WHAT PLAY YOU?

[JNLister]

Playing FIFA World Cup 2006 on the PS2 on the easiest setting and it just went very weird.

 

I played a bunch of games against increasingly difficult teams to get the hang of the game and worked my way up until, after a few attempts I could beat a team ranked in the 30s (Chile), ie one who you'd expect to meet in the finals. Started playing world cup mode and won the first five qualifiers, beating the likes of Belgium and Macedonia 1-0 or 2-0. So I can do enough to knock them off, but it's hardly comfortable or decisive.

 

Then there's two mid-season friendlies so I pick to play Mexico and Brazil just to get a handle on how I'm playing in the world context. And in both games they played awful, virtually every tackle I tried was successful, and I won 4-0 and 7-0 respectively.

 

Is it possible there some sort of bug with the game where the opposition plays well below par in friendlies?

[Green]

Fifa is incredibly inconsistent. In 2009's Be A Pro mode I went from being unbeaten in 20+ games to losing 4-0 to Reading (who were at the bottom of the league at the time). I then went back to my winning ways until another sudden difficulty spike where I drew with Sheffield Wednesday.

[Weezenal]

Just finished Age of Zombies a playstation mini game I got free with the Playstation Plus. I only started playing it yesterday but it's a really simple and fun game which looks down on you a bit like Pokemon but you kill Zombies moving with the directions and shootingusing the buttoms, triangle for up and x for down etc. I've finished it but the survival mode will keep it going a bit longer and I've put it on my PSP too.

[Tommy!]

Is bad company 2 acting up for any one else. People shifting about all of a sudden or not being able to move and the like. Its just happened today, which seems odd after so many hours of play and really spoils it.

[pain-giver]

Is bad company 2 acting up for any one else. People shifting about all of a sudden or not being able to move and the like. Its just happened today, which seems odd after so many hours of play and really spoils it.

 

For me, it's only when I connect to a USA server, but that could just be my crappy internet

[Tommy!]

Is bad company 2 acting up for any one else. People shifting about all of a sudden or not being able to move and the like. Its just happened today, which seems odd after so many hours of play and really spoils it.

 

For me, it's only when I connect to a USA server, but that could just be my crappy internet

 

ahh, that might be it then. Thank you

[FLips]

TripleA's Platform Review #3

 

Next up in a hopefully long line of reviews is another member of the "Rubbish in 3D" club. What started as a highly challenging, almost flawless 2D sidescroller became riddled with rubbish 3D controls, terrible sidekicks and spin-off games. Thankfully a new 2D game is being released soon that returns the series back to it's roots, and I couldn't be happier. So here i'll take a look at the game that started it all...

 

Rayman - PS1, PS3 Store, PC, Sega Saturn, Jaguar

 

 

Rayman is a story of a limbless man who's home and friends are under threat from a mysterious figure, appropriately named "Mr Dark". He's captured and caged all of the Electoons and spread them across the various areas in Rayman's world. Rayman must rescue the Electoons and stop Mr Dark.

 

The game looks stunning, especially for a 1995 game. In my opinion it looks better than a fair amount of 2D Sonic and Mario games. It uses 65,000 colours and you'd be hard pressed to find a better looking and more colourful platform game on the PS1, 2D or 3D.

Each area (Dream Forest, Band Land, Blue Mountains, Picture City, Cave of Skops and Candy Chateau) all look original and stunning. The forest flourishes with trees and rivers, wild fruits and wild animals, whereas the Cave of Skops is full of jagged stalactites, volcanic rocks and dangerous spike pits. It all looks so good, and hasn't aged a day.

 

There's two things you can say about Rayman which cannot be argued against. One, it's extremely hard. The game spikes in difficulty after about 4 levels and doesn't get any easier throughout. I couldn't get any further past the 3rd area till I was 20. The levels are hard, the boss fights even harder, and you can't even fight Mr Dark unless you've rescued every Electoon. This is a solid platformer. The second thing to say is that the game is hard, but through no bad faults. The game controls perfectly. It's responsive, easy to use, and has excellent level design. The D-Pad moves Rayman, O is run, X jumps, and X again lets you hover for a while, and [] is Punch. The Punch is your main way of attack and can be charged to reach further, with powerups also available for collection. The powers Rayman uses are collected gradually through the course of the game, he starts with only a basic jump. Punching, grabbing ledges, hovering, and sprinting are given to you by Betilla the Fairy and each one comes with a small practice level to become adapted to them.

 

If you ever die in this game, it won't be because the game is cheap, or glitched or badly designed. It'll be because you mis-timed a jump, or did something wrong. That is what adds to the replayabilty and "never give up" attitude you'll get whilst playing this game.

 

 

The music in this game sounds great, but blows it's load on the early levels and becomes forgettable the further in you get. It also suffers from odd editing, where the music will fade out mid-level leaving you thinking it could have been something much better if extended. Band Land and Dream Forest are choice picks, also the last boss has pretty threatening music. One good thing the game has though is sound effects. Fun twinkles and cartoonish punching effects amongst other things make the sound stand out. The end of level jingle (Rayman spins round, and shouts "YEAHHH!" with a jumpy little tune playing) is also memorable.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZM_5oQ_kAtY - Dream Forest

 

This ultimately looks like a simple game for kids, but it is far from it. Your kids would never be able to complete this. They'd enjoy the first few levels and then the novelty of dying over and over would wear thin and they'd give up. For this reason I can't really recommend it for anything under possible mid-late teens. It's not Mario or Sonic in terms of playability, unless your child is a gaming god. Older players will definately enjoy the challenge though.

 

Overall the game handles perfectly, sounds above average, looks great for it's age and provides a massive challenge. The levels are varied and tough, the boss fights range from simpe to exceedingly difficult, and if you're like me, you may never reach the end of it without an extra lives cheat and a password to unlock the last boss without collecting everything (I did play all the actual levels though, so I never skipped any levels or anything like that).

 

Pros-

 

Bright and colourful graphics

Perfect controls

Varied and fun levels

Great challenge for fans of Platformers

 

Cons-

 

Too hard for the target audience

Soundtrack doesn't reach it's full potential

Stupid rule demanding 100% completion before last boss is available

 

For fans of platform games, this is a must. Not only will it provide you with a more than decent challenge, but you'll know you can do it eventually and that it isn't just the game being cheap and screwing you over.

 

 

 

 

-------------------

 

Next up - Spyro The Dragon (keep your suggestions coming )

Edited July 7, 2010 by TripleA

[Lee]

Nothing to contribute really but to be nice for a change and say TripleA's game reviews are by far my favourite read on the forum

[JLM]

Indeed, good stuff TripleA. Rayman really was fiendishly difficult. So, so pretty as well.

 

Just as a heads up for anyone playing Pokemon Heart Gold or Soul Silver, there's a Nintendo wi-fi event going on at the moment where you can download a Jirachi and an extra route for your walker dealy for no charge. You get an extra option on the main menu (until July 16th), and if you follow the instructions there'll be a special green delivery guy at the Pokemart to deliver Jirachi to you. You don't get many chances to own one of these, so get it done people.

[Big Rob]

Cheers for the heads up, JLM. I don't actually have a little screwdriver so can't open up the Pok

Edited July 7, 2010 by Big Rob

[JNLister]

Fifa is incredibly inconsistent. In 2009's Be A Pro mode I went from being unbeaten in 20+ games to losing 4-0 to Reading (who were at the bottom of the league at the time). I then went back to my winning ways until another sudden difficulty spike where I drew with Sheffield Wednesday.

 

Following up my 7-0 win against Brazil with a hard-won 87th minute 1-0 over Azerbaijan at home suggests there may indeed be a "Friendly? Let's not bother." bug.

[Tommy!]

How fucking big's that picture.

[FLips]

How fucking big's that picture.

 

My bad, thought it would automatically re-size. Fixed now for your viewing pleasure

 

In other news, Spyro will be up sometime tomorrow.

[FLips]

TripleA's Platform Review #4

 

Next up is my favourite PS1 platform game, and one of my favourite games of all time. It was the first ever Playstation game I played and I recently completed it again on my PS3, along with it's two sequels. A colourful, rewarding, and most importantly - fun platforming game that has stood the test of time.

 

Spyro The Dragon (PS1)

 

 

Spyro The Dragon is a game (or at least series) that everyone will have heard of. Around in the Platform-heavy Playstation 1 and N64 Generation, this was Sony's answer to games like Banjo Kazooie and Mario 64. Along with Crash Bandicoot, Spyro took over the PS1 as the Console's top Platform series.

You play as the titular Spyro, and his Dragonfly pal Sparx. You must save the Dragon World from the evil Gnasty Gnorc and his minions, who have not only stole all the Dragon's treasure, but petrified them all and stole their eggs. You must guide Spyro through 6 worlds, Artisans, Beast Makers, Dream Weavers, Peace Keepers, Magic Crafters and Gnorc's World. Each World has around 5 or 6 levels split into different types. 4 Normal levels, 1 race level and 1 boss level.

The normal levels require you to simply get to the end of the level and find as much treasure and Dragon eggs as you can, saving all the frozen Dragons along the way. The frozen Dragons you free supply you with hints and tips to the whereabouts of hidden treasure or secret areas, whereas some just thank you and leave. The Dragon eggs are held by taunting blue theives who run away as soon as they see you, meaning you have to chase them round circuits to ram into them and take the egg back.

The Treasure comes in different colours that are worth different values;

 

Red - 1

Green - 2

Blue - 5

Yellow - 10

Purple - 25.

 

The Race levels are like bonus levels in which you fly Spyro through hoops, flame bad guys and collect chests on a ciruit, under a time limit. For each set of items you collect you get treasure. There are no threats in these levels.

 

Boss levels are usually shorter than the normal levels and have less treasure and dragons on them. You usually just chase a boss through the level until you fight him and collect whatever he drops.

 

 

The game itself controls a bit jagged at first, but by no means are they bad. They just aren't as smooth as Mario or Banjo for example. X jumps and Glides if pressed in mid-air, O is your flame power and [] is used to charge with your head. L1 and R1 control the camera.

Spyro handles well and there was a good amount of thought into his powers. For example, the flame power does not harm bad guys with metal armour, so they must be charged with the [] button. The controls are simple to learn, and simple to use. You could ask for a little more smoothness, but you can't win them all.

 

Speaking of jagged, the graphics fit that term nicely. Also like the controls however, this isn't a bad thing. Granted, they could look better, but it's 1998 and the game is quite long, with tons of music on the disc, so obviously the graphics had to suffer a bit. The game doesn't look bad for it, everything is bright and colourful, or murky and dark depending on the worlds, and there are tons of different landscapes and enemies and stuff.

The music was composed by Stuart Copeland (the drummer from The Police) and is one of the most memorable soundtracks I know. The quality and variety of the music is great, and fits each level and world to perfection. If there's one thing this game doesn't cut corners on it's the sountrack.

 

- Spyro Theme Music

 

Also, the Wizard Peak level's music was used as the soundtrack for The Amanda Show. Bit of fun trivia for you

 

 

The levels themselves are similar to Mario in that they're like a small open world. There's no linearity at all to them and you can roam wherever you like. This makes the game work in my opinion. If Spyro was put into say Crash Bandicoot's type of game, it just wouldn't work at all. Things are hidden in allsorts of places, and in some levels you're rewarded for taking strange paths. Treetops for example is a level filled with Boost Pads that make Spyro sprint faster and jump further, if you turn the wrong way on a few of them and link them together you can reach a hidden area filled with treasure and a dragon and stuff.

Spyro can take a few hits, shown by the colour of Sparx. The brighter he is, the more you can take. To re-fill just kill some sheep or frogs or other harmless animals on the level.

Checkpoints are spread numerously over the level, and to save the game just stand on one of them for a while. Easy peasy.

 

The game is quite long, each level takes a good while to do and you must collect a collective amount of treasure or eggs or dragons to reach the next world. The quickest I can do the game 100% is around 6 and a half hours. The fastest just rushing from start to finish takes 2 and a half. This is trying to do it fast though, and i've completed it tons of times so I know my way around. For first time players or people just casually plodding through it this will last a lot longer though.

 

 

It's one of those games that remind you of how good platforming used to be when there was more than just Mario and unique Indie titles on the market. There hasn't been a good Sonic, Mario, Rayman, Crash, Donkey Kong, Kirby or whoever else game since god knows how long, and there's a reason some of them (Sonic, DKC, Rayman, Kirby) are all returning to their roots. Spyro should be one of them. The Spyro on the 360 is enjoyable, but it's combat-based, forceably Co-operative and nothing like a platform game used to be. Bring back the PS1 days, I say.

 

Pros-

 

The game looks colourful and bright, and each level and world is varied

Sounds great, CD quality music that had a lot of effort put into it.

A deep game with tons to collect and find, giving hours and hours of play

Easy to control and pick up and play

 

Cons-

 

A bit easy for those wanting a challenge

Graphics could be smoother

 

 

 

 

 

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Next up - Rolo To The Rescue (Sega Megadrive)

[Jimmy_kahoona]

Back playing Resident evil 4 after a couple of years gap

 

Nuf said really!