The Gaming World through my eyes

8 out of 10

EA’s NHL 07 redefined the hockey genre with one simple feature, the skill stick. Though the game had few modes and several artificial intelligence issues, its star play mechanic worked brilliantly, and created a great rebuilding point for the franchise. As you would expect from a follow-up, NHL 08 takes what 07 did and stacks a bunch of improvements on top of it. The AI has been thoroughly reworked, so it now looks and feels much, much more like the real-life sport. Throw in some balance improvements to the skill stick, a gaggle of new online modes, and an improved dynasty mode, and you’ve got an all-around great hockey game.

For lack of a better term, NHL 08 is just a smarter game of hockey than 07 was. Pop in 07 for a few minutes before starting in on 08, and you’ll see a night-and-day difference between how players behave in each version. For one thing, 08 is a slower-paced game than 07 was, though not to the point of feeling sluggish. Part of that is because the game has done away with speed burst mechanic, and part has to do with skating, which has been redone from the ground up. The momentum of the skaters as they move up and down the ice simply feels more natural and less overblown, and the pacing of the game is much more realistic. On offense and defense, player behavior feels correct in most every situation. Setting up power plays and other elaborate passing schemes is more natural than in any EA hockey game to date. When you push your way into the offensive zone by yourself, the defense doesn’t just try to knock you silly every single time. Defenders will actually poke check, try to push you toward the boards, and close the gap to the net. It’s like watching real defenders, instead of the robotic hitting machines from earlier EA hockey games. You’ll occasionally see some dopey moments where guys on your team skate right past the puck or stand still in front of the net even though they’re getting hammered left and right, but these aren’t the norm.

Incidentally, it pays to vary up your offense as much as you possibly can this year, because the defense will actually adapt to your plays. If you keep moving to the center of the ice and slapping it in, the AI will react accordingly and start clogging up that area. If you’re constantly trying to set up elaborate one-timers, the defense will see it and attack accordingly. The reactions to your repetitive play are almost uncanny. The one goofy thing about this adaptive AI system is that it doesn’t differentiate among players and teams; Johnny Oduya is just as capable of figuring out your tendencies as Scott Niedermeyer is. While it’s better to have everyone be smart versus everyone being an idiot, a bit more differentiation between skill sets would have been nice.

If you find yourself running into trouble, the game is quite good about letting you know what you’re doing wrong. Between periods, a screen will pop up telling you what you’re doing well and what you need to improve on. Specifically, it’ll tell you things like your forechecking needs to improve, or that you’re doing a great job of getting shots on net. In another helpful feature, if you’re getting too predictable on offense, the commentators will actually point that out. It’s subtle, but if you’re paying attention to what they’re saying, you can get some sound advice.

As far as control goes, the skill stick feels even more refined this year. There aren’t any major, game-changing differences to the mechanic, but all told, it just feels smoother in its movements. Goals scored are rarely alike, and it’s a thrilling feeling to fake out the goalie and knock the puck in with a few quick flicks of the stick. And though this seems like less a change to the stick and more a change to the goalies, glitched and otherwise wonky-looking goals are much less frequent this year. You’ll still see some highly questionable ones on occasion, but there are very few of those weird goals from 07 where the puck would bounce off every body part of the goalie before eventually donking its way in. Now, if EA could just fix it so your stick wouldn’t clip through defenders’ legs anymore…

One specific new feature for offensive controls is loose puck deking. To pull one of these off, you hold down the L1 button/left bumper, and press both analog sticks in the desired direction of the deke. It’s a tricky maneuver, as you’re basically letting go of the puck and trying to push your skater into exactly the right spot to pick the puck back up once he’s past the defender. The timing is tough, and if a defender happens to decide to check you right at the time you’re trying to pull this off, you’re hosed. Once you get a good handle on the timing, however, the move becomes incredibly effective–maybe even a bit too effective. Fortunately, not every skater can pull these moves off with a deft touch, but if you’ve got a one-on-one matchup against an opponent who has the timing on these moves down and a good skater holding the puck, watch out.

Defensive controls haven’t seen much change, though there are some balance tweaks. The poke check feels a bit more effective this year, though it still looks weird and awkward, and the control mechanic of holding the right bumper/R1 button and swinging with the right stick still feels cumbersome. Checking with the right analog stick is much more understated this year, but that’s not to say it isn’t effective. You can still wind up for a big hit and send a guy crashing into the boards, provided you can actually time such a hit correctly. But by and large, most checks don’t just knock guys silly all the time–and that’s a good thing. You’ll knock guys off the puck periodically, and sometimes checking won’t do anything. Most of all, checking feels balanced. The big grinder types do a lot more damage than the little speed wingers, and that’s how it should be. Lastly, the game does feature slightly improved goalie controls that actually make a measure of sense and let you challenge skaters effectively, though this control method still isn’t as much fun as 2K’s goalie control.

 

 

   

Every year tens of thousands of high school football players dream of continuing their careers at the collegiate level, but most of them will never know what it’s like to play in an enormous stadium in front of 60,000 rabid fans. EA Tiburon is doing its best to make sure that dream comes true for everybody in NCAA Football 08’s campus legend mode. We recently spent some time with the mode at EA’s Summer Preview event and tried to see if we had what it takes to take our game from high school to a Division 1 powerhouse. It wasn’t easy, but it sure was fun.

   

You can start your campus legend career in a number of ways: You can take over the career of any existing collegiate player, you can create a player and start him off in college, or you can create a high school player. Just be sure to pick a position you enjoy because you can’t change it once you’ve begun. Should you go the high school route, you’ll start the game as a senior who’s about to take part in a 16-team playoff featuring schools from real cities in whatever area you said your player is from. The first three games take place on what looks like a typical high school field with a small number of bleachers packed with fans. If you can make it to the championship game you’ll be rewarded with your first taste of what it’s like to play at the next level because your game will take place in the stadium of the nearest major university.

  

Your focus isn’t just on winning playoff games; it’s also on playing well and garnering the attention of college recruiters. This means you’ll have to make every play count, especially since your coach can bench you if you’re stinking up the joint. But be aware that if you’re blowing out the other team, your coach might call off the dogs and pull you too. Because you’re a player and not a coach, you’ll have to run the plays that are sent in by the head coach. EA is toying with the possibility of letting you call audibles if you’re the QB, but no final decision has yet been made. You’ll have control over only the player you’ve created, and the game will quickly simulate any play you’re not involved in, though you can choose to watch any play you’d like. While it’s only natural to want the ball in your hands on every play, it’s surprisingly fun to throw a block that springs a player free for a big gain–especially if you’re a quarterback. QBs naturally get the most action and receivers the least, but you can call for the ball if (like any receiver worth his salt) you think you’re open on every play.

    

Once your high school career has wound down you’ll be presented with a list of the schools that want you to don their colors. While this is a small victory, your journey has just begun. Do you go to a small school where you’ll come in and challenge for the starting job right away, or do you swallow your pride and ride the pine at a major program? We chose the big school route and headed off to Nebraska to see if we could channel our inner Tommy Frazier. As expected, we were way down on the depth chart. Heck, we were lucky to just get into the stadium. But we didn’t come this far to be a glorified water boy; we came to play, and that meant working hard in practice.

When practice started we were shown how far behind the next player on the depth chart we were. Basically, you’ll need to earn about 21 practice points for every one overall rating point between you and the player above you. When your rating equals his, the job is yours. After practice we were awarded points that went toward improving our quarterback’s accuracy, throwing power, carrying ability, elusiveness, spine move, and juke. While a backup quarterback’s role is mostly limited to mop-up duty in blowouts, other nonstarters will need to be prepared to contribute to special teams, both on offense and defense. In addition to practicing, you’ll need to figure out how to best spend your free time. You can choose to study, go to the movies, or play pickup basketball, which may raise or lower certain attributes or even cause injury. Being all about our education we decided to stay in and hit the books.Not only will there be 115 stadiums, but UCS’s new stadium will be in the game, as will Vanderbilt’s new digs and Alabama’s upgraded stadium. We also got a closer look at the beautifully detailed trophies that will fill your trophy room…if you’re any good. NCAA Football 08 is due out on July 17 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.

Powned-means to soundly defeat an opponent. It is sometimes used for taunting of an in-game enemy and rubbing in victories.

Teabagging-It took me a while to understand what this meant in-game, but I figured it out.If an opposing player–particularly the one that shot you–wants to taunt you, he can come by and repeatedly crouch over you, in your field of view. Hence, the in-game teabagging.

Noob-describes a newcomer, most commonly in online gaming and the Internet as a whole.

Raped-describes a person that was killed in an awesome way.

After three seasons, two motion pictures, and countless blows to the groin, MTV’s Jackass is finally coming to video game consoles–namely the PlayStation 2 and PlayStation Portable-with a new title that will let you act out a series of stunts just as brutal as those you’ve seen on TV. The story goes that director Jeff Tremaine was injured in a prank right before shooting on the new season was set to begin, so you’ll have to come in and pick up directing duties to complete the seven episodes of the new season. That means you’ll be happily abusing series mainstays like Johnny Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, and Wee Man to your heart’s content through the 35 stunts that make up the seven virtual episodes contained here.

Each episode will have five stunts, and we got to see a handful of them. In San Fran Trash Can, you’ll load your favorite jackass into a trash can and send him careening down the hills of San Francisco, with you guiding the trash can between–or into–various cars, pedestrians, and obstacles as you try to reach the finish line. Suburban Catapult had us loading a cast member into a giant slingshot strung between two trees and launching them across a quiet neighborhood and nearby construction site, just to see how much distance we could get with our human projectile. Golf Rally was all about jumping into a motorized cart and terrorizing a golf course, knocking down attendants and destroying the scenery as much as possible.

 

Basically, this is exactly the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in the show (though none of the show’s specific stunts have been re-created here). A few of the stunts will fall into the “Wee Man games” category, and these naturally focus on Jackass’s diminutive character of the same name. These will be simpler games than the primary stunts, and will involve things like Wee Man shooting a paintball gun at Johnny Knoxville, who’s being rotated on a circular board by Chris Pontius. Of course, you can blast Pontius too, if you feel like it; this is just that kind of game.

The PS2’s and PSP’s scoring systems each work a little differently. On the PS2, you’re trying to rack up a set amount of money (usually $500,000) by causing damage before you can move on to the next event. On the PSP, you’re striving for a best-of-five-stars rating. In both cases, though, you’ll have a list of specific objectives to meet that will net you big bonus points. In San Fran Trash Can, sample objectives included rolling safely under three trucks, finishing the plummet without hitting anything, or hitting a fire hydrant on the way down. Suburban Catapult tasked us with landing in a particular swimming pool, smashing through a glass house, or skidding more than 30 feet after initially hitting the ground (you wouldn’t believe the rug burns). Some stunts will even let you bail out of your vehicle early, at which point you’ll see every laceration and broken bone called out onscreen, along with the extra points you’re getting for all that pain.

all in alll this game is really for the people that loved the show and enjoyed the movie.

This game will be released on Sep 24, 2007

2.3 out of 10 

Let me start out by saying that this game is terrible. The gameplay is a mess and the graphics look like they are from the sega.I’m not just saying this because i don’t like movie based games, but the game is a complete bomber. The graphics are horribly drawn together. The gameplay is really indifferent. You use the same specials and maneuvers throughout the whole game. I strongly dislike this game.

  

Take-Two Interactive and Rockstar Games have said little publicly since Manhunt 2 was slapped with an AO for Adults Only rating last week. The publisher confirmed that it was temporarily suspending production of the game while it reviewed its options, and Take-Two chairman of the board Strauss Zelnick issued a statement calling Manhunt 2 “a fine piece of art.”

Zelnick expanded a bit on his position to The New York Times‘ Seth Schiesel in an article headlined “Gore Galore but a Violent Game Can’t Hold a Gutbucket to the Movies.” According to Schiesel, Zelnick defended the game’s innovation, but emphasized that it was a horror game, intended for audiences 17 and older.

“This is still animation,” Zelnick said. “It’s not photo-realistic. It’s not live action. And compared to an R-rated movie, which is intended for 17 and above, like Saw or Hostel, it’s actually pretty tame.”

While Schiesel called the Entertainment Software Rating Board’s AO “entirely reasonable” after spending a few hours with the game, he also agreed with Zelnick’s estimation of films after watching through Saw II.

“Banning the original version of Manhunt 2 may be a good way to demonstrate that the industry can police itself. Side by side, though, movies seem to be way ahead of games in delivering top-notch gore.”

   

All of the reviews are not professional they are simply my opinion. However I do take other peoples opinions into consideration. I hope you agree with me but if you don’t you can comment me and i will consider your side of the story.

                                                                              Thank You,

                                                                                                  Kash Staggs