Review : Fifa 11

Fifa 11 is a football ( soccer ) game, a game that advertise with a 360 degrees ball control system, realistic passing and personality+ ( make the players react like they would in real life ). Can this game deliver all these great promises and is this the flawless game that we look for? We will see in this review.

So is this game really better than other football games ( I didn't play PES ) ? To be honest I think it is personal taste, some people prefer a lot of options and a realistic ( therefore harder ) football experience while others just want to play a game or 2 against a friend then do something else. Fifa11 does not have a lot of options in my opinion, or atleast not a lot of different game modes, especially at its release. A few months after the release EA Sports added a feature called Ultimate Team to the game. Ultimate team is all about making your own squad and take on other teams, how much fun as this sounds it can be really annoying from time to time especially because this mode had a lot of glitches in the start. Which means your opponents are running around with Messi's, Ronaldo's, Xavi's etc, while you are still playing with your nations third league players. Have fun losing 8-0. Next to Ultimate Team there are a few other game modes, like show match, which is just 1 game you can play without worrying to much about all kind of settings ( the mode you play against friends ). Then there is career mode which includes a player career, a player manager career and a manager career. All kind of fun but they become really really boring after 2 seasons. One of the things I hate the most is the fact when you play in player career and you are kind of successful ( as a player ) you HAVE to play EVERY match. Even if that means you have no energy left what so ever, there won't be any rest for you, you have to play and play. Because of all this playing you can not even perform a decent sprint or dribble like you would when you have full energy. ( -1% ) All in all the game modes are not really that fun and won't last you that long. ( -3% )

To save the day EA Sports imported some extra features, like Play as the Goalie, seems fun, is not fun. Making 4 saves while waiting the other 85 minutes just doesn't do it for me. One of the most interesting features is Virtual Pro, Virtual Pro means you can import your own face on the EA website and put it on a player, then you can play with that player in whatever team you want and see him grow throughout the season. Making a lot of goals will make him a better shooter or completing passes will make him better at that. All really fun, but there is one huge problem. Importing my face is the hardest thing I ever had to do in a video game. It all went fine at the website, it generated a nice ( realistic looking ) 3d model of my head and I was ready to import it in my game. Now here is where the problem starts, on the website it looks great, nothing wrong with it, in the game however it looked like I had a pancake face. After several ( 10+ ) tries I finally managed to get my face in that didn't look full white, way too red, or full blue ( I'm not Na'vi! ) ( -2%). Fun feature, bugged as hell. 

So is this game as realistic as the developers say it is? Yes and no, sometimes passing can be really realistic so is the shooting at goal and the players do look like how they look in real life. The problem is however, from time to time something really weird happens which can totally screw you over, for example, if you try to pass from player A to player B and player C is in between then player C doesn't even realise what is going on and just stands there, hitting the ball and maybe give away possession to the opponent. I can give your numerous examples of gameplay that is really weird and can make you lose a game. ( -6% )

The last feature I want to talk about is the online gaming. You can choose to play a 11vs11 with virtual pro's, worst idea ever. The game is full of lag, disconnects you in the middle of it and people run around like headless chickens. I tried to play a 11vs11 about 5 times now, I never managed to get to half time without disconnecting ( my internet is good enough to handle it ) ( -1% ). Then there is the 1vs1 mode, same problem, the lag. EA sports can't really do anything about this lag so we just have to live with it and hope you don't get opponents with bad internet!

Personal playtime : Lets say I got the hidden achievement! ( +50 hours on the pitch )

Final score : 87%

Minecraft + Physics = Win?

Ever thought what Minecraft would be with real physics? Not the lame "sand falls down", but the real deal? Well here you go!

Preview : Portal 2

2011 seems to be a good year for new games. Personally I am looking forward to two games specifically, Mass Effect 3 and Portal 2. I will be discussing Portal 2 in this article and talk about some great mods for Portal 1 to kill the time until Portal 2 arrives.

Apart from the graphic update Portal receives, it will also feature new gameplay elements to make the puzzles even harder. Not to forget a multiplayer function, can't get better working with 4 portals to solve the most complicated puzzles with a friend right?

So what are these new gameplay elements exactly? Lets take a closer look :

1. Excursion Funnels - The Excursion Funnels acts like a beam that can manipulate gravity, you will be able to travel through them and use portals to connect the beam all around the room. You can also move objects through the beams, making the beam act like an elevator.

2. Aerial Faith Plates - The Aerial Faith Plates act as some sort of trampoline. You stand on them and get shot away, making a big leap in the process. Some of them are chained together which makes travelling through the room a lot easier! Again, objects can be shot by using the Aerial Faith Plates.

3. Thermal Discouragement Beam - The Thermal Discouragement Beam acts like a laser, a very deadly laser. By shooting portals or by moving boxes through it you can make this laser move whatever way you want. The goal seems to be to lead the laser to an end destination to activate a door/switch. It is almost the same as the energy balls from portal 1 except the laser is active the whole path it follows. Funny little addition : you can burn through turrets killing them in the process!

4. Pneumatic Diversity Vent - Definitely my favourite. The Pneumatic Diversity Vent is some sort of tube that sucks everything in it. Placing a portal at its entrance is guaranteed sucking power at your other portal. A new way of killing those poor little turrets is born. Who wants to flip them over if you can suck them into a vacuum tube?

Repulsion Gel in action

5. Repulsion Gel - Repulsion Gel acts like an automated jumper that can launch you to amazing heights. The gel will be released from a tube and falls to the ground. You can place a portal just below the tube and move the gel to any place you please. This way you can reach higher platforms with every jump without using the fling tactic ( Speedy thing goes in, speedy thing goes out )

6. Propulsion Gel - Propulsion Gel acts like an accelerator, if you stand on it you start moving faster and faster until you reach velocity, this way you can get to insane speeds by just moving horizontally. The gel will be released from a tube just like Repulsion Gel.

I made you guys a playlist on Youtube so you can see all these new mechanics in real time, credits to the creators of those vids. CLICK

The best new feature in my opinion is the multiplayer function, I just can't explain how awesome it would be to fix all the puzzles with a friend, having an extra pair of portals at your disposal will surely help. I am expecting some real hard puzzles, since the possibilities with 4 portals are endless, and with all these new mechanics I think it will be the best multiplayer experience I had since I started gaming. CLICK for mutliplayer video.

Release date USA - April 18
Release date Australia - April 19
Release date Europe - April 21


Since we need to wait another month until we can play this masterpiece by Valve I will recommend you two mods I found for portal 1. Both of them are genius, funny and can be pretty tricky.

The first mod I recommend is called Portal Prelude ( CLICK ). In this mod you play as a test subject at the time humans were still monitoring all the tests. At the time you are progressing through the chambers you will hear that a new AI is going to take over the testing soon, guess who? Drama guaranteed!

The second mod I recommend is called Portal Pro (  CLICK ). This mod is all about placing intelligent portals, and not so much about making hard fling manoeuvres. This is where you really need your brain to survive the testing labs! I played a lot of custom levels/mods but I have to admit this is simply the best based on the puzzles, some real outside-the-box thinking is required.

Review : Minecraft

Ooooh Minecraft... I spend countless hours playing this game and I must say I love it. It is definitely not the first time I spend a lot of hours on a game, but the fact that Minecraft doesn't really have a goal to it makes it different from your normal game. If you haven't heard of Minecraft in the last months you have been living in a cave ( looking for diamonds? ).


If you are that one person that hasn't heard of Minecraft before here is a small explanation of what Minecraft is all about. You are all alone, you wake up on an island where no other human beings are present, it is you versus nature, you must survive all by yourself, you must survive all the horrors that come out at night, you are the only one that is able to shape the world around you, you must manipulate your surroundings so that you come out on top of the food-chain.

So how do you survive? By chopping down trees you gain wood, which you use to craft tools like an axe, a pickaxe, a hoe, a shovel and a sword. With the tools you acquired you can start digging down in the search of caves, in which you can find coal, iron, gold and even diamond. Maybe you enjoy shovelling the beach away so you get yourself some sand. Maybe you are hungry and you start yourself a farm, finding seeds with the hoe and harvest your own wheat. At night all the monsters come out and you want to be safe. With all the materials you collected during the day you can build yourself a nice little house to keep the monsters outside.

As you can see on the screenshot the world of Minecraft is very "blocky". Almost any block can be removed and can be replaced at a different spot, or you can change the block into another one, by heating it. For example you can make bricks out of clay, and dye wool in all sort of colours. The possibilities are endless.
Being successful in Minecraft is really hard to define, one could say making great complicated structures is an amazing feat, while other prefer to make small cosy houses.

As you know I rate the other way around, I do not focus on the good points but on the bad points of a game ( Minecraft is far from finished and still in beta so +5% ) so here is what I don't like about Minecraft. Minecraft is different than your usual game, so it can be hard for new players to understand what is going on. Suddenly you are in this world with no clear idea why you are there, and if you don't hurry up you are surrounded by monsters and you will die a painful death. You may walk around and get yourself some materials but without any pre-knowledge of the game you will never ever be able to make yourself the most basic tools needed to enjoy the game to the fullest. Making tools by -1. Chopping down a tree 2. Convert tree chunks into wood 3. Placing wood in a square in your inventory 4. Make sticks and put them in a shape of a pickaxe on your workbench- is just not the first thing you would think of, therefore it can be really hard for a new player to understand what to do, this game needs some sort of tutorial to help new players. ( -4% )
I understand one of the praised features of the game is the unknown, and that figuring out stuff yourself is one of the key concepts, still I feel like coming up yourself on how to make tools is just a little bit to hard for the average person.

How exciting building is, there will be a point where you feel bored and don't know what to do anymore. There is no interesting story that keeps you with the game, when you feel like you have done everything, then your done. ( -1% ) Some people might be bored pretty quick and give up on the game after building their third house, or maybe some people just don't know that there is so much more to do than what they figured out themselves ( again a tutorial would be nice, maybe something basic for new players and something more advanced like redstone wiring for people who are ready for a new challenge ). The lack of content and "your inspiration is the limit" is the biggest flaw of this game. Luckily Minecraft has an awesome community with amazing builders which can inspire you to make the most amazing buildings/mobtraps/cactusfarms etc, stuff you would probably not come up with yourself, looking up on the internet how to keep your interest in the game isn't a good point. ( -4% ) Just search on Youtube for Minecraft related videos, maybe check out some Lets Play's, or maybe even my own waterslide video!

You won't hear me complaining about the 'crappy' graphics of the game, I think the blocky world is THE Minecraft trademark and won't be forgotten for a very long time. Minecraft has some interesting music which really adds to the feeling of being all alone on some random island. Multiplayer is really fun but sadly very bugged from time to time ( -1%) ( I know, still in beta, already gave you plus 5 percent for that! ), which can really kill the fun.



Personal playtime : A long time, probably more than 40 hours

Final score : 95%

Stay tuned for more Minecraft related tutorials!



Next up : After certain requests on Youtube, written Arcane Mage Guide