Halo 3

I’m going to start off with the most obvious choice, and that’s the game that has destroyed so many hours of my life, bringing moments of pure joy and moments of pure white anger. But would I ever stop playing it? Maybe when Reach comes out, although I know I’ll still drop back to play it.

Why Halo 3 though? Well it just got the online perfect with both brilliant matchmaking and online co-op. I know no matter how long I’m stuck on this god forbidden island there will always be 13 year olds to kill (read: get embarrassingly killed by). You can always improve your BR, you can always play different gametypes, and most importantly, you can relive them over and over with theatre mode.

The campaign is great fun and with four player online co-op it offers lots of online fun. I’ve had so many great moments from this flawed little campaign; getting stuck in a large bin and betraying my friends out of it, much to their hilarity; trying to complete the last level on ghosts to unlock the mighty Recon armour permutation.

Then, besides all of this time consuming fun, there is forge mode, something that I have barely touched, yet offers countless possibilities to create new and exciting levels that can be played online. I could even create a desert island level and invite friends to make me less lonely…

Skate 2

When I’m sick of shooting guns at laggy enemies, the perfect cure awaits me on the streets of San Van. What makes Skate so good, besides everything else of course, is the fact that no matter how good you are there is always something new to master. That could be a trick, a variation of that trick, or trying to fit the perfect set to tricks into a complex line.

This freedom of expression encourages you to experiment, and with the option of creating your own spots to skate and share online, enhanced by dragging items littered around San Van, the possibilities are impressively endless. So the single player should keep me amused on my little island, but what about the multiplayer?

Ranked, unranked, freeskate, all filled with challenges and game modes, most if them great, one of them rubbish (S.K.A.T.E.). I have put hundreds of hours into the online, racking up 70,000 EXP with an average of 19 per game, so that’s a lot of games, right? If I was stuck on the island then I’m sure I could add another digit on my EXP and start to push into the top 200, maybe one day hitting number one, a great way to keep me happy and stave off loneliness.

GTA: San Andreas

I was stuck between this and SSX Tricky, both I own and played last week, but Rockstar’s behemoth of a sandbox just stole it. This game is huge, an instant plus for desert island amusement, but it also boasts some of the best fun I have had in a single player game. The story is long and does feature some boring drive-me-there-drive-me-here missions, but it also contains bags of humour and some great set-pieces – the Terminator 2 truck chase homage is one of the best missions I have played in any game, ever.

Once you complete the story, unlocking all the weapons, vehicles and islands, the fun really begins, most of it coming from the vehicles themselves; planes, trains, helicopters, BMX’s, cars, trucks, you name it, you can drive it. The hours I have spent messing around are embarrassingly high, flipping mountain bikes of the top of sky scrapers, driving minivans up Mount Chiliad only to throw them off the top again. I even saw a friend land a jumbo-jet on the mountain, a feat that has never, to this day, been bested.

Let us not forget the collectibles, of which there are many different variations, some of which I managed to find while others remain a task to be beaten – an excellent way to while away the weeks. But what GTA does best is carnage, and with one of the biggest cheat lists I have ever seen there is enough to keep it fresh – one of my favourites: spawn a hot-ring racer, stick on the ‘cars can fly’ cheat and viola, instant entertainment. I wish I knew how many hours I have lost to this game, through numerous consoles and play-throughs, but that is the reason it works as a desert island game: no matter what I do, no matter how many times I play it, it always draws me back.

Check back next Tuesday for another three picks from another writer… In the meantime tell us what you would take in the comments below or check out previous entries.

The one genre you can depend on for innovation, from year to year, is the hyper-competitive world of sports. Every year we get the trivial improvements like roster updates and a new set of animations, but it’s always pleasing when instead of churning out the same game, they make worthwhile and noticeable changes. Recently, EA Sports have been at the forefront of that, something we couldn’t have said at the beginning of the decade.

In 2007 Black Box and EA released Skate, a contender to the somewhat unchallenged Tony Hawk series. Introducing a revolutionary control system that primarily uses the sticks to control the board, it quickly cemented itself as the next step in the evolution of the niche genre. What made the experience so addictive was the continuing feeling of reward it granted the player – from landing their first ollie to manual transferring a 360 hardflip. Even after six months of playing there was still things to do.

Little over a year later Black Box released Skate 2, boasting new tricks and a bolstered online mode. The single player experience offers more challenges to overcome, some of which took me four pain-staking hours to complete. There is something for everyone: races, trick challenges, competitions, gap challenges and the ridiculous hall of meat. Even when you complete all the challenges there is still spots set around New San Van for you to own. Beat them all? Then go download some user-created spots, or even create your own.

The online play in Skate 2 is easily the most impressive thing about the game. From simple freeskating with friends, to a hardcore ranked mode, you should be kept busy for some time. Freeskating is great fun with surprising depth, this is thanks to the 149 challenges that range from fun and simple to pad destroyingly evil. The ranked mode has one of the most hardcore followings I have ever seen. If you play it for a few weeks then you will slowly begin to recognise gamertags and know who to avoid. I got to 208th in the world on Own The Spot, one of my greatest gaming achievements. I don’t even want to think how many hours I have wasted getting there.

What surprises me about it is how engaging it can be for new players. I know of four friends who went and picked it up – mostly due to the incessant nagging I was giving them – and loved it, some of them had never even played a skating game. While I was kicking myself for crashing a 540 Airwalk frontflip they were ecstatic over landing a perfect double kickflip. Whatever your skill level, whatever your ambitions, there is fun to be had out of this game.

Skate 2

FIFA 10

Every year, you wonder will this be the year that constant yearly releases will come back to bite EA? If it is, it’s not evident when it comes to FIFA’s next entry, FIFA 10, which was a pleasingly refined edition of the now confirmed king of the beautiful game’s game.

UFC Unleashed

2009 has been a brilliant year for UFC, it’s clearly a company that’s on the rise. Unfortunately previous attempts at a UFC game have fallen flat on their face, that is, until THQ released the surprisingly polished and intensely brutal UFC Unleashed 2009.

NHL 10

NHL 09 was easily our favourite sports release of last year and NHL 10 is just as good. Granted, only the hardcore will notice all the little tweaks but, as they say, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

Football Manager 2010

Let’s not be accused of being bias but it’s easily the best management game around, bar none. Ridiculously addictive, stunningly real and as good as it’s always been. When do we get our cheque?

Stay tuned to Nidzumi all week for more Best of 2009 Awards as we celebrate the past 12 months in gaming

Let’s waste little time in saying that Stoked is trying to be an indie developed version of Skate, not that there is any shame in that. If you are going to ‘be inspired’ by any game currently out, let it be the one the more revolutionary extreme sports games of the last decade. The problem is that Stoked gets let down by it’s indie roots with the occasional impractical design choice.

Stoked will make the worst first impression you’re likely to endure this year. Embarrassingly lazy voice-overs will give you an overbearing number of techniques to learn within a short space. If you were to persist past the incredibly tough learning curve that greets you like a brick wall, you’ll have roughly three hours of mundane and repetitive challenges.

The incredibly tough learning curve greets you like a brick wall

I know I’m not painting the prettiest picture here but it’s the truth and another distressing truth is that I almost threw in the towel. While the feeling of accomplishment from finishing a challenge was justifiably worthwhile, I found myself asking ‘is this it?’

Then when you achieve the rating of 66, I don’t know why that specific number, I started getting photo opportunities and media challenges. Suddenly the game offered so much variation; suddenly the game came to life. It might take the slowest three hours of your life to go ‘pro’ but the variation and payoff is undoubtedly worth it, almost justifying the first three hours.

If you don’t mind grinding (a totally intentional pun) seemingly forever until you get to this stage, you should also be aware that Stoked is also incredibly challenging. Using the Skate style of controls you’ll flick the right analog stick for ollies and squeeze the triggers for grabs. If you’ve played Skate then you’ll probably feel a bit more welcomed, but Stoked treats you like you have played Skate before which obviously won’t always be the case. Right out of the bat, you’ll be given specific challenges involving specific tricks, meaning you’ll spend more time in your ‘grab bible’ than within the levels themselves.

The massively broad levels feel like barren wastelands that, possibly intentionally, create a feeling of loneliness. However it soon proves frustrating without an instant navigational system or a warp to challenge option. Be thankful that the excellent draw distance gives you plenty of scope on these deserted snow laden locales.

The dynamic weather system only effects the game’s visuals but pleasingly so

These environments are often transformed with help from the dynamic weather system that is at the forefront of the game’s marketing and while it doesn’t impact the game too much, it does pleasingly shift the colour palette.

You can continue to change your rider’s colour palette within the blue tomato customiser, that let’s you deck out your budding superstar with the biggest brands in snowboarding. You are however given no access to these brands from the start meaning you’ll have to don the generic before you wear the intensely vibrant.

To all of this you’ll be introduced to the most eclectic collection of artists from the thought-provoking hip-hop of Atmosphere to Japanese video game inspired sessions that are sure to entertain.

Stoked is a game that needed a lot more QA testing, the learning curve and challenge will hit you straight way while you’ll have to wait for the more enjoyable moments, something that most people would probably never experience. If you’ve got patience, time and skills then Stoked will be a rewarding and enjoyable experience, anyone else should seek some required reading with EA’s Skate.

Electronic Arts has finally announced the third game in the Skate series and already it’s looking like it might be the best in the series. EA has announced a refreshing breath of fresh air that is sure to bring a tear to all extreme sports game fans. Skateboarding in reality has a social vibe to it that EA is going to try and recreate by adding a co-op experience. Both online and offline gamers are going to be able to team up with friends and take part in team-based challenges that will advance both players careers, compete against rival skate teams and leave their mark on the all-new skater’s paradise, Port Carverton.

Of course since pre order bonuses are the standard these days EA has already announced that gamers who pre order skate 3 will be getting a unlock code that will give them exclusive access to the Black Box Distribution Skate Park, home of Zero, Mystery, and Fallen skate teams.

Unfortunately since this was just EA announcing Skate 3 we didn’t get much more from them so for now all we can do is sit and wait for more details to be released on Electronic Arts newest game. Until then maybe we can go practice skateboarding and try not to break any bones in the process.

You can’t be to surprised with another Skate game rumoured to be in the works. The original Skate was a flawed classic and while the second might have addressed all the issues we had with the original, it added it’s fair share of new ones.

Skate 3 hasn’t been officially announced but a skater’s twitter tells us otherwise. To be honest it wouldn’t be a massive surprise if this was revealed to be true but it will be interesting to see how fast they turnaround other Skate. 2010 at the earliest but the problems with Skate 2 were so basic that they could be quickly fixed.

We’ll report more when we hear it and yup we’ve contacted EA for a comment.

Last year EA released the Tony Hawk’s killer simply called Skate. The game was well received and while it had a lot of minor issues that had to be dealt with, the core of the mechanics worked well enough for it to be interesting. Obviously when EA release a new franchise and it goes well, it’s not surprising to start seeing it show up on every console under the sun. Here’s what they came up with for the Wii version of the game.

Skate It is actually surprisingly similar to the original. The innovative controls are copied over from the analog stick to the wii-mote and you would expect this to work a lot better than the original. That same original was mainly panned by critics because of the controls that required you to be incredibly precise. Now you use a Wii-Mote without limitations so it should be a lot easier right? Wrong, Skate It’s controls seem to be even more sketchy than said original. You could do the same action x amount of times and get x amount of different tricks. It’s a shame because broken controls really put a downer on the rest of the game.

Not so luckily the game also features a few alternative control methods. It has a Wii-Mote only option that has all of the controls crammed onto one Wii-Mote which is simply disappointing. You can also use your Balance Board as a natural fit for the game. It takes a lot of getting used to but feels a bit too twitchy for my liking. It makes sense that the game can be controlled through this device but feels like it needed a bit more work in terms of sensitivity.

The rest of the game is surprisingly good. You play out similar scenarios to the original across different areas of San Vanelona which has recently been hit by some disaster. It’s not really talked about that much and seems to be a way of taking out all the pedestrians and cars. It’s slightly cheesy but it isn’t trying to fool you for a second. You’ll also go outside of San Van for the first time but apparently there have been disasters that get rid of the pedestrians their as well although that’s never mentioned.

Despite the major critisims you could have of the game it should be able to keep your attention for a while. There is a brilliant various of challenges even if some don’t lend themself well to the controls. The soundtrack is average if only saved for the brilliant use of ‘Lowrider’ by WAR and the graphics actually look pretty decent for the Wii. Skate It as a package is overall great but the twitchy controls simply don’t work and although that’s the only flaw the game has, it has a tendancy to ruin the experience. Although Skate It does present a few decent ideas but overall it’s not worth your time in a busy holiday schedule.

A few months back we posted an article about what should be seen in Skate 2. As avidly blatant fanboys we got way to excited for the flood of information that EA have recently released and finally get to see what improvements they will actually implement.

Skate 2 now takes place in New San Vanelona that has been re-built after a disaster. We weren’t told but we speculate that this is the same disaster that strikes the city in the upcoming Wii & Ds game, Skate It. Your character from the original disappeared shortly after winning skater of the year. Now five years later San Van has been locked down from putting caps on rails so you can’t grind to putting “No Skating” signs everywhere. San Vanelona needs help to be turned back into the skate heaven it once was.

That might not be the most compelling story but it’s better than the original and the story isn’t the reason people played Skate. The innovative controls did that and it looks like they will expand further on that. Now you’ll be able to land hand-plants and nail lip-tricks while skating in a bowl. There was also a whole phenomenon of Hippie Jumps on the online community stemming from the original Skate. A Hippie Jump is where the board goes under the rail but you go over and this was achieved in the original Skate by the medium of a glitch yet now it will be pulled of a lot easier by simply pressing the feet buttons (A & X) while in the air. These tricks combined with the other one hundred that will be added to the game probably won’t reinvent the wheel but it will make it rounder.

Skate 2 will also allow you to ‘grab the world’. This lets you move around different obstacles, live in-game, to create your own custom line fully suited to your style or skill level. You can’t move around larger, stuck down obstacles but you can move smaller things that would realistically be movable to reach hidden challenges that would be on roof tops and higher, harder to reach areas.

Finally but most certainly not least, another addition is that you can actually get off your board now. In one of the additions we were most rooting for, you’ll now be able to climb up and over obstacles to then skate off them. The amount of times we’ve bailed when trying to get back onto the street was ridiculous so this is a pleasant and worthy upgrade.

There were loads of features rumoured like multiple session markers, Grab The World online and most promisingly the addition of Burnout Paradise style drop in drop out multiplayer. None of this is yet to be confirmed but they all make so much logical sense it would be dumb not to.

Visually the game has been improved while displaying a fuller colour palette, an impressive 60 frames per second frame rate and smaller camera tweaks such as the camera moving out to show a better angle when you are manoeuvring up stairs. None has been announced as far as sound or music goes but the original had fantastic sound design so I’d expect more of the same.

It appears that so far we correctly guessed four out of seven updates suggested for Skate 2. While custom skatewear, faster load times & a refined trick system all make for obvious updates that could be revealed at a later date. It seems that the whole thing about how good Skate 2 will be compared to the slightly flawed while brilliant original might turn out to be true if what we’ve seen is anything to go by.

It’s true Skate 2 is official, it is happening. Fine, maybe it wasn’t that much of a shock but the point is that a great game is going to get its greatly anticipated follow up. The thing with Skate, the original Skate, was everything wrong could easily be improved. The amount of times I said to myself “Skate 2 is going to be awesome” was ridiculous. That’s not to say the original was a bad game because it was far from it but there was room for improvement. Here’s what should be in Skate 2…

Walking
Often while cruising along you would fine a nice looking spot to trick down. The game would then make you Ollie up it for no reason when a normal person could just step off the board and walk onto the ledge. Thats why the ability to walk and climb would prove to be indispensable. Fine this didn’t do to much to Tony Hawk’s but Skate is much more of a chilled out kind of a game where walking would fit in perfectly.

Refined Trick Stick
The way you perform tricks in the world of Skate is a key factor in what makes Skate pop but sometimes it was a bit too picky. It needs to be heavily redefined so that it’s easier to pull off the right tricks when it asks you to. I guess some of the skill will be taken away but there are ways around that.

Technical Improvements – Frame Rates
This applies more to the Playstation 3 version instead of it’s 360 counterpart but there were frame rate issues. This seems like a little problem but it greatly effected the Playstation 3’s rendition.

Technical Improvements – Loading Times
Although something that effected both versions indefinitely were the load times. There was a good 90 second wait before you even got to the menu and once in the game you would really ride your luck on using stunt markers because it was really hit and miss. I don’t know the math but say you where 10 meters away from your stunt marker, you would be fine. But if you stepped over to say 12 meters you would have to sit watching for another 30 seconds when it would have been quicker to skate back.

More Tricks
It wasn’t that there was a shortage of tricks or anything but there is something wrong when you can do backflips and 900’s but you can’t do any lip or flatland tricks. Alright, maybe you could do some lip tricks but you couldn’t do any hand-plants or anything especially fancy and the addition of flatland would make for some nice transition’s while in between rails and jumps.

In-Depth Story
The story was realistic and it fit the purpose and the last thing this game needs is a villain of some description. All I’m saying is that it needs to be bigger and better and have more of a storyline instead of skate this, win that. It seemed a bit weird having a long intro where something happened to your character but it was hardly ever mentioned throughout the rest of the game. As long as they keep it believable it will do fine.

Custom Clothing & Boards
Really this could be summed up with the simple phrase ‘Make it like Forza’. Although every game needs something like this, custom clothing and board designs would make each character unique online and add that extra level of customization. Adding this might take away the fact that I wanted to buy more clothes and update my characters look and thats the first time anything like that has happened in a long while. Although I still retain the fact that if allowed to create clothing and gear, I would tweak my character even more.

With pretty much every review ending in ‘the sequel will be awesome’, Skate 2 has a lot of expectation but with a few of these ideas and a few surprises, Skate 2 could be the game that the original always wanted to be. Buttery.

What would you like to see added to Skate 2?

“Skate It” is a semi-spin-off-sequel to last years fantastic skateboarding simulation, Skate. Surprisingly enough though, this isn’t simply “Skate 2″ as its coming to the DS and Wii exclusively.

The Wii version is where it gets really interesting with it’s Wii Fit Balance Board controls. Information on how the Balance Board will be controlled is sparse but you’ll be able to lean forwards or backwards to pull off a manual. If you don’t want to use the Balance Board you can just use the Wii-Mote and this basically emulates the analog controls featured in the original (although now mapped to a 3d space).

The Wii version will also feature an in-depth career mode that allows to you earn sponsors, unlock new clothes and gear and now travel around the world. This does sound very similar to the previous versions but Skate It will have unlockable multiplayer modes as well.

Meanwhile the DS version will feature the game world on the top screen and a image of a skateboard on the touch screen. You then have to draw different lines on that board that represent each trick.

The DS version will also feature a fully realized career mode along with Single & Multi Cart local multiplayer modes. Not enough for you? WiFi online multiplayer is also present along with some “unique online sharing components”. My guess is that, that will have something to with the Instant Replay modes that both versions have.

Both versions of Skate It seem like great progressions of the game and the new control schemes appear very natural in their attempts to emulate the feel of the original.

Skate It is set for a 2008 release on the Nintendo Wii & DS.

“Tony Hawk has been the Madden of that category for a very long time, and our performance in this first year of skateboarding has greatly exceeded my expectations,” Gibeau told investors. “I know they’re going to come back and be competitive, but these are the fights that EA knows how to win.”Also mentioned was a new Need for Speed game in development, which will go back to the original roots of the series, after the lower than predicted sales of Pro Street.

Source [gamespot]