Topic: User Impressions/Reviews Thread

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2002 is a year best described in one question – Will Young or Gareth Gates? Or for those of you not familiar with Pop Idol, essentially a choice between burnt toast and cat vomit. Elsewhere, 2002 brought us classic movies like Spider-Man, Scooby-Doo and, uh, Die Another Day? To be honest, it was a bit of an odd year. At least with a new year, there’s always the one constant – a new FIFA game!

FIFA 2003 is a very different beast from the previous two yearly releases. The manual passing is gone, replaced with a more recognisable automatic pass with a simple tap of X. We finally have Triangle for through balls and R1 for sprinting too. The biggest difference is the pace – this is one of the fastest football games I’ve ever played. It’s very hard to keep up with the AI during matches. Defence-wise, tackling is less of an improvement and more just different. Square still functions as a murder button, enabling you to snap players’ legs like twigs. However, in order to normally tackle like a law-abiding individual, you basically have to hold Circle and walk into the ball. This is incredibly imprecise unfortunately, making it very hard to actually stop the AI from scoring. Finally, EA Sports added a skill-move system utilising the right stick, which is still in the series today. Except it doesn’t work here. At all. I could maybe succeed in kicking the ball forwards slightly, but that was about it.

In terms of presentation, this game is actually quite impressive! The game opens with a slick video showcasing the skills of Edgar Davids and our boy Roberto Carlos from last season. Plus, Ryan Giggs stares menacingly at the camera while spinning a ball in his hands for some reason. He looks a bit like he’s on trial, which is rather fitting. Ah well, at least in game, the players have distinct faces and look pretty similarly to real-life. The grass is fairly textured for the time too. Plus, for the first time, certain stadia are recreated and look rather nifty. Menus are a bit more modern, despite the odd choice of using Circle to move to the next page of certain settings. The better menu is actually necessary this time, as this game has features! There’s a whole mode in which the best teams in the game are put into their own league for example, which is pretty fun. This includes Arsenal, Man Utd, Barcelona etc. These teams are all the ones with their stadia recreated, so you can play a season with a real stadium every match.

And so we come to Celtic’s 2002-03 season. In real life, this was a season of ‘close but no cigar’. Martin O’Neill’s side lost out on the title on the final day of the season, with a goal difference 1 lower than Rangers. They also lost the League Cup final to Rangers. The highlight this season was their European campaign, as they beat teams such as Stuttgart and Liverpool in the UEFA Cup before unfortunately losing the final in extra time to Jose Mourinho’s Porto. So, could I top these results and right a historical wrong? The short answer is no.

The long answer is that I cannot play FIFA 2003 at all. Just utter mince at the game. The season started badly, with big defeats to minnows such as Partick Thistle (apologies to David Hasselhoff, Jeremy Corbyn, and my papa). This led me to explore the transfer market, which hadn’t changed at all from the last game. Unrealistic transfers, here we come! Old favourites Kahn and Roberto Carlos were joined by Edgar Davids (with signature goggles) this time round, with Barcelona inexplicably paying millions for unremarkable Scottish men in their 30s to cover the cost. I can only assume they’re being put to work in the Nou Camp’s catering department, as there is no chance in hell that they’re playing for Barcelona. Interestingly, the highest rated player in this game is Matteo Brighi. Who I have never heard of. Bizarre. Then again, Roy Keane is the best player in the Premier League and Celtic’s own Johan Mjällby was seemingly worthy of an 87 rating. The scouts must have been on holiday.

With a renewed squad and vastly improved defence, Celtic did find their form domestically as Christmas approached. We were even in 2nd place at one stage! Elsewhere was a different story. A 3-0 loss to Dundee ensured the Cup run didn’t progress past the first round. In Europe, 6 consecutive losses in a group consisting of Barcelona, Roma and Newcastle meant that even UEFA Cup action was out of reach. Dreadful. I went back to the drawing board at Christmas and decided that our defence needed even more bolstering. In came Jamie Carragher, the Scouser Supreme. Could he be the answer to our prayers? Well, let’s just say that Martin O’Neill would have been sacked before the season was over. Loss after loss meant that our final position was 5th in the league. A far cry from last season. A humbling. A humiliation.

And so another season comes to an end. This game is actually a decent step forwards for the series, I’m just really quite terrible at it. There are interesting innovations that are still in the series to this day, however rough they were in 2002. We didn’t get the results that we were looking for, but as Yazz once said, the only way is up. I’ll leave you with this lovely image showcasing the actual winners of this season (along with fictional team Dingwall), as I call my papa to tell him that Partick Thistle finally won something!

As an addendum, I completely forgot to mention that EA Trax makes its debut in this game! Basically it’s just incredibly dated techno although with a few bops.

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Buckle up for the absolute misery-fest that was 2003! Between the Iraq War, Columbia Disaster, and the Daegu subway arson attack, the optimism of New Year 2000 was well and truly dead. So with that cheery thought, was there at least anything to take your mind off impending doom in 2003? It was mostly a year of franchise movies, with the final Lord of the Rings movie, both the sequels to The Matrix, and the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie all releasing this year. I guess we had In Da Club by 50 Cent. Other video games released in 2003 included The Wind Waker, GTA Vice City and, rather remarkably, the 94-Metascore-earning Madden 2004! But none of these are the game all 4 of you dear readers are waiting to hear about. That honour goes to FIFA 2004!

With the first bars of Kings of Leon’s Red Morning Light accompanying a flashy live-action opening, it’s clear that this game is a big step forwards for the series. It just oozes quality in terms of its presentation. EA Trax is fully up and running now, with a soundtrack mixing classic tracks from bands like The Stone Roses and The Jam with the current indie scene that included bands like The Caesars, the aforementioned Kings of Leon, The Dandy Warhols et al. It’s slightly tainted by Lostprophets being on the soundtrack though, best not to Google why the lead singer gave poor H from Steps a bad name. The menus are improved at least, with easily accessible modes and removing the stupid Circle to change page thing from FIFA 2003.

Gameplay is about as good as I can really envisage an arcade football game being. It’s that fun. The pace is frantic but you actually have control over your players, with tackling massively improved over the last game. Both standing tackles and riskier sliding tackles have their place, depending on situations, and the murder button has been removed. However, the AI doesn’t quite understand this and loves nothing more than slaughtering your players where they stand. Speaking of which, the free kick system in this game is brilliant. It strikes a fine balance between ball control and difficulty, making successful kicks feel immensely satisfying. The only real criticism I could point out is that the pace of the game makes a certain archetype of player not viable. There’s not much room for skilful dribblers in a game this fast paced, meaning a whole group of players from this era don’t really get a chance to shine. However, this game isn’t really a simulation, which is OK! In terms of modes, the European Super League thing from last season has been cut, although Football Fusion has been added. This is a really strange addition which allows you to play matches from Total Club Manager 2004 inside the game. It’s a decent idea but a bit odd to market a big new feature that requires a completely different PS2 game to even access.

Graphically, this game is an odd one. I wouldn’t say grass looked any better than the previous season, but players look noticeably worse. Perhaps this is due to them putting less effort into the Scottish league but it is slightly off-putting compared to how great the players looked in FIFA 2003. One nice touch is accurate banners though, with Celtic fans holding banners reading ‘Hail Hail’, a common sight at Celtic Park. Considering that this isn’t even seen in modern games, it’s actually impressive.

So how did Celtic fare in the 2003/04 season in reality? Well, it was another season under the management of mastermind leprechaun Martin O’Neill, with an almost identical squad from the previous season. This approach brought success back to Celtic, with a domestic double of both the league and the Scottish Cup. So not too much of a target then, just to completely turn around the terrible showing we saw last season!

With all prerequisites out of the way, it’s time to look at how this season fared in-game! The first thing to note is that Career Mode in this game is totally overhauled. It feels more like an actual fully-fledged mode, with objectives required to achieve for the bosses to renew your contract across 5 years. Training is also added, with fatigue coming into effect depending on how rigorously you train the players and how often you rotate your squad. This is all controlled by a prestige stat, which gives you a certain number of points you can spend each week either training players or making offers in the transfer market. Speaking of which, the market actually resembles real life, with clubs able to reject offers.

With our season having got off to a bit of a slow start once again due to getting used to the mechanics (despite having owned the game back in the day), a trip to the transfer market was in order. Unfortunately, the calibre of players we attracted the last three seasons were absolutely not going to sign for Celtic with this new system! Having to use up prestige to even make an offer to a player was incredibly irritating too, and so after having offers rejected left, right, and centre, the only new signing was David Seaman. Yes, David Seaman was still playing in 2003 despite being 40 years old. So it was au revoir to poor Rab Douglas, who had been pushed out by a 40 year old man with a ponytail, a familiar sight to anybody who’s worked in tech.

With our new goalie between the posts, our form solidified over the next few months. By Christmas, it was clear Aberdeen were running away with the season. Aiming for 2nd was my new goal. Ah well, at least Rangers were sitting in 9th. The necessity to rotate squad members also meant that there were a few new unlikely heroes in the squad. While Larsson and Sutton were decent, but not spectacular like they were in the previous three seasons, it was John Hartson, the Welsh wonder, who was a consistent goalscorer this season. With 43 goals, he proved to be essential in climbing up the table. Injuries to Paul Lambert and Chris Sutton made both young and old step up and fill their positions, with Shawn Maloney being surprisingly good despite only being 20 years old, and Jackie McNamara proving his worth even at the ripe old age of 30. The depth of the Celtic squad was a major factor in our winning streak in the league as well as the cup.

With only three games left in the season, Aberdeen sat 7 points ahead in the league. It looked impossible to catch them. We could only do our best. Thankfully, the stars aligned! Aberdeen lived up to the old saying that they ‘cannae kick a jellybean’ and completely threw away their final three games of the season. With a win at home against Partick Thistle securing the title, we were truly back to winning ways! All that remained was the cup final, which was a simple win against St Mirren. We actually did it. We matched their real-life performance. “But what about Europe?”, I hear you ask. Well… I never found out. We were just never put into the competition. Oh well! With a domestic double achieved in a game that actually felt satisfying to play, this was definitely a successful season.

I would actually recommend this game even now. It’s just fun. While I could have continued playing this career mode for the remaining 4 years, this project rolls ever forward. And it looks like Scotland have qualified for Euro 2004!

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The Last Of Us (Review)

The Last of Us is an incredible game. It takes you on a heart-wrenching journey through a devastated infection-ridden United States, a roller coaster ride that throws everything at you until you turn the final corner and see a rainbow at the end of the road.

The game accompanies this rich narrative with surprisingly deep and satisfying combat, beautiful visuals, and some of the best goddamn music I have ever heard.

The Last of Us might not be a perfect game. But when it plays to its strengths, it comes pretty damn close.

**spoiler warning**

Learning To Love

In The Last of Us, you play Joel Miller, a hardened smuggler living in a post-apocalyptic America. The apocalypse: well, it’s a virus that turns the people it infects into zombies. Joel’s daughter Sarah was killed on the day of the outbreak. 20 years later, Joel still pains thinking about her death. His watch, which cracked when Sarah died, remains a painful reminder of his long-dead daughter.

Joel and his partner-in-crime Tess are made to smuggle a girl named Ellie out of Boston, in exchange for the weapons that were stolen from them. On their way out of the city, Joel and Tess learn that Ellie is immune to the virus. She got bit by an infected zombie some time ago but never turned.

Once out of the city, Joel and Tess take Ellie to the rendevous point, where the trio were supposed to meet a group of Fireflies- members of the militia group who were taking care of Ellie. But the meeting point is deserted. Instead, the building is swarmed by US Military soldiers.

Tess then reveals that she has been bit by an infected and that there is no saving her. She gives up her life by fighting the soldiers, buying Joel and Ellie precious time to escape. Joel, for the second time in his life, has to stand helpless as someone he loves dies in front of him.

At the start of the game, it’s clear that Joel doesn’t care much for Ellie. To him, she is simply a good that needs to be transported. But as they traverse the length of the United States, a close bond forms between the two. Joel starts caring for Ellie as a daughter; Ellie looks up to Joel as a father.

So powerful and strong is this relationship between Joel and Ellie that by the end of The Last of Us, Joel puts aside the greater good because he can’t stand to see Ellie be harmed.

I think there is a particular parallel to be explored here. When I started playing The Last of Us, I wasn’t too enthralled. I thought the story was kinda cliche, and I just wasn’t gelling with the gameplay loop. I found the stealth parts frustrating at times, and the gunplay parts unbalanced. Compared to Uncharted — another NaughtyDog game that I love —  The Last of Us has a lot of downtime between its high-octane moments. Those idle moments were making me lose interest in the game.

But as I trudged through the game’s opening hours and into the meat of the story, I found myself warming up to what NaughtyDog was attempting to pull off here. I understood the story being told. I connected with the characters and their world. When the end credits rolled after about 13 hours, I shed mild tears.

Chatting On The Trail

Throughout the game, you will be treated to plenty of conversations between Joel and Ellie. At the start, especially when you are not used to the voice acting and characters’ personalities, the banter between Joel, Ellie, and other characters who accompany them can be off-putting. I found dialogue such as “Stay focused! Yes ma’am” to be cringe at first.

But as the game gets more serious, the writing shines brighter and brighter until each piece of dialogue hits just right. The emotional arguments between Joel and Ellie glue your attention to the screen. The light-hearted banter dispersed amongst the downtime makes you chuckle.

The exceptionally written dialogue is what makes The Last of Us tick. It singlehandedly holds the game’s story together. Without such impactful and thoughtful writing, the game’s dark and serious story will be left feeling flat.

Fade To Black

There are story moments in The Last of Us where the game hits near perfection. One of them in particular takes place towards the middle of the game. When Joel and Ellie are trying to escape from bandits in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, they meet two brothers named Henry and Sam. After initial apprehension towards each other, the four team-up to escape the city together.

Fighting their way past bandit enemies and a horde of infected, the four make it safely out of the city. They take shelter for the night in an abandoned radio tower. Ellie and Sam (the younger brother) have a deep talk about fear and the infection that ravages the world around them. Ellie gifts Sam a toy transformer that Henry had previously warned Sam against looting from a deserted shop.

Ellie leaves the room. The camera zooms in on Sam’s leg. You see a zombie bite. The screen fades to black.

The next morning, you see Ellie wake up to a scene of Henry preparing breakfast. Joel is standing by the window, looking out at the sunny landscape below. Henry asks Ellie to go wake Sam up so he can join them for breakfast.

Ellie goes to the other room but is violently attacked by Sam, who is in the process of turning into an infected. Joel scrambles to grab his gun. Henry, who realises Joel’s intentions of shooting Sam, shoots the gun out of his hands. A tense moment ensues. Henry exclaims, “That’s my ***** brother.” Joel says screw it and lunges for his gun.

A gunshot is heard. The screen pans back over to the right. Henry has just shot his brother. The half-infected Sam is dead. The trauma and realisation grip Henry. He has just shot and killed his little brother. Henry shudders violently in despair. He points the gun at Joel, blaming him for Sam’s death. Joel reassures him that it’s no one's fault. Henry doesn’t listen. He turns the gun and shoots himself in the head. Joel stands shocked. Ellie says, “Oh my god.” The screen fades to black. Slow melancholic music plays.

It is in such moments that The Last of Us is at its best. We are firsthand shown the hopelessness and brutality of the world Joel and Ellie inhabit. We understand the loss that the people in the world go through, and why their outlook on life is so bleak.

We also see how easy it is to lose someone you love. This helps put into perspective the bond that grows between Joel and Ellie. They know how easy it will be to lose one another forever. Now onwards, they will stick with each other through thick and thin. Through fire and ice. Through wellness and disease.

Rainsoaked Beauty

The Last of Us — I played the remastered version on PS4 — is a gorgeous game. The lush environments of this post-apocalyptic United States look splendid with overrun vegetation amidst collapsed infrastructure.

NaughtyDog seems hell-bent on infusing the environment with water. Whether it’s crossing tiny streams of water, riding your horse parallel to a roaring river, walking through a rain-soaked city, or driving in the rain, each shot looks as mesmerising as the next.

The graphic fidelity of the rain, foliage, and other environmental elements are by no means the best, but the game world as a whole looks pretty damn good. Facial animations hold up surprisingly well for a 2014 remaster of a 2013 game.

The Infected

The infected have detailed and intricate designs. When you fight some of the bigger infected, you can make out the grotesque mutations on their bubbly skin. You see faint remains of its previous human form: fingers on hands and the still attached head. When you blast them with your shotgun or rain bullet hell upon them with an assault rifle, they explode in a shower of blood and spores.

I consider myself easily frightened, so keep in mind this may not apply to everyone who plays this game. In my experience, The Last of Us can be scary at times. But this is not due to the infected’s visual hideousness. Rather it is the accompanying sound design that truly makes the zombies of The Last of Us a frightening foe.

The blood-curdling screams of infected enemies make you shiver. Goosebumps instantaneously dot the length of your arms, as your eyes scan the game world of incoming enemies. The screams are made a dozen times more chilling when enemies let them out after being bludgeoned to death by the player. When infected run at you in a zig-zag manner, screaming to the end, there is a palpable sense of terror. The dimly lit environments of certain sections of the game make these encounters even more terrifying.

For the characters in the world of The Last of Us, an encounter with an infected zombie means a battle between life and death. But for someone playing the game, it simply means the possibility of a game over screen, followed by a reload to the previous checkpoint, most of which are placed at convenient intervals.

Therefore, this top-notch sound work on the infected zombies makes them feel like a real threat. The player is always wary of stumbling upon these enemies, not only because they may result in a game over screen, but also because they are likely to chill your bones with their high-pitched shrieks.

Combat

I didn’t have high expectations for this aspect of The Last of Us but the main combat loop (a mix of gunplay and melee) is surprisingly good. As I write this review, nearly 5 months after beating the game, I find myself looking back fondly upon the game’s combat, almost as much as its other aspects.

The main combat loop weaves together satisfying shooting, and brutal melee attacks. Gunplay is the standard third-person cover-based shooting you have come to expect from a NaughtyDog game. Unlike the Uncharted series, the playable character [in this case Joel] doesn’t snap to pieces of cover. Instead, you simply crouch and move behind it.

This gives the player more freedom in their movement and emphasises that combat in The Last of Us isn’t simply about hiding behind cover and then popping out to fire a barrage of bullets at the enemy. A more tactical approach is required. The player must be fluid in their movement across the battlefield and between different pieces of cover, maybe in an attempt to get within close range of an enemy or escape an incoming flanked attack.

Aside from being tactical, shooting is also very methodical. Ammo is extremely scarce in The Last of Us which means players carefully decide if and when to take a shot. If they decide to go the melee route, they must also consider the durability of the weapon they are wielding. This slows down the pace of The Last of Us’ combat but doesn’t leave players with any considerable disadvantage.

Enemies also play by the rules of this type of combat. They tend to remain behind cover and respect the rules of the game. The devs ensure that combat remains challenging by making enemies deal considerable damage to the player if they land a shot or blow. Moreover, the enemies aren’t bullet sponges either. They go down fairly quickly, leaving combat feeling extremely well-paced.

In terms of the actual gunplay itself, shooting is snappy and crunchy. Controls are responsive and the game’s sound design makes you hear the impact of each bullet that hits an enemy. It’s nothing special on its own, but in practice, it works extremely well.

Stealth And Crafting

While in most encounters you are forced to go out guns blazing, some can be approached purely or — for the most part — with stealth. Stealth in The Last of Us is simple yet effective. It consists of a crouched walk, a whistle to lure over enemies, objects that can be thrown as distractions, and craftable shivs to silently stab enemies in the back with.

With these four tools, the actions you complete to take out enemies may feel repetitive as the game progresses, but the unique encounter design makes sure that your stealth approach is never quite the same. It’s also crazy how entire sections of enemy encounters can be bypassed with stealth and only minimal combat.

There is one section late on in the game where you have to make your way through an underground tunnel. Unfortunately, the place is crawling with infected. I tried repeatedly to fight my way through but to no avail. There were simply too many enemies, and the moment I got past the first batch of them, I would be overwhelmed by sheer force.

So I took to the web to try and see if there was another, passive, way to tackle this section. And there was. It turns out you can stealth past the first batch of enemies, run through a passageway on the right side (in which you do have to kill a few infected), and then stealth past the rest of the enemies. Since the infected in The Last of Us can’t see, they rely on the sound of footsteps to track your movement. Therefore, as long as you move slowly and carefully, you can crouch-walk your way through an entire group of infected.

There is also crafting. Items such as Molotov cocktails, shivs, health kits, nail bombs, smoke bombs, and melee upgrades (to reinforce durability) must be crafted using raw materials found in the game world. Crafting is simple enough, with an on-the-fly menu that can be utilised at any time. Just make sure you aren’t in live combat because opening this pop-up menu doesn’t pause the game.

This crafting system means you must take careful stock of your resources, and decide what to use them on. It adds to the feeling of being a scavenger in a world that is out to kill you. It also nicely complements the more methodical and tactical combat.

Meanwhile, upgrades to your guns and bow can be made at workbenches placed at key intervals in the main story path. There are 11 such workbenches, and you will need the required amount and type of material to upgrade your weapon. Upgrades range from additional weapon holsters to ammo capacity to reload speed and bullet spread.

Don’t worry too much about missing these workbenches though, because these upgrades aren’t essential. I only minimally upgraded some weapons in my playthrough but wasn’t at any disadvantage during later game combat encounters.

Charted Territory

I have played the four Nathan Drake Uncharted games and I adore them. So naturally, while playing another game from the same developer, I was quick to observe any noticeable similarities between the two.

The infamous sniper encounter in The Last of Us is as amazing as it is made up to be. You begin by sneaking across a town and taking out enemies, all the while avoiding sniper fire from a big house down the street. You eventually circle the sniper, sneak up on him, and take him out.

All well and done right? Wrong. Because suddenly enemies start pouring into town. Ellie and company (the previously mentioned brothers Henry and Sam) are left stranded in the exposed town square below. It is now your job to take hold of the sniper and defend your allies.

It is a fun and challenging section that feels a lot like something from an Uncharted game. On its own, it is an exceptionally designed addition to The Last of Us’ main story path, making you feel oddly calm as you single-mindedly pick off enemy after enemy.

There is another Uncharted-esque sequence that sticks out in my memory. It involves a cinematic parkour run across the top of buses in an overflowing sewer tunnel that ends with you getting stuck inside a sinking bus that you must escape from to save Ellie from drowning. It is incredible, and while The Last of Us is a very different thing from Uncharted, it is nice to see NaughtyDog incorporate some of its best features into Joel and Ellie’s journey.

Dun Dun Dun Dun Dunun

All that is there to say is that the music in this game is beautiful. It sets the mood so well and evokes so much emotion that The Last of Us would be a hollow shell without it. Every strum of the guitar is perfect and every note is so melodious. I can listen to the main theme in 10 years and it would flood my brain with memories of this game. I struggle to put the power of this game’s music into words, but trust me; it is special.

Minor Frustrations

After all the praise I have heaped onto the game, let me list out some of its frustrations. There is a lot of walking down empty hallways or outdoor environments with no way to speed up the walking place. I get that these moments are there for the player to soak in the atmosphere or for the characters to have meaningful dialogue but sometimes I just want to get a move on.

The crafting system is weird to begin with. It felt odd to have to keep on restocking tools during battle. But as the game progressed, I got used to this careful balancing act and understood its importance to the game’s design and intent.

I also faced two odd difficulty spikes: the burning restaurant fight and the underground tunnel. The restaurant fight was down to me simply not understanding what I was supposed to do. I thought I had to attack the boss enemy but it would instantly kill me. I thought I had to run around and circle him from behind but that didn’t work either. Turns out we are meant to run and hide until he loses track of our position, and then sneak up and stealth-attack him. Pull off this elaborate dance thrice and the fight is over.

However, the game doesn’t guide you towards such an approach. It simply drops you into the heat of the battle. I think if the game automatically puts the player in stealth the first time around, then the player would know how to approach the fight and repeat it until the enemy is dead.

9 Years Later

Even though I am 9 years late to the party, I am incredibly grateful to have experienced this masterpiece in game design and storytelling. The remastered version on PS4 holds up incredibly well in 2022, and if you haven’t played the game yet, I highly recommend that you do so.

Joel and Ellie’s journey is a heart-touching tale of struggle, loss, and enduring hope. And The Last of Us is a special game because of it. It doesn’t do everything right, but what little things it gets wrong are just minor inconveniences in the face of everything it does so right. What The Last of Us gets right, it gets right to near perfection.