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Posts tagged Sports game review
Fight Night Round 4 Review
0915 days
by MrSnuggleston
in Reviews
Well it’s been a long time since I wrote my last sports review, so I wanted my latest one to be a knockout. That’s why MrSnuggleston is back to tell you kids all about EA’s latest attempt at the sweet science, Fight Night Round 4.
watch this hand watch this hand watch this hand
The graphics are some of the most beautiful ever scene in any sports game to date. Your fighters will glisten with sweat that accumulates as the fight goes deeper into the rounds. Boxers will also show damage as far as swelling and cuts that need to be tended to by your cut-man in between rounds. There are a handful of venues that range from local sweat-box gyms to Madison Square Gardens all the way to Manilla, where Ali and Frazier’s epic bout took place. The best part is after a knock down, where the camera goes into slow motion showing the boxers glove slowly connecting with the opponent. It really makes every knockout look way more damaging than it first appeared, but there is something fun about repeatedly pressing the replay button to show the knockout over and over again from an assortment of different angles.
There are a couple different game modes here that will keep any gamer occupied for some time. First is the career mode, where you can take a boxer all the way from amateur tournaments to packed arenas. You have the option to either create a boxer, or simply restart any particular fighter’s career. Fight Night this year has a file sharing system where people can share created boxers and game settings. What’s that? Your favorite boxer isn’t in the game? Well thanks to EA’s new face mapping tool, you can upload pictures to EA’s website and map your or anyone’s face to a created fighter. Some of the created fighters I have seen were Evander Holyfield, Oscar de la Hoya, and Rocky Balboa? Yes. Rocky is on there, as well as Apollo Creed and Ivan Drago.
You got something on your chin...
If online play is more you style, you do have your run of the mill “quick ranked match” type pf options, but look deeper and there is some real fun to be had. Fight Night features new “World Wide Championship” mode. Here you can take your created boxer and fight people from around the world, climbing the ranks in a regional, national, and World ranking system. No matter how bad you boxer is, all online created fighters are leveled out to the same rating, giving no one an advantage.
Now let’s talk about what is the heart and soul of this title, the fighting. There are two main concepts to boxing. Attack and defend. The tough part of it though is mastering the two and using each efficiently. Your can go out there and swing away, and sure this may work for the first couple fights of your career, but as you climb up the ranks a little, you quickly find that that approach wont work. Different this year is the presence of on-screen gauges for you health, stamina, and damage taken. At first this put me off, but after a few matches, I realized that its presence was quite important. When fighting you want to keep an eye on your stamina. The less you have the weaker you punches and the stronger you feel your opponents. Your health dwindles as you take hits, and is regained when you are not. If your health bar gets too low or you take a critical punch from your opponent your fighter will enter a sort of panic mode, where your opponents stamina maxes out and you need to clinch or avoid punches or you will be knocked out. If you time your blocks right, you have a brief window to throw a counter punch which will do some extra damage. Throw a haymaker counter punch and it could be lights out after one hit. As far as the controls go, it does take about 5 to 6 matches just to familiarize yourself with the control stick fighting, and quite a few more to master them, but you are rewarded in the end with a much more fluid feel to the game.
Entourage not included.
Well there you have it. My impressions of Fight Night were all positive and I strongly recommend it to anyone interested in the genre. With its deep career and online mode you really get your moneys worth with this title. Pound for pound Fight Night is one of the premier boxing titles of our generation.
MrSnuggleston thanks you for reading. Find me online gamertag: MrSnuggleston or follow my day to day on twitter: Ryanhanni.
MrSnuggleston’s NBA 2k9 Review
01077 days
by MrSnuggleston
in Reviews
It time to lace up the old Chuck Taylors and hit the hardwood because NBA 2k9 is bringing the best of NBA action right to our video game consoles.
The first thing that you will notice when playing NBA 2k9 is that this is visually one of the best sports games that you have ever seen. Everything from the player models to the referees look great, and move and act like their real life counterparts. On several occasions I’ve had roommates pass my room and ask what basketball game was on. Only when really coming in closer and inspecting the screen were they able to see that it was a video game. The sound and sights as far I presentation are also very good. The play by play is great and follows the on court action perfectly. Occasionally a stat or two pops up in the way of your game but these are far and few between and doesn’t really take away from the overall experience.
When it comes to game-play and controls, the 2k series has been know to accommodate the hardcore simulation fans. This year’s installment is no different: When it comes to difficulty settings, playing on the hardest difficulty, when play multi-player, is strongly recommended. Playing this difficulty against the computer on the other hand, your probably going to get your behind handed to you. For those that are still unhappy with the default settings, there are plenty of adjustable sliders for those that like to tweak them on their own.
Another new addition is the live ratings. With these daily updates, player ratings are adjusted based on the player’s real life performance. If a player a has good night shooting, the next day he may get a couple more points added to his shooting rating. Conversely if he was to have a bad night turning the ball over, his ratings would be reflected negatively. All in all, this year’s game is made to look and play like real basketball, and I think they did a good job transferring the experience of watching an NBA game to feeling like you are controlling the action on you console.
Not only are you able to take on other players online, but this year has a new mode called Team-up mode, which has recently become one of my favorite online experiences ever. Instead of picking a team and going head to head, up to 10 players can play at once, 5 against 5, each man choosing a player on the court, and playing as thought they were part of that team. If you like to be the point guard, you can pick him, and run the court just like Jason Kidd. If that’s not your style, take a big man like Shaq, and just hang around that basket pushing little people around. Just like any other team game, the fun comes from the interactions that you will have with your other teammates. That being said, be wary of public rooms, since who you play with can really make or break the experience.
****Snuggle’s Makes and Breaks***
+ Excellent Graphics
+ Really feels like you are controlling a real basketball player/team
+ Team-up mode is a blast!!!
- No lobby system makes matchmaking a pain
- Needs more difficulty options without having to mess with sliders
- Not a great public crowd online
Overall, I think NBA 2k9 is one of the better games this year. Once a nice balance is found on the difficulty, there is a lot of fun that can come from both single player and multi-player modes. I know that basketball is a dying sport right now, but if you are still a fan, I strongly recommend picking this one up.
Mr Snuggleston’s NHL 09 Review
21102 days
by MrSnuggleston
in Reviews
As the majority of you are saddened over the ending of football season, or anxiously waiting for Americans favorite past-time of baseball to get underway, or some may even be relishing the excitement of the current basketball season. I am like a pig in muck enjoying NHL hockey, which is accompanied by this year’s best sports game, EA Sports NHL 09.
NLH 09 offers everything a fan could want from a hockey game. From the controls to the game play, the game looks and feels like hockey. Gone are the day of run and gun hockey of past EA titles. Instead players will need to play tight defense, strategic offense, and the occasional fist to a guy’s face, in order to be successful in this game.
Graphically, NHL 09 is the cream of the crop. Players look just like their life time counter parts, and they are not shy to take off their helmets from time to time to show off their pretty mugs. Presentation is what can be expected, with the occasional stat jumping up from time to time. Other games, like the NHL 2k series, may put a little more effort into their presentations, as far a mimicking a TV broadcast, but in my opinion, this takes from the on screen action, and with a game like hockey, more is not always better. The sounds are exactly what you expect to hear on the ice. From bone crushing hits, to the ping of the puck hitting the pipe, the sounds are true to the game. Throw in commentary from my own hometown hero Bill Clement and you’ve got gold my friend.
NHL’s shot stick controls are fluid and responsive. Simply moving the stick left to right, is mirrored by your skater, controlling the puck from side to side. A quick flick of the stick toward the net will result is a quick wrist shot, or pushing the stick away before pushing it forward causes your shooter to pull his stick back and let go a ripping slap shot. Do not be discouraged if you find it hard to score at first. Easy to learn, but hard to master, I recommend at least ten games before you get a fluid feel for the controls.
Game play for NHL 09 is some of the best I’ve seen in hockey games of our generation. At first, it felt sloppy. I couldn’t really get a feel for the game cause it felt a little unorganized. I quickly came to realize that years of sub-par hockey games had made me develop some bad habits. I had to shake these quick, and force myself to play the game like a real hockey game. Once I was able to do that, I had much more success, and I was able to enjoy an NHL title on a whole new level.
With so many bad games out there, I would be upset to see anyone pass on NHL 09. Even if you are not a hockey fan, this game’s fast and exciting simulation of hockey is good enough to hold the attention of even the most pessimistic critic. NHL 09 gets the MrSnuggleston Gold Stamp of Approval.
