skate.
skate. (yes, with the illogical period) is a breath of fresh air coming from the old, "press A to crank a 900°" school of skateboarding, and it represents a change in the very ethics of how skating games will be made from here on out. Tony Hawk already cancelled their 2008 offering, ostensibly to "retool" their scheme, but really it's because skate. so soundly kicked their ass that they are scrambling for some kind of answer, and it isn't coming from their dev team.
The central, defining point of skate. is its unique, analog "flickit" controls, 100% analog representations of your on-screen activities. Gone are ridiculous fetch-quests, 1000 foot grinds or "big air" measured in football fields. It's just street skating along the fictional roads of San Vanelona (San Francisco, Vancouver and Barcelona mixed together), with the occasional challenge thrown in as you take your created skater through the ranks to achieve super-stardom (and a cover shot on Thrasher magazine, natch).
While the graphics are perfectly servicable, with a full, real world to explore with no loading times, and the music and sound effects perfectly adequate (even through the stilted deliveries of pro skaters liberally littered across the landscape), it's the control sceme that will keep you coming back. Literally every move in the game is available from the moment you start the tutorial, and the only limit is your own ability to hit the exact placement on the right stick for any particular move.
With a beautiful online integration, and the ability to seamlessly share videos and pics (a personal favorite of mine being Clang Clang), skate. offers a full plate of interactivity and community to go along with the single-player mode. The challenge ramps up just gradually enough, and button-mashing will get you nowhere in the frenzied calm of a high-score trick contest. I literally cannot go on enough about the tactile sensation that comes from trying a trick twenty times in a row (easy as pie thanks to a genius checkpoint-maker that can reset you to the top of a hill to try that gnarly transfer one more time) only to finally nail it after a long string of bone-breaking crashes.
Graphics: The entire city is explorable with no loading times whatsoever, and even though the hats all look slightly 'off,' everything about the city itself looks great. 4.
Sound: Nothing fancy, and the soundtrack has too much of a mish-mash feel. You'll be plugging in your iPod very soon. 2.
Controls: The star of the show. It's never felt so good to try something twenty times in a row. 5.
Tilt: You can't get closer to skateboarding without grip tape and a truck key. 5.
Overall (not an average): 5.
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sports. Show all posts
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
NBA Street Homecourt
NBA Street: Homecourt
Every sport it seems has a "street" variant released for it, which adds a hip, pick-up-and-play variant - usually spawned from a quarter-pounding arcade cabinet - that works to varying degrees. The NBA Street franchise has a solid pedigree, and EA Big went all out on their first next generation Street offering, NBA Street Homecourt. The results are nothing short of fantastic.
Rendered in full 1080i, Homecourt was one of the first true HD titles, and the extra work spent on character models shows through. With a game like basketball, where the players always play in full view of the crowds, with no headgear at all, minute details are immediately discernable if they are missing. Homecourt doesn't miss, though - every aspect of each NBA and WNBA star, as well as the unique local characters, hit every note, sport every tattoo and braid every hair just right.
The Create-a-Player story mode features the classic "pick up a player from the losing team" that we all remember from street ball, as well as hilarious RPG-like addition of "team discord," if you feed 'Melo the rock too much, eventually Rip Hamilton will complain and if you don't address his wants, quit the team! The sound effects and voices are breezy and forgettable, but the soundtrack is great. '80s breakbeats will have you busting out the refridgerator boxes, and entering the Gamebreaker mode triggers Herbie Hancock's seminal "Rockin' It."
The create-a-trick mode is perhaps ill-named, but you do use the face buttons in combination with the four shoulder buttons to individually direct your jukes and fakeouts, as well as (during Gamebreaker mode, filled up when you do enough tricks and reversals) breakdancing moves like up-rocks and UFO's. And of course, the jams. Oh dear, the double (and triple) jams, slam dunks that laugh at things like physics and world records for high jumps. The game playfull ignores all that nasty 'reality' stuff and offers over-the-top gaiden dunks if you've got the gamebreaker for it.
There is a very exploitable strategy when playing online, which only supports 1v1, that basically boils down to "camp Shaq under the hoop and goaltend like a motherfucker," and while doing so makes you win, it absolutely killed the online community for this game, and so unless you have a local buddy to co-op or VS with, the game's 8-hour long single-player career won't hold your interest as well as a fully-realized multiplayer like NHL 2k9's vaunted 5v5 season mode. Still, the beautiful character models, fluid animations and throwback soundtrack will make any time you spend on the blacktop with Homecourt worthwhile.
Graphics: Stellar character models in beautiful 1080i. 4.
Sound: Nothing crazy in the sound design, but the soundtrack is a fantastic throwback. 4.
Controls: The create-a-combo system is fun and rarely gets old. Context-sensitive AI directions mapped to the D-Pad are a welcome addition. 5.
Tilt: In co-op or VS this game is great; solo play is fun but limited with no online community. 3.
Overall: (not an average) 4.
Every sport it seems has a "street" variant released for it, which adds a hip, pick-up-and-play variant - usually spawned from a quarter-pounding arcade cabinet - that works to varying degrees. The NBA Street franchise has a solid pedigree, and EA Big went all out on their first next generation Street offering, NBA Street Homecourt. The results are nothing short of fantastic.
Rendered in full 1080i, Homecourt was one of the first true HD titles, and the extra work spent on character models shows through. With a game like basketball, where the players always play in full view of the crowds, with no headgear at all, minute details are immediately discernable if they are missing. Homecourt doesn't miss, though - every aspect of each NBA and WNBA star, as well as the unique local characters, hit every note, sport every tattoo and braid every hair just right.
The Create-a-Player story mode features the classic "pick up a player from the losing team" that we all remember from street ball, as well as hilarious RPG-like addition of "team discord," if you feed 'Melo the rock too much, eventually Rip Hamilton will complain and if you don't address his wants, quit the team! The sound effects and voices are breezy and forgettable, but the soundtrack is great. '80s breakbeats will have you busting out the refridgerator boxes, and entering the Gamebreaker mode triggers Herbie Hancock's seminal "Rockin' It."
The create-a-trick mode is perhaps ill-named, but you do use the face buttons in combination with the four shoulder buttons to individually direct your jukes and fakeouts, as well as (during Gamebreaker mode, filled up when you do enough tricks and reversals) breakdancing moves like up-rocks and UFO's. And of course, the jams. Oh dear, the double (and triple) jams, slam dunks that laugh at things like physics and world records for high jumps. The game playfull ignores all that nasty 'reality' stuff and offers over-the-top gaiden dunks if you've got the gamebreaker for it.
There is a very exploitable strategy when playing online, which only supports 1v1, that basically boils down to "camp Shaq under the hoop and goaltend like a motherfucker," and while doing so makes you win, it absolutely killed the online community for this game, and so unless you have a local buddy to co-op or VS with, the game's 8-hour long single-player career won't hold your interest as well as a fully-realized multiplayer like NHL 2k9's vaunted 5v5 season mode. Still, the beautiful character models, fluid animations and throwback soundtrack will make any time you spend on the blacktop with Homecourt worthwhile.
Graphics: Stellar character models in beautiful 1080i. 4.
Sound: Nothing crazy in the sound design, but the soundtrack is a fantastic throwback. 4.
Controls: The create-a-combo system is fun and rarely gets old. Context-sensitive AI directions mapped to the D-Pad are a welcome addition. 5.
Tilt: In co-op or VS this game is great; solo play is fun but limited with no online community. 3.
Overall: (not an average) 4.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
NFL Head Coach 09
NFL Head Coach 09
While Madden's gameplay has been increasing in quality only incrementally over the years, their front-office options have been exploding. Finally, in 2006 NFL Head Coach was released, and was a steaming pile. While it's unfair to boost a game's score based on previous iterations, NFL Head Coach 09 is pretty great if the following phrase describes a game you'd like: "It's like D&D for the jocks who beat up the kids who played D&D back in high school."
While graphics aren't at the heart of this strategy game, they are entirely servicable. The create-a-coach feature, however, is awful. Instead of perhaps 4 sliders for hair, eyes, skin and beard, instead you are forced to cycle through all 130+ configurations, each taking over a second to load. Once you select your team (a clever way to disguise selecting the difficulty level), you're off to the races, training players, scouting collegians, and occasionally playing a game of football.
I hate to keep bringing up Head Coach, but this game really is so far beyond it in pretty much every aspect. The game goes through real time, without artificial restrictions on when you can do specific activities like hiring and firing, but allows you to advance to the next "forced" event (like training day) on the fly. Quests are handed down, and you have to manage your support with the quest-givers (Owners, Fans, Players, and Media being the concerns you need to juggle) without weighing any one too heavily.
The actual on-field elements are competently handled, with an interesting "Emotion Selector" allowing you to respond either with passion or logic. The personnel you have on the field determines which choice was correct, whether players need an even keel or a warrior on their side. Playcalling itself is identical to the more-interactive Madden companion game.
While it isn't really a football game, I can't recommend this strategy game to a non-football fan; there is just too much that is predicated on an intricate familiarity with football knowledge and front-office machinations, but if you're the kind of person who simmed whole seasons of Madden just to get to the meat-and-potatoes of the offseason, Head Coach 09 is pretty much exactly what the box describes, no more, no less.
Graphics: Nothing outstanding, but then, there isn't much asked of it. 3.
Sound: You'll need your iPod for this game, as most of the time you're listening to a short looped clip of the same music. 2.
Controls: Most of the clickthroughs are fairly intuitive and consistant within each menu's context, but the game doesn't take any chances. 2.
Tilt: For a fantasy football nerd, this game is Nirvana. 3.
Overall (not an average): 2.
While Madden's gameplay has been increasing in quality only incrementally over the years, their front-office options have been exploding. Finally, in 2006 NFL Head Coach was released, and was a steaming pile. While it's unfair to boost a game's score based on previous iterations, NFL Head Coach 09 is pretty great if the following phrase describes a game you'd like: "It's like D&D for the jocks who beat up the kids who played D&D back in high school."
While graphics aren't at the heart of this strategy game, they are entirely servicable. The create-a-coach feature, however, is awful. Instead of perhaps 4 sliders for hair, eyes, skin and beard, instead you are forced to cycle through all 130+ configurations, each taking over a second to load. Once you select your team (a clever way to disguise selecting the difficulty level), you're off to the races, training players, scouting collegians, and occasionally playing a game of football.
I hate to keep bringing up Head Coach, but this game really is so far beyond it in pretty much every aspect. The game goes through real time, without artificial restrictions on when you can do specific activities like hiring and firing, but allows you to advance to the next "forced" event (like training day) on the fly. Quests are handed down, and you have to manage your support with the quest-givers (Owners, Fans, Players, and Media being the concerns you need to juggle) without weighing any one too heavily.
The actual on-field elements are competently handled, with an interesting "Emotion Selector" allowing you to respond either with passion or logic. The personnel you have on the field determines which choice was correct, whether players need an even keel or a warrior on their side. Playcalling itself is identical to the more-interactive Madden companion game.
While it isn't really a football game, I can't recommend this strategy game to a non-football fan; there is just too much that is predicated on an intricate familiarity with football knowledge and front-office machinations, but if you're the kind of person who simmed whole seasons of Madden just to get to the meat-and-potatoes of the offseason, Head Coach 09 is pretty much exactly what the box describes, no more, no less.
Graphics: Nothing outstanding, but then, there isn't much asked of it. 3.
Sound: You'll need your iPod for this game, as most of the time you're listening to a short looped clip of the same music. 2.
Controls: Most of the clickthroughs are fairly intuitive and consistant within each menu's context, but the game doesn't take any chances. 2.
Tilt: For a fantasy football nerd, this game is Nirvana. 3.
Overall (not an average): 2.
Monday, April 5, 2010
NFL Tour
NFL Tour
At some point, you have to just roll up a newspaper, smack every game on the nose and yell "No! Bad Video Game! We do not do that in the living room!" With NFL Tour, that moment happens about six minutes into the game. It's just terrible in every way, an attempt at a street-ball style that fails on every level, despite having its puppy heart in the right place.
NFL Tour starts out hopefully enough, with slick graphics and character models- the face models look great and even zoomed out to field view you can easily recognize the faces of the NFL's biggest stars. But then you realize the backgrounds and repetitive fields have the confetti-crowd repetition of, at best, an end-of-generation Playstation 1 game. The fireworks shows are canned and superimposed, lacking any of the dynamism of next-gen physics-based effects that are the hallmark of high-quality games.
The players chatter and trash-talk with appropriate voice work, and Trey Wingo snarks through the play-by-play, but unfortunately there's not a whole lot to hear. After one game, you'll have heard everything the announcer has to offer - twice. It's just depressing because Trey Wingo's lines are actually funny, but unfortunately there are so few of them that the laughs stop about halfway into the second quarter. Scott Van Pelt's work on Zombie Ninja Pro-Am is much better, and both are eclipsed by Frank Caliendo's absent-minded Madden impersonation in Blitz II, which is leaps and bounds better than Tour as a street-ball game.
The controls and playbook both take a massive step back in the name of "simple, arcadey play," nailing the simplism and completely forgetting to offer any arcadey action. Running is worthless and passing is mindless. The 'one-touch passing' feature is the worst possible scheme, where you key in on a receiver before the play, and have to manually cycle if he can't get open. To make the game tolerable, you'll have to switch to classic, Madden-style controls before starting. Once you have control of the ball, absent the truck stick you'll be forced to mash on the A button to bust through tackles. Of course, in the time you aren't running, another tackler will appear to knock you down anyway, so it's a moot quick-time event.
When there's only 9 total plays to pick from, though, you don't have to worry too much about picking the wrong play. They're all the wrong play, except "All Go." Just live by "All Go," and score on every posession. The game has a few extra atrocious minigames you will play once for the Gamerscore and then never look at again. It's just depressing because EA has the exclusive NFL license, yet because of that feels the need to innovate is completely absent. Hopefully Blitz II will put up the sales on the scoreboard to make EA come out with a true streetball game, but NFL Tour is definitely not that game.
Graphics: The characters look great, but the backgrounds and crowds are atrocious. 2.
Sound: Genuinely funny commentary - for about six minutes. Then, it's just grating. 1.
Controls: Weak, and the default setting is unplayable out of the box. 0.
Tilt: For about ten minutes, it's kinda fun, but you very soon regret the purchase. 1.
Overall (not an average): 1.
At some point, you have to just roll up a newspaper, smack every game on the nose and yell "No! Bad Video Game! We do not do that in the living room!" With NFL Tour, that moment happens about six minutes into the game. It's just terrible in every way, an attempt at a street-ball style that fails on every level, despite having its puppy heart in the right place.
NFL Tour starts out hopefully enough, with slick graphics and character models- the face models look great and even zoomed out to field view you can easily recognize the faces of the NFL's biggest stars. But then you realize the backgrounds and repetitive fields have the confetti-crowd repetition of, at best, an end-of-generation Playstation 1 game. The fireworks shows are canned and superimposed, lacking any of the dynamism of next-gen physics-based effects that are the hallmark of high-quality games.
The players chatter and trash-talk with appropriate voice work, and Trey Wingo snarks through the play-by-play, but unfortunately there's not a whole lot to hear. After one game, you'll have heard everything the announcer has to offer - twice. It's just depressing because Trey Wingo's lines are actually funny, but unfortunately there are so few of them that the laughs stop about halfway into the second quarter. Scott Van Pelt's work on Zombie Ninja Pro-Am is much better, and both are eclipsed by Frank Caliendo's absent-minded Madden impersonation in Blitz II, which is leaps and bounds better than Tour as a street-ball game.
The controls and playbook both take a massive step back in the name of "simple, arcadey play," nailing the simplism and completely forgetting to offer any arcadey action. Running is worthless and passing is mindless. The 'one-touch passing' feature is the worst possible scheme, where you key in on a receiver before the play, and have to manually cycle if he can't get open. To make the game tolerable, you'll have to switch to classic, Madden-style controls before starting. Once you have control of the ball, absent the truck stick you'll be forced to mash on the A button to bust through tackles. Of course, in the time you aren't running, another tackler will appear to knock you down anyway, so it's a moot quick-time event.
When there's only 9 total plays to pick from, though, you don't have to worry too much about picking the wrong play. They're all the wrong play, except "All Go." Just live by "All Go," and score on every posession. The game has a few extra atrocious minigames you will play once for the Gamerscore and then never look at again. It's just depressing because EA has the exclusive NFL license, yet because of that feels the need to innovate is completely absent. Hopefully Blitz II will put up the sales on the scoreboard to make EA come out with a true streetball game, but NFL Tour is definitely not that game.
Graphics: The characters look great, but the backgrounds and crowds are atrocious. 2.
Sound: Genuinely funny commentary - for about six minutes. Then, it's just grating. 1.
Controls: Weak, and the default setting is unplayable out of the box. 0.
Tilt: For about ten minutes, it's kinda fun, but you very soon regret the purchase. 1.
Overall (not an average): 1.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Fight Night Round 3
Fight Night Round 3
There's a lot of room on a control pad. EA Chicago makes the most out of the least with Fight Night Round 3 - its totally analog punching feels fantastic, and the demise of the studio is more the pity with weak iterations of the Sport of Kings prancing around the ring as if they owned it.
While it was very nearly a release title on the XBox 360, FNR3 has polish and slick appearance that even games coming out in the last few weeks fail to match. The boxers are fantastically detailed- of course the actual fighters look amazingly lifelike- and literally every bead of sweat is rendered and moves in a convincing fashion. I seriously cannot state enough how amazingly, jaw-bustingly gorgeous every hit looks, and the extra touches, from the round card girls who have visible C-section scars to the disturbingly busted-up faces of your opponents in the later rounds, bring a sense of realism to your TV. And the knockouts - oh, the knockouts! Lovingly replayed in super-slow-motion, to see the eyes roll back and the limbs go limp as you utterly crush some ham-and-egger in a dingy gymnasium are a sight that makes you cherish your high-definition television purchase.
There's a lot to like about the straightforward career mode, starting from the bottom and building your way up, a Cus D'Amato clone with you the whole way. The training minigames are occasionally unfair, but generally you'll be able to shape your fighter into something resembling the lights-out superstar of your dreams. The sound effects in the game are very convincing, and the grunts and smashes sound convincing, so there's no complaints on that front, while the soundtrack fits right in, neither being forgettable studio tracks nor out-of-place licensed music.
But you didn't come to the ring to see pretty boy prerendered cutscenes or listen to music, you came to box, and box you shall. With a "minute to learn, lifetime to master" wholly analog control sceme, you'll be alternating jabs, crosses and uppercuts quickly, as your character makes his way up the leaderboards. The left stick controls your footwork, while the right stick, moved in quarter-circles, half-circles or sweeping Hadouken-like maneuvers you can control the flow of the fight. Taking the life bars off the bottom of the screen does shockingly little to alter your play, as the visual cues in this game are so strong that you'll be able to tell when a feather will knock over the opponent. Counters are handled intelligently, as the computer will keep you from pummelling them into oblivion while you have to fight defensively to win.
Really, it comes down to enjoyability, and this game has so much to offer even someone who isn't a boxing fan. Moreso than an over-the-top world fighting game like DoA or Street Fighter, FNR3 hits the sweet spot of being easy to pick up, intricate enough to offer repeat playthroughs, and with a customizable Haymaker punch, allow you to inject some life into your created fighter.
Graphics: Top-notch. This game looks fantastic. 5.
Sound: Nothing offensive, but few high points. 3.
Controls: Revolutionary and familiar at once; a premonition of EA's analog hard-on perfected by skate. 4.
Tilt: You'll say "oooh, did you see me lay that guy out!" more than once. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4.
There's a lot of room on a control pad. EA Chicago makes the most out of the least with Fight Night Round 3 - its totally analog punching feels fantastic, and the demise of the studio is more the pity with weak iterations of the Sport of Kings prancing around the ring as if they owned it.
While it was very nearly a release title on the XBox 360, FNR3 has polish and slick appearance that even games coming out in the last few weeks fail to match. The boxers are fantastically detailed- of course the actual fighters look amazingly lifelike- and literally every bead of sweat is rendered and moves in a convincing fashion. I seriously cannot state enough how amazingly, jaw-bustingly gorgeous every hit looks, and the extra touches, from the round card girls who have visible C-section scars to the disturbingly busted-up faces of your opponents in the later rounds, bring a sense of realism to your TV. And the knockouts - oh, the knockouts! Lovingly replayed in super-slow-motion, to see the eyes roll back and the limbs go limp as you utterly crush some ham-and-egger in a dingy gymnasium are a sight that makes you cherish your high-definition television purchase.
There's a lot to like about the straightforward career mode, starting from the bottom and building your way up, a Cus D'Amato clone with you the whole way. The training minigames are occasionally unfair, but generally you'll be able to shape your fighter into something resembling the lights-out superstar of your dreams. The sound effects in the game are very convincing, and the grunts and smashes sound convincing, so there's no complaints on that front, while the soundtrack fits right in, neither being forgettable studio tracks nor out-of-place licensed music.
But you didn't come to the ring to see pretty boy prerendered cutscenes or listen to music, you came to box, and box you shall. With a "minute to learn, lifetime to master" wholly analog control sceme, you'll be alternating jabs, crosses and uppercuts quickly, as your character makes his way up the leaderboards. The left stick controls your footwork, while the right stick, moved in quarter-circles, half-circles or sweeping Hadouken-like maneuvers you can control the flow of the fight. Taking the life bars off the bottom of the screen does shockingly little to alter your play, as the visual cues in this game are so strong that you'll be able to tell when a feather will knock over the opponent. Counters are handled intelligently, as the computer will keep you from pummelling them into oblivion while you have to fight defensively to win.
Really, it comes down to enjoyability, and this game has so much to offer even someone who isn't a boxing fan. Moreso than an over-the-top world fighting game like DoA or Street Fighter, FNR3 hits the sweet spot of being easy to pick up, intricate enough to offer repeat playthroughs, and with a customizable Haymaker punch, allow you to inject some life into your created fighter.
Graphics: Top-notch. This game looks fantastic. 5.
Sound: Nothing offensive, but few high points. 3.
Controls: Revolutionary and familiar at once; a premonition of EA's analog hard-on perfected by skate. 4.
Tilt: You'll say "oooh, did you see me lay that guy out!" more than once. 4.
Overall (not an average): 4.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
BLITZ The League: II
BLITZ The League: II
Let's get a list of reasons to play BLITZ II out of the way:
Let's get a list of reasons to play BLITZ II out of the way:
- Can't get enough medicine-based minigames from Trauma Center, and want to jam a giant goddamned syringe into your own hand to heal yourself when your fingers all get shredded by somebody's cleat
- Like to do the Randy Moss "We Whipt Dey Ass" endzone celebration when you don't input the right celebration move (ie the real celebration is more hilarious)
- Enjoy managing heat levels based on which supplements of varying levels of legalities to juice your apparently helpless teammates with
- Want to hear Hall of Fame Linebacker Lawrence Taylor say "What the fuck do you want?"
- Get to gamble on and fix your own games (theoretically you can choose not to, but I didn't want to cross the mob in this game. This football game.)
- Hear a crowd chant "BULL - SHIT!", ECW style if the game becomes a blowout
- After a dirty hit to knock a guy down, curbstomp him into the mud and call him a stupid motherfucker. No really, the line is "C'mon, get up you stupid- *stomp* - mutha - *stomp* - fucka! - *stomp*"
If any of those activities sound like fun, Blitz II is for you. It is pure arcadey football, playground rules and late hits everywhere, along with horrifying, horrifying injuries, the bloodiest and most disturbing you will ever see. All the while, the game charms you with its adorably horrible characters fighting and yelling at each other. Blitz II isn't just the anti-Madden, it's the cure for Madden.
There is literally nothing not to like about this game, unless you are a football purist. Its play is quick and the bullet-time-like "CLASH PLAYS" make you feel suitably like a badass. The character creation mode is a breath of fresh air in a world of stale slider bars and pregen faces, completely eschewing your character's appearance in exchange for defining his personality. The other teams' intro movies are frequently laugh-out-loud funny, and the game takes itself not at all seriously (the star DE for Philadelphia is, of course, a fan who liked to fight so much in the stands the team offered him a contract). This is a great game to kick back and have fun with, and realize that video games are supposed to be fun, after all.
Graphics: Everything is suitably dingy and disgusting where it should be, but a nagging shinyness to surfaces looks to be the vestiges of a failed design concept 4.
Sound: Voicework is funny, but in the end nothing here really stands out. 2.
Controls: Occasionally the responses to your inputs are counterintuitive, and your avatar will do something you didn't intend. 3.
Tilt: It's what a arcadey football game should be, a violent, degrading, hilariously un-PC experience. 5.
Overall (not an average): 4.
Monday, March 15, 2010
The Bigs
The Bigs (Wii)
Growing up, there was an arcade in my town that had a virtual baseball game. It let you step into a cage, swing a chintzy aluminum bat with cracked and peeling reflective tape wrapped around it at baseballs hurled from a cartoon character on screen, and you swung the bat in a home-run derby style game. For $1.25, you got 10-12 swings of the bat, and I pumped a lot of tokens into this machine.
With the release of The Bigs last year, that entire experience is completely blown away. When people talk about the revolution of the Wii, this is what they are talking about. You actually play a major league ball game, swinging the bat with velocity through the strike zone, contorting your arm to make the ball dance as a pitcher, fielding with... well, just leave auto-fielding turned on, trust me.
The Bigs is arcadey as hell, and completely unashamed of the fact. Players have gigantic arms, pitchers throw baseballs that actually erupt in flames, and the game features Bullet Time. No joke, bullet time. There's, I guess, a single-player mode, where you create a hitter and take him through training camp and a series of challenges, but this game is all about local multiplayer. Getting off the couch and actually swinging the Wiimote like a bat is pretty much the most awesome feeling I've had with my Wii yet, and I truly feel like this is what they meant when they said "next-gen gaming."
Not that The Bigs is flawless. Obviously if you don't have a roommate or spouse to harass into playing against you, the single-player modes are lacking. Fielding ranges from "low-A ball" to "atrocious." The graphics look like high-end PS2-era pixels, ameliorated by the cartoony art design. And it almost doesn't seem worth complaining about in sports games anymore, but the announcers are repetitive and annoying.
Since pitch speed and hit placement are controlled by the 1-micron-wide accelerometer in the Wiimote, you will find yourself actually going through Major-League-level pitching and batting movements. Keep an ice pack handy for extended play sessions; this game takes at least a moderate amount of physical skill and ability, and you will wear out if you play all night - which leads to the other problem. Since there is physical baseball skill involved, the learning curve is somewhat steep; people with no concept of baseball may struggle their first few games, while you - the owner of the game - soundly thrash them. Not the biggest deal, but this isn't quite the party game that a WiiSports or WarioWare is.
If you like baseball, or trash-talking with your friends, this is a good game. If you like trash-talking your friends about baseball, you need to buy this game immediately.
Graphics: Good for a PS2-era game, but not exactly next-gen. 3.
Sound: Crowd roars and inane announcers ahoy. 2.
Controls: These are who we thought they were, pretty much a baseball simulator. 5.
Tilt: Fun against a competent human opponent, but not a party game or a single-player experience. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3.
Growing up, there was an arcade in my town that had a virtual baseball game. It let you step into a cage, swing a chintzy aluminum bat with cracked and peeling reflective tape wrapped around it at baseballs hurled from a cartoon character on screen, and you swung the bat in a home-run derby style game. For $1.25, you got 10-12 swings of the bat, and I pumped a lot of tokens into this machine.
With the release of The Bigs last year, that entire experience is completely blown away. When people talk about the revolution of the Wii, this is what they are talking about. You actually play a major league ball game, swinging the bat with velocity through the strike zone, contorting your arm to make the ball dance as a pitcher, fielding with... well, just leave auto-fielding turned on, trust me.
The Bigs is arcadey as hell, and completely unashamed of the fact. Players have gigantic arms, pitchers throw baseballs that actually erupt in flames, and the game features Bullet Time. No joke, bullet time. There's, I guess, a single-player mode, where you create a hitter and take him through training camp and a series of challenges, but this game is all about local multiplayer. Getting off the couch and actually swinging the Wiimote like a bat is pretty much the most awesome feeling I've had with my Wii yet, and I truly feel like this is what they meant when they said "next-gen gaming."
Not that The Bigs is flawless. Obviously if you don't have a roommate or spouse to harass into playing against you, the single-player modes are lacking. Fielding ranges from "low-A ball" to "atrocious." The graphics look like high-end PS2-era pixels, ameliorated by the cartoony art design. And it almost doesn't seem worth complaining about in sports games anymore, but the announcers are repetitive and annoying.
Since pitch speed and hit placement are controlled by the 1-micron-wide accelerometer in the Wiimote, you will find yourself actually going through Major-League-level pitching and batting movements. Keep an ice pack handy for extended play sessions; this game takes at least a moderate amount of physical skill and ability, and you will wear out if you play all night - which leads to the other problem. Since there is physical baseball skill involved, the learning curve is somewhat steep; people with no concept of baseball may struggle their first few games, while you - the owner of the game - soundly thrash them. Not the biggest deal, but this isn't quite the party game that a WiiSports or WarioWare is.
If you like baseball, or trash-talking with your friends, this is a good game. If you like trash-talking your friends about baseball, you need to buy this game immediately.
Graphics: Good for a PS2-era game, but not exactly next-gen. 3.
Sound: Crowd roars and inane announcers ahoy. 2.
Controls: These are who we thought they were, pretty much a baseball simulator. 5.
Tilt: Fun against a competent human opponent, but not a party game or a single-player experience. 4.
Overall (not an average): 3.
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