FIFA 10 Ultimate Team

After last year's success, it's little surprise Ultimate Team returns in FIFA 10, albeit sporting a welcomed overhaul. Although immensely fun, FIFA 09's expansion offered painfully slow menus, lacked any real depth, and was certainly rough round the edges. Despite that, it sold like fizzy cherry pop at a kid's disco, and had all of its buyers screaming manically out of excitement. Offering a more in-depth, sleeker experience this year, it's no wonder football fans are once again donning their smartest jackets, combing their hair to one side and practising their Italian accent, as the chance to create the ultimate team is a lure too powerful to resist.

Of course, if this is your first year tackling the Ultimate Team expansion, there's a lot to get your head round. Capitalizing on the popularity of trading cards, and even Panini football stickers if you know your English game well, EA have created an interesting formula of strategy and pure skill. After creating your team, you'll receive a starter pack of cards. If you've been loyal, and this is your second year playing Ultimate Team, EA offer you a leg up with two free gold packs (the game's most valuable set of cards), meaning there's an incentive to come back next year. Interestingly, each club now sports the date they were established under their name. Did you pick up Ultimate Team 09  in it's first month of going on sale? Then you'll be known as a 'FUT Founder.' Anything after that will pick the month and year from when you started, and use this as the date your club was established.

This sense of history is something that needs to be further explored in Ultimate Team. We enjoy highlighting we were there from the beginning, but we want more. A football fanatic's life revolves around statistics, and there's so much that could be explored. We want to see our results from last year, have our trophy cabinet update from the beginning, and even see who our all-time top scorer is. It's a huge shame, because FIFA 10 is excellent at creating banter between players, and we believe a detailed history of each team would give it that personal touch that so many fans crave. Hell, throw in an iPhone app full of your own statistics and we'd be pretty much in heaven.

The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom

Imagine settling down, looking forward to an evening of playing a civilization building game, not really concerned about the multiplayer, but maybe play a little sandbox game, or continuing the campaign to unlock new technologies, only to be told that you can’t play the single-player element because either your Internet connection is offline, or the servers on the other end are not responding.

Frustrating? You bet it is. The impetus to really get some anger flaring? Yep, that too. And unless you are near a WiFi hotspot, forget about taking this game on the road with a gaming laptop.

Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom is a nice little civ-genre title that Ubisoft has released with its DRM (anti-piracy) system in place requiring a constant internet connection in order to play the game. No connectivity, no game.

Sure, there are benefits to being online constantly as it gives access to the community and questions can be asked if answers can’t be found by diminishing the game and finding the manual – which is on the game disk. There is even a mentoring program in place.

FINAL FANTASY XIII

“It’s the end of the road.”

“But at least it’s not the end of the line.”

The conversation between two wooden characters in Final Fantasy XIII is a fitting description of the Final Fantasy series. Inundated with abysmal storytelling and poorly crafted characters, Final Fantasy XIII is an absolute mess when it comes to the finer things that don’t include graphical beauty.

Plagued with horrendous dialogue that will either make long-time fans cringe or naysayers of the franchise laugh at the shoddy work, Final Fantasy XIII is the epitome of how the video game industry doesn’t know how to put together a wonderful narrative for players to enjoy. Opting to use flashbacks and forced moments of moving the plot forward, FFXIII is as contrived as they come.

Mafia 2

When it comes to open-world gaming, few will argue against the fact that Grand Theft Auto is the bar. Because of this, many write off any game of similar ilk to be a “clone,” something that Mafia II developer 2K Czech hopes to overcome this August when they release a sequel to their 2004 hit. The game, which takes place between 1945 and 1955, was displayed at PAX East, where some sections near the middle of the game were being shown off to eager crowds. Since time was short and only a few missions were accessible, the demo was mainly on display to give gamers a brief taste and introduce them to some of the things that makes Mafia II more than a clone.

One way it sets itself apart from GTA is the era in which it takes place. Mafia II’s environments and vehicles will change with the time as the narrative progresses. Being set in an earlier time period means things are a bit different than players might expect; characters obviously don’t have access to cell phones, weapons are less accurate, and, as expected, vehicles all control like boats. That’s more a note on the realism, not a knock on the controls, since it helps build the mood and sell the 1950’s style.

ORDER OF WAR: CHALLENGE

Order of War wasn’t a groundbreaking RTS by any means, but it released to generally favorable reviews. Although Challenge is based off the same engine and mechanics, it is a stand-alone title with purely multiplayer gameplay and no ties to its predecessor. This could be good news for someone looking to score a competitive RTS on a budget, but this option also strips two important elements from the series – missions and artificial intelligence.

Challenge relies on a classic formula of the genre – command troops to capture control points, which yield additional types of troops and the resources to purchase them. Whether you choose to play as the Americans, Germans, or Soviets, you will have a stable of 15 troop-types, including a wide range of tanks, long-range artillery, and infantry. With enough resources, devastating support troops such as dive bombers can be called in to wipe out sections of the battlefield.