Game Room: September Roundup

SI Staff | Sep 27, 2011

Game Room: September Roundup /

Game Room: September Roundup

FIFA Soccer 12

According to anyone from anywhere but America, soccer is the most popular sport in the world. FIFA 12 does a great job of embracing that global popularity in this year's build with Support Your Club, the new feature that brings fans of teams together across the world. When you first fire up the disc, you must pick a team from one of the over 500 licensed clubs available. From that point on, everything you do goes towards improving your team's global online score. The scores compile the average scores of gamers supporting each club and ranks them in weekly standings. The concept worked with EA's college football title and should fit even better with a sport full of passionate fans like soccer. The gameplay tweaks seem minor but have a major impact on strategy. Defense is vastly improved this year with Tactical Defending, which stresses positioning and angles. The game was getting more, almost unrealistically, offensive in the past few years, and Tactical Defending creates a better balance. More realism is delivered with the Player Impact Engine, which means players joust, interact and collide with each other in more realistic ways, though those animations are harder to notice unless you're a true FIFA fanatic. Still, all of the attention to detail ensures that the beautiful game has never looked this beautiful on your console before. Score: 9 out of 10

NHL 12

Hockey may not be as popular as the other three professional sports, but EA's video game version of the fast-paced game just keeps getting better. In a nod to the success of NBA 2K11's inclusion of Michael Jordan in its game, NHL 12 mines hockey's golden age for the entertaining Be A Legend mode. Unlock players like Mario Lemieux, Wayne Gretzky and Gordie Howe, then try to set their all-time career marks. You can also set up face-offs between the legends and modern day players to see who comes out on top. Changes to the action on the ice only improve on what is EA's smoothest playing title. The Full Contact Physics engine includes new animations like shattered glass along the boards and players flipping into bench areas. Dynamic Goalies amp up the action in front of the crease, where you can distract the netminders and knock the goals off their posts. The new Full Balance Control also puts more weight into a player's size. The big guys can handle glancing blows from smaller guys on drives towards the goal, while the little guys have much less margin for error before they're sent skidding into the corner on their backsides. Overall, this is one of the deepest and best-looking sports titles of the year. Game Room Video Review: NHL 12 Score: 9 out of 10

NFL Sunday Ticket on the PS3

You no longer need a satellite dish to watch the NFL in the comfort of your own home, and that's a good thing for folks that couldn't get satellite service or didn't want it. Now you can get the best of the NFL every week and all you need is a PS3 with a good home internet connection. Sunday Ticket gives you access to all out-of-market games and the Red Zone Channel. In-market games are blacked out to avoid competition with local networks. That means you won't get NBC's Sunday Night Football, ESPN's Monday Night Football or the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football when games start airing in the second half of the season. The interface is clean and simple, and very similar to what users of the DirectTV Sunday Ticket app iPad already have. It gives you access to game stats, highlights, schedules and standings. You can view stats for a different game without leaving the game you're watching, which is great for fantasy football fans. The video quality is HD, and it's good, but not great. It's on par with the MLB's streaming app on PSN, but not as good as the HD quality on satellite or cable. It takes about 15 seconds to switch between games, and while that's not a lot of time, it's an adjustment from the speed you're used to in changing channels on a cable or satellite box. Sunday Ticket on the PS3 stumbled out of the gate with severe connectivity issues during the first weekend of the NFL season, but the bugs have been worked out and it's been stable since. To compensate Sony gave a $25 PlayStation Store credit to people that purchased Sunday Ticket in time for Week 1. The service is billed monthly ($85 per), so be aware of when you activate it. Score: 8.5 out of 10

Chrissy Teigen: Getting In the Game

SI Swimsuit model Chrissy Teigen plays a character in EA's latest installment of the Need for Speed franchise, The Run. We recently sat down with Chrissy to find out more about her experience being in a video game. Check out our full video interview with Chrissy in Hot Clicks . Need for Speed: The Run is slated for a November 15 release on the Xbox 360, PS3, PC, Wii and 3DS.

Formula 1 2011

F1 2011 is the very definition of a niche racing title. Forget Forza or Gran Turismo; where those games try to be all things to all racing gamers, F1 is focused solely on accurately simulating the titular sport, filling out its narrow field of vision with a polished, challenging racing experience. The biggest knock on the game is its learning curve: if you're accustomed to more pick-up-and-play racers like Blur, or even more conventional racers like Forza, F1 will humble you quickly. There's not much in the way of tutorial to teach the basics - the best way to start is to enter career mode and work your way slowly up, learning as you go. The cars look spectacular, both inside and out and the rain effects are awesome, but the tracks themselves are a little spartan. Multiplayer is lag-free and matchmaking was fast, with support for up to 16 human and 8 AI players forming a full 24-car grid. Split-screen season play is welcome also. Compared to other racers the amount of content feels a little thin, but the laser-focus on getting the feel of the F1 experience just right will pay off for fans of the sport. Score: 8 out of 10

Gears of War 3

Gears of War 3 is the kickoff title to the forthcoming orgy of holiday releases, but it's closer to a summer blockbuster movie than a typical game. The third game in the Xbox 360-exclusive trilogy comes packing with a strong, lengthy single player campaign that continues the story of the doomed planet Sera, which has been overrun by a variety of gnarly monsters. The Gears series is known for several key elements: cover-based gunplay, torrents of gore, sterling multiplayer and an increasingly outlandish armory of weapons. Gears 3 doesn't disappoint, with a variety of top-notch set pieces that, surprisingly, tell a credible story among the constant action. The multiplayer is top-notch, with a wide variety of well-designed maps and new modes. The best of them, Horde 2.0, combines the second game's wave-based attacks with strategic elements that require teamwork and coordination. The game looks simply brilliant, with some of the most detailed and convincing texture work to be found on any console, and the characters carry forth much of the humor and overwrought pathos from the earlier titles. With the promise of copious DLC to come, Gears looks to keep delivering over the next few months, and, for action gamers of any breed, it's a must-buy. Score: 10 out of 10

Resistance 3

In the third installment of the Resistance series you play as Joseph Capelli, a man trying to look after his family and do his part to save civilization from alien invaders called the Chimera. A compelling story drives you from one action sequence to another with a healthy amount of enjoyable boss battles and plenty of quick-paced close-quarters combat. The graphics in Resistance 3 are solid, though the color palette is at times muted. Environmental effects, like billowing smoke and fire make the game feel immersive. The voice acting and sound effects are thorough and engaging as well. The weapons in the game are well balanced, tight and extremely fun to use. Each weapon upgrades the more you use them, and switching between them in the heat of combat works well. Multiplayer in Resistance 3 has been reduced to 16-person games, but the action remains fast and furious, and the available modes are robust and addictive. As one of Sony's flagship and exclusive first-part shooters, Resistance 3 is an A-list experience. Score: 9 out of 10

PS3 Wireless Headset

Sony's wireless headset is the latest worthy peripheral for the PS3. The headset, featuring Sony's 7.1 virtual sound technology, is very simple to set up. Just plug the included USB Bluetooth dongle into your PS3, power on the headset, and you're good to go. The headset's sound quality is solid. Low-end and mid-range frequencies are clean, and the bass is compelling. Directional sound is also convincing and clear. There's some sound leakage from the headset, so if you're listening at a medium to high volume, expect people near you to hear some of it. The headset is comfortable to wear over long gaming stretches, and the controls for game volume, game chat are easy to access while wearing. The wireless range is very good, so even in a big room you won't have any issues. The headset also has an extendable mic allowing you to speak when playing multiplayer games. It charges using the same cord a PS3 wireless controller utilizes. The build quality is decent, but the plastic components don't feel as if they take a ton of roughhousing. You can purchase the headset for under $90 if you shop around. Score: 8 out of 10

The Gunstringer

In The Gunstringer, you guide a skeleton cowboy marionette that's out for revenge against a crooked Western gang. The game utilizes Xbox's Kinect (controller free) add-on, so to control the cowboy you use our left hand for movement and jumping -- holding it mostly flat with your elbow bent -- and you use your right hand to aim and fire, which starts with you pointing your index finger like a gun, and then firing when you whip your elbow up about 45 degrees. It sounds more complicated than it is, and control is easy to pick up. Within the game you're mostly firing from cover, or running and gunning. Both sets work, though the run and gun can feel a bit rushed as you're pulled through the level. The graphics and decent, but the sound effects and narration that guides you through the game are very entertaining. The Gunstringer can be completed in about five hours, but that's also reflected in the $40 price point and the inclusion of free download code for Fruit Ninja Kinect game. The game has solid replay value with medals for high scores and various collectables. Score: 8 out of 10

The ICO and Shadow of the Colossus Collection

Two of the most prominent games in the "videogames are art" argument are Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, originally released on the PS2. Both games have been rereleased on a single disc, remastered in HD for the PS3, and, while they show their age, they are genuinely unique experiences. Ico is story of a young boy exiled from his people for a physical deformity (he has horns) who meets a young girl with whom he attempts to escape. Shadow of the Colossus has a similar grim tone, with a young man who must travel a barren wasteland and kill 16 giant creatures in order to have a chance to resurrect a dead woman he loves. Both games embrace a similar, lonely tone, and a sense of being an outcast in an unfamiliar world. The games are both graphically enhanced for PS3, but still have fairly low-resolution textures compared to more modern games. As one would expect, the performance of both titles is vastly improved over the sometimes-choppy framerate on the PS2. The biggest frustration with both games is that you may find yourself fighting with a frustrating camera and awkward controls, but the experience is definitely unique and worth the trip. Score: 8 out of 10

Published Sep 27, 2011

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