on extra points (usually holding or false starts). I once saw an opponent suffer three straight holding calls on a PAT, so a 19-yard chip shot turned into a 49-yard long shot. And though this is rare, the game’s frame rate will stutter at times.

Tiburon has also introduced major new options in the online arena. Two first-time features are online co-op and online franchise, the latter of which is something gamers have clamored for since Madden went online. Co-op is a great addition, allowing less experienced players to tag along with a Madden veteran and help out with a victory. It’d be nice if playcalling wasn’t left only to the host, though. And while online franchise doesn’t have all the bells and whistles of t?he offline mode -- for example, there’s no salary cap or CPU trade logic -- just the fact that it exists and works is an achievement. Tiburon is even putting out an iPhone app for online franchise that will let you manage your franchise completely from the device.

With all of Tiburon’s tweaks and additions, Madden NFL 10 is the first entry in the franchise on current-generation consoles that I can unequivocally recommend. Yes, we say each year that “this is the best Madden yet,” but the improvements that Madden 10 offers over Madden NFL 09 are vast. In fact, aside from a new console generation, Madden 10 might provide the most significant year-over-year upgrade in the 21-year history of the series. Even gamers who have been wishing for a sequel to ESPN NFL 2K5 will be impressed, and for a football fan, buying this year’s Madden is a no-brainer.

Score: 9.5

Brad Nicholson (Xbox 360 version)

For better or worse, change represents the Madden franchise. Madden NFL 09 was an attempt to make the simulation approachable. The persistent difficulty modifier Madden IQ was introduced, as well as the mulligan option, Rewind. While these changes to the core game have been kept, the emphasis has been reduced. This Madden represents a change of direction, a complete U-turn from the casual-infused version from last year. This one is all about realism, and please, fuhgeddabout how scary that word sounds. Madden NFL 10 isn’t a snore fest. It has plenty of pop and more? zing than a typical Texans vs. Raiders match-up.

I think of the realism as spice, the perfect fusion of cumin, paprika and chili powder on any respectable pork dry rub. It’s a subtle layer of taste on top of meat that has its own unique flavor. The added detail and depth don’t impede the pace or cheapen the thrills -- they enhance. Ball carriers can be gang tackled. Loose balls can cause tremendous pile-ups. Pockets collapse more quickly. Receivers attempt to stay in bounds better. More low-thrown balls are tipped. And the list of stuff goes?? on.

The point is that these touches sit on top of an already solid engine. They flesh out the experience and make this year’s offering not only one of the sharpest on-field football games, but the best so far. If you were able to fake out your mother with Madden NFL 07, give her a taste o?f this one. This is the ?closest that an NFL football videogame has gotten to an NFL football game.

Scribble the realism in as a result of the new procedural animations. Players can slip tackles, push through blockers, and evade with realistic fluidity. And if there are too many players near the ball, well, the carrier is going nowhere. The right?? stick is the catalyst to this new system. For example, you can use the right analog stick to steer the big boys in the trenches around or through offensive players post-snap. Not only is it more fluid, but it’s a more intelligent method of getting to the ball handler than the aged mashing the shoulder buttons and hoping for a snappy victory route. It’s the inverse for the running back. Bruisers can run through a crowd, struggle for that extra yard and realistically evade grabbing hands with a slight flick of the stick.

As for the passing game, I’ve noticed that wide receivers run their routes more predictably, even if they are jammed at the line. Deep defenders don’t get as silly post-snap anymore either -- they’ll stick with the play, eliminating the consistently annoying deep ball threat on every snap from last year. W?hile you can still bomb it and get lucky, the rough and tumble world of the line makes it harder to pull off the miracle throws and immaculate receptions. Pockets collapse in a short time like they really do, and more importantly, QB accuracy takes a dive once outside the safety of their offensive line. No more insane bullet passes from 40 yards behind the line of scrimmage.

On a defensive note, DB AI has been toned down. The guys in back no longer possess a third eye. While they’ll still slap down sloppily thrown passes, their awareness is cued on the receiver they’re covering, not where the ball is. Deep passes still have a tendency to draw a crowd, but I’ve yet to have a classic Madden game wher??e I throw one touchdown ??and six interceptions.

If I do throw six INTs, it’s because I’m using a garbage QB, and we all know there’s plenty of them in the league. This game reflects that. The rankings system has been overhauled. Bad players have bad rankings and the mediocre to good ones don’t have outstanding stats, either. This is across the board -- most proven players are where they should be for once. I still have a hard time swallowing that Ma?rk Sanchez’s 78, but future roster updates should smack him down if he plays like the rookie that he will be this year.

I’ve spent the majority of my time fiddling with Franchise mode. It has all of the features from last year with a few additions. At the end of every season you get the opportunity to do major Front Office stuff like renovating stadiums or even moving your team to a brand new location. Also, at the end of the season, player stats will rise and decrease due to a variety factors that I’m in the dark about. One of the coolest things I’ve not??iced is the addition of special cut-scenes for big victories in the playoffs, most notably the Super Bowl. You’ll get to see the MVP and the coach lift the Lombardi trophy amidst a shower of confetti. It’s a much-needed touch, but also a janky one. Most cut-scenes in the game -- QB on the phone, Lombardi-raising, fans celebrating or evacuating the stadium, etc., -- are full of visual anomalies and all-around awkwardness. The concepts are fine, but the execution is poor.

?On the presentation side, I think the little NFL Network halftime show, as well as the weekly update, is too flat and robotic. It’s much easier on the ears to simply read about who won what game and performed what feats in the leagues.

The online stuff works -- both the exhibition and the online franchise stuff. I’m no fan of Madden online. Players can still relentlessly fiddle with routes and shoot whatever gaps they desire in zone coverages, as well as “game” man-on-man stuff. I just don’t have the patience to play against the Madden elite, so I haven’t explored the m?ode as much ??as I have everything else.

You won’t do yourself wrong if you buy this year’s title, especially if you’re down for the single-player experience. The improve?ments -- the tackling, the animations, the authenticity in general -- work together to make this one of the best football titles ever created. There’s no reason not to own this thing if you’re looking for a videogame that recreates the NFL experience in a fun, immersive, and competitive way.

Score: 9

Overall Score: 9.25 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)

The post Review: Madden NFL 10 appeared first on Destructoid.

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: Samit Sarkar and Brad Nicholson have spent the past few days playing EA Sports’ Madden NFL 10, and they’re here to give you their initial thoughts. This isn’t the full review; that will be coming sometime next week, after we’ve been able to try out the game&??rsquo;s online modes in real-world conditions.

So what do we think so far -- is Madden 10 a new be??nchmark for virtual footbal??l, or is it just another annual iteration of the long-running franchise? Hit the jump to find out.

Samit Sarkar (PlayStation 3)

Right now, I’d much rather be playing Madden NFL 10 than writing this. That sentence alone should give you a good idea of how I feel about the 21st year of Madden football. This is the first Madden game since Madden NFL 2005 back on th?e PS2 that I’ve had to tear myself away from -- and while that’s probably at least partly due to a thirst for football in my life (and anticipation of the impending NFL preseason), I still can’t de??ny that EA Tiburon has made a damn good football game.

Presentation is one of the key facets of Tiburon’s overhaul of the Madden franchise. The developers strove for a broadcast simulacrum, and it shows. Numerous all-new interstitial shots -- such as a pre-game USAF Thunderbirds flyover, and players high-fiving fans while walking into the locker room at halftime -- give the game? a TV-style look that has never before been achieved in the series. This is?? complemented by The Extra Point, a show in the Franchise mode in which NFL Network analysts Fran Charles and Alex Flanagan go through the week’s matchups and highlights.

The Extra Point also provides a halftime report, which lists scores and statistics from ??your Franchise game and others from that week. It’s a nice addition to the series, but it could do with some fleshing out and less r??obotic dialogue. Still, the show still goes a long way toward bringing your Sunday TV experience into videogame form.

Not only is this the best-looking Madden yet -- it’s the best-playing one, too. Tiburon’s hard work on tuning gameplay, with the help of new tech for things like gang tackling and offensive linemen that actually form a pocket, brings a more realistic game than ever before. Streamlined controls also improve the experience, as the right analog stick takes center stage for both offensive and defensive maneuvers. For die-hard football fans, pre-snap options abound on both sides of the ball -- you can shift your O-line to help with an outside run, and finally, you ?can once again change an individual defender’s actions.

I have experienced some strange stuttering issues -- it’s not a question of frame rate during play, but sometimes, there will be some hitches in the pre- and post-play action. So I’ll stress that I’ve only been able to play for about five or six hours; my feelings might change as I dig deeper. But from what I’ve seen so far, Madden NFL 10 is definitely going to be worth a purch??ase when it comes out this Friday, August 14th??.

Brad Nicholson (Xbox 360)

Year after year, EA Tiburon does something special with the latest release. I don’t need to read press materials to know that this year’s focus was on realism. It’s a departure from last year’s NFL 2K-inspired arcade ratings and casual friendliness. A stunning amount of new animations have been introduced. Receivers catch the ball wi?th believable fluidity, runners rush with realistic agility, and tacklers crush in a variety of wild ways. A few old unrealistic issues have been tuned as well. Kickoff formations have a single designated receiver and man-chains form if the ball hangs in the air long enough. You can also return missed field goals, as well as push tackles into offensiv??e linemen for greater penetration.

Nothing gets me more excited as an NFL fan than watching the new gang tackling system in motion. Roving defensive players swarm to the?? ball carrier as usual, but now more than one man makes the tackle, and you’re allowed to fight against the pile with right stick. As realistic as it sounds, it has its arcade moments. Big backs like Brandon Jacobs can push a pile with six defenders a little too far.

One of the classic problems I’ve had is with the lack of defensive autonomy. This year, most defensive movements post-snap are controlled with the left analog stick. For the first time in a long time (since NFL 2K5, really) I feel like I’m an active participant on t??he defense. I’m no longer just ??watching the game unfold.

My time with the game has been short. I&?rsquo;ve spent approximately six hours fiddling with the Franchise Mode, playing with the salary cap and generally figuring it out. I haven’t noticed anything new of special value from last year, but I did notice that player training has been removed from the game. You can’t bump your stats through weight lifting, or seemingly, through play. I’m in Week 10 of the first season and none of my rookies have improved -- eve?n the ones I rely on and use heavily.

In a few words, I’m happy with this year’s version. It’s better than last year (my review should give you an indication of the barometer), but still not perfect. If you’re a Madden fanatic, there’s no reason to avoid this. It&rsqu??o;s not 2007, for s?ure.

The post First impressions: Madden NFL 10 appeared first on Destructoid.

Gonna take you for a ride. Dear God, that song. Some of us have had it stuck in our heads for nearly a decade now, and if you haven't, let us be the first to welcome you to our little club with the release of Marvel vs. Capcom 2 on XBLA ?earlier this week. The Xbox 360's custom soundtrack feature has n?ever been so appreciated.

After nine years of physical rarity and outlandishly high resale prices on eBay, Capcom's legendary fighter is back in the hands of the veteran brawlers who remember its heyday, and readily available for the first time to an eager new generation. But that song. Is it worth being ??subjected to that horrible song?

Perhaps more importantly, is it worth doing so again if you already have in the past? T??opher Cantler an?d Jonathan Holmes will tackle that question after the jump with their full review of the game.

Marvel vs. Capcom 2 (Xbox LIVE Arcade [Reviewed], PlayStation Network)
Developer: Capcom / Backbone Entertainment
Price: 1200 MS Points / $14.99
Released: July 28, 2009

Topher Cantler

My second-favorite fighter of all time returns. Here we are. Whether you last played MvC2 while gathered around the Dreamcast with friends or st??anding at a cabinet in an?? arcade with complete strangers, it's probably been a while. You're wondering what's new or not new with the port, and we'll get to you in a minute. First, however, we've got some out there who've never played it at all.

If you consider yourself a reasonably serious fan of fighting games, and have never played Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you owe this to yo??urself. It's already been established for years as one of the most fun and important titles to have under your belt, and there are some who might even revoke your right to talk shop about fighters at all if you haven't at least given it a shot. If you already dig 2D fighters, you will most likely love this. Go spend your 15 buc?ks and enjoy your awesome new game.

Now back to those of you who are already familiar with MvC2. You'll be happy to know that what you're getting here with the game itself is almost exactly what you remember; only now it's wider, considerably better-looking and connected to the internet. The character sprites, while unchanged, look as crisp and beautiful as they're going to get, and the new menus and interface are razor sharp. The original semi-polygonal stage backgrounds and anything that doesn't fall into the former categories is now in HD, not unlike what we saw with the Ikaruga port. The game has never looked better.

What's not looking so good is the prospect of an engaging single player mode. If you owned the Dreamcast version, you might have fond memories of the game's "Secret Factor" or character shop, where you could unlock new fighters a?nd alternate costume colors with the points you'd acquired through Training Mode. This whole experience, for some reason,? is gone.

From the moment you first boot up the game, every character in its vast roster is already unlocked. This is nice, because it a??llows you to ju?mp right in with a friend and immediately start handing each other's asses back and forth on a silver platter with whoever your old mains happened to be. But at the same time, it's not so nice if you wanted to play alone. There's still a Training Mode, but gone is the points system that was once there to lure you into bothering with it.

The old trick was to enter Training Mode and leave the Dreamcast running overnight. You'd wake up a millionaire and then unlock a few characters at a time with all your ill-gotten points. It was fun. It was sneaky. It was the single player experience. All you've got in this port is Arcade Mode, and with only a few achievements relating to it, (beat the game with a Street Fighter-themed team, for instance), there isn't a lot of incentive to go solo. But I suppose you already? went through all that unlocking once, right? And God knows you can't leave your 360 running overnight, unless you want to wake up to your house on fire.

What you're buying is effectively a multiplayer game, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Especially when the network performance has so far proven to be just about flawless. There's a bit of weird stuttering on the character selection screen that might give you some initial doubts, but once it's go time, there appears to be nothing but smooth sailing. After 20 or so matches online with friends near and far, and strangers from who knows where, I've experienced almost no lag whatsoever, aside from maybe a split-second framerate hiccup. I'm both surprised and impressed with how well it performs under pressure. It's a shame whatever new alien technology they've discovered didn't exist in time for Backbone to apply it to Super Puzzle Fighter's lousy netcode.

While I'm thrilled with the graphical update and the outstanding network performance, something I'm far less pleased with is the very limited options for controller layout. The game lets you map two punches, two kicks, and two assists. End of story. Regardless of what type of controller you plan to use, that leaves two buttons unemployed. It might not be as irritating if you're playing with a standard 360 controller, but if you're using a six-button fightpad like me or an arcade stick like most other people, those two buttons are right there. With nothing to do. Controllers have grown an extra pair of buttons in their evolution since the Dreamcast, and it would have been nice if we could map the oft-used "both kicks" or "both punches" command to them. Or taunts. Or, you know, anything.

This is especially disappointing after SFIV's controller options, which let you do ??pretty much whatever the hell y?ou want. Sure, you can map a single command to two buttons, but that's ... well, dumb. And it's dumb that there are other perfectly available commands in the game that can't be mapped to anything when you've got two buttons out of a job. That was stupid, Capcom. And I'm mad at you.

That foolish oversight aside, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is still as fantastic as it's ever been -- more so now that you can beat up on your ??pals without leaving the house, and beat up on strangers without lugging around a pocket full of quarters.

Some might disagree??, but 15 bucks to rock out online with a much prettier version of one of the greatest fighting games ever made sounds like a pretty good deal to me. And so far, that's exactly what it's been. Suck on it, eBay.

Score: 8.5

Jonathan Holmes

You know, it gives me chills to be involved with the review of a game this monumental. Nearly ten years after its release, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 retains the title of most large scale, hyper-kinetic game in the 2D fighting genre. When games like Tekken and Soulcalibur had all but taken over the arcade fighting game market, Marvel vs. Capcom 2 kept 2D fighters from becoming irrelevant. More importantly, it never gave in to predictability or cliches. This is the game where a cactus man can casually eat Captain America while Jill Valentine offers a mixed herb to Thanos; the death-crazed wielder of the infinity gauntlet. For fighting games, or videogames in general, this is as far from cli?che as it gets.

A few points for people who've never played the game: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 is huge, insane, and almost universally appealing. The game features 52 playable characters, which provides more than enough choice for anybody. We're talking everything from the adorable, LEGO-looking Servbot, to a sex hungry succubus, to Marrow, a woman who rips bones out of her own body and then cuts your throat with them. There are a few characters here that are pretty much palette swaps, like Iron Mon and War Machine, or Wolverine and "totally 90s bone-claw" Wolverine, but for the most part, all the characters here look and play very differently. Perhaps more importantly, they play like they should, given who these iconic characters are. Wolverine has his healing factor, Juggernaut really is unstoppable, Jill Valentine shows us the Tyrant, and Mega Man comes equipp?ed with robotic dog and? leaf shield. Love them or hate them, you can't deny that the game's roster is legit.

"Hate them, you say?" Yes friends, it's true, a lot of people think this game sucks. Some say it's too "scrubby", as the "dial-a-chain" combo system is extremely accessible (and for a lot of people, fighting games should be anything but accessible). Others say the game is too unbalanced, and really, what do you expect from a game with fifty-two characters? Fans of the fighting scene know that there are a five or six "top tier" characters in Marvel Vs Capcom 2 that almost everyone in serious tournament play uses, while the remaining forty-six are left to take the role of? punching bag. Sadly, that's the way it is with most fighting games, but with this one, critics have been historically quite bitter.

Then there is the music. Um... Wow. Even fans of the game's soundtrack will tell you that it sounds positively satanic, but not in the metal sort of way. It's this soundtrack that really sets Marvel Vs Capcom 2 apart from Capcom's other "Superhero rave" titles. For instance, in Marvel Vs Capcom 1, when Strider jumps onto the scene, music from the Strider arcade game plays on cue. In Marvel Vs Capcom 2, it doesn't matter who's on screen, you're going to get the same synth-jazz and/or a woman crooning about "your body". Its hard to fault the game for its wildly inappropriate soundtrack, because really, what is appropriate for a game where a semi-sexy monkey girl blows kisses-that-turn-into-monkeys in the general direction of a giant, tentacle-enriched eye?ball from outer space? For an event like that, pop music from hell fits just as well as anything else.

All of these "faults" wont mean a thing to those who play fighting games for, you know, fun. Marvel Vs Capcom 2's beginner-friendly fighting system, familiar characters, and sheer eye candy make the game a worth while purchase for anyone with even a passing interest in the genre. As for depth, some still believe the game to be bottomless. Personally, I've been playing it off and on for nearly ten years, and I feel like I'm still getting better at it. Even if I weren't, I'd still come back just to look at the thing. Marvel Vs Capcom 2 acts as sort of a "best of" collection of all of?? Capcom's CPS-2 era sprite work. The amount of individual frames of animation here is just staggering. There are a few weak links (Thanos in particular looks pretty under-cooked), but classic Capcom CPS-2 sprite-sets like Cyclops, Strider, Wolverine, and Captain Commando are all here, and are pretty much required study for anyone who wants to understand sprite animation.

I agree with Topher that the lack of unlockables make this port of Marvel Vs Capcom 2 feel a little flat in the single player department. Still, after all these years, I have more fun playing Marvel Vs Capcom 2 alone than I do with any other 2D fighter on the market today (as long as you don't consider the currently import-only Tatsunoko Vs Capcom to be 'on the market'). There are so many characters here that no two matches ever feel the same, so replayibility isn't really an issue. Also, credit must given to the game's final boss, who provides a battle that feels truly climactic every time you face him. It's sort of shameful to see Marvel Vs Capcom 2 outclass modern fighters like SF4, BlazBlue and KoF XII in the "unplayable last ???boss who truly blows your mind" department, but then again, times (and expectations) really have changed when it comes to 2D fighters.

I'd say that only one or two of today's 2D fighting games can hold a candle to the level of craftsmanship and content to be found in Marvel Vs Capcom 2. It's truly a product of a bygone era; and an era that I sorely miss. Now don't go thinking that it's retro-goggles that have me scoring Marvel Vs Capcom 2 so high. I'm not blind to the game's flaws. It's just that none of those flaws bothered me when the game?? first came out, and t?hey still don't bother me now.

This is a mu??st-own game for fans of Marvel, Capcom, or fighting games in general. I bought it on XBLA, and I plan to buy it again when it drops on PSN in a few weeks, and I'd buy the damn thing again if it ever came to the Wii. It's just that goo?d.

Score: 9

Final Score: 9.0 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)

The post Review: Marvel vs. Capcom 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

The brawler was looking like a type of game that would never return, thanks to the evolving tastes of gamers and demand for more complex, deeper control schemes. Fortunately, digital distribution has come along, and the need for smaller, simpler, bite-sized titles has seen the old-fashioned brawler enjoy a few revivals, most notably the critically acclaimed Castle Crashers.

Vogster's Unbound Saga is a dyed-in-the-wool beat-'em-up. Those who grew up with Streets of Rage or Final Fight will instantly feel right at home, which is helped in no small part by the Comix Zone aesthetic. 

However, while Unbound Saga has used everything good about this thoroughly retro genre, it's also kept everything bad. Read on as Jim Sterling and Nick Chester pull no punches and review this ??downloadable comic book beat-'em-up.

Unbound Saga (PSP download)
Developer: Vogster Entertainment
Publisher: Vogster Entertainment
Released: July 16, 2009
MSRP: $14.99

Jim Sterling:

Unbound Saga tells the story of Rick Ajax, a self-aware comic book character who hates the many adventures he's forced to embark upon by The Maker -- the comic artist th??at has illustrated ??his fate over the years. Rick's plan is to track and do battle with The Maker, teaming up with a violent and inappropriately dressed girl called Lori along the way. 

It's a simple premise, with a few ideas lifted from the aforementioned Comix Zone, but it's carried off with a sense of humor and enough clever writing to remain interesting. The very first line, "I had that dream again. The one about the rabbits and their M?olotov cocktails," was a laugh-out-loud moment, helped along by Rick's dry and weary delivery every time he speaks. 

The silly humor carries through into the enemy designs. Bears wearing aprons, hobos that think you stole somebody's liver and ninjas that wear shells on their backs in a crude homage to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are just some of the enemies that Rick an?d Lori will have to face, and their dialog is worth the occassional smirk. 

As we said at the top of this review, you know exactly where you are in terms of gameplay if you've ever been into an old-school beat-'em-up. While there are more complex combos to unlock during the course of the game, the meat and potatoes of Unbound Saga is the endless hammer?in??g buttons to punch, kick and throw enemies around each level. 

The combat is simplistic, but repetitive, so if you don't have the patience for endless beatings, then you'll probably not find what you're looking for here. Those of us that remember a simpler time, however, will c??ertainly enjoy the game for the several hours of violent action that it brings. Your moves are governed by an energy meter, that depletes at a minuscule pace for general attacks, but can drop considerabl??y for more powerful moves.

Despite the general focus on violent fun, there are issues. In transporting the simplistic enjoy??ment of brawlers to the modern age, so too has Vogster transported all the frustrating aspects of such games. Things get very annoying with the amount of merciless enemies thrown at you. The trouble here is that Rick is so slow, and Lori so hard to land a hit with, that you get a sense of constant irritation from battles. Picking people and objects up takes an inordinate amount of time, and one punch causes Rick to drop anything he's carrying, leading to ridiculous moments where you keep picking up and dropping stuff. The slightly skewed perspective of the game makes it difficult to line up attacks and the slow movement can get quite tiresome.

The moments where you're forced to play as one character could also have been done without. Lori starts the game incredibly weak, unable to weather much of an attack at all until she ??upgrades her skills. It's natural then, that you?? have to play as her in key moments during the early portion of the game, then play as Rick just as soon as Lori becomes able to hold her own. 

The game can be difficult at times, through ?sheer weight of enemy numbers, but it eases up once you start raising your skills. Tokens are collected throughout the game that can be spent on various abilities, such as a healing power for Lori, or a range of brutal grapple attacks for Rick. The combo attacks feel like a waste of tokens, especially as they are less deadly than Lori's jump attack and Rick's slams, yet seem to take more energy to perform. Some ?of Lori's Ninjitsu powers are terrific, however. 

Unbound Saga looks pretty good, it has to be? said, possessing a gritty comic book feel that doesn't look obtusely cel-shaded. The way each enemy is sketched in by The Maker, and explodes in a shower of paper upon death, is quite classy, and there are even simplistic rag doll physics to keep things looking silly. As hinted earlier, the voice talent is damn good as well, which really helps keep?? the game entertaining up to its predictable, yet satisfying conclusion. 

Unbound Saga is a good game, and as a fifteen-dollar download, is a more than worthy look for beat-'em-up fans. Just be aware that it can feel needlessly frustrating a lot of the time, and those with a low tolerance for repetition will want to steer clear. If you grew up with these sorts of games, however, then Unbound Saga should really be in your collection.

Score: 7.5

Nick Chester:

It’s hard to disagree with anything Jim says in his assessment -- Unbound Saga is what it is. It’s a classic beat-’em-up game, but one that takes little chances or breaks any boundaries in terms of basic gameplay. In many ways, that sums up both the best and worst of what Unbound Saga has to offer.

As far as the core gameplay is concerned, Unbound Saga is about as basic as it gets, as you’ll simply be moving from one end of the screen to the other (or panel to panel, as in this case), beating up a variety of thugs and biza?rre baddies as either Rick or Lori. Fortunately, both comic heroes have upgradable moves and passive buffs, which does its best to keep the gameplay relatively interesting from start to finish.

Unfortunately, while Rick and Lori are a team, Unbound Saga features no cooperative two-player mode. Instead, you as a single player are given the option to switch between Rick and Lori o??n the fly, allowing you to switch up your play style -- Rick is more of a brawler, for instance, while Lori is faster and ?has a number of special “art” abilities.

Frustratingly, this switching between two characters is not to the game’s advantage, as more often than not I found myself relying more on one character than the other. In most cases, it didn’t matter who I used, so it was just easier to stick with whoever I curren?tly had selected. Outside of a few in-game moments where you’re forced to use either Rick or Lori, there are no real? circumstances that will benefit from you using one or the other.

With that said, you’re still likely to swap between characters as often as possible, as Unbound Saga does sometimes verge on the monotonous. Playing through more than one or two of the game’s stages (some of which tend to drag) is not recommended, as this one-trick pony (like many brawlers) can get stale fast. The game also tends to get pretty damned brutal, especially in the later stages where The Maker will be tossing foes at you from all angles. To make matters even worse, the loss of a life means game over... period. There are no checkpoints in Unbound Saga, and dying eight panels (and ten minutes???) into a stage and then being asked to start from scratch can be incredibly frustrating.

Still, the game most be commended for what it does right. The game does stay true to its brawler pedigree, with extremely basic, but tight controls. It??s biggest achievements, though, are in its look and its narrati?ve, which cling close to its comic book roots in both tone and style. Like Jim, on more than one occasion I did have a chuckle at some of the game’s situations and dialogue. And without a doubt, the game’s animated comics-brought-to-life cut-scenes are absolutely marvelous.

For fans of straightforward brawlers, Unbound Saga is a satisfying experience, with an attractive $15 price point that should make your decision easier to make. Fans of the genre should already be accustomed to the repetition that comes along with mercilessly (and sometimes pointlessly) pounding thugs into the ground, stage after stage. Unbound Saga is no different, but it certainly does it well.

Score: 7.5

Overall Score: 7.5 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

The post Review: Unbound Saga appeared first on Destructoid.

Last? week we announced our new weekly "feature," something we're calling "Comment of the Week." The idea: encourage legitimate, entertaining discussion about videogaming news, reviews, previews, and more.

Not that you guys don't already do that, but we wanted to spotlight and reward it. Our commenter of the ?week -- chosen after a discussion between the Destructoid staff -- will w??in a mystery prize, to be determined weekly. 

To kick it off this week, we're giving the winner a handful of goodies: codes redeemable for Madballs: Babo Invasion and Worms 2: Armageddon for Xbox LIVE Arcade, as well as a physical copy of the recently released BioShock/Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion bundle for the Xbox ??360. (We sure hope the winner has an Xbox 360!)

Hit the jump to find ou?t who too??k it home this week, and why.

Winner:

Magnalon, from the comments of our Battlefield 1943 review

Why we chose it:

Sure, this is a comment that kind of calls us out on not one, but two of our reviews. But it's a legitimate and important question, one that? sparked discussion in the comments, as well as with the staff??. 

Truth is, Castle Crashers (like Battlefield 1943) did suffer from a number of networking issues. Unlike Battlefield, some of Castle Crashers' issues were far worse for?? many players, including corrupted saves that cause many to lose progress. However, while our reviewers seemed to dock points from the overall Battlefield 1943 experience, Castle Crashers was seemingly given a free pass. 

When reviewing titl?es, our reviewers explore each of the game's modes to the best of his or her ability, including online play where applicable. The reviewer c??an obviously only evaluate what was experienced. 

Many reviewers (with Destructoid or otherwise) sometimes play and evaluate a game online on a network that's not what consumers will be playing on when the game hits retail or online services. Think for a second about the difference between 400 people playing Battlefield 1943 online versus the 400,000 people who purchased the game on Xbox LIVE o??n day one.

Which brings? up Magnalon's interesting question: Is it worth delaying a review to see how a game plays online? For us, it's something we take on a case-by-case basis. Many titles we review aren't played on retail consoles, and sometimes we're not given the opportunity to play an online game in a real-world setting. 

Would you like to have a review go up before or as a game hits shelves/online so that you can use that info to inform your day-a??nd-date purchase decision? Or would you rather wait a few days (or maybe longer??), as we hold off to test the game in a "real-world" setting? 

---

"Comments of the Week" are chosen from comments made Friday through Thursday. They can "LOL" funny or thought-provoking. Whatever you do, try not to suck.

The post Comment of the Week: Question on reviews appeared first on Destructoid.

The Conduit is a game with baggage.

After it was first announced last year, it quickly become a symbol to game-fans on either side of the "Wii divi?de". Many people who hate the Wii want the game to fail in order to prove that "real games" can't survive on a non-HD console. People who love the Wii want ?the game to succeed to prove that the Wii really is a "hardcore" system too, and not just for Nintendo fanboys and old people. 

So, is The Conduit worth all t??he hype and fan-boy jousting? Matthew Razak and Jonathan Holmes are here with the straight dope, right after the jump. 

The Conduit (Wii)
Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Sega
Released: June 23, 2009
MSRP: $49.99

Jonathan Holmes-

The Conduit is a game about a secret spy who is working hard to stop a diabolical terrorist mastermind from committing crimes against humanity, who after some unforeseeable events, is forced to singlehandedly fight off an alien invasion (or at least, something like it). Cynics will immediately write off the game for ripping off GoldenEye and Halo in the same stroke, and in doing so, they'll be missing out on all the other cool stuff that the The Conduit rips-off. Narrative themes from They Live, visual set pieces from War of the Worlds, and secret-government-cover-up-busted-by-rogue-operative-bad-ass heroics from 24 are all present. As different as those influences sound, they all blend toget??her rather organically, making for a game scenario that is altogether ??familiar to fans of action sci-fi, but never offensively so. 

It's no Metal Gear Solid, but it's a fun story. The cinemas feature some fairly big name voice-acting talent, including Never Cry Werewolf star Kevin Sorbo. Actually, Kevin is responsible for the worst of the acting by the game's three man cast. The guy who plays Michael Ford (the protagonist) and Mr Adams (the old man who OMG SPOILERS might be a bad guy) do a much better job than Sorbo. Even more convincing than the main cast is the voice over work found on the various radios that pop up in-game, BioShock-style. These little audio-only vignettes are totally optional, but if you take the time to tune in to them, you'll get to experience the most creepy and fun parts of The Conduit's narrative. Stuff like stories of survivors infected with a mysterious "bug" that a?ppears to be lethal (especially to children), televangelists ranting ab??out the alien Armageddon, and run-of-the-mill soldiers communicating about the hopelessness of their situation, all add a real life touch to the otherwise thoroughly Hollywood storyline. 

More than the story, it was the constant roll out of new types of enemies and weapons that kept me glued to The Conduit. The game features standard human enemies who think generally like humans (they usually try to take cover first, then come looking for you if you hide for too long), little kamikaze alien jerks who die with one hit (but sometime explode upon impact), big ass alien beefcakes who come at you non-stop and can turn invisible at will, giant flying dragonfly looking aliens who toss grenades at you, little giggling aliens who sound like Gizmo from Gremlins, and the list goes on.

For every enemy there is in the game, there is a corresponding gun. You'll start the game firmly embedded in the real world, fighting standard humans with regular, present day weaponry. From there, you move up to some Star Trek-style laser throwing cannons, and eventually into alien firepower that is often alive and wriggling in your hands. All guns have their own quirks and utilities, and though many of them will seem familiar to fans of the FPS genre, others will offer a few surprises. My favorite is probably "The Shrieker", an alien gun that lobs explosives that the player can guide mid-air with pinpoint accuracy with a twist of the remote. This kind of stuff has been tried before, like the guided missiles of Metal Gear Solid and that super-fancy gun-thing from Resistance: Fall of Man, but directing your projectiles never felt as organic and effortless as it does in The Conduit, and that has everything to do with the controls. As you may already have guessed, the controls are the real star of The Conduit. They're the real reason, some would say the only reason, to play The Conduit instead of another console FPS. Though everything about the game's controls is customizable, I played the game from beginning to end on the default setting, and had more fun than I've ever had with another home console FPS. Keep in mind, home console FPSs are my least favorite genre of game going today, but that's mostly because of the way they control. Ever since GoldenEye, I've hated FPS aiming with the analog stick. In The Conduit, aiming is always fun, which means the game itself is always fun, even when it doesn't totally deserve to be (more on that later). Another plus to the game's aiming system is that you can zoom-in sniper style at any time with any gun, though you can only fire while zoomed in with certain firearms. Maybe that doesn't mean a lot to you, but as a sniping fan from way back, this option is a godsend. 

If the controls are The Conduit's sexy leading man, then it's ugly sidekick is probably the all seeing eye; ASE for short, as it is the other major thing that differentiates The Conduit from other FPSs. From it's hyperbole-packed name, you'd think that the ASE was a pretty powerful piece of hardware, but in the end, it's really just a flashlight. Using it when prompted does a lot to help the game from getting too repetitive. Most levels in single player campaign are paced between fire fights, and using the ASE to unlock doors, find secret passages, data disks, or defuse mines. It's far from the most clever item/weapon I've seen in a videogame, but The Conduit is definitely better off for ??its inclusion.  ?;

Now for the stuff I was less than thrilled with; namely the games graphics, level designs, and the end-level climaxes. High Voltage uses a really cool texture mapping technique on everything in the game that is wet and/or shiny, which is great, because by some wild coincidence, tons of stuff in the game is wet and/or shiny looking. All the aliens, many of the armored human enemies, most of your guns, many of the environments, and the abundant, Giger-influenced alien tentacle/testicle architecture utilize this type of texture, and they all look fantastic, almost 360/PS3 quality. Everything else in the game; not so much. It's actu??ally pretty jarring to see so many PS3 looking characters existing in an often PS2-looking world. This inconsistency does work to make the aliens truly look like they don't belong?? in the world around them (and therefore, more alien), but it can also be visually distracting, like the game is yelling at you "LOOK HOW SHINY MY ALIENS ARE". 

The level designs are also a mixed bag. Som??e areas, like the city streets and the airport-to-subway levels, feature a nice variety of open areas, tight quarters, and spots to use for hiding and sniping. Others, like the secret lab and the White House, are generally corrid??or-based affairs, with medium-sized rooms at the largest. There is still plenty of action in these levels, as well as ASE related stuff to do, but they're still notably less dynamic and interesting than the other bits. 

As for end-level climaxes, they aren't all bad, but they're generally forgettable. The ending of the game is particularly anti-climactic. It's not the worst ending I've seen, but it's not epic in any way, which is strange for a game that touts itself as "big screen, popcorn entertainment". There are epic moments in The Conduit, but they often happen in the middle of the game, or smack dab in the middle of a level. I guess it makes things more unpredictable and less "vid?eogame-y" to pace things that way, but if I didn't want "videogame-y",?? I wouldn't be playing a videogame. 

Then there's the multi-player. It's online, 12 player max, features Wii speak integration, and can be played in a a variety of different modes and environments. There are also a variety of different character skins available, so if you want to play as an alien or a CIA agent wearing a gas mask, you have that option. Though this is by far the most full featured and deep multi-player FPS on the Wii, it still pales compared to the modes and environments of Halo 3 or Killzone 2. Still, I'd rather play The Condiut than either of those two games, and again, that's only because of the controls. I doubt current fans of home console FPSs will feel that way, but that's not who I think the The Conduit was made for. This isn't a game that's trying to outdo other home console FPSs, but rather make a home console FPS for those who want to like the genre, but haven't been able to up unt??il now du??e to the way they control. 

The Conduit, and it's potential success or failure, shouldn't be used as a gauge for how well "awesome hardcore" games sell on the Wii, mostly because the game isn't all that hardcore, or even that awesome. In terms of graphics, level design, and even story, the game isn't in the same league as comparable titles like the Metroid Prime series,or Resident Evil 4: Wii Edition. If The Conduit does sell well, it wont mean that hardcore games do or don't sell on the Wii. All that will tell us is? that a substantial amount of FPS-friendly Wii owners are willing to look past some game design mediocrity in order to p?lay a fully featured online shooter that has very good controls and very shiny aliens.

You can count me amongst them. 

Score: 7.0 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

Matthew Razak-

It's hard for me to separate what The Conduit represents and how good a game it actually is, as I think the former directly affects my ideas on the latter. As Mr. Holmes has already discussed this isn't God's gift to the genre of the FPS, it's not even Santa Clauses gift to the genre. I think the best way to sum up the overall quality of The Conduit is to say that if it were a game based on a movie (it's plot pretty much is just from a bunch of different movies) we'd be pointing to it as a demonstration of how movie games can not suck. Hopefully, everyone is on the same page with me here when I say that. However, if I had to sum up what kind of building block this should be for FPS (and all games) on the Wii then I would be dropping names like Halo and Super Mario 64. 

When I envisioned writing this review before playing the game in full I thought I'd be rambling on about how great the controls are, because they are. However, it's hard to say anything about the controls in the game because they are exactly what you make them to be down to almost every single minute detail. Jonathan says he didn't change much, but I found the turning speed to be a bit fast for me so I notched that down and popped my sensitivity up a bit. It took me a few tries to find what felt good, but once I got it it was easy to roll on in comfort. In short, the controls are your controls, and I can neither complain about them or applaud them as I have no interaction with how you will set them up. I can however applaud the simple fact that this amount of control depth even exists, because it is so important to making shooters on the Wii work. A word of warning though: don't s??cratch your nose with your nunchuck hand while pointed at a wall, it often results in a grenade suicide if you have that set up for grenade throws.

So the controls are immensely polished because you can polish them immeasurably, but what about the stuff you can't control? It's more of a hit or miss bag there. The stories presentation is seriously lacking, with a lot of "deep thoughts" tossed in that have no real depth because the character development is non-existent. Jonathan mentioned that GoldenEye was a major influence, and I agree the shooter does have a very retro-FPS feeling to it. Part of that is the gameplay itself, which is all about duck and cover and run and gun, but part of that is because the entire story is delivered via text and voice-over. You never see anything outside of the underground tunnels and office buildings you find yourself in. There's an alien invasion going on, but all you see is literally what you see, and not in the good way like Half-Life. 

Speaking of those office buildings and underground tunnels, they're actually the Washington DC Metro system and famous landmarks like the Pentagon and White House. I totally agree with Jonathan's assessment that the levels looked pretty bland, but I have to give massive props to the guys at High Voltage for absolutely nailing the DC Metro system. As a resident of DC it's infuriating that so?? much takes place here in movies and games and yet it never looks like the city I grew up in. Bravo to them for making the Metro look like the Metro.

Of course the other 99 percent of you could care less about this little factoid, however, it illustrates an important fact about the game. Most of the flaws, aside from a bit of repetitive level design, are not because High Voltage wasn't paying attention to details, but because the Wii must be getting destroy??ed by the stuff the the game is doing so well. Guns, enemies and important objects look stellar. The enemy AI is spot on, the amount of bad guys on the screen at once is never lacking and I didn't once experience a frame rate drop. It is a testament to what can be done on the Wii, but brings me back to the problem of whether I'm g??iving it too much credit simply because it does things that should be done in every game.

I can tell you where I won't give any credit, and that is in the music. One never really realizes how important well cued and appropriate music is until you run into a game that doesn't have it. Music cues throughout the game were oddly placed or didn't make much sense at all, and the overall score was severely lacking. Luckily you're too ??busy taking out a variety of bad guys who attack with pretty logical strategy at a constant pace. The game is fun, plain and simple, no matter how odd the soundtrack.

Jonathan discussed the game's enemies and the variety of well designed weapons already, but I'd like to point out that the game does some very interesting t??hings with a plethora of different weapons and you never get that feeling that you're just using the same weapon over and over because it's the best. Often FPS games turn into you shooting one gun throughout each level because it is clearly the best, but not here. The devs did a great job of making each weapon useful and worthwhile -- except the rocket launcher, those are always disappointing in any game. 

I found the ASE sadly underused. The item has potential and could have really separated the gameplay from other FPS, but it's mostly relegated to finding hidden objects and detecting landmines. When I first saw the ASE in action I thought it was?? a great opportunity to force the player to decide between guns and safety. However, the game never really combines the two as much as I would have liked, relegating the two modes of gameplay into separate parts instead of a cohesive whole. It's one of those missed opportunities in a go??od game that makes you desperately want a sequel to see how they could improve on it.

The online is fantastic and robust for the Wii. I hate tacking on "for the Wii" to the end of sentences so let's take it out of that context. The online is fun and simple. There, that seems much better and far less qualified. There are plenty of games out there with far more in depth online rosters, that have massively larger levels and more gameplay options. In fact that's almost all there is out there now. The Conduit's online is like stepping into a time-warp and playing GoldenEye online with better controls and more variety of weapons. The levels are smaller and more enclosed, the shooting is frantic and there isn't any ass on there whose been playing the game for the past four years everyday and can take you out in a nanosecond every time you respawn. It's actually pretty refreshing to go back and play what feels like an old school shooter, and the easy to understand controls also give it that same universal appeal that GoldenEye had. It's good, you'll have fun, and you won't be confused. (As a side note, I picked up Wii Speak to play with this game and ???that things is pretty darn cool. I wish more people had it, though.)

Is The Conduit disappointing? No, not at all. I think it turned out to be exactly what we all thought?? it was going to be: a well executed Wii FPS with some ups and downs that's fun to play. Oh, and in ca??se you were wondering about the game's replay value and I accidentally erased my 80 percent completed game and had to play through it twice. It was still fun.

Score: 7.0 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

Total Score: 7.0 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

The post Review: The Conduit appeared first on Destructoid.

Electronic Arts Digital Illusion CE’s Battlefield 1943 is a bite-sized downloadable title based upon the foundation of the Battlefield series. In the game, two teams compete for flags with legs,?? tanks, airplanes and Jeeps. Ba?ttles are fierce and often decided by a couple of stragglers who decided to take a base after a lone defender leaves his post in search of greater glory.

The retail boxed versions of Battlefield keep coming. Obviously, shooter fans aren’t tired of?? playing nice with each other or getting bored with the dated formula th??e titles use. Still, you have to wonder: how does a 500 MB version of the game stack up? You’ll have to hit the break to know the answer to that one.

[Editor’s Note: Brad Nicholson and Jordan Devore reviewed Battlefield 1943 in an as-is condition as of Sunday, July 12, around 8:00 P.M. Central. When they initially started playing it Thursday afternoon, the game was experiencing massive server-side issues that caused frequent disconnections, freezes, an inability to join friends, create a private match, or get into the “Quick Match” option. Electronic Arts DICE (the studio behind the title) has stated in-game through the scrolling bar, as well as publicly, that they are aware of the issues and have taken steps to fix the problem. Reportedly, EA DICE added servers on Friday (problems still persisted) and fixed the issues with joining friends. Destructoid recommends checking its news section as well as the game’s official message board for the latest information about EA DICE’s progress in addressing the issues, but downloading the demo would be the ultimate trial player-side.] 

Battlefield 1943 (Xbox LIVE Arcade [reviewed], PlayStation Network, PC)
Developer: EA Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Released: July 8, 2009 (XBL) / July 9, 2009 (PSN) / September 2009 (PC)
MSRP: 1200 Microsoft Moon Dollars/$14.99 

Brad Nicholson (Xbox LIVE Arcade)

Battlefield 1943 is an attractive downloadable title. Built from the foundation of Electronic Arts DICE’s foremost shooter series, Battlefield 1943 offers what most multiplayer shooters in the console downloadable space don’t: visually attractive, strategic, cooperative-based action. Players can steer tanks, bomb bridges with World War II-era planes, or plain-Jane hoof it across one of the three in-game maps’ terrain -- talking to each other all the while, coordinating efforts in an attempt to steal enemy bases and defend their own. The options and variety of play are what make it an exciting title. Rarely does a shooter -- no less a downloadable one -- give players the opportunity to be a bomber pilot one second, then a sniper the next. Similarly, rarely is a downloadable title so damn frustrating. Battlefield 1943 suffers from an array of flaws (including a bunch of technical ones) that keep it from becoming the stellar title it should be. Freezing, latency, inconsistent feedback and a smattering of connection issues can make Battlefield 1943 feel like a slug??gish, incomplete game instead of a deep, unique downloadable action title.

Currently, there is only one mode of play, a pseudo-capture-the-flag mode. In each of the t?hree Pacific-themed maps, two teams (IWJ, the Japanese Imperial Army, and the ??United States Marine Corps, or USMC) compete for several bases on the map. Each base has a flagpole that acts as the location's capture point. Standing in its vicinity will slowly raise the team's standard (of course, if the base already belongs to the opposition, its flag will have to be lowered first). A team health bar drains according to the amount of flags a certain team has. Obtaining more flags means that the opposite team’s health bar depletes more quickly. Once a team’s bar reaches zero, the match is over.

The lack of other modes (EA DICE is promising a second if players collectively get over 43 million kills in the game) isn’t a sore spot for me. As with all Battlefield titles, I can choose to attack a base in a variety of ways: I can opt to parachute from an airplane on top of a flag, rush in with a lightning-quick Jeep, bumble around in a tank or even rush up the hill with a soldier. The game always feels fresh and exciting and the action often reflects my mood or even previous interaction with the opponents. Every match is, at its core, completely different. Players can use a bevy of diverse defensive patterns. Some teams may choose not to defend their bases; others may stress the utilization of AA ca??nnons or turtle in the key bases. It’s all about discovery and ??experimentation within a limited timeframe if I choose to think.

The nature of battle is frenetic. Planes zoom overhead, enemy shells rip trees and buildings from their foundations and bullets whiz past constantly. The amount of action is dizzying and wonderful at the same time. To participate in such a large-scale conflict with others is a special experience and the action truly stresses teamwork. Unfortunately, Battlefield 1943 restricts voice chat to an in-game party system. Up to four players can hear each? other out of the 12 that can play on a single team. This is especially frustrating when you want to let your team k??now what you’re seeing in terms of aircraft or tank positions.

The vehicles in the game are tough to control; I'm often slapped for my inability to maneuver them well. They lack the player-friendliness of Halo’s Warthog. One trigger applies the gas, but on?ly the left analog stick steers the mobile contraption (with the exception of the plane, which uses the right analog stick for the pitch and roll). It probably makes sense in some true-to-life fashion to tie a vehicle to a single stick, but I find the amount of effort it takes to steer one of the beasts a bit silly. I’m always getting a wheel stuck on a rock or tumbling off a cliff that I was attempting to avoid. A third-person view can be used to take the edge off the first-person steering, but that view makes it almost impossible to kill anything with a turret -- the view hovers above and outside of the vehicle.

The core game revolves around the FPS mechanic -- i.e., hoofing it with one of the game’s three classes: the rifleman, in??fantryman, or the scout. Each ?has its own strengths and weakness. The rifleman specializes in killing infantry with his M1 Garand rifle and superior bullet strength. The infantryman can take out tanks with his bazooka; with his Thompson, he is best used in close-range attack situations. The scout has a sword (melee ftw) and a sniper rifle, which are perfect for ranged fighting and those classic oh-no-someone-is-right-behind-me moments.

Running in the open-field is essentially suicide, considering the amount of stuff going on in the middle of the map. Often, I joke with my friends that I’m traveling into “the shit” whenever I decide to lay off the periphery of the small-ish maps. Like in the other Battlefield titles, the lone soldier is a useless commodity. It takes up to three bazooka blasts to down a tank, and because enemies can spawn in a base while the lone soldier is trying to steal it for his team, he’ll often find himself outnumbered and quickly dead. That is, if the game is cooperating at the time. I’ve experienced a variety of latency in the game. Planes tend to jump around wildly in the air, and occasionally, enemy tanks and Jeeps will randomly pop in front of me. The bounciness of Electronic Arts’ servers (see Editor’s Note) can stall the action and cause a high degree of frustration. Battlefield has always had dodgy o??r inconsistent hit detection and t?he manic waves of latency aren't an improvement.

The game also has a particularly nasty issue with freezing. Last night during a two-hour session of playing, Battlefield 1943 locked up my perfectly functioning Xbox 360 a total of six times. Overall, it’s locked up around 12-15 times over the course of my ten o??r so hours of play. The freezing detracts from the experience even more than the latency.

Speaking of latency, as of Sunday (July 12th), joining friends in a game or even getting into a game can be a small struggle. Battlefield 1943 has three multiplayer options: Quick Match, a “Join Friends” option, and the ability to create private rooms. This is a brilliant way to keep the game centralized and ensure that a billion rooms won’t be open and nearly empty. However, the servers aren’t playing nicely. When trying to join friends, it’ll say the match is unavailable and will even toss out that message while trying to join a Quick Match. A few hours ago (8:42 P.M.), I was able to get into a Quick Match on the third attempt and was able to join friends on the second. It’s getting better. Earlier in the week, it could ta??ke up to a half hour to join with a friend or jump into a match.

The connection issues and frequent freezing, as well as the driving and shooting issues, put a damper on an otherwise brilliant game. The Battlefield formula is dated, but the game experience still doesn’t feel long in the tooth. Battlefield 1943 is a particularly smart creation that can function as a deep, strategic title or as a simple Pacific-themed fragfest (with planes, of course). When it isn’t chugging, Battlefield 1943 offers a genuinely unique shooter experience, far and above?? anything else available in t??he console downloadable space. Don’t miss this one if you’re a multiplayer shooter fan, but be weary of the issues it’s currently having. Give the demo a shot and see if you can stomach them.

Score: 7

Jordan Devore (Xbox LIVE Arcade)

Battlefield 1943 surprised the hell out of me. Before the game launched, I didn't give it much thought other than the occasional time when I acknowledged its existence. I'm an avid first-person shooter fan, sure, but Battlefield is a series I am not at all familiar with. And World War II games? Kind of played out, if you ask me. Yet Battlefield 1943, despite its botched and error-ridden launch, has grown on me. It's become the type of addiction where you could be sitting at your computer, watching the latest Keyboard Cat video, and then it hits you. "Why am I watching this garbage when I could be playing Battlefield right now???" Anyone who has seriously played videogames can tell you about this feeling. It's the feeling you get when a game is so satisfying, you can't help but daydream about playing.

Battlefield 1943's ability to elicit such a strong response wasn't by accident; it's the result of a tight, well-thought out plan. You cannot make a fulfilling multiplayer game with only one mode, three maps, and three classes unless each and every one of those things is executed brilliantly. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that this was, in fact, the overall case for Battlefield 1943, and in some ways, I think EA DICE was surprised by how well the project came together, too. I mean, the game did essentially?? break from its own popularity,?? after all.

The first thing I noticed during my initial match of Battlefield 1943 -- and how could I not -- was the visual style. And no, I don't just mean how realistic or not the game looks. I'm talking more about the game's use of a vibrant, tropical color scheme, and its rather extensive environmental destruction. As a complete package, Battlefield 1943 rivals retail games in terms of pure visual flair, and this strength is only reinforced by fantastic in-cockpit cameras for every vehicle. Similarly, the top-notch sound design really brings the whole experience together. While a handful of the guns themselves may be lacking the extra oomph I?? desire, the first time an explosion mad?e my character’s ears ring, I felt like I was in a real, living world.

But now I'm getting ahead of myself. Who cares about a striking game if it isn't fun to play? Thankfully, Battlefield 1943 encompasses both of these aspects. As I mentioned above, this was my first Battlefield game. Upon first jumping into a match, I was a bit overwhelmed. Even though all three of Battlefield 1943's maps are pretty substantial in size, when a full 24 players are running around, mayhem is bound to ensue. I am, howe??ver, happy to report that figuring out the basics alone was manageable. There are only three playable classes, and once you learn one of them, you can easily pick up the other two.

Things only start to get difficult once you attempt to use a vehicle, mostly because the button placement for the controls is a little unusual. Using the left trigger and left bumper to drive and go in reverse, respectfully, sounds weird on paper but actually works well after about 30 minutes or so. The learning curve for the planes, on the other hand, is much higher. A few hours into Battlefield 1943, I still found myself plummeting to the sea and colliding with trees. That said, my best memories of the game all involve piloting planes, or simply watching them blow up in some crazy, over-the-top way. Alternatively, you could make the smart choice and realize there is a playable tutorial hidde?n in the game’s menus. But that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

While Battlefield 1943 does have a rank system complete with levels, I feel like it could have been emphasized more. +10 XP popping up above a soldier I just kil??led? That would have been absolu??tely fine in my book. There are also awards you can obtain for accomplishing in-game objectives such as getting X amount of kills with a weapon or proficiently using a tank, but again, you have to go through the main menu to find such statistics.

My only other real complaint with the game, other than the serious issues with freezing and other server-side problems, was the lack of actual content. Don’t get me wrong -- the three maps, while they seem to blend together after a while, are plenty enough for the time being. But a single mode? There are times when I simply don’t feel like capturing or defending a control point. I suppose you could argue that there are so many different ways to play Battlefield 1943 that? it doesn’t ultimately matter, but I would’ve personally been happy if something a??s simple as a deathmatch mode was thrown in.

Now, I know that a new mode and map will be unlocked when the community hits 43 million kills, and I know that Battlefield 1943 is only $15, but this is something I feel will hurt the game’s longevity. As sublime as the game can be, it’s hard to play for more than an hour or two at a time without growing tired of the same old routine. This le??ads me to strongly believe that downloadable content will be coming in the near future.

On the other hand, who knows where the game will be a few months from now; I certainly couldn’t tell you.  But what I can tell you is this: Battlefield 1943, even with its network-related flaws, is worth downloading. While, like Brad, my game did freeze more than a few times late last week, when I played again on Sunday afternoon, I didn’t run into any freezing at all and joining various friend matches never took m??ore than two tries to get in.

If you decid?e to download it right now, or want to wait a couple of weeks for technical problems to be fully addressed, you should be fine either way. The game’s community is a devoted bunch, and it seems highly unlikely that the everyone would up and leave anytime soon. My only fear is that paid DLC, should it ever happen, could divide the community.

It’s a shame that a game with such strong potential was marred by technical issues when the actual gameplay itself is purely fun. Whether you are a Battlefield fanatic or a series scrub like me, you’ll get your money’s worth from Battlefield 1943, as well as an unrivaled experience in the realm of download-only games. While I'd recommend waiting a little while longer for optimal results, I th?ink it’s finally safe to take the plunge, but only if you keep your expectations in order.

Score: 8

Combined Score: 7.5 -- Good (7s are solid games that definitely have an audience. Might lack replay value, could be too short or there are some hard-to-ignore faults, but the experience is fun.)

The post Review: Battlefield 1943 appeared first on Destructoid.

Trippy

We really liked Bit.Trip Beat. Combining old-school gamepla??y with an awesomely neo-retro aesthetic and just plain awe-inspiring level design, this first installmen??t of Gaijin Games' new WiiWare series encapsulated everything great about indie development.

Less than five months after the release of Beat, the fellas at Gaijin are back with the second installment in the six-part Bit.Trip series, entitled Core. Eschewing the Breakout-esque gameplay of the first game with...well, with a mechanic a bit too complex to describe in a single pre-jump paragraph, Core presumably seeks to provide a completely different Bit.Trip experience, while still remaining true to the? spirit of the first game.

But is the damned thing any good? After the jump, Anthony ?Burch and Jonathan?? Holmes will attempt to answer this question.

Bit.Trip Core (WiiWare)
Developer: Gaijin Games
Publisher: Aksys Games
Released: July 6, 2009
MSRP: 600 Wii Points

 Anthony Burch:

People will invariably compare Beat and Core, but apart from the art style and basic twitch-rhythm-gameplay premise, they share almost nothing in common. Maybe that's why I was so surprised to find myself absolutely in goddamn love with Bit.Trip Core once I finished it.

Initially, the game felt like a flaky, less-interesting interpretation of the core Beat experience. Instead of using a paddle to hit beats, which felt immediately intuitive, familiar, and satisfying, I was awkwardly pressing one of four directions and hitting the 2 button to zap a beat just at the right moment. It felt more rigid than Beat, and much more spatially confusing: I pretty much floundered during my first few minutes of the game as I attempted to identify which beats were headed to which quadrant of the screen. This was unusual. This was perplexing. This wasn't fun.

The??n, an hour late??r and entirely without warning, something clicked.

Once you get sufficiently used to the basic gameplay, everything suddenly makes sense. No, it's not as tactile or outright exciting as Beat; it's something else entirely. At some point, you realize the game has subtly shifted your spatial perception to the point that what originally looked like a remarkably confusing hodgepodge of dots flying in different direction somehow resolves itself into a clear, measured ballet. I've heard fans of Space Giraffe refer to the process of playing it as something akin to learning how to see in a brand new way; until playing Bit.Trip Core, I didn't know what they meant (though I still don't like Space Giraffe). 

Once Core successfully pulled me in and taught me to perceive things in the way it wanted, it felt unlike anything I'd ever played. Where I originally had to exercise brief but intense mental reasoning to vaporize the beats ("okay, it's coming from the left and going right, so I should hit...up and 2?"), such exercises became second nature to me by the halfway point. Without even noticing it, the game had hypnotized me into a Core master: literal floods of beats appeared on the screen from every goddamn direction imaginable and, thanks to the gradual difficulty increase and the tremendously clever learning curve, I somehow managed to make sense of it all. Even when my mind wasn't quite sure if I was doing the right thing, my hands somehow knew just when and where to vaporize the beats. It feels incredibly weird, but incredibly cool to unknowingly get into Core's groove; your rational mind and reflexes operate on two compl??etely different circuits, to the point where your hands and sense of rhy?thm subvert your rational mind. 

In other w??ords, the god??damn game basically hypnotizes you.

In a good way.

The quasi-hypnosis is effective thanks chiefly to Core's greater emphasis on rhythm-based gameplay. Sure, Beat made some pretty noises everytime a ball hit your paddle, but you could play the game with the sound off and still do just as well: the game didn't require you to predict beats or pay attention to rhythm in order to progress. Not so in Core. Given the speed with which the beats appear, it's nearly impossible to succeed without internalizing the rhythm of the music to predict exactly when you'll need to vaporize the beats. Once again, this will happen pretty much automatically after you play for a certain amount of time. Core's music is so inextricably t?ied to the gameplay that after a certain amount of time, you won't be able to help doing everything to the rhythmic thumping that drives every stage.

As most of the game focuses on teaching the player to understand its own internal flow and rhythms, the level structures aren't quite as interesting as those in Beat. Where Beat had a boring, recognizable core mechanic spiced up by the spectacularly inventive and complex configurations of enemies thrown at the player, Core is the inverse: its base mechanics are completely new and exhilarating once you get used to them, but are only understandable because of the game's comparatively simple beat patterns. While the game looks awfully intimidating at times, you'll never have to hit beats with the lightning speed and dexterity so many parts of Beat ncessitated. This is one of my two complaints with Core; near the end of the game, you'll feel like you're just seeing slightly sped-up repetitions of the same basic beat patterns you saw in the first two levels. That, and the second level boss is so much cooler than th?e third level boss that I kinda wish they'd been switched. 

I realize that this is all a bit abstract and probably more than a little unhelpful, but it has to be said that you can't really understand Core until you've played it. Thankfully, this is a remarkably easy task to undertake, considering how damned cheap the game is. Overall, Core is a worthy successor to Beat in every way: it's an entirely new experience unlike anything else you've played on the Wii, while refining and enhancing the basic themes of the first Bit.Trip game. I went into Core fully expecting to find a watered-down cash-in sequel, and left it feeling l??ike my mind had just been raped by a beatboxing unicorn with a strobe light duct-taped to its horn.

In a good way.

Score: 9.0

Jonathan Holmes

Like Anthony says, Core is a game that you really need to play in order to "get". Remember those 3D posters from ten years ago, ususally featuring dolphins or sailboats, that you had to stare at juuuuust right in order to really "see"? Core is kind of like one of those, ex?cept it is a videogame, and it's awesome in a way that I suspect will be end up being timeless. 

On the surface, Core is basically Guitar Hero for aliens, specifically, the aliens from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The game's music, setting, and ascetic, and gameplay are all very otherworldly, as if it were made by beings that had never heard Earth music or played Earth videgaomes. Beat was weird too, but it had the Pong-gameplay and shmup-in-space structure to keep it rooted in somewhat familiar territory. On the other hand, Core is pretty much foreign territory from beginning to end. If Beat is like a first date with a cute, weird girl who's trying to make you feel comfortable by laying out a Simpsons quote every once and a while, Core is your crazy second date. This time, she's pretty sure that you like her, so she's wearing a giant foam rubber cowboy hat, a gold sequined, one piece jumpsuit, and spends much of the night beat boxing and imitating the robear berbils. There is really no attempt to make you comfortable in Core. In fact, even selecting the first level took me a few tries. It's much more of a "love it or hate it" game than Beat, and personally, I love it.

Beyond the surface details, the thing that really makes Core different is the way it forces you to be aware of the entire screen at all times. Unlike in Beat, where you almost always need look at the right side of the screen, anticipate the bits that appear there, and block them with the paddle on the left side of the screen, Core requires that you anticipate bits coming from every part of the screen at any time. This means that you must focus on everything, always, from beginning to end. It's sort of like a bullet hell shmup in that way, except it requires even more attention to detail. In Ikaruga, the screen will often be covered in little dots, but the only dots you have to keep track of are the ones you have to dodge. In Core, you have to keep track of every single bit that shows up on screen, because missing just one could lead to a a greatly decreased score, or even death. There is literally no way to do that without entering (and remaining) in "the zone" for nearly the entire game and that's what makes Core special. 

By "the zone", I mean that state of pseudo-hypnosis that Anthony described. He's not exaggerating. Core really does throw you into an altered state of consciousness, like how meditation is supposed to be, but usually isn't unless you're a master or a little drunk. In the zone, you become unaware of your own thoughts, the world around you, everything. The rhythm of the music and the patterns on the screen are the only stimuli your brain is connected to. The stuff that you did that day, the stuff your supposed to be doing, all your problems, fears, and anxieties just melt away.  I definitely experienced it at times while playing Beat, but usually just for half a minute or so at a time. In Core, it pretty much g?oes on for the whole game. 

Other items of note are the slight improvements Core makes over Beat's power up and scoring system. If you screw up, you still enter a black-and-white "NETHER" mode, but if you excel to the fullest, you can head past "HYPER", past "MEGA",  and into "SUPER" mode, where the screen gets even more psychedelic, and your score increases by thousands every second. Mess up once, and you drop from "SUPER" back to "MEGA", so don't expect to have too easy a time racking up huge scores. Also new to this game is the "Bomb", which wipes the screen of all bits for about a second. It's a nice touch, and gives the player an out if they temporary become un-hypnotized, and need to a moment to get back in the zone. You only get one bomb per level though, so things never get too easy. Core is just as tough as Beat, if not more so. 

Also worth noting are the  game's bosses, particularly those found at the ends of levels two and three. Like the bosses of Beat's second and third levels, Core's middle and last bosses are playful salutes to classic games that require similar forms of thinking as Core. I don't want to give them away, but suffice to say that any fan of the Atari 2600's game library needs to own Core in order to have a truly complete life. 

So which is better, Core or Beat? Well, right now, I definitely like Core more, but that may change in time. Beat has a slightly more interesting soundtrack, better multiplayer, and is generally more accessible. On the other hand, Core is a little more visually and technically interesting, and generally feels more concentrated and intense. I'm also having a great time trying to analyze what the hell is actually going on in Core, more so than I had with Beat. My latest theory is that the core (the little cross and its extensions on the edges of the screen) are actually the synapses of Commander Video (Bit.Trip's main character) and that the impulses from the players brain, to the controller, to the brain-core on-screen are meant to work in perfect unison as some for of sym??bol of... someth??ing.

I haven't got that all worked out quite yet, but god knows I'll keep trying. Core is compelling enough keep me playing it for a long time. Beat fans, music game fans, shmup fans, retro fans, fast-paced puzzle game fans, and anyone who's interested in playing a truly one-of-a-kind title should pick up Core post-haste.

Score: 9.0

Final Score: 9.0 -- Superb (9s are a hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage to what is a supreme title.)

The post Review: Bit.Trip Core appeared first on Destructoid.

The audience for most sports simulations tends to be limited to die-hard fans of the sport in question. But boxing is something that seems to have much higher crossover appeal; perhaps boxing games�similarities to fighting games are what draw in non-boxing fans. Then again, maybe people just love to beat the ever-loving crap out of each other and see the ?blood fly.

Either way, that appeal applies to the Destructoid staff as well -- instead of just Samit Sarkar and Brad Nicholson discussing a sports game, Anthony Burch comes out of his indie cave and joins in on the Destructoid review of EA Sports�Fight Night Round 4. The highly-anticipated follow-up to 2006’s Fight Night Round 3 was d??eveloped by EA Ca??nada, who took over the series�reins from the now-defunct EA Chicago.

Read on to find out if Fight Night Round 4 lives up to the franchise’s lofty pedigree.

Fight Night Round 4 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Developer: EA Canada
Publisher: EA Sports
Released: June 25, 2009
MSRP: $59.99

Samit Sarkar (PS3)

As someone who doesn’t follow boxing at all, I was surprised at how much fun I had with Fight Night Round 4. That’s a testament to the quality of its core gameplay, which offers a combination of easily-understood mechanics that provide a mostly accurate simulation of boxing. Gone is the gamey parry system from FNR3; in its place is a counter punch mechanic that brings real boxing str??ategy into the ?game. You can create counter punching opportunities in three ways: by making your opponent miss with a lean (L1 + left stick); by blocking at the very last possible moment, just before a punch hits (R1 + right stick up/down); or by weaving (quarter-circle forward from top or bottom of left stick) to dodge a punch.

The game will let you know if you’ve done this correctly: the camera will zoom in, and if you manage to connect with a punch -- any punch -- your opponent will flash yellow for a second, a visual display that’s reminiscent of what you’d see upon scoring a big hit in the PS1-era NFL GameDay games. The strategy comes in limiting your opponent’s counter punch opportunities. You can’t merely throw punches haphazardly, hoping you’ll land some of them, because the CPU AI is smart. You might hit your opponent a few times, but then he’ll evade or block a punch and counter-punch you. Since counter punches do much more damage than regular punches, if your o??pponent lands a few in rapid succession, you’ll find yourself on ?the mat -- or at least stunned.

Counter punching works very well -- perhaps too well, actually. The balance of the fighting in this game seems to be tilted a bit too far in favor of counter punching. You cou??ld be chipping away at your opponent through a round or two, but then he might make you miss a few times and all of a sudden, you’re stunned or knocked down. When your opponent has a counter punch opportunity, you’ll be incapacitated for a split second, but if he takes too long to fire off a punch, you’ll be able to block or dodge. It just feels as if the game is focused too closely on counter punching; they factor heavily into fights, so if you suck at blocking and dodging, you’re going to have a tougher time winning.

It doesn’t help that the gam??e doesn’t seem to award you counter punch opportunities every time. I definitely noticed a few instances where I f??elt that the CPU had missed, and I didn’t get the telltale camera zoom effect. But overall, the system is a success, especially since it makes you think more like a real fighter. And the new corner game rewards you for fighting like a real boxer. This time, there’s a simple points-based system that reflects your performance in a round. For example, you’ll get 12 points for landing over 60% of your punches. You spend the points on replenishing your health or stamina bars, or reducing damage. It’s more gamey and less interactive than the setup in past games, where you twirled analog sticks to heal cuts and swelling, but as a guy who doesn’t want to have to think between rounds (except about how to improve on the last one), I liked it.

There’s a new setup for the career in FNR4: called “Legacy Mode,�it’s all about building up your fighter’s (you guessed it) legacy over the course of his career, with the end goal of retiring as the Greatest Of All Time. Your initial attributes are dependent on the physical characteristics and boxer styles of your created fighter (though you can also take over for a real in-game boxer). In Legacy, you schedule a fight and will have one to three training sessions before it in which you can raise your attributes. Much has been made of the new training minigames in FNR4, and admittedly, they’re more in tune with how boxers really train. But sin?ce your performance is dependent upon your attributes,?? it’s literally impossible to do well in them early on. It’s much more sensible to just auto-train -- and take a guaranteed two or three points out of a possible four, five, or six -- than to play the minigames and only get one point.

While I’m discussing minigames, I might as well mention how absolutely stupid it is that you’re also guaranteed to lose an attribute point in two categories every ??time you train. Yes, you read that correctly. I’ve never seen a sports videogame do this before, and I simply don’t understand it. Why does training with the maize bag -- which works on hand speed, head movement, and?? block strength -- take a point off of both your left and right hand power?

Training aside, Legacy has a simple setup: you start at the bottom of the ranks and work your way up the ladder in your weight class. It’s all rather sterile, though; all you do is schedule matches, train, and then fight. Your popularity is represented as a percentage on a meter, but it doesn’t really mean anything except as a requisite for certain Legacy ranks. There’s no involvement of money, either, so it’s not like your bigger fights will have accordingly bigger purses. And the message system is nigh-useless; it informs you of “up-and-coming�fighters whom you far outrank, and the grammar is poor, to boot (e.g., “we new [sic] this would happen one day�.

Still, it’s definitely satisfying to beat upper-echelon fighters with your 75-rated newcomer (especially if he looks like you, which can be accomplished with Photo Game Face). I just wish they’d fleshed out the mode a bit more. At least the game is visually stunning -- it’s easily one of the best-looking console games I’ve ever seen. Fighters�muscles will flex when they move, and it’s hilarious to see the “oh shit!�look of shock and horror when your opponent misses a punch and he’s left vulnerable to a counter punch. Plus, watching someone’s head snap back in slow motio??n -- with his face rippling and a blood/sweat mixture spraying everywhere -- never gets old.

Interface-wise, the game is kind of a mess. The menus could very nearly be called “labyrinthine� at the very least, they’re confusing and illogical. For the longest time, I was irritated by the apparent lack of an options menu for the ESPN ticker that rolls across the bottom of the screen. But for reasons unbeknownst to me, the ticker options do exist -- they’re just in the settings for the online modes. (?) And the Legacy interface could do with some streamlining, too. As for the game’s rap/hip-hop soundtrack, I’m personally not a big fan, which is why I was infuriated to discover that FNR4 doesn’t support custom soundtracks on the PS3. As far as I’m concerned, that’s inexcusable this far into 2009.

In general, though, the good far outweighs the bad here. The highly touted all-new physics system allows for glancing blows and removes the invisible barrier between fighters. You can let loose rapid flurries of punches that are immensely fun to watch -- as long as you’re the one doing the pummeling. It doesn’t matter if you care about boxing; this superb game is worth a look from everybody, especially since face button punching will be added in September. My complaints with FNR4 are mostly about ulti?mately trivial window dressing; the ?game itself is a blast to play, and that’s what stands out.

Score: 8.5

Anthony Burch (PS3)

This g??ame allowed me to knock out a quasi-realistic version of Samit Sarkar in slow-motion. T??wice.

Score: 10.0

In all honesty, though, I have to agree with most of the points made by Samit. Though he’d never played Round 3, I’ve spent the better part of a year dicking around with it -- and I have to say that Round 4 is, without question, a fantastic improvement on the formula. Though it may not be terribly realistic that the boxers can now throw punches at lightning speed without slowing down for the first few rounds (leading to some visually hilarious online matches where I and my inexperienced opponent literally punched each other in the face for dozens of seconds without paus??ing to block, like Rock ’Em Sock ’Em Robots), the pace feels much faster and much more brutal without losing any of the previous title’s strategic gameplay. I was literally about to follow up the previous sentence with the statement “the punches come faster and feel harder than ever before�-- until I realized how that would have looked out of context. Suffice it to say that the boxers no longer look and sound like they’re lightly tapping one another on the face with oven mitts.

Though I’m absolutely ecstatic EA removed the atrocious parry system from FNR3, the replacement counter punch system doesn’t feel any less artificial. Rather than feeling like a legitimate strategic addition to the player’s toolbox, it seems like more of an imbalanced powerup; as was the case with Samit, many of my bouts were decided primarily by the distinctly videogame-y, more or less strategy-devoid counter punch system. They’re just too goddamn powerful and too luck-related to belong in a game as otherwise strategic as FNR4.

It also doesn’t help that said system is open to a really, really obvious exploit that works in both single-player and multiplayer modes. As “perfectly�timing a block opens your enemy up to a counter punch, and as you can block as fast as you want so long as you hold down the block button and repeatedly press the right analog stick in the direction you want to block (making your boxer appear to play a high-speed version of peekaboo with his opponent), it’s possible to just?? keep blocking and spam the right stick as fast as possible until your opponent d?ecides to throw a punch. When their blow lands on one of the eighteen thousand mini-blocks you’ve made, the game will stupidly count at least one of those blocks as perfectly timed, putting you in the perfect position to land a devastating counter punch without ever requiring a lick of strategy or skill on your part.

I echo all of Samit’s complaints with the Legacy mode, though I have to put special emphasis on the game’s needless desire to simulate every single day leading up to one of your matches, even if you’re not scheduled to do anything on those days, and even if the AI fighters scheduled to fight on those days have absolutely nothing to do with your career. My problem with Legacy isn’t so much the lack of depth as the fact that they tried to hide its relatively meager features with a bunch of pointless menus and off-screen simulations. Still, though, this is an admittedly minor complaint in the face of what is essentially an equally enjoyable version of the campaign mode from the last game. It’s as satisfying as ever to work your way up the ranks until, if you’re like me, you get about halfway up the ranking list and find the AI gets too goddamn good at counter-punching and you quit because you’re too lousy at the game to learn to defend against i??t.

I need to reserve special ire for the multiplayer mode, however. I don’t know if this is entirely the fault of the PSN version, but it was literally impossible for Samit and me to instantly play together despite being on one another’s friends lists. In order to get into a game with Browntown, he needed to set up a game with weirdly specific restrictions (Heavyweight class only, New York Arena, Final Destination, no items) and I needed to search for a custom game with those basic parameters. Perhaps the PS3 is to blame for not having a fucking “invite friend to game�option in the XMB, but that doesn’t excuse FNR4 not al??lowing me to instantly jump into a game with Samit.

But again -- and I really can’t overstate this enough -- Fight Night Round 4 allowed me to kick the living shit out of an uncanny valley rapist version of Samit Sarkar and then have my ow??n uncanny valley rapist version dance around his comatose body, the word “DICKBUT�?emblazoned in bright, capital letters on the back of my boxing trunks.

This alone justifies my purchase.

Score: 8.0

Brad Nicholson (360)

I think I think my love affair with Fight Night Round 4 died after going online.

But let me back up for a second. I’ve spent the majority of my time with Fight Night Round 4 playing online, competing against people on my couch, and in Legacy Mode. I? won’t bother with specifics of the fighting mechanics -- Mr. Sarkar and Mr. Burch have already done a wonderful job of explaining them. Instead, I’ll focus on my experience playing the game competitively -- an experience tha??t I plain just didn’t enjoy.

Fight Night Round 4 does a lot of things right: the boxers look realistic, the presentation is solid, and the physics -- the glancing hits, jiggling faces and ring movement -- are both beautiful and dreadful to behold. Make no bones about it: the game is mostly a simulation title, requiring skill and twitch, concentration and patience. But the operative word is “mostly.�Underneath the defining aspects of the game lies a pulsating “gamey�core. As wild as Mike Tyson was in the ring, he didn’t throw thirty haymakers in the first round of every match. While Fight Night Round 4 does its best to discourage tha??t behavior, players can still do i??t. And it’s effective.

Whenever I play another EA Sports title, Madden NFL 09, I always randomly draw the match with the kid that knows how to exploit the game. He plays with a gunslinger quarterback. Every offensive snap, he takes a twenty-step drop, runs to the right and to the left, and then bombs the perfect pass straight into the end zone. This is where I want to turn off my console in frustration: the game teaches you to play and make decisions as if it were real. Twenty-step drops aren’t real. The same rule applies to Fight Night Round 4. You’re supposed to monitor your punch count, lean on the jab and go into matches not like a wild man, but as a collected dude with a plan. The game constantly reinforces accuracy over ridiculousness. Yet, that 70-yard pass -- or, in Fight Night Round 4�/i>s case, an onslaught of punches and haymakers -- is still a viable competitive option. It’s not only frustrating to have to break the game to ??win, it’s also quite boring.