Madden NFL 08: For the non-fan!

Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA
Released on: August 14, 2007
System: If you can play games on it, you can get Madden on it!
ESRB Rating: E
Review based on: Xbox 360
Official Website: Madden NFL 08

The Scoop: The 2008 version of EA's yearly NFL football game.

Hitting Start...

• "Please pick your favorite team." Trouble already. I'm Canadian and not really a football fan.*
• The trophy room looks pretty cool. It's got a little stand in the middle for Superbowl rings with a Saints logo (my new favorite team!) in the middle.
  
• Oh here we go. I've got to hit start to bring the menus up. All looks pretty clean and simple.
• I start a game right away. I'll worry about season mode or franchise mode or what ever the hell it's called later on.
• Lots of pretty loading screens outlining the features new to this years game. None of which really mean anything to me since the last football game I played to any extent was about 3 years ago on last generations hardware.
• Finally into the action. The player models look fantastic as do the player animations. The sidelines look a little lifeless but it's a minor complaint in my opinion.
  
• I let John Madden pick my plays starting off as I expect he knows more about football than I do!
• I go though the motions getting the hang of how it all works. It's pretty standard for a beginner. Snap the ball with "A" pick a guy and throw the ball to his corresponding button. Run it and juke, jump, spin and stiff arm your way as far down the field as you can get. (I'm aware the controls can be a lot more complex than that and I'll pick it up in time)
• It's half time and I'm getting my ass handed to me! Maybe the AI John Madden doesn't know what he's doing after all!

...Time to get some Cheetoes and settle in for the second half



Am I impressed?: Yes
How come?: I'm not a football fan but I do enjoy sports video games. I'm the kind of guy who only picks up a Madden game every two or three years and still hadn't jumped onto next-gen Madden. It seems like this year with a 2K football game looming, though still not a NFL game, EA picked up the slack and worked hard to make a better Madden. If you play every year give it a rent and try it out. You may be surprised. But if you're a guy like me and only play every couple of years you should definitely check it out. I think you'll be impressed.

Heavely Sword Demo

Developer: Ninja Theory
Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
Released on: July 27th, 2007
System: Playstation 3
ESRB Rating: Rating Pending
Review based on: Demo download from the Playstation Network
Official Website

The Scoop: A little bit God of War, a little bit hack-and-slash brawler and a whole lotta red hair.

Hitting Start...

• A cut scene starts the game with our heroin and her sister who has a thousand yard stare and something to say that I don't pay attention to, I wanna go kill something because my time is limited. I hit whatever buttons I need to hit to advance...


• I can now run around for a bit and get used to the controls in a safe area; a shiny thing on the ground marks where I can move on to the next area and start playing. After a poking around the controls a bit (which seem nicely responsive) I hit the button to move on.


• Off we jump onto one of four huge ropes and rail-slide down it like it's Jet Set Radio future.


• Here's where the "cineractives" start, the camera cuts down to the bottom of the ropes and the bad guys yell out 'cut the ropes' so now we have to react to on screen prompts as we slide. Left, right, left.... and one last huge jump onto the top of a huge stone spire littered with bad guys.


• I played this bit as a hack and slash since I don't really know any of the controls yet (there's no tutorial) but my buddy is telling me about the flashes of colors the enemies make and about stances, combos and special attacks. I don't really care because button mashing seems to be kicking some ass.


• I failed to make one of the button pushes during the cineractive, so I have a mini-mini-boss on this platform to contend with too. All head-on attacks seem useless, but I execute a special attack on some guy where I slam my sword into his crotch and everyone goes flying! Woot!


• Since I'm flailing a bit I'm also taking on a bunch of damage, but I can't tell if there is a health system like Virtua Fighter or like Rainbow 6 or whatever, it doesn't matter though when you get the camera to zoom in on some special attack like the crotch annihilator.


• Everyone on the platform is dead and the next cineractive starts as you ride the huge crumbling spire (that was held up by the ropes) down to the ground. If you time the button click you land nicely like a cat or like a bag of rocks, I land like a bag of rocks.


• Now it's time to dispatch a few more bad guys, and then three more, obviously tougher baddies run thru the doorway at you and you think "All right, a tough fight!"


• And the demo is over, just like that...

"...and I want more, now!"

Am I impressed? Pleasantly.
How come? Even though the demo is utterly short, and I had only enough time to play thru it twice, I found myself thinking about the game several hours later, wanting to play more. I want to learn how to use the various move and stances and I really like the environments shown in the demo. The scale of the world shown to you at the beginning is huge for a game played on foot, so to speak. There's a lot of verticality and it looks like there's a ton of ground to cover.

The only concern I have right now is that it might be an ultra linear game where you just move from arena to arena and fight faceless enemies. The demo doesn't show you anything more than that unfortunately.

Welcome to First Impressions

Like you, I enjoy playing video and computer games, but I don't have a lot of time to spare. I'm married with a child, own a house, have a full time job, have a cat that constantly pukes hairballs—I've got a busy life!

Don't you hate it when you’re playing through a game that feels more like work than fun, only to have your buddy tell you "just get past level 3, man; it gets better after that!"

Screw that! A good game will be fun as soon as you hit the start button! Why waste your time drudging through crap only to "hope" the game gets better? If games don't grab you in the first few minutes, then they have failed to bring you an enjoyable experience!

That's why we created this blog. Our plan: play through the first part of a game and post our thoughts. If it doesn’t grab our attention right away, then it gets turfed. But if it makes a good first impression, then we will deem the game “worthy of our (and your) time”.

Hey, it’s like life…it’s all about making a great FIRST IMPRESSION!

Hope you enjoy the site – we hope to have our first review soon!