Standalone Hard Reset: Extended Edition set to launch in March
Hard Reset was a futuristic love letter to first-person shooting's past, but it quickly succumbed to "if you've shot one million robots, you've shot 'em all" syndrome.
to "if you've shot one million robots, you've shot 'em all" syndrome. Flying Wild Hog, though, isn't throwing in the towel after one go at robot-blasting nirvana. Coming in March 2012, Hard Reset: Extended Edition will be a standalone expansion with five new levels, four new enemies, upgraded graphics, and "additional gameplay elements" (via Blue's News).
As of now, Flying Wild Hog is "discussing" how it'll deliver the new content to owners of the original game. Personally, I'm hoping they'll bundle it with a free pony. But - if I were a betting man - I'd put my money on some sort of DLC.
Ten year game of Civ 2 results in "hellish nightmare" planet, permanent nuclear war
How would a Civilization 2 map look after running for nearly ten years?
Redditor, Lycerius, has found out, and has posted the current status of humanity in the year 3991 AD. Things are NOT GOOD.
"The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation," says Lycerius. "There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands."
A 1700 year war has wiped out 90% of the world's population in a nuclear holocaust that seemingly has no end. The polar ice caps have melted and reformed 20 times. Land that isn't rock or mountain has been reduced to festering, irradiated swampland. Every nation's resources are devoted to pumping tanks to the front line, where they bash out an everlasting stalemate, and are occasionally nuked. Large cities are long gone. Every time one gets too big, an enemy nation's spy sneaks in a nuke, and BOOM. The three nations, the Celts, Vikings and the Americans, are poised to continue the war forever.
"The military stalemate is air tight. The post-late game in civ II is perfectly balanced because all remaining nations already have all the technologies so there is no advantage," Lycerius explains. "There are so many units at once on the map that you could lose 20 tank units and not have your lines dented because you have a constant stream moving to the front.
"This also means that cities are not only tiny towns full of starving people, but that you can never improve the city. "So you want a granary so you can eat? Sorry; I have to build another tank instead. Maybe next time."
Lycerius has been dipping into the game every so often for almost a decade, and is determined to break the stalemate that's emerged. He wants to bring back farmland and start restoring his cities. As such, he's been taking some advice from the hundreds and hundreds of comments that have been posted in response.
"Diplomacy's failed in this world," DonutEF declares, "you've got to hit em hard and take over the world for the greater good. Then you can spend turn upon turn under the blanket of enforced religious peace fixing it with hundreds of engineers if you like!"
"Its for the greater good," he adds.
"Fundamentalism is what you need," suggests snarc. "Fanatics are cheap as anything. Let the enemy nuke them: one nuclear missile costs far more than the Fanatics it might kill. It's about making him spend his resources killing chaff, while you protect the interior where you're building the army that will win the war."
Civilization is brilliant. Have you been playing any huge, long-form games (not of Civ, necessarily)? How did they turn out?
Interview—Hard Reset dev on Call of Duty, cyberpunk, Deus Ex, PC exclusivity
In July, we blew the lid off Flying Wild Hog's cyberpunk-soaked love letter to shooters of yore, Hard Reset .
. But—after picking the lid shrapnel out of our charred flesh—we realized something: this isn't a typical game release. Big-budget PC exclusive? No multiplayer? Nothing about crying behind cover 70 percent of the time? We asked, and Flying Wild Hog founder Klaudiusz Zych answered. Read on for Zych's thoughts about Call of Duty, Deus Ex, phoned-in multiplayer, PC leaving consoles in the dust, and plenty more.
PC Gamer: What's Flying Wild Hog's background? How large is your team, and what games have inspired your current direction?
Klaudiusz Zych: Flying Wild Hog started up in April 2009. First it was 8 people, ex-employees of CD Projekt RED and People Can Fly. For the first year, we built our own engine from the ground up. Since then, the studio's grown to 35 people. Everybody in our team's a veteran dev with at least five years experience and multiple titles under their belt. There are people who previously worked in CD Projekt RED, People Can Fly, City Interactive and Metropolis. Some have over ten years of professional experience.
I won't hide that we were inspired by over-the-top, action-packed shooters, like Painkiller or Serious Sam. We wanted Hard Reset to have even more physics, destruction and mayhem with hordes of enemies. To do this, we had to make almost everything physical and destructible, even light sources. Hard Reset also adds an experience-based upgrade tree similar to something like Diablo. So it's basically a marriage of Painkiller and Diablo.
Hard Reset's a bit of an anomaly in a shooter landscape dominated by cover-heavy Call of Duty-alikes. Do you think gamers are getting fed up with that style of game? Do you think there's a growing contingent of folks who just want to shoot things with awesome weapons, "realism" be damned?
Zych: Hard Reset is a game that you want to jump on after work and unleash some mayhem. It's not an interactive movie on rails like most modern shooters. It's back to the roots of first person shooters, but with updated graphics. There are still many fans talking on forums about the old style of gameplay. They are fed up with modern games that just play themselves and don't require skill. Modern shooters are often lacking variety in game world theme selection. There is World War 2, modern warfare or Star Wars-like sci-fi. It's been quite some time since anyone picked the dark and dirty theme of cyberpunk, which is very interesting I think.
Similarly, you're not including a multiplayer component. Was that a tough decision for you? Do you feel like too many games tack on half-baked multiplayer modes without putting any thought into it—just to fill in a checkbox on some marketing survey?
Zych: Multiplayer is cool, so it was a tough decision. But it's either you make a heavily polished multiplayer-focused game to compete with Battlefield or Left 4 Dead 2 or don't make one. The idea to just add multiplayer mode to please publishers or marketing guys, or to put it on the box just doesn't make sense. We wanted to put the time we would spend on multiplayer to polish the single-player experience as much as we could.
You're going PC-only with this one, which is something of a rarity in the modern console-heavy triple-A space. Why'd you pick PC, specifically? Are you concerned at all about the typical PC woes: piracy, lack of exposure to "wider" audiences, etc?
Zych: It's been six years since the Xbox 360 was released, and console hardware has become an order of magnitude slower than current PCs. Multiplatform PC games need to make compromises about technology decisions and usually don't use the full potential of modern PCs. Of course, the console market has a larger audience, but PC gaming is still alive and well thanks to digital distribution channels and services like OnLive, so it can still be a great platform for smaller studios like Flying Wild Hog.
You've got a really nice cyberpunk vibe going with your game, but—like it or not—that puts you in Deus Ex: Human Revolution's line of fire. Obviously, you're making a very different sort of shooter, but is releasing in the same space as such a revered franchise a big thing for you? Is there any pressure there?
Zych: Deus Ex is a completely different kind of game. It's an RPG with heavy storyline, it is a slow-paced tactical shooter, while Hard Reset is an action game with lots of enemies storming at you and powerful guns to tear them into pieces. I think the only way that Hard Reset and Deus Ex are similar is the cyberpunk theme and art direction. We are not afraid to be compared here; it's easy for everyone to judge for themselves from screenshots and movies.
What sort of enemies will we be going up against in Hard Reset?
Zych: Expect hordes of biomechanical creatures storming at you in Hard Reset. In the world of Hard Reset, a rebellious AI is capable of building enemies from everything it can. Literally hundreds of randomly generated, differently appearing enemies will show up. And as I said, we were inspired by Painkiller, so expect BIG surprises.
You've opted to use your own technology instead of, say, the oh-so-trendy Unreal Engine 3. Why? Also, will Hard Reset include mod support at launch?
Zych: We wanted to tailor the Road Hog engine for the kind of game that we wanted to make. The idea was to have everything possible dynamic, so we are making extensive use of Havok physics. The graphics engine has fully dynamic lighting. We don't use pre-rendered lightmaps. Every light is dynamic; it can casts shadows or be shot down. It's just not possible with Unreal Engine 3 to run it smoothly on low-end PCs, as Road Hog does.
Another motivation to stick with our own tech is that we are a small company and we are pushing to have rapid code integration for tools and features that our artists and designers require. Our engine is clean and compact, so it's easy to experiment with things, add new functionality, etc. If community response to Hard Reset is positive, we might consider releasing an editor in the future.
Civilization V Game of the Year edition incoming
CVG bring news that a game of the year edition for Civilization V is just around the corner.
bring news that a game of the year edition for Civilization V is just around the corner. It'll include all of the DLC packs that Firaxis have put out since launch, adding Polynesia, Inca, Vikings, the Mongols, Babylon and the Spanish, along with a batch of new maps and scenarios tailored to each civ. The bundle will cost $49.99 and will come out on September 27 in the US.
There aren't any details of a European release yet, but if you missed Civ V the first time around, the GOTY's a good way to grab it with most of the additional units and leaders, though last month's Korea and Wonders of the Ancient World DLCseem to be absent from the list. Read on for a summary of the bonus DLC that's included, and check out our Civilization V reviewto find out why we heartily recommend it.
Sid Meier's Civilization V (standalone game); Civilization and Scenario Pack: The Mongols; Civilization Pack: Babylon; Cradle of Civilization Map Packs: Mesopotamia, Americas, Asia and Mediterranean; Double Civilization and Scenario Pack: Spain and Inca; Civilization and Scenario Pack: Polynesia; Civilization and Scenario Pack: Denmark - The Vikings; Explorer's Map Pack; Sid Meier's Civilization V digital soundtrack.New Hard Reset patch adds survival mode, 3D support
You know what's great?
You know what's great? Surviving. I can say - almost completely without reservation - that it's one of my favorite things to do. Sometimes, though, life feels purposeless. Bereft of meaning. Flat , one might say. Enter Nvidia's 3D Vision tech. It probably won't bring you lasting happiness and satisfaction, but it sure looks neat.
Happily, as of patch 1.2, Hard Reset now combines both of those things. Its new survival mode promises "wave after wave of robotic hell" on two new maps, and 3D Vision's now fully supported. These come in addition to a number of smaller changes, which can be viewed here. One of them apparently involves exploding gorillas, so count me in.
Help get Civilization 4's Baba Yetu into Classic FM Hall of Fame
Classic FM's Hall of Fame is alright.
is alright. Sure, Shostakovich's Piano Concerto No.2 in F Major shows some promise, and Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini truly is a piece of music about something. But we can't help noticing that Civilization 4 theme, Baba Yetu, is nowhere to be seen. As the most uplifting composition ever attached to a game about crushing your enemies, it deserves recognition.
Okay, so it's already won a Grammy. But it needs MORE recognition. Who could fail to be moved by immortal lines like "Baba yetu, yetu uliye, Mbinguni yetu, yetu, amina!" It really is a lovely bit of music, as you can hear above.
Classic FM are currently holding an open online vote for new submissions to their Hall of Fame, kicking off a campaign to get as much videogame music as possible into the list. A Facebook pagehas been started, which you can join and "like" to show support, and you can cast your vote in the Classic FM Hall of Fame chart on the Classic FM Hall of Fame chart vote casting page. Voting ends on February 29. Worth a shot, no?
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Our Verdict
X misses the spot.
X misses the spot. The occasional bit of spectacle cant save this boring, broken and charmless space simulation.
Written by Andy Kelly.
When I was first set loose in X: Rebirth's vast universe, I was convinced it was going to be amazing. That '34' on Metacritic couldn't possibly be accurate. I'm in space! In a spaceship! But I quickly realised that this is, in fact, a colossal missed opportunity. A supernova of bugs and baffling game design that refuses to let you have any fun, no matter how hard you try – and I really tried.
First problem: you only get to pilot one ship, the horribly named Albion Skunk. You're able to explore it using a first-person mode, which could have been fun if there were more than two rooms to it, and if anything was even slightly interactive.
You have a separate ship for trading that follows you around and has to be given orders. You can't cancel an order without editing your save file, and sometimes it just refuses to move. It's like I'm dragging a badly-behaved toddler around a shopping centre. Then there's your co-pilot, Yisha. For a character you spend the entire game with, and who's almost constantly talking, you'd think they would have hired someone with some basic acting ability to speak her lines. But while you'll eventually grow used to her awkward delivery, you'll never stop cursing how useless she is. Case in point: if you're piloting a drone, and enemies start attacking the Skunk, she'll just sit there dumbly. Couldn't you, like, move, or fight back, or something?
The game has a problem with humans generally. On stations – which all look identical, incidentally – you'll talk to NPCs, who are terrifying, slot-mouthed, dead-eyed shop mannequins. While space itself feels nicely alive, teeming with traffic and huge ships lumbering back and forth, the interiors feel eerily lifeless. In a nightclub I hear the ambient sound of people drinking and laughing, but it's empty except for two people standing motionless by the bar. Not exactly Deep Space Nine.
Rebirth fares much better when you're in space. Some messy shadows aside, it's a good-looking game, with colourful nebulas, asteroids, planets and stars providing a vivid cosmic backdrop. The combat is like jousting in space. Ships make passes at each other, firing a volley of shots when they get close and hoping some connect. Or you can use heatseeking missiles. Hit the spacebar and you can strafe, FPS-style. Hit it again to steer with the mouse. The movement feels nicely weighty.
The biggest problem is that there's nothing fun to do. There are countless stations, jobs, contracts and ways to make money, but it's all deeply tedious, and utterly free of personality. The characters you talk to cycle through the same few dumb lines. The missions are rote. It's only in the (dreadful) story that you'll find any excitement: its large-scale space battles are at least genuinely impressive to behold.
Think about how rich and full of character the Mass Effect universe is. Now imagine the exact opposite and you have X: Rebirth's charmless world. I just don't want to be here.
Some severe patching is needed. There are more bugs and broken missions than I have space to list here, and save-file editing is almost always the go-to solution, which is just absurd when you realise they're charging £40 for the pleasure. It feels like an early access game. But even if they iron out the flaws, X: Rebirth is just so innately unlikable, and so deathly boring, that I think it may be beyond help.
Expect to pay £40 / $50 Release Out now Developer Egosoft Publisher Deep Silver Multiplayer None Link www.xrebirth.comThe Verdict
X: Rebirth
X misses the spot. The occasional bit of spectacle cant save this boring, broken and charmless space simulation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Andy grew up with PC games, losing countless hours of his youth to Quake and Baldur’s Gate. Today his love for PC gaming is just as strong, and now he loses countless hours of his adult life to them. He loves horror, RPGs, sims, anything set in space, anything set in rainy cyberpunk cities, adventure games, and you.
We recommend By Zergnet
PC AI sucks at Civilization, reads manual, starts kicking ass
The Massachusetts institute of technology have been experimenting with their computers' AI.
The Massachusetts institute of technology have been experimenting with their computers' AI. Specifically the way they deal with the meaning of words. You might think that the best way to analyse this kind of thing would be with a human to PC conversation, like in Short Circuit. That's not the case.
Instead, the boffins handed over PC classic, Civilization, and let the AI get on with it. They sucked - winning a mere 46 per cent of the time. The difficulty setting the machines were playing on has not been specified.
Then the researchershanded over the instructions and taught the PCs a "machine-learning system so it could use a player's manual to guide the development of a game-playing strategy." They didn't teach the PC how to play Civ, but they taught them how to read about it. The system had no pre-programmed notion of turn-based strategy or even what the objects in the world represented. The system was a noob.
The AI continued to button-mash but, this time around, when words appeared on-screen the software compared them to text in the manual. It searched for other related words close-by and tried to guess what it all meant. The computer started "reading" the manual and impementing tactics in-game, just like we used to before the days of streamlined tutorials. Its win ratio was boosted from 46 per cent to a reasonable 79.
Associate professor of computer science and electrical engineering, Regina Barzilay, offered insight into why they used a game manual to prove their point. She reckons game manuals have “very open text. They don't tell you how to win. They just give you general advice and suggestions and you have to figure out a lot of other things on your own.”
Civ was picked because it's a really fun game, and they didn't want the computers to get bored during the testing.
Not really. The researchers picked Civ because, “every action that you take doesn't have a predetermined outcome, because the game or the opponent can randomly react to what you do." It forced the computer to develop a "technique to handle very complex scenarios that react in potentially random ways.”
These kind of systems could make developer's jobs a lot easier. Computers could start automatically creating AI algorithms that perform better than the ones that us stupid humans spend months creating. Alternatively, they could just write the manual and hand it over. Maybe.
What's the best AI you've ever played against? Most of us vote for SupCom's Sorian AI mod. Craig goes for the original F.E.A.R. - but he's never read an instruction manual in his life.
(via Reddit)
Messi gets tricky in Fifa 16 video
Fifa 16 hopes to bottle magic by mocapping the arcane shimmies of Lionel Messi.
Fifa 16 hopes to bottle magic by mocapping the arcane shimmies of Lionel Messi. It's all in support of the "No Touch Dribbling" feature coming to this year's Fifa, which gives players extra off-ball movement while still in possession, allowing for smarter feints or, in Messi's case, moments of stupefying brilliance. "Always watch the hips" an Aston Villa coach once told me, but that doesn't work when a man can change direction faster than humans can blink.
Fifa 16 is due out in September. Here are Ben's impressionsof the game in action. And here are seven minutesof Messi being Messi why not.
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Our Verdict
A deep, interesting trading sim that demands unnecessary amounts of patience.
A deep, interesting trading sim that demands unnecessary amounts of patience. Atmospheric, ambitious and frustrating.
The Albion Prelude expansion to X3: Terran Conflict adds a healthy dose of war to the exploration and freeform space trading sim, along with 30 new ships and a dynamic stock exchange designed to liven up X3's commerce.
The tension between expansionist human colonists and the alien races that occupy the X universe has finally ignited, triggering a massive space war. X's hungry corporations are taking advantage of this to create new business, and there's plenty of room for a lone entrepreneurial trader to make millions.
That lone trader is one of a series of pre-made starting profiles that present differing angles on the conflict. You can sign up as a fighter in the army and play through a lengthy series of combat missions. You can become a well funded intelligence agent in charge of building fleets. You can become a space pirate desperately trying to scrape out a living in the face of pursuing law enforcement agents. In typical X style, from these jumping-off points, you can go anywhere and do anything you like.
This sounds much more glamorous than it actually is. The ambition of Albion Prelude is undermined by the tedium and plodding pace of every basic action. As a trader you'll be picking up goods from one part of the universe and selling them for a profit a few systems away. The new stock exchange function throws open much of the behind-the-scenes workings that drive X's economy, an excellent addition for those who want to play X as an absorbing galactic numbers game. But the act of docking, loading up and shifting your goods around to take advantage of a gap in the market takes so long that I often forgot what I was supposed to be doing by the time I reached my destination.
The space battles are much better, and act as a great showcase for the considerable graphical updates made by the expansion. Albion Prelude's combat ships aren't lithe enough to allow for proper dogfights, and there's not much depth to the action, but the spectacle and sheer volume of lasers involved makes the combat pilot a good way in for new players. The campaign objectives get repetitive quickly, however, and there's almost no guidance or tutorials to guide you round X's multi-layered interface.
When one battle went bad, I headed for the nearest stargate and deserted. “Sod this, I'll become a space pirate!” I thought. An hour later I found myself lost in the void, wading from system to system, still trying to find the first rung on the galactic trading ladder.
If you're willing to put up with the pace, Albion Prelude's simulation of a universe in turmoil provides the most dynamic and interesting sandbox yet presented by the X series. If interacting with it wasn't such a pain, Albion Prelude would be a tremendous achievement.
The Verdict
X3: Albion Prelude
A deep, interesting trading sim that demands unnecessary amounts of patience. Atmospheric, ambitious and frustrating.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tom stopped being a productive human being when he realised that the beige box under his desk could play Alpha Centauri. After Deus Ex and Diablo 2 he realised he was cursed to play amazing PC games forever. He started writing about them for PC Gamer about six years ago, and is now UK web ed.
We recommend By Zergnet
Civ World trailer brings Civilization to Facebook
The trailer above is our first look at Civ World, the upcoming Civilization Facebook game that's trying to put an accessible spin on one of the most complex and detailed empire-building strategy games ever made.
Have they succeeded? Trading with friends to achieve a collaboratively could be fun, but my favourite bit is the little crown icon you get for being the most successful empire. Who doesn't want to be king of all their friends? The game's currently in beta, but you can find out how to join on the Civ World Facebookpage.
New trailer details the changes in X Rebirth: Home of Light expansion
The X Rebirth expansion Home of Light is now available, as is the 4.0 update, which brings even more changes to a game that's already undergone quite a lot of them since its troubled launch two years ago.
“Troubled,” of course, is a nice way of saying “bad,” but I have to give full credit to developer Egosoft for persevering in its efforts to make the game playable. Theadds a bulletin board system to keep track of missions, makes big changes to the external views, enables Orders for multiple selected ships, adds a Trade Deals menu that shows profit estimates, enables time acceleration with SETA, adds new tutorials, and makes a number of other changes that will, hopefully, make the game more of a pleasure to play.
The 4.0 update will be free for everyone who owns X Rebirth. Those who don't mind spending a few bucks more can also snag the $10/£8 Home of Lightexpansion, which brings three new systems to the game, including the titular Home of Light, and its “massive economy to profit from.” The expansion also includes specialized warehouse stations, new game starting points, new missions, and the possible return of “an old and forgotten enemy,” although I suspect that its mention in the update notes indicates that it's actually pretty likely to happen.
It's interesting that while the comments on Steam in response to the launch of the 4.0 update aren't quite universally enthusiastic, the Home of Light user reviews are almost universally positive. There are relatively few of them, but the general consensus is that the new content, coupled with two years of fixes, has finally resulted in a proper X game. And if you're a space sim fan, a proper X game is a pretty fantastic thing.
Civilization on sale this weekend
Steam are throwing a Civilization sale this weekend.
Steam are throwing a Civilization sale this weekend. Civilization 5 is available for £17.99/$29.99 and the Civilization 4 complete pack is available for £3.75/$7.50. The Complete Pack comes with Civ 4's three expansions, including Beyond the Sword, Warlords, and Colinization, which is a massive slice of top strategy gaming at an excellent price. If you've always wanted give Civ a go, now's as good a time as any. The games are on sale on Steamnow.
Recently, Civilization 4 became the first game to win Grammywith an award for its theme music. For more on Civilization, have a look at our pick of the ten best Civ 5 mods, and our guideto making your own maps.
FIFA 15 bans Luis Suarez, just like in real life
Zombie apocalypse patient zero, and presumably quite-good footballer, Luis Suarez has been banned from playing football, touching a football, or even thinking about football until October 26th, for the paltry crime of biting another human during a match.
Zombie apocalypse patient zero, and presumably quite-good footballer, Luis Suarez has been banned from playing football, touching a football, or even thinking about football until October 26th, for the paltry crime of biting another human during a match. As reported by Eurogamer, it turns out this ban extends to the virtual realm of FIFA 15 too. Hungry, hungry Suarez is in the game, but players won't be able to select him in certain modes until the ban is over. Try, and you'll receive an in-game email informing you that Suarez is unavailable until the 26th.
You can still pick Suarez for use in exhibition matches, though he'll be put in the reserves by default. However, the ban is in full effect in FIFA 15's Ultimate Team, where a search for 'Luis Suarez' on the transfer market comes up with no results. Not even a comedy picture of some dentures. Play as Barcelona, meanwhile, and you'll receive the aforementioned email informing you of Suarez's absence.
Suarez isn't the only thing missing from FIFA 15—trade offers have been nixedfrom Ultimate Team in an effort to combat cheating.
FIFA 15 is out now, minus (for the most part) Suarez. He returns on October 26th, hopefully wearing a muzzle or at least a bib. Here's our review.
FIFA 15 Ultimate Team loses trade offers as EA continues to combat cheating
Back in August, with the release of FIFA 15 growing closer, Electronic Arts promised to bring great vengeance and furious anger down upon those who dared to cheat in FIFA Ultimate Team.
down upon those who dared to cheat in FIFA Ultimate Team. Now the publisher has gone one step further in its efforts to clamp down on bad behavior by eliminating trade offers from the game entirely.
EA acknowledged in aon the FIFA Ultimate Team forums that some players use the trade offer feature to conduct legitimate trades, but said it's also commonly used by coin sellers to sell and move coins. Account phishers make similar use of trade offers to clean out stolen accounts, and while the practice of "bid bumping," used to force players into over-bidding for items, is probably more annoying than actually in violation of any specific rule, the elimination of trade offers will end that practice, too.
"It was a tough decision, but this is the right step towards improving security, showing cheaters the red card, and keeping FUT safe for all FIFA fans," EA wrote.
To further secure FIFA Ultimate Team accounts, Origin Login Verification prior to accessing the Ultimate Team web app will be made mandatory in the near future. Details on how to set that up are available from the EA help site. FIFA 15 comes out on September 23, but if you want to get a feel for what's cooking ahead of time, you can grab the demo now.
X Rebirth: Home of Light and 4.0 update are coming next year
You have to give credit where it's due: X Rebirth was a hot intergalactic mess when it launched in late 2013, but developer Egosoft has continued to plug away at it with both free updates and paid DLC.
when it launched in late 2013, but developer Egosoft has continued to plug away at it with both free updates and paid DLC. Today the studio announced that more of both is coming in February in the form of the Home of Lightexpansion, as well as the major 4.0 update.
Home of Light will expand the X Rebirth universe significantly with the addition of three new systems, including the Home of Light from the X3 games. It will also add new warehouse trading stations that will enable high-volume trading, and new enemies, weapons, missions, "mysterious phenomena," and secrets to discover on the outskirts of known space. The 4.0 update will launch around the same time—neither of them have a hard release date yet—and will feature the addition of trading graphs, new engine technology, customizable weapon upgrades, and at least some of the new stuff mentioned above—enemies, weapons, secrets, and so forth.
As pleased as I am that Egosoft is sticking with it, the obvious question is whether or not all these updates are actually improving the game in a meaningful way. And I really don't know. Reviews on Steam are "mostly negative," with 68 percent throwing a thumbs-down, but that includes reactions going all the way back to launch day. More recent comments seem legitimately mixed, and much of the criticism now focuses on the fact that Rebirth is very different from previous games in the series. One such review describes it as "a great game" and credits Egosoft for being a dedicated and reliable developer, but then tags it as "not recommended" because it's "not an X game."
X Rebirth: Home of Light will normally sell for $10, but for now can be pre-purchased on Steam for $8, and will also be included in the upcoming X Rebirth Complete package. The 4.0 update will be free.
Civilization 4 wins grammy for Baba Yetu six years after release
Civilization 4 has become the fist game ever to receive a Grammy.
Civilization 4 has become the fist game ever to receive a Grammy. The prestigious prize was awarded to one track from the game's soundtrack called Baba Yetu. You'll find the music video for the piece above.
Baba Yetu was composed by Christopher Tinfor his album Calling All Dawns, but was originally used in Firaxis' brilliant 2005 strategy game Civilization IV. The song scooped the prize for the Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists category at yesterday's Grammyawards.
EA Sports promises dire consequences for FIFA Ultimate Team cheaters
With FIFA 15 just a month away, EA Sports has issued a rather stern warning to people giving thought to cheating in FIFA Ultimate Team .
. The publisher said it will be "more proactive in taking action" against bots, coin sellers, match cheats and other exploits, and players caught cheating could find themselves permanently banned from the game.
The bots used by some players to farm coins and automatically buy items from the Transfer Market are able to perform searches and make bids "at rates significantly higher than what is humanly possibly," EA explained. But that not only gives people using bots a big advantage over those who don't, it also puts a much greater strain on the FIFA Ultimate Team infrastructure than it was designed to handle, leading to problems like stuck transfers, lost coins or players, or market searches that turn up no results. And with or without bots, buying and selling coins is a violation of the terms of service and "amounts to cheating in FIFA Ultimate Team," it added.
To ensure that everyone knows where they stand, EA provided a breakdown of its ban process. Players caught buying coins or promoting coin sellers will first be given a warning in-game and via email; a second offense will lead to the loss of FIFA points and a club reset, while a third offense will result in a permanent ban from FIFA Online. Anyone caught farming or selling coins will be permanently banned from all EA games without warning.
Immediate, permanent FIFA Online bans will also be levied against players caught using match cheats to record false records, as well as anyone busted using exploits to boost the stats of their Online Virtual Pros in Pro Clubs. The FIFA Interactive World Cup leaderboards are also being "cleaned bi-weekly for cheaters."
"From here on we'll be more proactive in upholding our Terms of Service and banning those who violate the Terms of Service. We plan on giving you regular updates on our progress against cheaters throughout the year," the warning concluded. If you're a FIFA player, you'll probably want to read the whole thing.
New trailer details the changes in X Rebirth: Home of Light expansion
The X Rebirth expansion Home of Light is now available, as is the 4.0 update, which brings even more changes to a game that's already undergone quite a lot of them since its troubled launch two years ago.
“Troubled,” of course, is a nice way of saying “bad,” but I have to give full credit to developer Egosoft for persevering in its efforts to make the game playable. Theadds a bulletin board system to keep track of missions, makes big changes to the external views, enables Orders for multiple selected ships, adds a Trade Deals menu that shows profit estimates, enables time acceleration with SETA, adds new tutorials, and makes a number of other changes that will, hopefully, make the game more of a pleasure to play.
The 4.0 update will be free for everyone who owns X Rebirth. Those who don't mind spending a few bucks more can also snag the $10/£8 Home of Lightexpansion, which brings three new systems to the game, including the titular Home of Light, and its “massive economy to profit from.” The expansion also includes specialized warehouse stations, new game starting points, new missions, and the possible return of “an old and forgotten enemy,” although I suspect that its mention in the update notes indicates that it's actually pretty likely to happen.
It's interesting that while the comments on Steam in response to the launch of the 4.0 update aren't quite universally enthusiastic, the Home of Light user reviews are almost universally positive. There are relatively few of them, but the general consensus is that the new content, coupled with two years of fixes, has finally resulted in a proper X game. And if you're a space sim fan, a proper X game is a pretty fantastic thing.
Play your Civ 4 maps in Civ 5
You know what was cool about Left 4 Dead 2?
You know what was cool about Left 4 Dead 2? You could play Left 4 Dead maps with it (you could also play it while still boycotting it, which was convenient). Turns out, that's also what's cool about Civilization 5 - all those maps of Faerun you were working on will import right into Firaxis' upcoming turn based megalomania sim.
On the left, a square. On the right, the almighty hex (which is short for hexagrammathon). They are different shapes. I'm not sure how I'd even begin to turn one into the other, but then again, I'm not Jon Shafer. Jon Shafer is, though, and he's just told Bitmob that you can "import Civ 4 maps into the world builder and convert them into Civ 5 maps, including all the units and cities and stuff on it - the conversion process will just do that for you automatically. We're hoping that the first week Civ 5 is out, people will use that function and port all of the Civ 4 stuff over to Civ 5, so everything will be out there already."
[ Bitmobvia Joystiq]
FIFA 15 showcases better keepers, Ultimate Team improvements
Biggest of all for FIFA 15's first new-gen, Ignite-engine-powered PC showing are the additions to Ultimate Team.
We've covered FIFA 15's wobbly nets, muddy pitches and scary ability to steal human faces- what news from Gamescom?
Biggest of all for FIFA 15's first new-gen, Ignite-engine-powered PC showing are the additions to Ultimate Team. Now players can challenge a friend's Ultimate Team over five games through the new Friendly Seasons mode. There's also the ability to create 'concept squads' by experimenting with players you don't own, and purchase loan players from EA Sports' Football Club catalogue.
Then there are the goalies, often ignored in football games despite them being the tallest and shoutiest men on the pitch. They've been given new branching animations that react to changes in the ball's flight, and smarter approaches to one-on-one situations. No longer will they charge straight ahead like they've got horse blinkers on, but adjust their runs to meet the ball. And If it becomes clear they won't, they'll retreat back to their nets all red-faced.
Players also benefit from more realistic goalies. Because shot-stoppers better adhere to the laws of momentum—unlocked from physics-defying and uninterruptible animations—you can send them the wrong way with feints and shimmies.
Finally, there's Match Day Live Hub, a feed for all the latest league standings, transfer gossip and player stats. It pulls player-chosen information from the globally respected football website, Goal.
All this comes hot on the heels of EA's new Premier League deal that brings 20 stadiums and 200 freshly-scanned faces. Oh, and this year also gives us full access to all 18 teams from the Turkish Süper Lig. Why hello there, Kardemir Demir Çelik Karabükspor.
You'll get to wrap your head around this dizzying array of new content when the game launches September 26. A demo is scheduled for early September.
Find all our Gamescom 2014 coverage right here.
New trailer details the changes in X Rebirth: Home of Light expansion
The X Rebirth expansion Home of Light is now available, as is the 4.0 update, which brings even more changes to a game that's already undergone quite a lot of them since its troubled launch two years ago.
“Troubled,” of course, is a nice way of saying “bad,” but I have to give full credit to developer Egosoft for persevering in its efforts to make the game playable. Theadds a bulletin board system to keep track of missions, makes big changes to the external views, enables Orders for multiple selected ships, adds a Trade Deals menu that shows profit estimates, enables time acceleration with SETA, adds new tutorials, and makes a number of other changes that will, hopefully, make the game more of a pleasure to play.
The 4.0 update will be free for everyone who owns X Rebirth. Those who don't mind spending a few bucks more can also snag the $10/£8 Home of Lightexpansion, which brings three new systems to the game, including the titular Home of Light, and its “massive economy to profit from.” The expansion also includes specialized warehouse stations, new game starting points, new missions, and the possible return of “an old and forgotten enemy,” although I suspect that its mention in the update notes indicates that it's actually pretty likely to happen.
It's interesting that while the comments on Steam in response to the launch of the 4.0 update aren't quite universally enthusiastic, the Home of Light user reviews are almost universally positive. There are relatively few of them, but the general consensus is that the new content, coupled with two years of fixes, has finally resulted in a proper X game. And if you're a space sim fan, a proper X game is a pretty fantastic thing.
Civilization Facebook game to launch alpha next week
The long dormant Civilization World project has suddenly sprung to life.
The long dormant Civilization World project has suddenly sprung to life. A Facebook message from Sid Meier has announced that the project will now be called Civ World, and a playable alpha of the game is set to start next week.
Next Wednesday, January 12th is the day the alpha is set to launch. If you'd like to get invovled registration for the alpha is now open on the official Civ World registration page, but in order to take part, you'll have to put a team of between 5 and 50 people first.
Meier explains why teams are necessary, saying that "to win in Civ World, you'll need to collaborate with your friends in order to do well in the game and become ruler of the world, so in our early Alpha testing, we're grouping people together to simulate how the game will work when it's available to the world at large. In the final game, you'll be able to sign up individually (although we'll love it if you invite your friends), but to participate in Closed Alpha, you'll have to enter as a team."
Meier also talks a bit about how the game will play. "In Civ World you will be joining your friends to form nations, which will compete with other player-nations to rule the world."
"Civ World games will have a well-defined beginning and end, each ending with a triumphant civilization and one person recognized as that game's most prestigious player. Along the way, as you progress through the different eras of time, you'll have the chance to win era victories as well. We want players to have both a final goal to work towards, as well as short-term objectives to achieve as they play. The trophies you unlock with your triumphs will carry over from game to game, and you can show them off in your throne room."
As an added bonus, all those who make it into the alpha will recieve a special item to add to their throne room. For more information, check out the Civilization World Facebook page.
[via Bluesnews]
FIFA 15, like The Sims 4, is all about emotions
This might be the first trailer to make me give a football game a curious glance since the days of the Mega Drive, and it's all thanks to EA's current obsession with emotions.
This might be the first trailer to make me give a football game a curious glance since the days of the Mega Drive, and it's all thanks to EA's current obsession with emotions. Not content with turning The Sims into an emotional melting pot, they're giving each player in the noble game of football their own "emotional intelligence", which will visibly change over time depending on how the match is progressing. While players won't sit cross-legged in a huff after someone misses a goal, their reaction animations will alter in both positive and negative ways to proceedings, according to this latest trailer. See what this entails after the break.
Basically, each player's mood will elevate or sour depending on the outcome of the match, and this good/bad mood will progress throughout the game, revealing itself in reaction animations and in enthusiastic goal celebrations like that big pile-on up there. There's also talk of more dynamic crowds, meaning that spectators will now have their own distinct group personalities based on the team they're rooting for.
Sure, it's all surface stuff, but given that EA has spent the last couple of decades working on the mechanics of video game football, it's nice to see some thought spared for the drama and atmosphere that comes with the sport. FIFA 15, contrary to the name, is out this September, and unlike the previous game, the PC version will be based on FIFA's 'next-gen' engine.
We Discuss The Division's Contagious Gameplay And Open-World Depth
This feature was originally published March 9, 2016.
Executive editor Andrew Reiner and I spent much of yesterday playing The Division on our live stream. During that time, we got our bearings on the game's various systems, leveling mechanics, and multiplayer. Today, we've regrouped and are sharing our initial thoughts on the game, now that we've had some time for our opinions to solidify. Read on for our take on the setting, gunplay, and, of course, how it compares to Destiny.
Reiner: One of the questions we saw the most during our day-long live stream of The Division was “How does it compare to Destiny?” On the surface, both games are cooperative shooters at heart with elements from MMOs and open-world RPGs. In the 10-plus hours I’ve invested in The Division, it’s clear that Ubisoft’s development team studied Destiny – aping some of the content that works, and going in different directions for other things. What is your initial take on how the two games stack up?
Jeff: I guess there are some comparisons to be made, but I think you’re overstating things a bit. If anything, The Division feels like a new classic-style entry in the Rainbow Six series (with MMO trappings), which I’ll take in a heartbeat. I see your point about the similarities between The Division and Destiny, but overall I feel like I’m immediately connecting with Ubisoft’s game in ways that Destiny never clicked – no matter how many dozens of hours I spent with it. I should note that I went into The Division fairly lukewarm, too. I didn't play the beta, and I wasn't expecting much more than an adequate third-person shooter.
Reiner: In terms of the minute-to-minute gunplay, yes, Rainbow Six is a better comparison point. The cover-based combat in The Division is slower paced, relying heavily on team tactics, whereas Destiny is run-and-gun combat at its best. From what I’ve played thus far, Destiny is the better shooter of the two – the combat encounters are intense in both, but the finesse and flow of Destiny is so much more entertaining. That’s not to say I wasn’t sweating bullets during a good number of The Division’s battles, but a good portion of my time was hunkered down behind cover, deploying turrets, and picking away at enemy health with assault rifles. You say you are connecting to The Division more than you did with Destiny; in what ways?
Jeff: The biggest thing for me is the setting. Sci-fi stuff is fine, but none of it felt grounded in any satisfying ways. The tower has about as much life in it as Mass Effect 1’s empty shopping mall of a Citadel, which sucked much of my enthusiasm for the universe whenever I had to fly my loading screen over to home base. In contrast, I’m really digging The Division’s Post Office HQ and how I’m able to make my own mark on it by upgrading it with resources I’ve picked up on missions. Just seeing something simple like a new counseling station pop up and hearing someone talk about how the epidemic has changed their lives is personally more affecting than whatever universe-spanning conflict Bungie has been trying to convey through their game. Maybe I didn’t read enough grimoire cards?
Reiner: New York City is one of the most overused environments for games, but Ubisoft does a nice job of making this interpretation of it feel unique. The world itself is one of my favorite parts of the game so far. While there isn’t much life to it (for obvious reasons), the scale and density feels right. Streets are filled with abandoned vehicles, trash, and enough visual information to put together scenarios of what may have happened when the virus hit. It also succeeds in exploration purposes. I’m having a great time exploring the city. There’s plenty to do, whether it’s the simple act of helping a civilian in need, or tracking down information pertaining to a fallen Division agent. It delivers in the same way great open-world RPGs do. I don’t feel bound to just one narrative path. I feel like I can carve out my time how I want to.
Jeff: There’s a lot to like in The Division, but one aspect of it jumps out; everything seems to feed into the game’s reality in a really nice way (or as nice as a story about a catastrophic smallpox epidemic can be). Like you said, the streets are generally quiet, but that’s because there have been mass casualties and evacuations. There’s an interesting sense of “we’ll make do” that covers it all, from the repurposed Post Office that’s home base to scrounging together your gear to how familiar landmarks have been turned into mass graves. Ubisoft capitalizes on players recognizing those elements and reinforcing the underlying horror of it all. There are still parts that jump out as being gamey – shooting looters moments before breaking into an apartment with a lockpick and stealing energy bars and sodas from a stranger’s apartment is a little strange – but most of it gels together in a nice cohesive piece. Even the Dark Zone, the place where PvP can optionally take place, kind of makes sense in this lawless world. I’m excited to get to the point where hanging out in that area and making it out alive with new gear is a viable option.
Reiner: The collectible aspect has a strong hook to it, and all of the systems that Ubisoft has in place feed directly into improving the playable character – even the base building aspect brings talent and perk rewards – a great carrot to encourage players to take on these secondary missions. The most fun I’ve had with the game so far, however, is through the standard cooperative missions. The story missions are nicely paced, with impressive difficulty scaling for the numbers of players in a party. While most of the combat encounters demand similar strategies, Ubisoft did a great job of making the big conflicts have that set piece “wow” factor. Part of that comes from the environment design. It also comes through in the enemy formations – which can be relentless. The cooperative and matchmaking systems work exceptionally well. I’m impressed how little loading there is at any point during the game, even when calling in new recruits to help out.
Jeff: We ran into a few boneheads during our seven-hour stream yesterday, but for the most part I’ve been impressed at how well the enemy A.I. holds its own. There’s only so much you can do with human enemies – especially when you’re trying to craft a world that’s based on a particular reality – so I acknowledge the criticisms that you’ve made about a lack of enemy variety. I do think there are enough enemy archetypes to keep larger firefights engaging and interesting. During one ill-fated attempt to solo an area clearly designed for co-op play, I threw myself into one particular kill room at least a dozen times. Even though I eventually recruited some strangers to team up – and like you say, it was easy to do – I appreciated just how differently each of my failed attempts played out. That kind of thing is critically important for a game that hangs its helmet on the promise of longevity.
Reiner: Yes, you are hiding behind cover most of the time, picking away at enemies, and moving only when they rush your location, but plenty of strategy can be deployed at any given time. Ubisoft’s decision to go with no defined classes and freeform character respecialization allows the player to shift strategies whenever they see fit. I was a healer for five levels, but quickly transitioned to a powerful tech agent when a mission demanded more firepower. We’re both still within the first third of the game, but it seems like there’s plenty of game here. From the side missions to the adjustable difficulty for the story missions (which give better loot) it continues to pump out new content, while encouraging replays of previously completed content.
Jeff: It seems like there’s a good amount of variety, but like you said we’re still only about a third of the way to level cap. I’ve done a fair amount of exploring on my own, and while the campaign missions that are focused on big landmarks and events are clearly the big-ticket rides, the run-of-the-mill encounters are still entertaining. I was pleasantly surprised to find that mopping up a few missions that were well below my level cap yielded loot that was worth grabbing. And the collectables provide insight into what happened during the outbreak – either through video briefings, voicemails from ordinary citizens, or funky-looking visual reconstructions of dramatic moments from the street level. I want to see more, and I feel like I’m getting more absorbed in the fiction the more I play it. I’ll admit that I’m biased toward apocalyptic fiction, and The Division is delivering on that front.
Reiner: While it’s no secret what happened to the world, the slow drip of information pertaining to who may have spread the virus is interesting enough that I want to see it through to the end. And that’s just the fiction, which takes a backseat to the gameplay, leveling, and exploration. Unless things change, this isn’t a game you should ever go into thinking story first. You briefly touched on the Dark Zone, a section of the city where Division agents can go rogue and turn on their own to secure rarer loot. To go back to the Destiny comparison, The Division doesn’t offer standard PvP gameplay. Is that something you’d like to see, or do you think Ubisoft should stick to its guns of having all PvP elements unfold organically in the Dark Zone?
Jeff: Once again, I like how the PvP folds into an in-universe explanation. People aren’t battling over flags or to grind up rep with a particular faction; they’re looting supplies that will benefit them in the PvE content and optionally engaging with other players. I like that a lot more than hopping into a dedicated lobby and waiting for a timer to count down. I’m not a person who sheds tears over their immersion being broken, but I do appreciate it when attempts are at least made to have things like multiplayer fit into a narrative context. So yeah, I think Ubisoft should stick to its guns so to speak. There’s a clear delineation between the Dark Zone and regular New York, so you know what you’re getting into when you cross that threshold.
Reiner: We did run into a slight problem in our live stream where a group of four players were camping the Dark Zone entrance, but I agree, I like the idea of melding the modes to narrative. It gives the game a unique foot to stand on, and from what I’ve seen of all of The Division thus far, almost all of it is entertaining for different reasons. I’m in for the long run on this game. I legitimately want to see what the end game is, and I feel like the upgrades and new weapons I’m unlocking matter.
Jeff: I don’t think I’m going to find a magic solution for the outbreak or fix everything that’s gone wrong in the game’s world, but I’ll die trying, darn it! It’s easy for me to lose interest in games with a multiplayer focus, but at this point it seems as though there’s enough PvE stuff to keep me busy for those times when I’m not interested in grouping up with anyone. My goal? Hit level 30, and take it from there.
Take-Two boss slams removal of GTA V from Australian retailers
Australian retailers Target and Kmart pulled Grand Theft Auto V from their shelves last week after a petition decrying its depictions of sexual violence attracted more than 48,000 signatures.
last week after a petition decrying its depictions of sexual violence attracted more than 48,000 signatures. The move had echoes of Australia's infamous days of censoring R18+ games, although this was different: a private retailer making a decision about what it chooses to sell to its customers. Nonetheless, the president of publisher Take-Two Interactive said pulling the game "flies in the face of everything that free society's based on."
"It's one thing for a person to not want to buy a piece of content, which is completely understandable. And that's really the solution. If you don't like it, if it's offensive to you, then you don't buy it," Karl Slatoff said at the BMO Capital Markets Technology and Digital Media Conference, as reported by GameSpot. "But for a person or a group of people to try to make that decision for millions of people... We have 34 million people who have bought Grand Theft Auto V. If these folks had their way, none of those people would be able to buy Grand Theft Auto."
Slatoff insisted that his concerns aren't about money, as the small size of the Australian market means the decision won't have an impact on Take-Two's bottom line, and the game remains widely available from other sources anyway.
"It's the freedom of expression, and to try to quelch that is a very dangerous and slippery slope to go down," he said. "Our business is going to be completely unaffected by this. It doesn't make a difference to us. At the end of the day, though, it's not something that you want because it's just a poor leadership decision."
The petitioncalling for the removal of the game said Grand Theft Auto V "encourages players to murder women for entertainment," and is "grooming yet another generation of boys to tolerate violence against women."
FIFA 15 trailer shows new engine's scary ability to steal human faces
Take a look at the image above.
Take a look at the image above. That's what Chelsea striker and Belgium international Eden Hazard looks like in real life. Now here's what he looks like in FIFA 15.
Pretty good, right? Overhauled lighting and new body rigging "vastly changes how players appear," according to EA. As well as improved faces, EA show off other bodily improvements. Players actually breathe now, their chests expanding and contracting, and hair moves fluidly, something which should satisfy the long-haired, long-suffering likes of David Luiz and Edinson Cavani.
And there are new stadium effects: corner flags react when the ball hits them, LED boards around the pitch transition between advertisements, crossbars rattle, and nets lift off the floor when struck by a particularity tasty shot. The pitch itself is better, too. Moisture kicks up off the turf, and sliding leaves muddy marks, both in the grass and on players' kits. By the end of the match, the ground will be visibly weathered, although it's not been confirmed if tracks and grooves affect the ball physics. It's something EA call 'living pitches', apparently.
Perhaps only a football fan would understand the appeal of a trailer like this, one that highlights such incremental details as wobbly crossbars. Such details add authenticity to the spectacle, and bring the complex sim closer to the spectator sport. The next-gen Ignite Engine powers the advanced visuals, and is making its way to the PC version of FIFA for the first time with FIFA 15. Find out more about how it plays in Tim's preview.
Check out the trailer below.
Should You Come Back For Destiny’s April Update?
Destiny players have had a long wait for new content.
Destiny players have had a long wait for new content. September’s The Taken King expansion was broadly praised, both for its new content and the way it reworked existing mechanics. For several weeks afterward, the community was thrilled with the experiences on offer. In the interim, we’ve had a few small, limited-time events, like the Sparrow Racing League and the Festival of the Lost. However, there’s been little in the way of new core gameplay experiences. This week’s free update changes that, with a content drop that sits somewhere between a large patch and a small expansion. But if you’re a lapsed player, is it enough to bring you back?
That was an easy question to answer with The Taken King – an unqualified yes, thanks to smart changes across the board to gameplay, and an abundance of fundamentally new experiences. Needless to say, the April Update is nowhere near the size of that ambitious offering last September. But even stripping away considerations of the scope of the content, the April Update is a mixed bag of good and bad.
Light Value
For many players, pursuit of the higher light values is the centerpiece of the experience. Bungie’s biggest success this time around is offering multiple viable paths to the new cap of 335 light. While not all of these events have opened as of this writing, players can engage with Trials of Osiris, Iron Banner, the new Prison of Elders Challenge of the Elders, Court of Oryx, Nightfall strikes, and even a refresh of the most recent raid, King’s Fall – each offers viable rewards to help push you up the ladder. I love this structure, as it encourages engagement with multiple in-game activities, rather than funneling the entire community towards one or two activities to repeat ad nauseum – a problem we’ve seen in previous releases.
I also like the new, simpler approach to infusion. By allowing players to gain a one-for-one light value trade-off between the item they destroy and the one moving up in power, there’s no more second guessing about whether it’s worth it or not. More importantly, it furthers one of the original design goals touted by Bungie when it first launched The Taken King: Let players look the way they want, and use the gear they like.
My only issue with the light value system is its seeming focus on equipped gear to determine subsequent drops, rather than taking into consideration your best gear, whether equipped or not. After numerous experiments in the last couple of days, it seems clear that the game is looking at the weapons and armor I’m currently wearing to determine subsequent drops, rather than examining the broader capability of my guardian to reach a certain level. When I equip gear that sees my light level hovering around 295, I mostly receive new loot around 295-300. But when I put on other gear in my inventory that has me at 310 light, it appears I’m more likely to see drops as high as 315 light. As such, there are times I feel obligated to wear armor and weapons that aren’t ideal for the fight at hand, simply to ensure the best loot. And just like it’s been for some time, the same is true when I decrypt engrams. I’d love to see the Destiny loot system do a better job of analyzing my full character’s potential, rather than the happenstance of my currently equipped build, and thereby provide freedom to wear what I want at all times.
I also find myself wondering about the value of chasing the new 335 light level cap. Few of the new or refreshed activities really demand anything above the previous cap of 320, and even PvP game modes that account for light power, like Iron Banner and Trials of Osiris, shouldn’t see a dramatic power differential between someone at 320 and someone at 335. Without much in the way of fundamentally new activities that demand the higher light value, chasing those extra 15 points feels like it has less value than it has in previous cap increases. Nonetheless, the Pavlovian desire to chase those higher numbers remains, and that has its own odd appeal, even if the reasons for doing so are lacking.
Prison of Elders
The biggest new gameplay drop in the April Update comes through two new styles of play in the Prison of Elders. House of Wolves players will recall that this round-based arena combat mode provides a fun and relatively uncomplicated series of combat encounters, capped by a ridiculous treasure room and some guaranteed cool loot, presuming you have a key to the big chest.
The key system is (thankfully) gone, but the chest remains, and the new level 41 Prison of Elders turns out to be great fun. Matchmade teams tackling a random mix of rounds makes this an easy path to some entertaining fights, even if you’re a solo player. The “Takenating” of the existing arenas looks appropriately menacing, but certainly doesn’t change anything functional about the play spaces. I enjoy the new challenge presented by seeing the Taken enemies show up here. They are relentless and plentiful, and mowing through them is satisfying. Even so, repeated plays reveal that Prison of Elders simply isn’t as engaging when you’re seeing the same enemies repeatedly. The constant appearance of the Taken can begin to feel a little repetitive, especially if you’re playing this level 41 mode multiple times in a row, as seems to be the intent. I’d like to see Destiny’s many other foes play a more prominent role, as they did in the previous PoE iteration.
The Challenge of Elders is a new twist on the PoE formula. A series of three set boss fights remains the same throughout the week, and different boss fights will rotate into the equation in subsequent weeks. A score is calculated for your team’s current run as well as a cumulative weekly total, and hitting a particular threshold in both values rewards a weapon and armor piece, respectively. To rack up the points, different actions provide particular score values, so it’s wise to tailor your style of destruction to fit with precision kills, grenade kills, or other bonuses. Take too long in a given boss fight, and your score starts taking a hit, but it’s not an especially hard hit. As such, even a moderately talented team will find it’s pretty doable to nail the required score thresholds. As a strong but not amazing player, I was able to manage a two-person run at Challenge of Elders last night, and the best players will be able to swing a solo excursion. Even if Challenge of Elders isn’t as hard as it might have been implied to be prior to release, it’s a good time through and through.
Next Page: What's new with storytelling in the April Update, and are the changes and addition to armor and weapons worthwhile?
Take-Two's Zelnick says "MMOs don't work" in the US
What makes one MMO succeed and another struggle?
What makes one MMO succeed and another struggle? Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick says that at least one important factor at play in this equation is whether or not the MMO title is published in the United States (via Polygon).
"We're actively investing in online and MMOs, we're just not doing it in the U.S," Zelnick reportedly said at the Cowen and Company Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Thursday. "MMOs don't work here. A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons. One of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project."
For Zelnick, the list of MMO titles that have found some solid footing in the USA was short. "How many MMOs have been successful in the U.S.?," he said. "Two. World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Kind of a bad slugging percentage."
Take-Two is instead looking east in search of the most friendly geography for MMO success, in that "at any given time 10 to 20 are successful in China and generating revenue," according to Zelnick.
But with the recent newsthat Blizzard is overhauling its Titan MMO project, it appears that Zelnick is pointing to a sales reality for the US games market that other developers and publishers are confronting as well. While it's not fair to only define the success or failure of a title strictly in the jargon of business, it's not just the World of Warcraft developer that has seen its plans change. Both Riftand Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, plan to or have already made the shift from a subscription service to a free-to-play model. Somehow it seems entirely appropriate that games, if we are to see them as extensions of the human experience, must adapt in order to survive.
Image via us.battle.net
FIFA 15 goes next-gen on PC. (About bloody time)
The Venn diagram intersection of 'PC gamers' and 'people who quite like football' were served particularly thin gruel by EA last year, who gave us a vanilla port of the PS3/Xbox 360 game instead of the next-genified version that was released on PS4/Xbox One.
The Venn diagram intersection of 'PC gamers' and 'people who quite like football' were served particularly thin gruel by EA last year, who gave us a vanilla port of the PS3/Xbox 360 game instead of the next-genified version that was released on PS4/Xbox One. Thankfully, if belatedly, that situation will be rectified later this year with the release of FIFA 15. At a recent event in the UK, producer Nick Channon told me that this year's PC game is being built using the same Ignite engine as the next-gen consoles, and performance will be on a par with them. Which means 1080p at 60fps, assuming you've got a capable enough rig.
How capable? You can see the minimum and recommended specs here. “I'm not going to lie—it's going to be a good machine,” said Channon. “We had to make sure that the PC version was high-end, because that's what people seem to want. ” Indeed we do. Although not exactly apologetic about the lack of a next-gen PC version last year, he did offer some explanation.
“We had to bring out a new game on two new consoles,” said Channon. “We didn't have the bandwidth and the time to move it to PC as well… It doesn't just happen. There's some work there. It was just a timing thing.” You can read the rest of our interview with him here.
The fact that 2014 was effectively a fallow year for FIFA on PC means that the improvements found in FIFA 15 are likely to seem even more pronounced if you skipped the next-gen console instalment. Last year's PS4/Xbox One game was well-received by reviewers (hovering around the high 80s on Metacritic), and having had a hands-on with this year's model, I can confirm that even at 50% complete it feels improved across the board. Here's a rundown of the main areas that have received attention…
Improved looks
Of course it's prettier—they always are—but the upgrade seems substantial this time. It feels almost facile to choose the pitch as the standout improvement, but it's the grass that I keep coming back to when I think about FIFA 15. Gone is the perfect green baize of old, replaced by a near photorealistic surface which changes as the match wears on. That's thanks to a new system which records footmarks and sliding challenges. The stipples and scuffs look spot on, and player's kits also get muddied up accordingly.
There are tons of other incidental details too. Like LED advertising hoardings that now animate more like the real things, corner flags which (finally) have actual physical properties, and goal nets which skip off the ground when struck by a particularly fierce shot. All small stuff in isolation, but—taken together—the overall effect is impressive. Player animation has also been given an extensive makeover. They look lithe and leaner, now—more like pro footballers who can't afford to carry around excess weight, rather than the musclebound UFC refugees of previous years. All of which is complemented by a lighting system that's also more natural.
More contextual
Where the push for authenticity gets interesting is in the way the AI-controlled players behave. Whereas in previous games every goal or foul was essentially treated the same, now there's much more focus on what the context of the match is at the time it happens. So a late winner against your local rivals will result in a 10-man pile-on. Equally, if one player keeps hacking down another, (hello Cheik Tioté), then eventually the victim will lose his temper, start moaning to the ref, and so on.
Tracking the relationships between all 22 players is all handled in real-time, which EA says wouldn't have been possible previously. To demonstrate, we're shown Everton's Tim Howard letting a back pass roll straight into his goal from kickoff against Liverpool. Oops. While we aren't treated to his presumably potty-mouthed reaction, we do get to see how his relationship with his teammates instantly deteriorates. These relationships are illustrated in the form of lines (which won't appear in the final version of the game) radiating from Howard to the other players on the pitch. After his mistake, his teammates' all go from white to magenta, indicating they're angry and no longer trust him. Meanwhile, Luis Suarez's mood instantly perks up.
It's important to note that this system is purely cosmetic and won't impact on the players' performance. The team at EA felt that would be too annoying. But what it does mean is that if a striker keeps shanking chances, (hello, Roberto Soldado), his colleagues will become visibly annoyed, throwing their hands in the air or shaking their heads sadly. Again: it might sound like small potatoes, but these little contextual flourishes will help draw players into the narrative of a match. There's some nice club-specific stuff too. At Anfield the fans hold their scarves aloft as they sing You'll Never Walk Alone, while City fans will do the Poznan after a big goal and the 'Yellow Wall' of Borussia Dortmund's Westfalenstadion is included too. Because hipsters.
Greater responsiveness
More subjective, but ultimately likely more substantial, are the changes to the way the game feels. EA has noted the feedback that FIFA 14 was too 'heavy', (maaaaan), and tweaked the turning circle of the players accordingly. They can't quite switch direction on a dime, but they are able to nip back on themselves more realistically. The way players interact with the ball is also far more fastidious. The ball will pop out of tackles based on precise physics, and the exact point of connection between foot and ball when you hit a pass will interact with the spin already on it. In both instances, this translates to more accurate ball movement. Players will also use the outside of their boots when dribbling, and favour one foot unless they're comfortable with both, (hello Santi Cazorla), again ultimately making for a more natural look.
The same emphasis on authenticity also applies to the AI, which is set to be more situational. A small (or cynical) team protecting a slender lead will opt to 'Park The Bus' in the grand Mourinho tradition. Seriously, that's an actual option in the quick tactics menus. At the other end of the spectrum, the most attacking setting will see players flooding the opposition box and looking to launch the ball at every opportunity. EA are calling it the 'in the mixer' option. The CPU team will even actively waste time when the final whistle is almost in earshot.
EA also says the AI will be smarter in the individual battles. So when a striker's team is desperate, he's more likely to try to take a defender on. Likewise, if the defender is stranded as the last man, he'll be less likely to dive in and risk a red card—instead opting buy time until help arrives. That said, it was hard to really notice much of this stuff happening over the course of a couple of hour's worth of hands-on time. Only extended play will reveal whether there's real substance to it.
There are more obvious changes though. For example, you can now elect to control a recipient player rather than the kicker during attacking corners. But what remains unknown is the sort of improvements that are planned for the online and career modes, and of course the licence to print money that is FIFA Ultimate Team. No doubt we'll find out more about those as the marketing machine cranks up later in the year, but from what I've seen so far FIFA 15 ought to be an overdue return to world class form. Hey, who knew some well-placed divots in the grass could have such a big impact? Other than Tim Flowers, of course…
Real Money Transactions Are Threatening My Love Of Destiny
Destiny’s April Update is an entirely free collection of new content for anyone who enjoys the Destiny universe, and I applaud Bungie’s desire to provide something new to a hungry player base.
Destiny’s April Update is an entirely free collection of new content for anyone who enjoys the Destiny universe, and I applaud Bungie’s desire to provide something new to a hungry player base. I’ve detailed my thoughts on the good and badof the new content here, but one particular aspect of the April Update has left me frustrated. As a longtime player, as well as a writer who has been tracking the game since prior to launch, I didn’t want the moment to pass without a mention. The microtransaction model in the game has reached a turning point, and I worry about the line that is being crossed.
Before anyone thinks we’re about to start down an all-too-familiar hate train, I’d like to keep the conversation in check. I comprehend the business realities facing Activision and Bungie, and my many conversations with the people crafting the game have revealed a development team at least as fascinated and devoted to the joy of the game as any of its fans. They want this game to be the best experience possible, and whether gamers like it or not, that takes money. I understand the need to fund ongoing development.
I’m also not here to critique the broader strategy of microtransactions as a revenue stream. The addition of new emotes, in particular, has always felt to me like a suitable place to look for new player monetary support; new emotes have never been a core aspect of the investment and progression system, and are a minor personality feature, even in in their best moments.
However, the new April Update doubles down on a strategy, first seen in a limited way in the brief SRL event, for introducing new armor through paid transactions, and alongside the new one-for-one infusion system, it adds up to a system that is all too close to the very strategies that have alienated me from much of the current mobile game scene.
The April Update includes a new reward called Sterling Treasures. These desirable packages include a guaranteed drop of one of the new armor pieces, along with several other potential drops, like new ships, sparrows, or class items, as well as a new colored-light customization option called chroma. Every week, even casual players have a good shot at obtaining three of these Sterling Treasures through logging in and engaging with basic in-game activities. An unlimited number of additional Sterling Treasures can be purchased with real money.
One of the early warning signs was when I realized these three opportunities for Sterling Treasures are by account, not by character. In other words, if you play your main guardian and get all three in a given week, none are available for your alt characters. Moreover, the random nature of the guaranteed drops makes it unlikely that you will see a full set of armor for even your main guardian, even after several weeks of play. In my case, this week I saw two identical gloves drop in the Spektar set, along with a helmet for an altogether different Desolate set. To reasonably expect a full set in any given style in the first several weeks of play, especially for my second or third guardian, the only viable path is to spend real money to buy it.
Many will be quick to declare that you don’t have to do anything of the sort. I already have great leveled gear to use – why do I need to fervently chase these new armor sets? The answer to that is self-evident to anyone who has played Destiny or really any MMO, RPG, or other investment-focused game. The desirability of an item is tied to both its newness and exclusivity. In a game that sees a lot of repetition in the same activities, the changes to your character are what many get excited about. When Bungie includes very few new armor pieces in the April Update, but the bulk of the new items can be acquired with real money, it feels like we’re being funneled towards that choice, since there are few other treasures to actively pursue.
Others will argue that Sterling Treasure gear drops at 3 light, so it’s really only a cosmetic drop. But that’s disingenuous. Any active Destiny player has multiple sets of less desirable gear sitting around in their vault, each of which exhibits a high light value. With the new one-for-one infusion system (which, by the way, is a good idea), it’s a matter of moments to turn that chest piece you just bought with real cash into a high-level, raid-ready piece.
The final argument for the validity of these new cash-purchases is a financial one. Spending a little money on these Sterling Treasures helps support the ongoing development efforts. The suggestion is that Bungie needs to pay for new content somehow, and the microtransaction model does that. As I stated above, I’m on board with this reasoning up to a point, but not when it harms the long-term viability of the game and its design.
And here we come to the crux of my argument. Destiny has always positioned itself as a game about becoming a legend, and there’s little that’s legendary about spending money to get the coolest loot. The long term appeal for many players, myself included, is the idea that ongoing investment in play leads to requisite rewards. I have an official Destiny t-shirt that proudly proclaims, in Latin: “post proelia praemia.” Roughly translated, it means: “after the battle come the rewards,” which has always seemed like a potent descriptor of why this game works so well. When I finally got that Facade of the Hezen Lords warlock helm, it was a memory of confronting Atheon in the Vault of Glass. When the secret to acquiring Sleeper Simulant was finally unlocked, I retained memories of the anticipation that led up to its discovery. When Thorn made its way into my inventory, it was because I confronted Xyor the Unwed in a harrowing encounter on the moon. It doesn’t matter that all that sounds like nonsense to outsiders. Those of us who play treasure the fun and memory of those moments.
How much will anyone treasure the moment that they finally caved, and spent enough money to get a Spektar Hood to drop from a Sterling Treasure purchase?
Even if you’re a player who manages to resist the temptation of spending money on Sterling Treasures, and you decide to wait it out for the moment it drops in the real game, the availability of these items to other players cheapens the fun for everyone. Even at the end of day one after the April Update, I saw Guardians flitting about in decked out Desolate and Spektar gear. What could have been an exciting reward for me to chase suddenly because something far less exciting.
I know this form of microtransaction purchases is prevalent in many other games. But Destiny is particularly vulnerable to the ways in which this type of purchase can damage the community structure of the ongoing game, especially with a stated plan to chart years of adventure still to come. In a landscape of ongoing games suffused with predatory microtransaction models, Destiny has the potential to provide a happy alternative – a rich, decade-long adventure where we can be free to enjoy the challenge and rewards, rather than get pulled into the same money traps that have troubled so many other projects. In the long term, I honestly believe that a more restrained microtransaction model encourages greater player investment, which in turn means more financial success for Activision and Bungie. Against the more likely odds, I hope that’s a recognition those two companies can also reach as they shape the future of one of my favorite games.
Take-Two's Zelnick says "MMOs don't work" in the US
What makes one MMO succeed and another struggle?
What makes one MMO succeed and another struggle? Take-Two Interactive chairman Strauss Zelnick says that at least one important factor at play in this equation is whether or not the MMO title is published in the United States (via Polygon).
"We're actively investing in online and MMOs, we're just not doing it in the U.S," Zelnick reportedly said at the Cowen and Company Technology, Media and Telecom Conference Thursday. "MMOs don't work here. A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons. One of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project."
For Zelnick, the list of MMO titles that have found some solid footing in the USA was short. "How many MMOs have been successful in the U.S.?," he said. "Two. World of Warcraft and EverQuest. Kind of a bad slugging percentage."
Take-Two is instead looking east in search of the most friendly geography for MMO success, in that "at any given time 10 to 20 are successful in China and generating revenue," according to Zelnick.
But with the recent newsthat Blizzard is overhauling its Titan MMO project, it appears that Zelnick is pointing to a sales reality for the US games market that other developers and publishers are confronting as well. While it's not fair to only define the success or failure of a title strictly in the jargon of business, it's not just the World of Warcraft developer that has seen its plans change. Both Riftand Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, plan to or have already made the shift from a subscription service to a free-to-play model. Somehow it seems entirely appropriate that games, if we are to see them as extensions of the human experience, must adapt in order to survive.
Image via us.battle.net
FIFA 15 interview: "You'll need a good PC for it"
At the recent unveiling of FIFA 15 in the UK, we sat down with producer Nick Channon to discuss what happened with the PC version last year, and what to expect from this year's now fully 'next-gen' version.
PCG: Why wasn't [the next-gen version of FIFA 14] released on PC last year?
NC: It's kind of hard to do a new console, right? The transition is not easy. So we put all of our efforts into making as good… We had to bring out a new game on two new consoles. It takes a lot of time and we want ed to make sure it was right. We didn't have the bandwidth and the time to move it to PC as well. We had a great PC game. Obviously our gen 3 game is really strong too. But now, with that code base that we're used to, we felt that we could add that extra platform. Moving to PC isn't easy either. It doesn't just happen. There's some work there. It was just a timing thing.
PCG: I thought these new consoles were just like PCs in a box and you could press the 'port' button.
NC: [Laughs] Not quite that simple.
PCG: So for PC gamers who are fans of the series, what's the main message?
NC: Ultimately you're getting the next-gen game. You're getting everything that's on PS4 and Xbox One coming over to PC. It's a stunning game. We're really excited about what's new this year. You're getting FIFA 15, you're not getting FIFA 14. Everything's there.
PCG: Arguably the leap will seem particularly pronounced on PC then, given that we've effectively missed an iteration. What do you will think will stand out for players who come to it fresh?
NC: For everyone it will be the look. It looks dramatically better and different from last year's gen 4 [next-gen] game. The leap from gen 3 [current-gen] is massive. Presentation is night and day different. It's a completely unique system. The variety in the gameplay and the animation and the fluidity this year. That leap is a very big one. We're really excited about it. There was a lot of feedback about why we couldn't do [the PC version] last year, and to be able to bring it out fully featured is really cool.
PCG: Did you get hate mail? People can be quite aggressive.
NC: [Laughs] We get lots of feedback on lots of things. At the end of the day we have to respect the fact that people are vocal about the game. Generally people like the game, they have feedback, and we want the feedback and take it very seriously. Some of these things we'd already planned to work on anyway, but it's reacting to that feedback too.
PCG: How confident are you hitting the 1080p at 60fps benchmark, because some multiplatform games struggle.
NC: Last year we were 1080p at 60fps right out of the gate [on next-gen]. So, for us, from a console perspective it's not a concern at all. We're already there. From our perspective that was never an issue.
PCG: Do you have a sense of the specs you'll need to do that on PC?
NC: Yeah, it's going to be a high-end machine. I'm not going to lie—it's going to be a good machine. We wanted to make sure it's a gen 4 [next-gen] experience. It's what people were asking for. Obviously with the release of FIFA World, which is in open beta now, that's our gen 3 [current gen] platform if you like. So we had to make sure that the PC version was high-end, because that's what people seem to want. But yeah, you'll need a good PC for it. [You can see the minimum and recommended specs here.]
PCG: Is there anything unique to the PC version?
NC: No, it's exactly what you'll get on console.
PCG: Going back to the gameplay, I noticed there was actual shirt-pulling happening now. I thought there was an edict from FIFA that you couldn't include deliberate foul play?
NC: Obviously we're careful how we do it. Y'know, we've had the push/pull mechanic in there for a while, and it's just an extension of that. Using the new technology, you would expect the other player to react, and the likelihood is it's going to be a foul, but we wanted to have that level of authenticity.
PCG: But you aren't able to have linesman get decisions wrong are you?
NC: No, but that's not for that reason. With our game, we don't want to make it wrong. If it's clearly offside, I think players would get pretty frustrated if you were scored on. In that sense it wouldn't be human error, it would be a videogame [getting it wrong]. That's why they're right.
PCG: I like the new contextual animations, but how far do you think you can push that aspect in terms of even more esoteric examples?
NC: Yeah, I think with all the features we do, we build them to be the best they can be that year, but also with the future in mind. 'Player Impact' was released in FIFA 12, and we're still doing significant innovation on it every single year. The presentation system was built last year to give us the flexibility to add this kind of stuff. In terms of adding emotion to our game, we're going to have some really great examples this year, but it's clearly something we can build on as well.
PCG: What I'm asking is would you go so far as to have Diego Simeone storming off the bench in the Champions League final—that sort of one-in-a-1000 moment.
NC: Well we need to be careful. You might see certain things in the heat of the moment that you won't see in our game, but we feel that if it's a natural reaction you seen in the world—we obviously have a limit—but it will feel very dynamic and emergent, which is what we like.
PCG: How about those new 10-man bundle celebrations—is that something that's contextual or are players able to trigger them in the same way they do other celebrations?
NC: It's contextual. You can still do your usual user-controlled celebration at the beginning of it, but the 10-man part is contextual, based on the kind of game it is, and how meaningful the goal is.
PCG: As an Arsenal fan I want to know if the Stoke fans will still be booing Aaron Ramsey, or have they got over it?
NC: There's a chance they might. That might stay in there. [Laughs] Those are the things we like, in terms of little nuance. Again, it's that authenticity side of it. Whether we'll say they've got over it this year I'm not sure. I'll have to ask the audio guys.
PCG: I know you can't talk about specifics in terms of mode, but can we expect substantial changes in terms of how career mode works—or do you tend to focus on one big area per year?
NC: What we do is look at the feedback we get from the community in all areas. So not just gameplay, but career mode, the online modes… What are people saying? We make changes based on that. There are a number of things we've still got to talk about, but there are definitely innovations.
PCG: A few years ago a FIFA producer told me that if his game didn't get 80%+ on Metacritic, he'd be sacked immediately. What pressure does EA put on you now?
NC: I don't think it's EA, it's us as a team. We've ultimately been successful over the last five or six years in particular. I think we put more pressure on ourselves. The judge that we have in our industry is Metarcritc. For us, we're very proud of of the number we've achieved in the last five years. We don't want that to go away. So I think most of the pressure is from ourselves. We weren't number one a while ago, we were number two. We're all pretty competitive in terms of we want to make the best game that we can, and to maintain the quality that we have, we have to innovate every single year.
PCG: Last year the game reviewed very well [on next-gen], but whether it's because people are complacent or cynical, there was still this assumption that because FIFA is an annual franchise, and it's iterative, a certain type of grumpy online gamer would still say: “Well, it's always the same.” What would you point to as the key innovation this yeart to prove them wrong?
NC: That's a really good question. I'd like to give you three or four.
PCG: Sorry, you can't.
NC: I will! [Laughs] Obviously the visuals are a huge leap forward for us. I think that's noticeable out of the box. But for me the responsiveness of the gameplay is a big change as well. The fluidity of the game, not just in how the stick feels, but the bringing together of the ball physics and the tackling—that feeling of control is really strong this year.
PCG: Whenever I go to see football games, the feedback I end up giving is “it's heavier” or “it's quicker”, which are such nebulous, subjective descriptions. It must be hard for you to parse that kind of response from testers. It's not like a first-person shooter where you can easily tweak how many bullets an enemy can take before dying. It seems almost more… Artistic?
NC: There are patterns, right? Are you getting consistently similar feedback? Because if you are then you know you've got an issue. These [press] events are great. We've done five of them in a week, in five different countries. Apart from it being tiring. The game is about 50% complete. We know there are some issues to be balanced out, and that's what we fully intend to do, but it's really good to get 50 people playing your game and you start to hear similar feedback. It's like: “Yeah, we knew that one, but actually that's a good one…”