Pandemic The Board Game: Part 4

As there is only one way for players to win while there is three ways to lose players feel a sense of urgency and importance when trying to avoid the three situations that would cause a loss. Unfortunately all four outcomes are extremely anti-climatic. When I first played I didn’t even notice that we had won. It just sort of happened once we had turned over four tiles that indicated we had discovered cures for all the diseases. The seven outbreaks is perhaps the most intense and interesting outcome out of the four. Yet, I felt very little when seven outbreaks did occur. I shrugged my shoulders and thought “Oh well, guess there where too many cubes.” and packed up the game. This is where I think the Internet version Pandemic 2 succeeds in a way Pandemic can’t, simply because of its medium. The Internet version has visuals in its favor. A screen indicates how many people are infected by diseases and how many have died. The colors of the countries change depending on how many people are dying and as soon as you see that several countries are turning from dark green to a crimson red, you know that the diseases are taking over. This is what Pandemic tries to do with its cubes. But it doesn’t compare.

While I would probably rather play the online Pandemic 2 than play the board game does not mean it doesn’t succeed. My personal preference aside, Matt Leacock definitely manages to set up game mechanics that are focused on his two main design values – cooperative play and strategy. For me it was also the first time playing a board game that was cooperative against the game itself and that is innovative by Leacock. He could most likely have created a game where two teams would fight each other, one as the people trying to cure the world while the other teams were the disease trying to infect it.

Some of the reviews that I have read also write about some of the points that I’ve made. For example that using cubes to represent diseases doesn’t really cut it and seems to be artistically poorly designed. Most of the reviews point out something that I haven’t had to the chance to try but that trying to win the game on medium is very difficult and rarely happens, especially due to the randomness factor of the game. Very few of these reviewers seem to be disappointed by this fact. Many praise Pandemic for being so unpredictable and hard to win.  

One reviewer mentioned the fact that the game can often be controlled by a single player who announces themselves as team captain and tells everybody what to do. I can attest to this and it may be my lack of love for teamwork that I personally didn’t enjoy this game much.

Matt Leacock tells in an interview for meepletown.com that he believes that because of the lack of aesthetics and “chrome”, as he puts it, it allows players to create their own stories together. This would appeal to the storyteller player type. He also addresses one of the issues that I mentioned which is that he believes he underdeveloped the resolution that follows the climax after discovering all four cures. Leacock tells to bygonebureau.com that he believes that the reason for the success of Pandemic is because of its cooperative play. Rather than pitching your family against each other it brings people together and help each other make the right decisions.

From the reviews I have read and heard it seems as if Pandemic is a huge success and a crowd pleaser. I haven’t been able to find many flaws with the game, and most of the ones I have described are nitpicking.

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Pandemic The Board Game: Part 3

While it is probably unfair to judge a game that I have only won once on introductory level and lost once on regular level, I believe there are some overall points to be made.

Firstly, the idea of a cooperative game is rather new, or for me it is. All the board games I have played over the years have been player vs. player and if there was any kind of cooperative play it was often team vs. team rather than players vs. game. It makes sense to develop games that use this form of play as it is seen more often in digital games such as MMORPGs where players fight the ‘environment’ or the CPU. Despite all this, the game form doesn’t appeal at all to me. Whether it’s a flawed game form or if it’s just personal preference I did not enjoy the experience much. It didn’t seem as if we were playing a game, rather just we were discussing actions and the best things to do, much like a form of Model-United Nations. Since we weren’t competing against each other there seemed to be nothing at stake. Why wouldn’t we cooperate with each other? For me personally, I’d like to see a feature where players have to decide whether to help the team as a whole or help themselves for personal gains. This would add more realism to the game in my opinion, as certain people might only be willing to help in return of a favor or exchange of goods. This would really push the main emphasis of the game – cooperation.

The second design value that Leacock seems to have designed his game after is the idea of strategy. Player must work together in a strategic way. They must choose the right actions, go to the right locations at specific moments or otherwise they may risk losing. Extra strategy is added through the use of player roles. Each player has strong points that must be used cooperatively in order to achieve the objectives of the game. This is a really strong point of Pandemic.

Although this has little to do with the mechanics of the game, but I would have liked to see the player pieces that are connected to the player role cards to have been more interesting. A green player piece doesn’t indicate that it’s the operations expert. Using player pieces like in Monopoly would have added to the artistic and emotionally experience of the game. Players start to see themselves as their roles through the role cards that feature small drawings of each role but it stops as soon as they see that their researcher in full scrubs is instead a brown player piece.

Even though the cubes aren’t really visually appealing or interesting in any way, they are practical and serve their purpose. It is easy to spot when a city has three cubes on it that it is on the edge of an outbreak or epidemic. I do believe though that the names of the disease are a bit too generic. How unoriginal is the name “blue disease”? 

Pandemic The Board Game: Part 2

The first game I played we were three players. As it was our first game we chose to play an introductory game, with slightly easier game play. I got the researcher role while the two other players got operations expert and scientist. At the start of the game we made sure to try to utilize our special roles to the best extent while also trying to use all four actions each turn. This was based of the fact that the game was branded as a cooperative game, and we deduced that if we were given special abilities and a certain number of actions that we should take full advantage of it. We started off in Atlanta and decided to try to spread out on the map in order to treat the few starting diseases that had occurred. As the game progressed we got unlucky with the disease cards and soon Europe was covered in blue cubes. The operations expert built a research center in Milano while I, as the research, shared knowledge with the scientist and we discovered a cure for blue. We decided to let one player focus on treating all the blue cubes while trying to get around to other diseases. After completely eradicating blue, I travelled to South America to take care of the Yellow disease while the operations expert and scientist focused on red. I managed to build a research station and discover a cure for yellow. We decided not to try and remove all the yellow cubes, as we believed we could find a cure for the black and red disease before any outbreaks would occur. Unfortunately, while in the closing stages of curing red, we drew an epidemic card that resulted in an outbreak in Southern America. We decided to fight through it and discovered a cure. I shared my knowledge with the scientist once again and went of to South America in the attempts at treating the worst cities and trying to avoid another outbreak or chain reaction. As before the operations expert set up a research station in Northern Africa while the scientist, using our combined cards discovered a cure for the black disease. We won without much trouble.

Pandemic The Board Game: Part 1

Pandemic is a board game created by game designer Matt Leacock that was published in 2008. The objective of the game is to, as a team, treat and cure four different diseases that are infecting the world. Players must work together in order to beat the game and win.

Pandemic is cooperative multiplayer against the game play format. Each player either wins or loses each game. The objectives are based on outwitting the game, coming up with a solution collectively and racing against the game before it’s too late.

The game is made for 2 to 4 players, each of which have a character role which gives them special skills. There are five roles but only a maximum of four can be played with at one time. The roles are dispatcher, medic, scientist, researcher and operations expert.

The dispatcher is the grand controller and planner of the game, a player with the dispatcher role can move other players around the board outside of their turn.

The medic can remove all cubes of disease when treating a city, only using one action, and can administer cures without any actions.

The scientist can discover cures using only four cards rather than the regular five needed.

The researcher can share any cards with another player without being in the city portrayed on the card given. Both players must be in the same city though.

The operations expert can build a research station anywhere using one action. The operations expert can also move to any city as long as he is at a research station and discards a card.

Each player is allowed four actions per turn. There are basic actions such as moving between cities either by car or by flying (though you must discard a card of that city in order to move). Other actions including giving cards to other players (known as sharing knowledge), treating one cube of disease or discovering a cure.

At the start of the game several disease cards a drawn and cubes are placed on the matching cities. At the end of every turn a certain number of disease cards are drawn again and more cubes are placed on the map. A player must draw two player cards, which can either be a city, a special event, or an epidemic card. The city cards are used for various things such as curing diseases, travelling and building research stations. The special event cards are certain scenarios and actions that can be played at anytime, such as an airlift that allows you to travel anywhere on the map at anytime. In the event of an epidemic cubes are placed on several cities and all the disease cards that were discarded are reshuffled into the deck of disease cards. If a city with three cubes is infected with one more cube an outbreak occurs.

The game ends if the players discover a cure for each disease, the only way in which the game is won by the players. Otherwise, if more than seven outbreaks occur, or there are no more cubes of a specific disease or there aren’t any cards to be drawn, the players lose. 

Madden NFL 08: Superstar Mode - Part 4

At the end of a season, players are selected to the Pro Bowl. If you have played exceptionally well throughout the season you might be selected to go to Hawaii and play in an All-Star game. Each season also features a voting for several prizes such as Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year. These honors and awards may increase your chance of going to the Hall of Fame once you retire. If you’ve had a really great year you might be selected to be the cover athlete of the Madden NFL game.

Once a season is over your agent will be signing you up for endorsements and sponsorships. If you get enough money from your promotional work as well as your base salary from your team you might move away from your small studio apartment to a bigger downtown loft. Once you’ve become a superstar and a millionaire you move into a mansion. This feature is terrific and so well done by EA Sports. Since your player never actually gets to spend any of their salary on anything, as you can’t buy anything it is really great to see them change your apartment out with something more expensive. And it feels great to move from your small apartment to a beautiful loft after a long season of hard work. Unfortunately this is a feature they have later removed, which is a real shame because it made you feel like you were actually living the life of a NFL athlete trying to get by.

Eventually your contract with your team will expire and you have a choice to sign an extension or become a free agent where any team can offer you a contract. You get a list of interested teams along with their offer of money and length of contract. While playing under a contract for a team you can demand a trade, although this will affect your ego negatively and you won’t have choice of where you are being traded off.

The Madden Superstar mode has so many great things going for it, specifically the feeling of being an actual player in the NFL. Unfortunately the game play becomes redundant; especially the practices and you never feel like you’re actually improving. Madden has fixed this in later installments but in Madden 08 you have to wait until your player is actually on the field which is very irritating. While the idea of having the camera angle focused only on what your player can see it just doesn’t fully work. The angle is often awkward and is too different from the rest of the game play. Superstar Mode has often been a mode that could be a great success but hasn’t found it’s stride yet. It’s a shame that EA Sports decided to remove the one great thing that Madden 08 had going in later installments, as I’m certain that they should have been able to figure it out by now.

Madden NFL 08: Superstar Mode - Part 3

The next step is the NFL Draft. You are asked whether you want to be chosen your favorite team or if you want to enter the draft and see where and when you are picked. This is a good feature because often you are only interested in playing with your favorite team rather than playing for a team you have no connection to. The Draft is rather anti-climatic as you are just informed of when you are picked and you have no real idea of why you were chosen in the third round. Once picked you receive an email from the owner or coach of your team informing you of their great expectations. The computer now features a page about your player and a general analysis of his abilities and skills. Throughout your career your agent will write too you as well as receiving personal messages from your mom. The calendar now shows Practice almost every single day except on game day. While having this high amount of practices is customary in the NFL and certainly realistic it adds very little to the experience and is more of an annoyance than anything. You can skip the practices but you won’t improve your overall rating or you can do the circa twice a day practices, five days a week and improve your overall rating. Except that very few people want to do 40 practice sessions per month.

 The real problem boils down to one attribute called Awareness. Practices boost your Awareness attribute. While attributes like Speed, Blocking and Strength are pretty self-explanatory but no definition for awareness is given. Oddly enough it’s what separates a player that is rated 85 overall from being a 95 overall.  These practices improve a player’s awareness and it is this attribute that boosts the ratings. It isn’t an increase in catching or blocking but quite simply an increase in this single attribute. The only explanation that users have been able to give is that it simply means that the player is more aware or more alert of what is going on. But this benefit has no effect on you when you’re controlling a player. What matters is your own reaction time and your own alertness. Despite this awareness remains one of the most important attributes in the Madden series.

One of the big features of both Superstar mode and Franchise mode is that several key players have been given certain Weapon Roles – a certain characteristic attribute that they have that makes them stand out. For example Drew Brees is known for being on the most accurate passers and therefore has the Accurate Passer Weapon Role, symbolized by a crosshair. Antonio Gates has some of the most secure hands in the NFL and therefore has the Possession Receiver Weapon Role, symbolized by a pair of gloves. Some players are considered so talented in many aspects that they are given a star symbol and are known as Feature Running Backs or Franchise Quarterbacks, this would for example be Ladainian Tomlinson and Peyton Manning. This feature is also available for your own superstar. It isn’t clear when or how you get the roles but at some point the coach will send you an email telling you that over the last season you have performed really well and that you have now become a special weapon on their team. You can select the role when your player is on the field and it allows you to modify skills and attributes of yourself, your teammates and your opponents. You might have the role of Speed receiver, which may allow you to increase your own acceleration ratings, decrease the opponents’ awareness rating and boost your quarterbacks arm strength. The more impact the player has on the game the more he or she can modify the skills of the players on the field. 

Madden NFL 08: Superstar Mode - Part 2

After creating your player you move into a new screen. This is where, in my opinion, EA Sports really succeeded and it’s a shame they changed the way they do Superstar Mode. Your player moves into a small studio apartment, with a couch, TV and a coffee table. You also have interactive objects such as your computer, map, calendar, playbook, phone and mirror. These objects make up the majority of your game play. The mirror allows you to change your look, such as your facemask or gloves. Through the map you can travel to a barbershop and get a haircut or go to your agent’s office and have a chat about your next career move. The computer holds information such as statistics and ratings. The key element is the calendar. By clicking on the calendar you are shown what events are coming up this month and it is through the calendar you navigate and progress in the game. While this really well done, it took me a week to figure how to get from one day to the next and it isn’t very obvious. But once you have understood this mechanic the game runs smoothly.

As a new rookie you are given three workouts with different teams and you are invited to the NFL Combine. When you first start you have to sign a player agent, but since you are an unproven rookie straight out of college there is only one agent who wants to sign you and he’s terrible. Luckily as you progress your player other more talented agents are willing to sign you.

The agent serves as a nice mechanism that isn’t vital to the game but definitely adds to the experience. Your agent provides you with endorsements and sponsorships as well as helps you get better contracts or helps you demand a trade from your team. In the workouts you can chose from a small variety of challenges that are specific to your position, a wide receiver will be able to either catch the ball or run routes. If a player scores enough points to get either a bronze, silver or gold trophy they are rewarded with one point increase in a key attribute. These workouts are nicely integrated into the game and reflect the reality of the real NFL, where prospects are invited to workout at interested teams.

Unfortunately you don’t get the feeling that the teams you are invited to are actually scouting you at all, instead it seems as if the teams are just randomly chosen.

In between the workouts several reporters ask you for interviews. The interviews determine whether your player has a positive and team friendly ego or a negative selfish ego. These egos determine which agents that want to sign you, how other teammates perceive you and if you are generally liked by the public. The ego also adds to something called an In-Game Influence meter that measures your performance. The NFL Combine is the last chance to add a valuable attribute point but once again this feature isn’t as complete as it could be. In the real NFL Combine, each participant must complete several drills so that scouts can evaluate them. This includes the 40-yard dash, long jump and weight lifting. Several participants can convince teams that what they might lack in football skills they make up for in agility and speed, while other highly project prospects might disappoint and are no longer thought to be Top 10 material but rather only worth a third round pick. The experience would greatly improve if players could go through these kinds of drills and get feedback from the media on what scouts are saying about them.

Madden NFL 08: Superstar Mode - Part 1

As stated in an earlier entry Superstar Mode allows players to play with only one player and control all their actions as opposed to Franchise Mode where you control a team.

Superstar Mode is probably one of the most ingenious modes ever created and doesn’t receive enough praise, although there is a good reason for that.

When starting the Superstar Mode you are given the choice of Create-a-Rookie, meaning a fictional player where you have full control over their position, height, college and so on, or if you want to use a rookie from the 2007 NFL Draft Class.

Even though EA Sports receives fair criticism daily, mostly due to their monopoly on many major sport games, they are very talented at what they do. In this case, scouting. Granted they have probably hired NFL experts to do the work but they are able to pretty accurately predict which players are going to become the next NFL superstars and which players are busts. Sure there are hits and misses but being able to predict in 2007 that Calvin Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Patrick Willis and Joe Thomas would become superstars at their respect positions four years later is pretty impressive. They haven’t only done this for the Superstar mode but also in Franchise mode where young players with low overall ratings suddenly have breakout years and become great players. Something that often happens in the real NFL.

If you chose to use a pre-existing rookie you are pretty much set to start the game right away. If you chose to create a rookie from scratch you have to go through a few stages in order to get started. When you first enter, a pop-up screen explains shortly what is going on and you are presented with what looks like a sign up sheet for the NFL. You list your personal information such as height and name as well as college information, position and which number you would like to play with. You get to choose a face for your player from about a selection of 500 computer-generated appearances. After this you are directed to a screen where you get to choose attribute points. You are automatically given 50 in all of your key skills and then have a small sum of remaining points you can use. These attributes determine your skills and your overall rating. But it can also be used to personalize your player. For example, if you want a Michael Vick type of quarterback you might want to add points in speed instead of throw accuracy. Each attribute has different costs, with the most valuable attribute being the most expensive. After this you can change the physique and look of your player, such as overall body composition or the size of your arm muscles.

These choices really help you feel like you are creating your own player, whether he is an extension of yourself or a fictional character you are making up.

Madden NFL: Menu, Modes and Features: Part 2

Features is a mode that contains several small features that didn’t fit in with Game Modes. It contains several rather random features but that all add to the experience. The fun begins with the different create modes. Create a Fan allows the player to customize a fan with different attires and accessories. Each team’s fans have special outfits; such as the Chicago Bears’ fans can dress up in bear costumes while the Green Bay Packers can wear cheese hats. The neat feature of this function is that the created fan appears in games. Once in a while the camera will zoom in on a small group of fans in the stands when either a player does a Lambeau Leap into the end-zone stand or they’re leaving because their team is losing.

Create a Player combines Franchise Mode and Superstar Mode as you can create yourself as a player and then add yourself on a team but without the obligation of always playing as him. The feature also allows you to fill a roster that may be missing some players, while others will abuse the feature and create a player with a 99 overall. These players can however not be used in Online play so the abuse is only against the game which is a nice catch by EA Sports.

Create a Team is one of the more extensive features but also quite well done. It allows a player to start a NFL team from scratch. The player can select any name and town for their new team and are given a choice of pre-made logos and helmet designs. There are about 30 different logos, ranging from crowns to bulldogs. The player can also design their own uniforms using color finders.  Unfortunately the choice of logos is too limited. A nice feature would have been to allow the player to scan in his or her own designs or use images from the Internet to create a logo. The logos have pre-determined helmet colors which is a shame as you should be allowed to chose the helmet color independently of the logo. No matter how time you spend editing the game uniforms they are always painfully obviously self-made. This is probably a result of the fact that the game designer didn’t use their own uniform editor when creating the original uniforms.

The player can also create the stadium that their team plays on. While the options are varied they lack the same choices as the uniforms. Simply adding more options would most likely solve this issue. The only major complaint and annoyance I have with this feature is that you can only choose from five city backgrounds, such as rural, tropical and city. Instead EA Sports should have put the time into creating 50 different backgrounds that matched the 50 different states of America. They should also be linked to common weather patterns so that a team placed in Seattle would have a city background while often playing in the rain and a team based in Hawaii would perhaps have more tropical background with really sunny weather.

You can also create your own playbook. This feature is for the more experienced players who really want to get in the role of a coach is picking the best plays. The Create a Playbook allows you combine plays from all 32 playbooks and mesh them together to get a playbook that suits your playing style. I have personally never used this feature and I only play with playbooks that already exist. I am for example comfortable with the San Diego Chargers playbooks as I have used them for the majority of my playing experience.  

Features also contains the Rosters of all the teams and allows players to check up on ratings or move players around.

Ring of a Champion is a sort of out-dated achievement feature. Made to look like a Superbowl Ring given to the players of a Superbowl winning team, the player must complete several key moments or features of the game in order to fill out the ring with diamonds. There are four categories – General, Skills drills, Superstar, and Franchise.

General achievements are mostly accomplished in the Feature menu as they consist of things such as Create a Fan and Attempt a Two-Minute Drill. While Superstar mode has participate in an interview and play through an entire season. These achievements are very different from the now more common achievements such as “Kill three zombies with a shovel”, rather this feature tries to push players to make choices they might not have known of or didn’t want to. It’s quite clever and serves a sort of checklist of how to have a more fulfilling Madden 08 experience.

EA Sports Extras is a sort of misleading title of a sub-menu. All it contains is credits for the game developers and designers, a short introduction of the new features added and a commercial for one of their online features.

At the bottom of each game mode there is a Menu button and a Help button. These change accordingly to which ever mode or feature you are currently in. The Help feature explains shortly what the different buttons do in each mode. The Menu button is a collection of variety of things but the most important is probably Settings where the player can change the sliders and difficulty level. 

Madden NFL 08: Menu, Modes and Features - Part 1

Madden NFL 08’s main menu is pretty well designed although some features could be improved. The menu five major sub-menus – Play Now, Play Online, Game Modes, Features, EA Sports Extras.

Play Now is the equivalent of most other games that have a quick play option. It is simply a game between two chosen teams that have no impact on the record of the season or the statistics of the players. Within the Settings it is possible to select on of the 32 NFL teams as your favorite team and this team will automatically be selected for you when entering a Play Now game along with one of the team’s rivals. When you play with the San Diego Chargers the opponent is the Oakland Raiders. These teams can of course be changed in the Play Now menu but is setup this way as you are most likely to pick your favorite team. Although the function of selecting a rival team is great the designers might just have gone with a randomizer instead so that you constantly try beating new teams. Despite this the Play Now game mode serves it purpose – a quick game without any hassle.  

Play Online is as the name suggests, the online version of the game. I rarely play online and have very little experience with this feature. The idea is to utilize player versus player rather than player versus game. For each time a player wins he or she gains points to their online account and this serves as an indication of one’s skills. Players with high scores are paired against other players with similar scores in order to make the games fair. As with most online games this doesn’t always work out, as experienced players may start new accounts in order to be paired up with less experienced players. While I have never been attracted to player versus player, this doesn’t mean it isn’t a game option. Online game play seems to have been the most popular form of game throughout the last few years and player versus game seems to be deemed less attractive.

The Game Modes contains the game’s two major modes – Superstar and Franchise. These two modes are the core of Madden NFL 08 and is similar to other game’s Campaign or Story modes. I’ll go into detail of these two modes in my next journal entry but in short the Superstar mode allows the user to control one player of a team while Franchise mode allows the player to be in control of the entire team.

The other modes are Mini-Camp, Two Minute Drill, Practice, Situation and Skill Drills.

Practice mode is probably the most boring feature but is valuable for players who wish to try out new plays or just tune their skills within the game.

Mini-camp Drill is great mode that allows new players to become familiar with the game mechanics. Placed over the map of the US the player travels from state to state completing small challenges with star players. There is about 10 different activities including passing, running, tackling, coverage, kicking and punting. Each of these activities have four different difficulty levels and a key player attached to each. For example a player will start with Tony Romo, quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys, on Rookie difficulty while they’ll play with the number one rated quarterback Peyton Manning, from the Indianapolis Colts, on All-Madden. A player can only move on to the next difficulty level once they have completed the first level and gotten enough points to earn a trophy. The key players match the difficulty of the level so as to make the player more familiar with playing. Through these camps the player learns the key skills as well as becoming familiar with key players and teams.

Skill drills is similar to Mini-camp but explains how to play more efficiently. The player is playing against a team called The Dummies, who are actually a top team. At the start of each drill a short description of the objective and controls are given. The skills drills serves to teach new players how to get into the game while helping more experienced players become even better.

Situation is similar to Practice but is set up as a real game. At the start a player decides a number of variables such as the score of the game, how much time is left, how many time outs each team has. As the name suggests it allows you to play out different situations where you might need help or simply give you a challenge. You may want to see if you can win a game where you are behind with 10 points and there are only five minutes left or you might want to see if you can keep the opponents from scoring with 10 seconds left.  

An important aspect in both real life football and in Madden NFL 08 is the two minute drill. This is a term used when a team is behind in a game and they have a short amount of time to score in order to either tie the game and force overtime or score enough points to win. Real NFL teams run this drill in their training camps and is vital for players to master if they want to win games. In this feature the player competes in a short of Arcade game where they are given two minutes to score as many points as possible. Points are given for each time a pass is completed or a touchdown is scored, while points are subtracted if a player loses yards or is intercepted by the computer. The goal is to beat your own highscore. While a regular two-minute drill can be quite boring to practice each time adding highscores and points for doing actions adds enjoyment to an otherwise dull experience. It also teaches players how to run a two-minute drill effectively and translates into actual game experience.

Madden NFL 08: Introduction and Difficulty

Madden NFL 08 was the 2008 edition of the Madden NFL series developed by EA Sports and the 19^th installment in the franchise. It was released on August 14^th 2007 on several different platforms including PC and GameCube. Vince Young, quarterback for the Tennessee Titans was chosen for the cover.

Madden NFL 2008 is probably the only video game that I have played consistently throughout the years. I bought it by chance in 2008 when it was on sale in a Danish video game store. Just around that time I was starting to get into American Football and had been watching NFL games at night, due to the time difference. Madden 08 turned out to be last game in the Madden NFL series to be released on PC and since the only platform I had was my PC, I played this game religiously for four years.

There are four difficulty settings that I available in the game – Rookie, Pro, All-Pro, All-Madden. Having played the game for so long, I am now able to play it on All-Madden without any difficulties. The difficulties are a measurement of several variables and mostly affect the abilities of the different players, such as reducing the chance of a receiver catching a pass he otherwise would have caught on Rookie difficulty. Each difficulty level also boosts the AI of the CPU and allows it to predict plays better. Most people complain that the leap from All-Pro to All-Madden is too big and in some ways I agree. I remember when I was trying to switch from All-Pro since I was winning every game to All-Madden and lost almost every game in the season. But if a player plays the game enough there will come a time where All-Madden is too easy (granted it took me 4 years to reach that level).

Luckily it seems as if EA Sports had predicted this problem and have therefore incorporated “sliders” into the settings. The sliders are preset but can be changed to either increase the difficulty of a specific difficulty setting or to make it easier. The sliders control elements such as the Offensive line’s ability to block, or the quarterback’s accuracy. You can change these things for the CPU as well, if you feel like the CPU isn’t giving you enough of a challenge. What is great about these sliders is that they are very custom suited. I for example am more talented at throwing the ball than I am at running it. I may either increase the skills of the CPU’s pass defense or increase my own running play sliders. Some hardcore fans have it as a goal to regulate the sliders so as to match a realistic football game as possible. Unfortunately the fact remains that this is a simulation game, and even years into the future it will remain this way.

Subway Surfers: Part 2

Subway Surfers also seems to have gone in the opposite direction of Temple Run when it comes to design. The characters are colorful and bright and the narrative takes place on a sunny day with bright blue sky. Rather than being semi-depressing like Temple Run, this change of scenery is appreciated and quite nice.

If a player has played Temple Run the controls come quite easy. For new players it may take a bit longer, especially since there isn’t any instructions on how to play, but the controls come naturally once inside the game.

Even though it uses the same controls as Temple Run (swipe down, up, left and right) this game has added multiple “layers” or levels to the game. A player can run on the ground and on top of trains. They’ve also added the feature that some of the trains are running and that the player must avoid them by jumping to the side or getting up higher and then jumping on to the roof. This aspects adds a much more expansive game play than Temple Run does.

This game also increases in speed the further the player progresses. The obstacles also become more clustered and harder to navigate.

I prefer Subway Surfers over Temple Run. They seem to have worked out some of kinks that Temple run suffers from. The Missions aspect of this game is certainly a big part of that reason, because despite the fact that the main objective is to beat your highscore, the missions add daily and new objectives the game, rather than the same old each time. The only drawback, and which might not be the game itself, but it does have a tendency to lag at very unfortunate moments. There is nothing more frustrating than being close to beating your high score and then not having the game react when you swipe left.

Temple Run: Part 2

The narrative has a mass appeal due to its references to the Indiana Jones movies. It puts the player in place of Harrison Ford as they steal an artifact and try to outrun the dangers of the temple. Acrobatically they dodge all kinds of obstacles. The controls are nice and simple and it’s a good thing they are. As the game increases in speed it’s important that the controls are a natural reaction to what is happening – swiping up to jump, to the left to go left and so on. There is no need to remember more complex combinations of controls where you have to hold more than one button. The endless format works great for mobile phone games, as they are easy to start up and restart over and over and all that really matters is beating your old high score.

Even though the game takes place in an old abandoned temple in a swap the scenery is very dull design wise. The muted browns and blacks aren’t very visually appealing and the whole game just seems too dark. As with many games of this kind, the basic mechanics of the game don’t make a very interesting game. After a while it isn’t pleasurable to keep running and turning without any greater purpose than to beat a high score. This is obviously the drawback of an endless game. While the store does help overcome a small part of this issue it certainly isn’t enough to keep it as equally exciting each time.

Despite these flaws, Temple Run remains one of the most played games on the iPhone and has paved the way for similar endless run games.

Subway Surfers: Part 1

As mentioned in the Temple Run journal entry, endless run games for the iPhone became quite a hit after it hit the market. One of the spin-offs is a game by Kiloo called Subway Surfers.

The game follows Jake, a young boy that is caught by the railroad inspector and his dog as he is covering a train in graffiti. Jake makes a run for it and must try to escape the inspector.

The menu isn’t quite as clear as Temple Run’s was. There isn’t any button to help new players get familiar with the controls and there isn’t a tutorial available. Instead of an Objectives button, which featured achievements that could be unlocked, Subway Surfers has Missions and Daily Challenges. The Missions are made up of 3 smaller objectives that the player can complete, such as collect 1000 coins or roll 40 times. Once a Mission has been completed the player is rewarded with a higher score multiplier, which increases by 1 per Mission set completed. The Daily Challenge is a daily event similar to the missions but where the player can win extra coins. The coins can be used in the store, where they like in Temple Run can be used to buy utilities that give extra lives and head starts as well as upgrading the different power-ups.

The Missions and Challenge feature is something that Temple Run is missing. The missions give the player a constant motivation to actually play the game and try to complete something. The Challenges are nice way of making sure that players will check in each day to see what the challenge is and make sure that they win extra coins.

New Characters can be also be bought in Subway Surfers, some through coins others through special collectible items that only can be found in boxes that appear at random times during game play.