The first big change seems to be the introduction of ‘Pure Shot’. This is being heralded as an innovation to how players shoot on goal. Apparently, shooting has been transformed since the last game, giving players the intelligence to adjust their stride, positioning and timing to strike the ball with precision. It seems as though this will make striking the ball more accurate and realistic, leading to more satisfying goals and, most likely, devastating misses. This also seems to go hand in hand with the new ‘real ball physics’, meaning that a well struck shot will leave the soccer ball flying through the air like an arrow and a poor shot will leave it bobbling around the pitch.

EA have also stated that players will now be able to ‘protect the ball’ to help dictate and control play in midfield. This is a welcome addition to the FIFA series. It was something that they attempted with the realistic dribbling and close control of FIFA 13, but it was far too easy to barge the players out of possession. This often left midfield feeling over crowded, with as much free space as my six year old 20GB XBOX hard drive (not much space at all). Hopefully, now players like Arsenal’s Wilshire, Juventus’s Pirlo and Barcelona’s Iniesta will actually be able to control play, make powerful runs and pick those characteristic pinpoint passes with enough room to swing a proverbial cat.

In previous FIFA titles, scouting was incredibly passive, allowing your scout to jet to far off lands and bring back players like some exotic animal that was best seen and not used. These players often took an age to improve and were never really overly useful for the team. Now it seems as though the players you’ll be bringing in could have a real effect on your squad. Hopefully this will enable you to choose players with attributes that will actually help refine and boost your squad rather than just sit on the bench, sucking away at your precious budget. Finally, EA have promised that AI players will have attacking and defending intelligence. Now, this was a change that they initially brought to FIFA 13 but, sadly, it wasn’t overly effective. Players did seem slightly more intelligent, true, but they still made idiotic mistakes that, in professional soccer, would leave a player benched – probably for eternity.

It looks like FIFA 14 is shaping up to be the best the series will have ever offered. I’m pretty sure that I said that in last year’s FIFA preview. Keep an eye on inMotion Gaming for all of the latest information on EA’s next instalment to the FIFA series.

Written by

Alec Ward

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5) Call of Duty 2

What’s that you’re asking? “Why, Alec; there are so many Call of Duty games, what made you pick number two?” Well, intrigued reader, I’ll tell you. It’s because the second Call of Duty was the best. Hands down, it gets no better than this. A good friend and I used to play Call of Duty 2, back in the day, on our old 20GB Xbox 360s. We were an unstoppable online team. We’d rack up the headshots with the Kar98k and tear people a new one with the PPSh – Rambo would literally eat his heart out. The reason that I loved it so much, and prefer it to the other CoDs, is because it’s simple. The teams were small (4v4) and the game modes were uncomplicated. There were no fiddly achievements to struggle to unlock, or unnecessary perk systems, it was all about having fun. And that’s what gaming with a friend is about, having fun … and winning, of course.

4) Army of Two

With the pending release of Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel on the 26th of March, I’ve come to realise how much I loved this game. To be perfectly honest, I don’t remember much of the story. All I can really remember about the game are a few of the main missions and key boss fights, that and dying a lot. What really sticks in my mind, though, was the fact that I played this with my brother. My brother and I love a good game or two, especially if it’s a co-op, and Army of Two is really built to play with a friend. If anything, the game seems sad when you play it alone. I’m pretty sure EA made the AI intentionally unresponsive and generally useless, just so that gamers would be forced to play it with a buddy.

3) Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 has a whole bunch of stuff going for it. Its single player campaign was surprisingly fun and incredibly well designed, the game is responsive and realistic and you can blow the hell out of buildings – which is always fun. However, where it really shines is in its multiplayer modes. Online play is incredibly enjoyable, just because there’s so much to do. You can play the game in so many different ways that it’s almost impossible to be bored. Have your friend pilot a helicopter whilst you parachute out and capture objectives. Drive a tank whilst your buddy plays ‘let’s make that guy a colander’ with the mounted machine gun or bale a truck into a gas station and kill all of your friends onboard – Battlefield 3 is endless amounts of fun. The squad system makes it easy to play online with your friends and even easier to make new friends – as it randomly adds you to a depleted squad. You never know, you might just make a gaming buddy for life.

2) FIFA 13

There are so many reasons as to why FIFA 13 is both the best thing ever created and, at the same time, the bane of my life. The online play is one of those reasons … or all of those reasons. I’ve spent many an evening playing ‘Pro-Clubs’ with two of my best friends. If you’re not aware, ‘Pro-Clubs’ is an online game mode where players are able to create a ‘Virtual Pro’ and join a club with other friends. In this club of pros you will be able to pick a position and then play against other teams of like minded gamers. This is both an amazing experience and, I’d imagine, one of the reasons a person might turn to drink. It’s rewarding and frustrating, enjoyable and gut-wrenchingly painful – but it doesn’t half feel incredible when you win. But FIFA 13 is just as fun to play locally as it is online. Grab a few friends together and make yourself a little tournament or sit down with one other person and play against them to your hearts content. I shall warn you though; it will inevitably end in tears, so maybe stick to playing on the same team.

1) Left 4 Dead

So, here it is – my favourite game to play with others – Left 4 Dead. This game is incredibly well done. It doesn’t profess to be something it’s not. There’s no complicated story arcs or character development, nope – just shooting zombies in the face. Some of my fondest memories come from playing this game online with three of my school friends. We would band together, shotguns and machine guns in hand, and face hordes of the undead – side by side. This led to some of the funniest moments in my gaming history as well as some of the most frustrating. Valve have done such a great job with this game that my old gang has banded together once more and we’ve started playing it again – it’s just that much fun! It’s still as enjoyable and just as frustrating, even 5 years after we initially bought the game.

There you have it, my favorite five games to play with others. I won’t lie, there are tonnes of other games that could have been in here and I really struggled to choose the final five. I’m a firm believer that gaming should be a sociable pass time. There’s no need to play a game on your own if you can play it with friends – picking that special someone to sit by your side, grab a controller and play away will really make the experience that much more rewarding. But hey, I don’t profess to be a co-operative gaming guru. These are my favourites but not necessarily yours. Why not edit my list in the comment section below and tell us your favourite games to play with friends. Also, be sure to keep it here at iMG for a full review of Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel following its release on March 26th!

Written by

Alec Ward

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Gearbox Software’s hit “space western first-person shooter” Borderlands is back for another round, promising you more guns, more loot and more action. The western themed, bandit-ridden, monster crawling world of Pandora is still offering prospective vault hunters the opportunity to make a killing, both figuratively and literally. But with the initial Borderlands title being loved for its quirky nature there really can’t be much more that Gearbox can add. Still, Borderlands 2 is promising that same unique nature that fans grew to love as well as a fistful of new and updated content. Oh, and a lot more guns. We can’t forget the guns.

It seems that Gearbox have opted for slight changes with this sequel rather than a major overhaul, and why wouldn’t they? There’s no need to fix it if it isn’t broken. The first difference can be found in the class system. Although the base follows similar lines as the original title, Borderlands 2 offers the player a much more intricate skill tree. This will hopefully enable better developed characters allowing players to customize their class to suit their playing style. No matter what, the Commando will still be the tech-class, the Gunzerker will be the tank-class, the Siren will be the power-class and the Assassin will be the rogue-class. However the improved skill tree promises to allow players to create their own specifically designed sub-class. Perhaps you like playing sneakily but enjoy a bit of hand to hand combat, the skill tree will hook you up. Your class may no longer be considered a boundary as Gearbox promises a class to cater for any playing style.

Borderlands 2 also offers a host of mini skill based challenges which will allow for greater character customization and development. This will be based on statistics such as number of kills, headshots, shot accuracy and the like. All of these challenges will add up allowing the player to improve such attributes as reload speed and weapons damage. Initially the tokens received from these challenges are relatively small, but as you tot them all up, they will make a real difference to the potency of your character.

Story wise little differs from the original title. You will be playing as four new vault hunters; Axton, Zero, Salvador and Maya, and I really don’t think I need to tell you what you’ll be doing. Well if you don’t know, you’ll be vault hunting. Well vault hunting and trying to gain one over on the crew’s enemy, Handsome Jack. The second instalment does seem to offer more of a story for your money. One nagging issue that I had with the first Borderlands game was that I was never really sure of what I was doing. There was no real structure to the story and it often just divulged into looting for lootings sake. Not that this was a problem, there’s nothing I love more than stumbling across a cool new gun. Have I mentioned the guns yet? How could I have passed them over! Gearbox have promised a,

“New Badass Gun System” with “Millions upon millions of possible weapons”

There have been reports of 87 bazillion possible gun combinations. That’s a lot of guns. More guns than Rambo keeps in his lock-up I’d imagine. The gun collection was one of the best factors of the original title. There was no better feeling than stumbling upon a new, more awesome gun. But there was always a special place in my heart for my favourite gun. I’m afraid the other 86.999 bazillion guns will have to wait their turn. Borderlands 2 not only promises a tonne of guns but it also heralds the return of co-operative play at its best. Borderlands can be played split-screen, online and via a LAN connection. What’s the point in finding bazillions of guns if you can’t share them with your friends?

Borderlands 2 is setting up to be a fantastic addition to Gearbox’s repertoire. Although it isn’t offering much in the realm of “new” it is still offering a return to the key fundamentals that so many fell in love with. Plus a few extra bits to keep us all on the edge of our seats in anticipation for its September 18th release.

Written by

Alec Ward

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The new soccer season has started once more and with it the anxieties for the next instalment from the FIFA series. In the past few years Electronic Arts’ FIFA series has had very little competition. Since the release of Pro Evolution Soccer 6 in 2007 FIFA has left its only competitor in its dust. In North America, on the 25th of September, the twentieth installment from the FIFA series will hit store shelves and if the past nineteen games are anything to go by, gamers are in for a treat. FIFA ‘12 has been dubbed one of the best soccer games of all time and rightly so as EA pulled out all the stops to make it something very special. But, after nineteen years of soccer simulating innovation, surely EA has run out of ideas? Well, if you thought that, you’d be wrong. FIFA Soccer ’13 is setting up to be better than its predecessors with lots of new features that have the potential to spark a great leap forward for the series.

This year’s edition is set to be a real game changer all thanks to a few little tweaks and one new major addition. The biggest change–the introduction of skill games–is making any true FIFA fan excitedly shaking in their virtual soccer boots. This new game mode allows the player to participate in a number of skill based mini-games which promise to test even the most veteran analogue stick twiddler. Challenges in passing, dribbling, shooting, free kicks and penalty taking all offer to showcase FIFA’s improved Player Impact Engine.

In the previous title the subtle skills, manual passing and intelligent AI often went overlooked, even by hardcore gamers, in favour of running in an often uninterrupted straight line. It was much easier to score with a simple finesse shot from just outside the area than it was to play a pretty ball into the box. There was never any need to utilise the Player Impact Engine as the free flowing passing game was easily substituted for an out and out attacking play. EA has taken note of the success of FIFA Street’s dribbling mechanisms so that the players of FIFA ‘13 will now have a greater level of control over the ball. Ugly simplicity ruled the roost in FIFA ’12 but it seems that there is nothing simple about the new style of game play that FIFA ’13 promises to offer.

FIFA 13 | Gamescom 2012 Trailer

But it’s not just the new game mode itself that has FIFA fans aflutter, but what the mode suggests for the overall game play. The new game mode offers the opportunity for gamers to practice their skills in the arena and bring it all to life on the pitch. Long runs could be replaced by one touch passing. Simple shots might be replaced with pin-point strikes of beauty. The utilization of the Player Impact Engine gives gamers the opportunity to build an attack with seamless play rather than bundling the ball into the back of the net. This beautiful game could never be more beautiful, you’d think.

But there are other noteworthy changes which, all combined, bring this FIFA head and shoulders above the rest. EA has given away very little about the other game modes but, in a recent Q&A on Twitter, they answered a few questions about the new and improved Career Mode. Firstly they confirmed that the Player Manager option had been dropped. One of the better aspects of FIFA 12’s career mode was that you could control your pro on the pitch and in the board room but, in the long run, the move makes sense. Mostly because there are hardly any teams, if any at all, that actually have a player manager anymore. EA has also confirmed the reintroduction of international competitions to Career mode and hopefully the Tournament mode as well, though this is unconfirmed. This seems to be a welcome addition, though it may have a negative effect on how we manage our teams in FIFA ‘13.

Why you ask? Well the last thing a manager wants is for his star player to be called up for international duty mid-season. So, depending on the competitions, perhaps some careful planning and intelligent transfers will be in order to help survive those trying times. Whilst we’re talking of transfers, one user asked if the EA spokesperson could explain the changes to the new transfer system. Their reply was that they

“Couldn’t possibly do that in 140 characters! Complete re-write. Will be much more authentic & lots of new features.”

A much more authentic transfer system you say? Maybe we’ll finally be able to have Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo on our favourite team. A dream that was almost impossible in FIFA ‘12 unless you played as Barcelona or Real Madrid as then, of course, the hard work has already been done for you.

FIFA 13 | Skill Games

The free kick mechanism has also had a fancy overhaul. The days of boring free kicks are over now that users can utilise three of their most skilful players to create dangerous and spectacular set pieces. Players have also been promised intelligent AI for both attacking and defending. The Player Impact Engine will allow defenders to push and pull for possession and for crafty attackers to capitalise on indecisive decisions and poor touches. Despite how good FIFA ’12 can be there are always a few aspects of the game that drive players to near insanity. Poor defending AI, misplaced passes, a lack of creative running, poor first touches, hacked players online, the list goes on. All annoyances lead to the same end–grinding teeth, biting nails, the pulling of hair and the breaking of controllers in frustration.

However, FIFA ’13 promises to address these issues and much more. If everything turns out as promised, it’s looking like we’re in for an innovative season of soccer.

Written by

Alec Ward

PS: If you enjoyed this article, help spread the word by clicking the “Like”, “Tweet”, “+1” buttons, or sharing it using the share icons below. Want to read more articles like this? Subscribe to iMG, and get our articles and reviews directly to your inbox or RSS reader.