Gameplay tests

ESPN 2005 - XBox

I got to play a full 2-minute quarter game with another player on the floor in the Microsoft Xbox area. The playable version only had about 6 teams to choose from, so I picked the Spurs playing against the 76ers. The gameplay and pace seems more arcade-y for me, which doesn’t suit me well. Maybe it was set at that setting, and I won’t be surprised if the final release will have a setting that is more ‘simulation’. The graphics were slightly improved over the last year, and it seems that there are more animations. I do, however, notice the tendency to get strips and steals in this game, much more so than the current 2004 incarnation, but we’ll wait to see if that will be adjusted or if we can just set some sliders within the game. I’m looking forward to this one.

Doom 3 - XBox

Doom 3 was playable on the Xbox, running on BenQ LCD monitors. It looked very nice and dark – what do you expect it IS Doom. Playing FPS’s on consoles is one thing that I will never get used to, and I longed for the keyboard and mouse. But from the few minutes I spent playing it, it looked great. Lights are destructible, monsters in the shadows are unseen unless you shine your flashlight at them. Dynamic lighting really made the environment more spooky and realistic. One thing that I felt didn’t look too good were the flames, maybe it was a limitation on the Xbox hardware, but it didn’t look real, especially when there are aliens who flings flame-balls at you. The zombies themselves had positional damage, meaning that if you shoot them in the head, the graphic ‘decal’ would be mapped to the proper position, and it seems that they had rag-doll system too, as they would fall over in random positions.

Rainbow Six 3: Black Arrow - XBox

Yet another R6 release is coming for the Xbox. I tested out the game for a few minutes while a rep was giving me the low-down on this new version of the game. I played a multi-player map (can be played over Xbox Live) that was called ‘Conquest’. It was interesting because you had to take control of ‘checkpoints’. The controls were good (for a console FPS) and the gameplay is typical R6, which means one shot one kill. Some like it, some don’t.

The Sims: Busting Out – Nokia NGage

This was the first time I got my hands on an NGage. It was diminutive, with an even more diminutive screen, but at least it was bright and easy to see. I tried a few minutes of The Sims: Busting Out. It was a simplified version of the PC game. In the NGage version, I used the control pad to move the character. He has objectives to complete, like decorate your room, work, eat, shower and the like. The neat thing about this is that you can ‘log in’ to their Sims network, and chat with others and challenge them to play games with you with a complete ranking system. If you challenge a player who is higher ranked than you, you will get more points if you beat that player, and vice versa. The top-down isometric graphics are smooth and sharp. I think the NGage is much better suited for 2D games.

Ghost Recon 2 – Nokia NGage

What do you get when you try to play FPS games on the NGage? About 8 frames-per-second and tired thumbs. I didn’t find this particularly playable, as it was hard to press the buttons for my medium-sized thumbs, and the frame rates were horrible. It reminds me of the fake 3D look of wolfenstein 3d, only much worse.