Free Gamer Zone

Soccer games on the iPhone and iPod touch have all but been lackluster and mediocre; X2 Soccer 2010 has its lag and animation problems, Real Soccer 2010 has its AI problems, and FIFA 10 has its control and other issues. But let’s put in yet another soccer game into the confuzzled mix, in this case Pro Evolution Soccer 2010, and you get a solid soccer game that could have been better.

Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 includes all of the basic things you would expect from a soccer game: exhibition, league, and cup play, along with the inclusion of a UEFA League mode with licensed, European league teams. Of course, that’s not enough to really balance out the fact that Pro Evolution Soccer doesn’t include much more than a standard soccer game.

Along with that, it’s failure to include multiplayer seems like a huge oversight to me. Even WiFi and bluetooth multiplayer would have been great, and with the competition such as X2 Soccer including online multiplayer, Konami did something that was quite surprising. Multiplayer is a standard now in most iPhone games, and it just seems like a huge misfire by Konami.

Other than that, Pro Evolution Soccer contains a lot for the $1.99 price tag, regardless of its lack of multiplayer. Sure, it’s not the best game on the platform and it would have been nice to see more, but the single player mode is actually much improved from its predecessors.

Likes

Speed: In PES 2010, the speed of the players feel normal; they’re not going drastically slow such as the case with X2 Soccer 2010, and when they’re sprinting it actually looks like they’re sprinting. Some people may have to adjust to the speed (although I highly doubt it), but PES 2010 adds much needed quickness to a should-be quick game.

Player models: If I said the graphics were good, I would be lying to myself. The grass detail is lacking, and it looks just like a green rectangle angled a bit to “look” like grass. But enough of that aside, PES 2010’s player models are probably the most detailed of all soccer games on the App Store. They actually look like people, compared to other soccer games that have players with very pixelated arms and legs, with little or no eye or hair details.

AI: If you’re one of those people that love a challenge, this is definitely the soccer game for you. In the regular difficulty (mind you, there’s two levels higher than that), I never lost, but I did tie three times with teams I just couldn’t score against. But that’s a huge improvement from Real Soccer 2010 and X2 Soccer 2010; I was able to score 11-0 and 7-0 respectively pretty much every match. The average scores for PES 2010 range anywhere from 1-3, as I haven’t scored four goals yet. That’s much more realistic and akin to professional soccer matches; you won’t even find an 11-0 score in a kiddy game.

They actually block the ball: Wow, what a surprise! The players can actually be used as blocks now, like they are in real soccer games! If you kick the ball and happen to hit a player, the ball actually bounces back! This is how it should be in any soccer game, but I first encountered it here in PES 2010; this shows that iPhone soccer games still have a ways to go.

Dislikes

Lack of multiplayer: This is a HUGE oversight by Konami. With multiplayer, I believe the game would have easily achieved the Must Have award and proclaimed the best soccer game so far. But without it, PES 2010 is somewhat crippled in terms of features, and without any new game modes other than the standard, I just don’t understand why they didn’t include it.

No commentary: Meh, I’ve never been a huge fan of commentary, as soccer players are on the field and not in the commentary box. Games such as FIFA may be trying to achieve a more “TV” type of soccer game, and it just feels natural and not as quiet with commentary in there.

Nothing more: Like I mentioned before, there’s nothing more than the standard gameplay modes: League, Exhibition, and Cup. X2 Soccer atleast has the Dream Team mode, FIFA the Be A Pro mode, and Real Soccer 2010 with something similar to the Be A Pro mode. PES 2010 has nothing more, which in turn takes a huge hit on the amount of content it has.

Manual switch?: Is there a button to manually switch players? I can’t seem to find it. If it’s not there, then someone at Konami really needs to wake up, as it’s yet another huge oversight.

PES 2010 is, at best, a good soccer game. There are a lot of feature and content problems that I know could have been nonexistent had Konami been more creative. Along with that, it would have been very nice if they included some sort of multiplayer in here; a single player experience just isn’t enough anymore with App Store games. Other than that, the gameplay experience is definitely one of the best out there, and the AI is probably the most intelligent of all.

After a crushing 4-1 defeat once more at the hands of Germany in the world cup, you’d think that football (soccer) was the last thing on my mind. However, I simply couldn’t ignore the release of the second high profile rendition of the beautiful game to hit the AppStore.

EA have released two games based on their hit FIFA license. Gameloft have done admirably too, but it’s been the two releases from X2 that have stolen the show thus far. So how will Konami fair with Pro Evolution Soccer 2010 for iPhone and ipod Touch?

There are a ton a play options and a bevy of cups to play for, 19 in all, including the European cup, Italian cup, Spanish Cup, UEFA champions league cup and Europa league cup. Konami have added their custom ‘Konami’ Cup, which lets you mix and match any of the cup teams into a dream cup. The Europa cup is the biggest league to play, with 48 teams to play through before cup glory. As well as cups and leagues you can play quick matches which randomly pics two teams to battle it out, or you can choose an exhibition match and choose any two teams from the full roster available. This includes club teams and international teams. So, for example, you could play Liverpool against Spain, creating an interesting doppleganger of Fernando Torres as a striker for both teams!

While the full roster of international teams are available, the same cannot be said for the cup teams. Only Liverpool FC and Wolves are available from the UK, due to licensing, with other teams and the Premier League given fake names instead. I assume EA got the license to use those teams officially on the platform.

If there is one thing that Konami’s offering brings to the table well, it’s great controls. There are three options in all. One is true flow, which uses accelerometer and one touch passing and shooting. The other two options use a virtual analogue stick as usual, with either one touch, or A and B buttons for ball control. To be honest, the accelerometer doesn’t really work well… however, the one touch ball control works great, especially for beginners. Instead of worrying about complex button taps, the game intelligently works out what shot you are trying to do, and for the most part it gets it right. Used as a training aid you can get good at the basics before moving onto the the standard A and B setup. I’m not sure why, but I found PES’s v-stick and buttons to be easier to use than the other games, and found my goal tally to be far higher, even on harder difficulties. Does this make PES easier than the others? Possibly, but it’s certainly more fun!

The graphics are another standout for PES. For me it looks the best out there. It might not have the effects as the others, but it looks the most realistic and authentic. The colour palette across any four of the weather effects all look natural, and the player animations are some of the best i’ve seen so far, perfectly blending from one sequence to the other. Up close the character models aren’t the highest in polygon count, nor bear any likeness to their player names, but from a distance you can almost be fooled into thinking you are watching a real game on the TV.

Unfortunately, while PES 2010 has great graphics, some of the best controls and the basic gameplay is great, it cant keep up with the competition on options. Both EA’s, Gameloft’s and X2’s offerings give you multiplayer, with the last two offering full online. Multiplayer is probably one of the main reasons for playing in the first place, and it’s an odd omission from Konami. Small details such as recording replays, and Gameloft’s Youtube uploads is also amiss. And finally sound. While the game does sound good with a mix of rock and classical in the menus, the on-pitch sound effects fall short. The Crowd sound good for the most part, but it’s the lack off commentary that is most apparent. You could argue that some of the other football offerings don’t do that great a job of the commentary, however, it is a traditional part of football, and to leave it out is, well… like removing one of Pele’s legs!

Overall then and it’s another great football game for iPhone and iPod Touch. If, like me, you prefer the simpler controls, then PES 2010 might be for you, but you may want to weigh up the pros and cons of the other offerings out there…. Especially the current champion, X2 Football (Soccer) 2010.

Sega is taking the wraps off of Aliens vs. Predator, releasing a multiplayer demo of the anticipated FPS title tomorrow, February 4, on Xbox Live, Steam, and PSN.

Sega is the packages from the Aliens vs. Predator, the release of a multiplayer demo of the anticipated FPS title tomorrow, 4 February, on Xbox Live, PSN, and Steam.

Sega has confirmed that the demo players will give access to all three types – Colonial Marines, Aliens and Predators – and you can fight it out in deathmatch mode refinery, one of the multiplayer maps in the game.

“With the demo players on each of the three legendary types can get to know so they can improve their skills and be ready when the game starts and the beginning of the fight,” said Jason Kingsley, CEO of Rebellion, the developer of the game.

Picture

The entire game, including seven single-player campaign and multiplayer modes, set for launch on the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in America on 16 February and 19 February in Europe.

Canada defeats Puerto Rico in North and South America Zone Group One Fed Cup

LAMA BARE, Paraguay – Canada assured a simple 3:0-lead over Puerto Rico in the Americas Zone Group One Fed Cup tennis tie Thursday.

Sharon Fichman Toronto began with a 6-2, 7-5 Monica Puig single marker and its third Fed Cup win, because they have been winning team in 2005.

Canada’s top-ranked player, Aleksandra Wozniak of Blainville, Que., Followed by a 6-2, 6-2 decision over Jessica Roland-Rosario.

Wozniak, said later that the windy conditions and compete against them means that they only play well enough to win.

“I’m just enough to win the game, she said during a conference call.” I have no desire to play great tennis to win because it is not a very high level of tennis match here.

“It’s hard courts and the conditions are very hard and I’m just glad I can handle the conditions and still be able to play well to win.”

Fichman and Marie-Eve Pelletier of Repentigny, Que. Canada’s most respected players in double along the canal with a 6-0, 6-1 victory complete Gabriela Vazquez Rocio Portela and fit in doubles.

Canada had opened the event by sweeping Cuba 3-0 Saturday.

Canada remain top of Group A in the region of North and South America-group tournament.

The winners of Group A and Group B in a round-robin games will face-off for the chance to participate in the World Group two qualifying rounds to take in April.

Canada is in Brazil on Friday.

Link Dump Friday

DoraIt’s been a while since we have worked aggressively, your brains saturated with so many bright colors and bizarre so many nice pictures of how the human brain may explode in a huge train of candy bunny rabbits and rainbows resist. Therefore this week to offer Link Dump Friday features nothing but the brightest, the sweetest, and weirdest games on the internet. That’s right, I scoured the Web () not true at hundreds of locations (the three or four really), and hours looking carefully picked each book (indeed I am) a liar. How masculine men avert their eyes. Girly girl, hold my hand and step into the rainbow. Manly men was not interested are allowed, but things have their PINKIES extended for the duration of drinking.

* GlueyGluey – Play your match-3 games, but more like physics and incredibly attentive small black eyes, like the kind that probably peer out your closet while you sleep? Well, want no more! Gluey is a game about how Globs of colored liquid from a container to remove it by clicking if they are large enough to combine. It is bright, cheerful, and fun in small bites, before it is too repetitive.
* Banana Banana Foot Foot – you can not around these days without tripping over a physical puzzle. But how many of them are hosted by flies … chihuahua … What? Banna Foot Fox Dog is your guide to the eyes shoot portals to your toolbox full of strangeness. You’ve probably seen similar ideas, but probably not walk with such weirdness cheerful sense. I look forward to the sequel, Apple almonds.
* Turtillion IslandTurtillion Iceland – Hey, idealistic fourteen years old girl! Love animals? Sick of Wildlife conservationists to chase you dig up turtle eggs, as you would a super good care of this endangered species? Then we have a game for you! This time-management game is probably too slow and easy to entice everyone, but for those of you who just want a dose of fun casual games between doodling unicorns on your laptop and giggling over cute guys will Turtillion Iceland.
* Coconut Them Them coconut – although the gameplay is easy in this shooter / defense title from Grim Game, it is the eccentric presentation that you ask anything about the bowl of cereal you had breakfast this morning. Wizards, warriors, and, uh, police car on fire when you wiggle aesthetic approach castle gates in a strange soundtrack. If defense games to go, it’s actually pretty standard, well done, so unobtrusive, and slow gameplay. But its strange and wonderful sense of style, I. .. I think I find it a bit.
* Choco 2Choco Valentine Valentine 2 – You can not be a strange and cute Link Dump Friday without naming Minoto, the creator of the lovable madness as the beard of Santa Claus. It has a snot-nosed Yeti, a giant fluffy dog and a snowman volleyball. Among other things, are all great too. Plus, it serves as a reminder that a certain holiday coming up soon, to remind you about your purchases. (Pssst! I tulips!)

• The August 2005 release of Cube is out! This potentially last release mainly fixes bugs, but also adds plenty of new maps.
• Sauerbraten, the “next-gen” version of Cube is in development!
• Cube ported to Intel XScale + OpenGL ES architecture, demoed by Intel at GDC. details.

[ A B O U T ]:

Cube is an open source multiplayer and singleplayer first person shooter game built on an entirely new and very unconventional engine. Cube is a landscape-style engine that pretends to be an indoor FPS engine, which combines very high precision dynamic occlusion culling with a form of geometric mipmapping on the whole world for dynamic LOD for configurable fps & graphic detail on most machines. Uses OpenGL & SDL.

Allows in-engine editing of geometry in full 3D (you fly around the map, point / drag stuff to select it / modify it), which can even be done simultaneously with others in multiplayer (a first!). Has simplistic but effective fine grain vertex lighting that looks like lightmapping and can do dynamic lights & shadows. Doesn’t need any kind of map precompilation, even lighting is done on the fly. Has very simplistic quad-tree world structure that can do slopes (heightfields with caps) and slants, water, does decent collision detection & physics, has client/server networking that goes a long way in giving a lag-free game experience, and features a Doom/Quake-style singleplayer (2 game modes, savegames) and multiplayer (12 game modes, master server / server browser, demo recording) game with some uncompromising brutal oldskool gameplay.

Most of the engine design is targeted at reaching feature richness through simplicity of structure and brute force, rather than finely tuned complexity.

You can always download the latest release in the file section. Officially supported platforms (client & server) are win32, linux & bsd (x86), macosx (ppc) and pocketpc (xscale), and includes source code (open source: ZLIB license). A recent readme is here that gives some more information. Some screenshots.

The cube/Sauerbraten IRC channel is #sauerbraten on irc.quakenet.org.

Cube on SourceForge.
The Cube & Sauerbraten wiki.
Very old graphics engine stuff, some of which was the basis for cube.

The author: Wouter van Oortmerssen.

Cube 2: Sauerbraten is a free multiplayer/singleplayer first person shooter, built as a major redesign of the Cube FPS.

Much like the original Cube, the aim of this game is not necessarily to produce the most features & eyecandy possible, but rather to allow map/geometry editing to be done dynamically in-game, to create fun gameplay and an elegant engine.

The engine supporting the game is entirely original in code & design, and its code is Open Source (ZLIB license, read the docs for more on how you can use the engine).

dot3 labs is a company started by the creators of Sauerbraten that offers commercial support.

Authors, feature list and more: see the reference documentation or the wiki.

Trooper Edition (May 4, 2009):
Download for Windows – 331 MB
Download for Linux – 344 MB
Download for MacOS X – 352 M