I be playin' me some games these days. I tend to like them as a rule, need to play them as I make them, and hey, it's colder than a witch's titty in the MA in the wintertime, so I need to start flexing some of those cave-dwellin' gamer muscles if I plan to survive in the torturous tundra that is New England. As such, this would be the ticker-tale of my controller-crushing escapades. Enjoy.
A few hours in after deciding to take the plunge, and honestly, this game is flat out annoying. If I can endure the self-imposed torture of completing it, I'll bang out a blog about it. Otherwise, just know that for the most part, once I figure out the stove is hot, I tend to hate games that keep making me touch it.
Here's the thing: I kinda got out of gaming when I discovered sports, boobs, and the joys of broadband internet upon escaping my redneck past for the comfy confines of a bible-thumping education, but the PlayStation managed to suck me back in, primarily because of the irresistible gaming gravity of Twisted Metal and the original Wipeout. I played the frickin' demo on a crappy Zenith TV (which had issues with the video signal in the PS, making the image skip like a poorly calibrated monitor). I endured hours on end of migraine-inducing madness to take the turns and experience the speed. In some ways, it changed my life. The latest installment isn't quite the constant 60 some claim it is (unleash a "quake" on the opposition and you'll see what I mean), but it plays as you'd expect it to and really looks fantastic in HD. I've completed a handful of challenge groups and hope I find time to gunlock more content this weekend.
I'm 10 seasons in and all I can say is "eh..."
It doesn't really surprise me that this game is such a mess, but despite the hoopla, I can't help but feel that NCAA is in serious need of a significant overhaul. Some key takeaways thus far:
1.) The game play has more than its fair share of massive, crippling bugs. The biggest offender so far has to be the AI defenders. The pursuit code actually seems to MIRROR your movement if you do a good job of prolonging its decision loop by keeping a consistent distance and making subtle changes in direction, allowing for endless big plays once you learn how to make the AI shit itself in this fashion. They're so busy trying to line up a tackle, they never even dive. Even on the hardest difficulty level, I'm already stretching the seams to their limit. I break my old NCAA-record for rushing yards almost every season. Can't believe they didn't notice or address this in the last patch, or that it shipped in the first place. I am not an ace at these games, but I spotted it in less than 8 full quarters of gameplay.
2.) The overall experience of dynasty mode is a bit of a downer. The recruiting mini-game is so fucking clunky and obscured by a lack of readily available information when you need it, making it less like a game and more like a full time recruiting job for a college program that has yet to discover the joys of database software. I mean, I am not a scout, but I'd wager that if I were going to call a recruit I've spoken with before, I'd have some notes about what winds his clock in front of me before I dial up to give him a pitch on our school. Instead, it's buried in a menu that requires me to play jump-rope in and out of screens just to remind him that we're on TV a lot. Further, the process fails to yield decent results. For example, would someone care to explain why I can't convince enough recruits to fill a roster to join my team after winning 6 consecutive national championships? Meh.
3.) Speed STILL kills, pass defenders at all positions still react to the ball with no regard for physics, and CPU passers are all west coast whores who can pass at 95% against the best defenses. Hope you like smashmouth offense and Cover-2, kiddies.
I will post a more lengthy eval soon, but honestly, this one is looking like horse shoes and hand grenades in my book.
Demarti swears this game is the shit, and I believe him. As such, I downloaded it to my 360, both in an effort to experience an Xbox Original from XBL and to see if Mike's taste in games is as bad as my taste in women. I just read the article on Heavy Rain in the latest Edge and it looks badass, so this will be a fun little taste of what's next.
Man-o-man...when it comes to the Live Arcade scene, this one is a pitbull in a room full of piss-drunk poodles. The artwork alone is amazing, the game play is solid for the genre. The game clearly loses steam towards the end and the weapon selection is a bit poor even after you've beat it, but if you're an old school co-op whore, this game belongs on your "what's playing" list. My and my boy Roger fired this up a few weeks back and 6 hours and a sunset later, I had to laugh that all the technology in the world can't replace good core design.
I just signed back up to GameFly (which is still too fucking expensive, btw), and this is one of the first games to come my way. Wow. Not bad for a game with a bad camera, control scheme, ramping model, and enemy AI. That said, unleashing hell i rarely this much fun. Not unlike a hot girl with an attitude problem, a game that manages to make you feel like this much of a bad ass can make you forget about a lot of core flaws. I've heard its all sorts of short, so the fun here may be over before I know it. We'll see.
