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Madden misses Drafting 101 with 6% of NFL picks
Our grand experiment with Madden NFL 25 this week, in which we simulated the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft using Electronic Arts' popular football game, ended as the NFL finished round one last night. In all, EA's Madden 25 only managed to place two athletes on their correct teams: Cornerback Justin Gilbert with the Cleveland Browns [#8] and defensive tackle Aaron Donald with the St. Louis Rams [#13], making for a lackluster success rate of six percent. Good job, good effort, Madden! The game did manage to place players of correct relative positions with five teams in the first round, as Minnesota drafted a quarterback, San Francisco took a defensive back and Pittsburgh selected a linebacker last night as well. Yet EA's Madden 25 wasn't able to account for the eight trades that took place last night, in which Cleveland traded back from the fourth pick to the eighth spot, which is where they chose Gilbert, later selecting quarterback Johnny Manziel [#22].
Mike Suszek05.09.2014Slide until you die in Xbox One's crazy Sunset Overdrive
Sunset Overdrive is a goofy explosion of vivid colors and anything-goes attitude, though it's not without shape. The outline resembles Jet Set Radio, with weapons on loan from Ratchet and Clank, and a dash of Fable's fuck-you to dying. We all know it's a video game, but listen - Sunset Overdrive is conspicuously a video game. In some ways it's a beacon of independence for Insomniac Games, which has historically aligned itself with PlayStation on major franchises like Ratchet & Clank, Spyro the Dragon and Resistance. Some players probably think the developers at Insomniac make up a huge studio owned by Sony – or that they are Sony – but here we are, talking about an exclusive game for Xbox One from a 20-year-old independent studio.
Ludwig Kietzmann05.08.2014Madden 25 vs. Reality: Predicting the 2014 NFL Draft
The NFL Draft is a special event in sports culture where college football players wear fancy suits, find out which team they get to start their professional careers with and (hopefully) have the chance to hug NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in front of an auditorium filled with people. The months between the final piece of confetti falling at the Super Bowl in February to the first overall selection being announced is riddled with speculation from draft analysts, mostly in the form of "mock drafts." EA's Madden NFL series has its own franchise-building career mode, which includes a pretty nifty drafting system. We decided to put it through its paces to create our own mock draft to predict the first round of the 2014 NFL Draft, which begins tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on the NFL Network. There are a few caveats to our experiment, which might be expected to those familiar with Electronic Arts' popular brand of football. Madden NFL 25 allows players to import a draft class from NCAA Football 14 for use in Connected Franchise mode, but given that NCAA 14 doesn't feature real-life athletes, we improvised by using custom Madden and NCAA rosters from the Operation Sports forums and Madden 25's in-game roster-sharing section. We ran this experiment four times using versions of the draft class mostly in line with what the experts are expecting to happen tomorrow, with players like Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel and South Carolina defensive end Jadeveon Clowney hovering near the top of the pecking order every time, then compiled the results to create Madden's own mock draft. With all of that out of the way, let the drafting begin. With the first pick in the Joystiq Madden NFL Mock Draft, the Houston Texans select...
Mike Suszek05.07.2014The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review: Who am I?
The latest Spider-Man game is a cry for help. Yes, there's breezy swinging through New York corridors on a silky strand, and the Cirque du Soleil-style beatdowns that make Spidey so fun to watch, but don't let the swagger fool you. For reasons that go unexplained by the plot, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 sees our hero struggling to wake from a sadistically engineered nightmare. Has he been hypnotized by Mysterio? Knocked out by the Green Goblin's hallucinogenic gas? Maybe he's been poisoned by the Marvel equivalent of Scarecrow, which is ... oh, also Scarecrow. We recognize the urban dreamscape as Manhattan, but it's a taunting, badly constructed recollection of the real thing, paved with unsettling oddities, cartoonish British accents, meaningless tasks and Spider-Man's own insecurities turned corporeal. It may look like just another sloppy licensed game, but beneath the surface squirms a dissonant yet introspective deconstruction of the genre (probably).
Ludwig Kietzmann05.05.2014What Final Fantasy X did differently over X years ago
I've been replaying Final Fantasy X in its remastered form on PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita, curious to see if it matches my memory of the original. These are some of the things it did differently back in 2001: "Listen to my story." The story of Final Fantasy X is told from the perspective of Tidus, a young sports star who looks like a bleary-eyed Meg Ryan cosplaying as Prince. On the eve of his big game of Blitzball, a sadistic, underwater spin on soccer, the hosting city of Zanarkand is pulverized by a mercurial blob. Tidus gets sucked into its amorphous mouth and wakes up 1,000 years into the future, as you do. None of this is especially weird for Final Fantasy, but making the protagonist and the narrator the same person is a unique choice for Final Fantasy X, which ironically casts expert swimmer Tidus as the fish out of water. His personal telling is tinged with bitterness over being flung so far from home, and it colors our view of how religion rules the new land of Spira. Tidus plays along when he's taught a religious gesture for greeting the devoted, for example, but awkwardly recognizes it as a Blitzball cheer from the old world. As an additional indignity, nobody believes Tidus anyway: The hero doesn't have amnesia for a change, but everyone thinks he does.
Ludwig Kietzmann04.29.2014What lag looks like in reality with Oculus Rift
This experiment is a huge relief. It turns out that we're not "clumsy" – we have real-life lag. Four people strapped on an Oculus Rift headset that displayed the immediate outside world at a delay, imitating the effects of shoddy internet speeds (if the real world ran on an ethernet connection). They then attempted a series of relatively standard tasks – dancing, ping pong, cooking, bowling – and failed pretty miserably at all of them. If poor dancing, trouble cooking and uncoordinated athletic moves are a symptom of real-life lag, we've been sick for years. [Image: UMEA Energi]
Jessica Conditt04.28.2014Child of Light review: Roses are red, violets are blue, this game is okay
It took me several hours to realize what was troubling me about Child of Light. It's a stunning game, with lovely music, endearing characters and complex combat mechanics - in short, a laundry list of RPG aspects that I adore. And yet something was off. I flew, I slew, searched the landscape through and through, and even while I went right on appreciating every aspect of Child of Light's design, I was forced to admit that I wasn't actually enjoying it all that much. At last, somewhere between crafting my umpteenth oculi and listening to yet more awkward rhyming, I figured it out: I didn't care about any of it. Child of Light has a nearly perfect exterior, but it has absolutely no soul.
Susan Arendt04.28.2014Bungie's Pete Parsons on why Destiny isn't Borderlands
After spending some time with Destiny at Bungie's Bellevue, Washington studio, we grilled chief operating officer Pete Parsons about the developer's anticipated shooter. Sure, we asked some questions about the world that Bungie created for the game, and exactly how the campaign will work in this online-only adventure. But then we got to the important questions, like whether Bungie will confirm that Peter Dinklage voices your AI companion, Ghost.
Richard Mitchell04.28.2014Video preview: Destiny wears its Halo with pride
The setting is different, the enemies are different, the grand, operatic story is different, and you'll spend more time looking down the sights, but Bungie's Destiny feels every bit like a Halo game. Having never touched Destiny before, I slipped into the effortless momentum of its gunplay without a hitch, which is probably the highest compliment I could give it. I can't speak to Destiny's much-touted social elements, its massively multiplayer leanings or the quality of its narrative – Bungie made it clear that those things will have to wait for E3 in June – but Halo's trademark "30 seconds of fun" is definitely in evidence.
Richard Mitchell04.28.2014Take another look at the E.T. landfill excavation
Hundreds of people went out in the desert yesterday to watch an excavation for E.T., an Atari game so awful that thousands of copies were buried in an Alamogordo landfill. Microsoft and Lightbox plan on turning the dig into a documentary with a working title of Atari: Game Over. [Image: Microsoft]
Thomas Schulenberg04.27.2014The Guilty Pleasures of Infamous: Second Son
Searching for the subtleties in a superhero game is like straining your ears to find the bright ting of a triangle buried somewhere in a bombastic marching band. It adds a pleasant touch of finesse, even if you're just there to feel the drums pushing you back. Infamous: Second Son has its own little triangle in the unfettered actions of Delsin Rowe, a one-man superband imbued with corrosive powers of smoke, ember and neon. He's essentially a weaponized e-cigarette, lobbing vaporous projectiles and rocketing through Seattle's rooftop vents like a wispy snake. It's almost exactly as fun as it sounds, thanks to rapid movement tuned to the environment's ups and downs. That relentless pursuit of locomotion and non-stop enjoyment, however, may be the one thing that prevents Infamous from growing into something more. Putting flash and excitement first is a perfectly valid decision from the developers at Sucker Punch, and most reviews will argue that it's a great one. It's not entirely compatible with the game's tests of morality, though, and I'm not convinced it ever will be.
Ludwig Kietzmann04.25.2014Games so bad they're good: Far Cry 2
I was invited to be on the "Games So Bad They're Good" panel at PAX East, but a scheduling conflict prevented me from taking part. Fortunately, my Editor in Chief, Ludwig Kietzmann, was ready and willing to take my place. His selection, Far Cry 2, took more than a few people by surprise - the reaction on Twitter went something like "Are you crazy? Far Cry 2 is awesommmmeeeeee!" His reasoning was ... unusual, to say the least, so we're reprinting his argument. These are the notes he used for his presentation, exactly as he used them, thus the atypical format. For the record, my choice was going to be Phantasy Star Online. I think Luddy won this one. --Susan I tried to be considerate about this, and cognizant of why bad qualities can lead to pleasure. The thing about bad movies like Plan 9 is that you're looking at an event so awkward and terrible for the people involved that you want to instinctually stop them and protect them, but you can't because it's already committed to film. It's too late to stop the tragedy, so now you are allowed to enjoy it. In a game, if your actions don't align with your expectations or what the game is about, it's frustrating. Most games are good despite their bad qualities, like story and controls, and not because of them. At first I thought: Okay, what about games that give the player all the power and then back away? Is that bad game design? Is God of War so bad, because they let you rip out a monster's medulla oblongata and then bash their head in with it and then you're like, "This violence is a bit mindless isn't it?" Or, what about games that overcomplicate and abstract simple, physical actions, like QWOP, Surgeon Simulator and Octodad? Then I had an epiphany, I yelled, "Eureka! "and someone said, "Shh, this is a library, keep your revelations to yourself." I'm going with Far Cry 2, and here's why.
Ludwig Kietzmann04.16.2014MLB 14: The Show review: Changeup
The term "simulation" is appropriate for MLB 14: The Show, but not just because of its beautiful presentation, a defining trait of the series that's become a benchmark for other sports video games. Rather, MLB 14: The Show earns its simulation stripes by continuing the series' tradition of challenging players with mechanics and statistics that mirror the real sport. While MLB's gameplay has changed little this year, no matter what option players select for pitching, fielding and hitting (we'll get to that later), they will fail or succeed as regularly as athletes do in the big leagues. Yet much like the faithfully-recreated and wildly differing batting stances of hitters in the game, MLB 14: The Show truly makes its mark in the baseball sim series by being one thing: dynamic.
Mike Suszek04.15.2014Below is a link between Dark Souls and Zelda
Below makes you feel small. Wonderfully, wonderfully small. Capybara Games' new adventure, a lush marriage of Dark Souls and the original Legend of Zelda, is a game of contrasts, encroaching dark and tiny lights with a wee character in a big, echoing world. "The idea of scale was the first thing we landed on. Ever since 1080p monitors came out I've had this dream of taking advantage of that technology in a different way," explained Kris Piotrowski, Below's creative director. "You've got this view you've never seen before, a character on a scale you've never seen before, and it gives the world a feeling of vastness and mystery." The muted, thick colors and heavy rain surrounding the Wanderer, Below's fragile star, in the game's beach side opening are as oppressive as they are beautiful. Wanderer is tiny on the beach and rocky path leading up into the hills in the background, taking up almost no screen real estate and moving slowly. Even holding the run button, he only moves at a trot. Unsheathing your sword and shield takes a good beat as well, leaving you vulnerable. Climbing up a trail toward the monolithic cave first seen in Below's E3 2013 debut is immediately tense and alluring. Those feelings of vastness and mystery sweep you up so much that you're not expecting it the first time spikes shoot out of a grey splotch of cave-floor, cutting your life short. When you start again as a brand new Wanderer, a little wiser and a little more ready with a sword, that's when this chilly game warms up, inviting you into its artful, challenging exploration one dark cave at a time.
Anthony John Agnello04.12.2014Civilization: Beyond Earth breaks free from history, heads to the final frontier
When I ask Firaxis lead designer why the studio decided to take the Civilization series to space with Civilization: Beyond Earth – just announced at PAX East – his answer is simple: "Why not?" Designer and programmer Anton Strenger offers a little more meat. "I think that one of the things that space allows us to do as designers, and for the artists as well, is to get free from a historical context." Civilization has always been tied to human history, but Beyond Earth allows it to branch out in a fresh new direction (even if that direction isn't completely new to Firaxis). "We, as designers, were free to come up with really fun new gameplay systems that didn't really make sense in a more historical game, or even like a fantasy game." Specifically, Strenger mentions one of Beyond Earth's new tactical elements, the orbital layer, which allows players to launch satellites over a planet, influencing the events below. Firaxis' artists had a field day creating satellite designs, says Strenger. Producer Lena Brenk chimes in, "Yeah, that was amazing to see the artists. Usually we have historic reference that they're working from, and right now they get to invent a world, basically, an alien planet in the future." That's not to say, however, that Firaxis is just making everything up. "It's really important to us that the player be able to draw a line of plausibility through the entire experience," says lead designer Will Miller, "we want the suspension of disbelief maintained throughout." Beyond Earth begins around 200 to 250 years in the future, he says, and science-fiction fans will recognize plausible concepts like ships that fly at sub-light speeds and cryogenic stasis. "But where you end up is quite different, so we're going to draw that line from where we are now to these sort of post-human evolutions." You won't be starting NASA from scratch, in other words, but Beyond Earth starts in a believable place: Humanity travels to a new planet. The question is how you choose to master it.
Richard Mitchell04.12.2014Butt-stomp the moon in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Borderlands is in the wonderful business of providing goods and guns to insatiable looters. Dubbed the best-selling game in publisher 2K's history, Borderlands 2 refines a gaming bear trap of Diablo-esque questing and shooting, sending up to four friends across the craggy planet of Pandora in search of treasure, weapons and mightier bosses to topple. It's the perfect platform for more, more, more, and Gearbox Software has delivered big and small expansions breathlessly. Some level of self-awareness has always pervaded Borderland's sense of humor, but the title of the newest game, developed in collaboration between 2K Australia and Gearbox, is the strongest instance of it yet. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! – exclamation and all – is a laughing deflection of whatever criticisms you might have in the quiver. It's not quite as big as Borderlands 2, no. It's not rethinking the franchise. It's the same engine on the same ol' Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC. It's filling in the backstory between games. But, y'know, it's not like Randy Pitchford's been calling it Borderlands 3! (He hasn't, honest.) I get the sense that fans are still getting more than the game's pre-emptive modesty implies, and that even a basic plan of "more Borderlands" grew into something slightly more ambitious. Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel takes players to the low-gravity environment of the moon and the Hyperion space base that's watched over them on Pandora, and it finally lets them see things (and shoot things) as a short, eccentric robot – Claptrap.
Ludwig Kietzmann04.09.2014Dark Souls 2 PC: Dying often and leaving a prettier corpse
From Software's efforts to bring Dark Souls to PC in 2012 should have been met with excitement: A version of the cult hit for the "PC master race"? Praise the sun! Unfortunately, a combination of From Software's inexperience working on the platform and the game's last minute jump to PC led to an ugly port, which was devoid of even the simplest graphical customization options. It was a barebones port, which is all that Namco Bandai originally promised. For Dark Souls 2, Namco Bandai promised "increased texture resolution and an enhanced frame rate option." The details are included in the PC version, I learned after spending some time with the port this weekend. The video options don't dive as deep as PC gamers often desire, but the upcoming version of the game does offer increased stability. While textures look sharper, however, Dark Souls 2 for PC isn't a colossal graphical leap ahead of the console versions already available.
Xav de Matos04.08.2014Age of Wonders 3 review: Sleep when you're dead
Last Saturday, at about four in the morning, I found myself locked in a war of attrition with an angry orc. He'd sacked almost the entirety of my kingdom, forcing my meager remaining troops to hole up in a labyrinthine cave system beneath the surface. There I waited, biding my time, as my generals rallied new soldiers. A few dwarven prospectors, a human assassin and a pair of red dragons eventually joined our ranks. As I once again spurred my faithful giant lizard steed onward toward daylight, I could clearly make out cries of terror in the guttural patois of the ruling orcish class. In the end, I lost that fight. The orcs fell, but a few hundred turns later I was betrayed by a High Elf who had, up until that point, been a useful ally. The world of Age of Wonders 3 is a cruel place, but it's also incredibly addicting. Moments after my former ally ended my quest, I started a new one, this time as a Goblin religious zealot with a fondness for arson.
Earnest Cavalli04.04.2014Oculus Rift: From $2.4 million Kickstarter to $2 billion sale
Facebook's acquisition of Oculus VR stunned the game industry. In less than two years, Oculus VR and its Oculus Rift virtual reality headset have gone from (literal) overnight Kickstarter success to subsidiary of a social networking giant. To put it another way: John Carmack, one of the principal creative forces behind the original Doom, is now a Facebook employee. Wild. The transition of Oculus VR from a $2.4 million dollar Kickstarter to a $2 billion dollar acquisition seems unreal. To put things in perspective, and for the benefit of anyone who hasn't kept up with Oculus VR's meteoric rise, we've decided to retrace the company's story all the way from its humble beginnings in 2012.
Richard Mitchell03.28.2014Why Goat Simulator is secretly a Hawk simulator
Getting the gist of Goat Simulator isn't that hard, even if the title conjures the image of cute, semi-evil livestock munching on a tranquil mountaintop. What we have here is a misappropriation of computational cycles – not to mention the Unreal engine – to render an obnoxious, destructive beast that lives to ruin a generic suburb. But there is a game in there, not just a joke. Developer Armin Ibrasagic of Coffee Stain Studios (Sanctum) explained his design inspiration to us during the Game Developers Conference, ahead of Goat Simulator's wide release through Steam on April 1. Based on our dumb video above, the argument goes something like this: 1) Goat Simulator depicts and encourages the ram-ifications of being near an insane goat. 2) Since all animals are goats – just watch the video – it follows that all animals are simulated here. 3) Hawks are animals. 4) Pro skater Tony Hawk is part of the Hawk family and is therefore an animal. 5) It follows that Goat Simulator is simulating Tony Hawk, "except instead of a skater you're a goat, and instead of doing tricks you make people angry."
Ludwig Kietzmann03.26.2014