Need for Speed Undercover – review

There hasn’t been a good Need For Speed game since Most Wanted was released back in 2005, and given that EA Black Box have been developing the franchise for seven years now, the law of averages suggests that they should eventually develop another decent title.  Unfortunately Undercover takes the law of averages, ties it to a pole and beats it to death.

The first thing I noticed about Undercover was the terrible graphics. Textures look washed out and flat, giving the game a much unfinished look. Even if you crank up all the settings on the PC version of the game, it still looks considerably worse than previous titles in the series. There are also a number of glitches with the graphics, particularly in relation to shadows which have a bad habit of becoming detached from the objects they represent. You could almost forgive the developers if the frame rate wasn’t so dire. To put it charitably the frame rate is “inconsistent” and leaves a lot to be desired. The odd thing is that the frame rate bears almost no relation to the on-screen action. You can be happily racing around when suddenly the frame rate will take a huge hit, which isn’t much fun on a game that’s meant to be fast paced.

As Black Box clearly put no time into the games graphics you’d be hoping that they invested wisely in some decent audio. Unfortunately the game also fails to deliver in this department. Even played through a 7.1 speaker system the sound effects are flat, generic and uninspired. They’d have been better off taking the sound effects straight out of Destruction Derby, at least the game would have some charm that way.

The game drops you into a large free roam city environment. There is some kind of back story which see’s you working as an undercover cop trying to infiltrate street racing gangs. The story develops at a snail’s pace and is told through some of the most badly scripted cut scenes I’ve ever seen in a game. Putting a story to this game really does seem like an afterthought, so I stopped caring about it quite early on.

The concept of a free roaming city looks like a good idea on paper, and indeed has worked well in certain games such as Burnout Paradise, but with Undercover it’s a massive let down. Driving around the city is really really boring. Essentially there is nothing to do, and anyway you can skip straight to the next race at the touch of a button, which makes the whole “free roam” idea completely redundant.

The actual racing is a very mixed bag. In the “Cost to State” races you’re expected to cause a certain amount of damage to the City whilst getting chased by the Police. “Outrun” also works well, and sees you having to hold the lead against an opponent for a certain period of time. Both events work well to begin with, but the challenges tend to get rather repetitive.

All other forms of racing in the game are incredibly dull. The AI isn’t very good either, making sprint and circuit races all the more easy to win. It really doesn’t help matters that there is no way to change the difficulty level.
All the cars seem to handle in a similar way, the only real difference relates to the top speed and acceleration. It’s like the developers only did one car specification and then copied and pasted it 25 times, then put different shells around the cars hoping that nobody would notice.

Black Box have also wasted valuable time thinking up the world’s worst damage system. In this day and age you’d expect cutting edge damage physics especially when this game has to compete with the likes of Burnout and Race Driver GRID. Once again though Black Box have gone back to basics and given us something resembling the damage in the original Colin McRae game. Damage doesn’t affect the way the cars handle either, again adding to the games simple nature, which really makes you wonder who the game is aimed at.

The only thing I actually liked about this game was the Environmental Hazards such as scaffolding and petrol stations which can be crashed into and used to take out the police and other racers. Sadly there is not nearly enough variety in these hazards, and the poor graphics don’t exactly leave you with something cool to look at.

Some games are so bad their almost good, but Undercover is just plain bad. It’s almost an achievement that someone has been able to make a game of such low quality. All this is further evidence that EA will literally publish anything regardless of what state it’s in.

It’s very hard to recommend this game to anyone, unless you hate video games, or racing or yourself. I’d also like to think that this would be the last Need For Speed game, but I’d just be deceiving myself.

2 out of 10

FIFA 2009 – review

For those of you that have read any of the recent mainstream reviews of FIFA 2009, you could be entirely forgiven for thinking that this game is the best thing since sliced bread. Having now played the game myself I’m not entirely sure the other reviewers were playing the same game.

FIFA 2009 was developed by EA Canada, a country not particularly well known for its footballing heritage, so even before kick-off signs were not good. Having said this, I’d quite like to start the review on a positive note by talking about the things I actually liked in the game. As we’ve come to expect with FIFA the graphics, sound and general presentation is much better than anything you’d find with Pro Evo Soccer. The animations are excellent as well; players will move in a realistic way rather than looking like Subbuteo pieces getting pushed around a pitch. In this regard it’s definitely worth getting a few players sent off just to watch the different ways in which your opponent’s players will fall to the ground.

Once again EA have excelled themselves is the sheer scale of the game. There are over 500 teams from 30 leagues in the game as well as 41 national teams. As well as this you have 32 real stadiums from around the world including Wembley, the Nou Camp, San Siro and the Estadio Azteca in Mexico. You’re certainly spoilt for choice with FIFA ’09.
Well, now that I’ve got the boring stuff out of the way I can really expose this game was what it truly is. There are so many glitches, bugs and annoyances within FIFA that it’s difficult to know where to start. EA have tried to move away from the arcade style of football which they are often associated with, and give us something resembling a simulation of the beautiful game… that was the theory anyway. FIFA ’09 is more akin to playground football than the sort of stuff you would see in the Premier League.

The most obvious problem is that it is very difficult to actually score a goal. It isn’t uncommon to see your player kick the ball over the bar from the edge of the six yard box. There’s also no obvious way of aiming the ball when you take a shot, so more often than not the ball will go straight into the hands of the goalkeeper. To further add to the frustration shots will repeatedly hit the posts and cross bar, particularly when it comes to free kicks.

You almost wonder if the developers had ever watched a football match, yet alone played in one. FIFA ’09 is far too defensively minded, which really takes away from the fun and drastically slows the pace of the game. Most of the time the ball seems stuck around the midfield as all 22 players battle it out for possession. Even if you do manage to break down the opposition defence and get one-on-one with the goalkeeper it’s still a challenge to get the ball in the back of the net.

As you play the game more and more you’ll begin to notice the wide variety of glitches within the game. At times it almost becomes a competition to see how many offsides you can get in a match or what percentage of your shots hit the woodwork.

To EA’s credit they have tried to implement a few new ideas into the game. Referees will now play the advantage, which all sounds well and good, but unfortunately it’s another case of a good idea poorly implemented.

The “Lounge Mode” works very well, and allows you to set up a mini-league amongst your friends. This really adds a sense of competition to the game and gives you a good idea who the best players really are, which can help to resolve any arguments.

As much as I’ve criticised and complained about the game so far I’m not going to completely condemn it. As frustrating as it can be at times, FIFA ’09 is actually quite a fun game to play, the fact that I’m still playing it over a month after release must say something positive. OK sure, there are some interesting design choices and the commentary it about as annoying as the plague, but at least it’s better than Pro Evo.

6 out of 10

Crytek and EA hate you

Following endless moaning about piracy levels on Crysis, it seems Crytek and EA are trying to go one better with Crysis Warhead. Crytek’s latest release comes bundled with DRM which only allows you to install the game 3 times. Once you’ve used up all your install credits you have to make a phone call to EA and ask them nicely if your allowed to install the game which you’ve already payed for.

So, congratulations go out to EA and Crytek. You’ve just given thousands of PC gamers a reason to pirate your game.

You can download the game here.

Then you’ll have to install the crack, which can be found here.

Again, this is further evidence that DRM just doesn’t work. By using this invasive software the corporations are just encouraging otherwise paying customers to illegally aquire their games.

Personally I hope this game sells badly and gets pirated to death. Hopefully EA will have a serious rethink about putting DRM on future titles.

Everything is Overrated

Top 15 most overrated bands…

• The Rolling Stones
• U2
• Coldplay
• The Libertines
• Radiohead
• The Beatles
• Red Hot Chili Peppers
• Fall Out Boy
• The Eagles
• Foo Fighters
• Nirvana
• Green Day
• The Killers
• Lostprophets
• Paramore

That is all…

Race Driver GRID preview

Back in the day I used to play loads of different racing games. Looking back now, most of them were probably fairly shity, but at least they were something to keep me occupied. Today i’m more inclined to play a First Person Shooter than anything else, however the other day I stumbled across the demo for “Race Driver GRID”.

The game follows on from Race Driver 1, Race Driver 2, Race Driver: Modern Warfare and Race Driver: Extraction Point. Once again it is developed by Codemasters, who until they released DiRT last year held pretty high acclaim in my books. I only had to play the DiRT demo for about 10 minutes to realise that it was a steaming pile, so naturally I was a bit wary of GRID.

Fortunately though it looks like Codemasters have really got there act together for this game. Its good to see that British developers are still up there with the very best.

The first thing that struck me about this game was the graphics. When turned up to MAX the textures and lighting look spectacular. Sadly though, I imagine this game with have the sort of system requirements that will make you cry into your pants.  Running on an 8800GT I got an average of 45FPS (MAX settings @ 1280×1024, No AA).

In the demo you get the choice of 3 races. Take to the European circuit in a BMW touring car, race around an American street circuit in a Ford Mustang or try you skills at drifting in Japan.

Personally I didn’t find the drifting to be much fun, possibly because I was crap at it. Certainly though the idea is well realised, and it is possible to pull off some very cool looking drifts.

Taking on a street circuit in an American muscle car sounds really cool… and it is! There was a real sense of speed around the tight track, where even small mistakes would be punished with a trip into the barrier.

Out of the three races the Touring cars was the best. The handling was smooth and the track was just plain excellent to drive around. It was challenging, but importantly not frustrating.

Unlike a lot of other racing games the AI is GRID is actually very good. The driver don’t just race you, they race each other. On several occations I would see two drivers battling to out for position, the result being that one of them would end up in the gravel trap.

Crash damage looks very realistic and actually affects the way your car handles rather than being purely cosmetic. The actual crashes themselves look very good, rather the just bouncing off walls, cars react to collisions in a life like manner.

Based solely on this very short demo, i’d say GRID is lining up to be one of the best racing games this year.

Ricky Gervais to star in GTA IV

If the Telegraph is to be believed, Reading born comedian Ricky Gervais is set to star in the Grand Theft Auto IV. He will perform three minutes of new material as well as jokes from his recent sell out tour.

“It’s a first – which always interests me,” he said. “It’s seriously a big deal, though. Games have outsold Hollywood for the past few years so it’s nice to be a small part of that.”

Grand Theft Auto IV goes on sale on the 29th April. Estimates suggest that the game will take $400 million in its first week alone.

Medal of Honor Airborne (PC)

Developed by EA, Medal of Honor Airborne is the 5^th game in the series to come to the PC. Despite using the very good Unreal Engine 3 this game has “bad” written all over it, with only a handful of redeeming features.

Like most of the other Medal of Honor games you once again take on the role of an American soldier. Fighting alongside your allies from the 82^nd Airborne you take part in various missions including the invasion of Normandy and Operation Market Garden.

The first mission sets a benchmark for the game, and yet you very rarely see any improvement on this. It’s almost like the developers got bored early on, fumbled together some poorly designed maps and gave the player the exact same objectives to complete on each one, such as… blow up a tank, destroy enemy radio, blow up another tank, take out the sniper etc…

It’s a shame because the Unreal Engine has a lot of potential, which has been realised to some extent in games like Gears of War and Rainbow Six Vegas. However it’s difficult to see anything new with Airborne. The games main selling point is that you parachute into every level, but even this seems like a gimmick which doesn’t serve to affect the gameplay in any way, shape or form. The idea seemed to be that by choosing your start point you could complete your objectives in any order. However due to the small size of that maps this doesn’t make the game seem any less linear.

Fortunately for Airborne the actual gun play is very good. The weapons feel powerful and there is always plenty of ammo lying around. Although for the most part this is due to the stupid AI of your team mates, who seem intent on getting themselves killed as quickly as possible. Sadly this really screws over the “realism” factor as you continue to win the battle despite your allies being cut down quicker than the Amazon rainforest.

In stark contrast to your allies, the enemy AI is actually reasonably good, although the occasional Nazi will decide that his weapon is better used as a baseball bat rather than a gun. Unfortunately some clown at EA thought it would be a good idea to give the Nazis telescopic X-ray vision, allowing them to both see and shoot you from about four miles away. When combined with an unfair checkpoint save system this really adds to the frustration which comes bundled with the game. At times you feel you’re trying to beat the actual game engine rather than the Nazis.

Graphics wise the game is very good especially with textures and lighting. The sound is also half decent, but it’s nothing that hasn’t be heard before.

It’s almost a blessing that this game is so short, six missions to be exact, meaning you should be able to complete it in around six hours. Although by the time you get to the end you’ll certainly be wanting that time back.

Anti human nature.

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has once again been doing its very best to prove what a massive joke it really is. Following just two complaints they were able to ban a TV advert for the video game “Stranglehold”.

As if in an attempt to compete with the anti-liberal BBFC, the ASA stated their reason for the ban was that the advert, “suggested that it was honourable to seek revenge and that violence was an acceptable solution to a situation.” What the ASA failed to realise is that far more graphics adverts for films are regularly shown on TV.  This seems to further emphasise the fact that these associations are not only anti-free speech, but totally bias against video games in any form. Next they’ll be trying to ban Mario because it encourages you to take magic mushrooms!

These claims by the ASA also create a contradiction so huge that it could cause a rift in the time-space continuum. If humanity creates violent entertainment and people go out and buy it, then surely this is what people want. Evidently we see some kind of strange inconsistency here, where humans ban the very things they create. The very fact the ASA exists also seems to suggest that humans are incapable of making decisions for themselves and therefore need someone else to do it.

Censorship just doesn’t work…

Richard Brunstrom is a Genius

For those of you who don’t know (or care), Richard Braunstrom is the Chief Constable of the North Wales Police. He recently made comments saying how “ecstacy is less dangerous than aspirine” and that drugs could be legalised within 10 years.

Needless to say he recieved a good roasting from the popular press – in particular the Daily “we hate everyone” Mail. For some reason people seem to think its immoral and irresponsible to legalise drug use. But if its not hurting anyone, other than the user, what is the big problem? Tabacco and alcohol are no less a drug than ecstacy or heroin, and yet they are readily and cheaply available.

Allowing only certain drugs to be legal seems entirely inconsistent. Indeed who has the right to say what chemicals I can and cannot put into my own body? Personally I wouldn’t take drugs, but I wouldn’t want to stop another person from doing so, unless they were physically hurting another individual through their actions.

There are many advantages to legalising drugs, and at the moment I can think of no disadvantages.

• If drugs are legal they can be heavily taxed, just like alcohol or tabacco.
• The drugs would be manufactured by major corporations (like Sony or Shell Oil). These companies are trusted to produce a good quality product.
• Making drugs legal puts the drug dealers out of work.
• Reduced risk of HIV/AIDS (or other disease) through dirty needles etc…

Ultimately it should be the decission of the individual and not some guy in a suit telling me what to do…

Fascists…!

(insert title here)

Just realised that I haven’t written anything since October. Its not that i’ve got bored, I just simply haven’t had the time since being at Uni. However now that the Xmas holidays are upon us I should have time for a few “good” posts.

However, as I write this I can feel my eyes beginning to shut. On top of that I really need a drink (non-alcoholic – unless there is a water shortage, I which case i’ll be having a beer) and the regular 2am dump.

**More rambling**