What's On The Shelf?

Welcome back gamers!

I was racking my brain this afternoon trying to think of something I can give you in the build up to me getting my hands on the Xbox One on Friday. So I decided to give you a sneak peak of the games I currently own.

So here goes...

I know exactly what you're thinking: 'these are the only games you have?'

Indeed, these are the only games I have. The reason being is that I wanted to downsize my 360 collection in preparation for XOne.

 I also wouldn't blame you for thinking 'you own no Call of Duty games'? I used to own every Call of Duty game dating back to Modern Warfare, but after annual let-downs, which got bigger year on year, I decided to trade them all in a get some cash. I also believe that the Call of Duty series is finally being knocked off of it's perch with Battlefield 4 looking fantastic and plays great. However, I think that Titanfall will be the FPS to beat for the next couple of years.

I was waiting for years for any developer out there to come out with a decent Batman game, then Rocksteady got their hands on it, and it was awesome. I had absolutely no complaints about either Arkham Asylum or Arkham City, but I put that down to my bias. They were fantastic games, though. Until Rocksteady left and Warner Bros took over and ruined the combat system.

FIFA 13 & 14 are pretty self explanatory. I am a football fan and FIFA is the best football game on the market. Although, I will say that with each rendition there seems to be a growing number of problems, such as crashing, server connection and the infamous invisible ball/player bug. One thing I can say is my XOne will not be graced with FIFA 14.

Another self explanatory game is GTA V, probably the best game to ever be developed to date. The graphics push the console to the edge of its capabilities and the story line is great (with the exception of ending C).

Portal 2 was another great game. It gave me hours of frustration but it also gave me hours of fun. Who doesn't like listening to sarcastic, evil machines when trying to solve a puzzle?

To round up the other games: 

I completed Fable II. It was fun when I played it but traded in my original copy as it got pretty boring upon completion. My girlfriend then re-bought it and played it once.

I lost interest in Max Payne 3 quite close to the end of the game. That and I bought GTA and FIFA soon after. Bad idea.

Pure is poor, Lego Batman was awesome, never taken Sniper Elite out of the box, barely played Battlefield 3 and SplitSecond belongs to a friend, I let him borrow Far Cry 3, which was one of the best games I've ever played.

That's it guys, an insight into my games collection. Roll on Friday.

-3 Lives Left

Xbox One Tour Part 2: The Games

Hey people and welcome back. Today is a continuation of yesterday's post discussing the new Xbox One console.

After I have spoken about the games I will rate it HIT or MISS.

Let's begin.

FIFA 14. One of the bestselling games of all time and undoubtedly EA Sports flagship title. I am a huge FIFA fan, I've been playing it since FIFA 98. So it may come as a surprise to all of you that I'm actually disappointed with the next-gen version of the game.

The graphics are pretty much the same as the 360 version, some marginal pixel differences. The biggest change was probably how the game played. It felt very slow and the touches felt very heavy.

I think I will be waiting until FIFA 15 to get it on Xbox One. 

MISS

Ryse: Sone of Rome. From the people that bought you Crysis series and FarCry now bring you this great, gladiatorial IP that seems sure to on every shelf of every Xbox One owner, and if it isn't, then it should be.

Graphically it is sublime. I believe it is in full 1080p HD, something that Crytek studios expects for all of its games. It also boasts around 250 special execution clips when finishing off enemies.

One thing that really annoyed me was the fact the button combo's feel really repetitive, mostly using X, A and Y. 

HIT

IT'S BACK! 17 year after the last game the fighting game of all fighting games is back and is exclusive to Xbox One. I was thoroughly impressed when I played it. It was full of beautiful colours, wonderful gameplay, and a ton-load of nostalgia.

It was exactly what I thought it would be: Epic.

Only one question to ask: Jago, Sabrewolf, or Fulgore?

HIT

The feeling I get about this game is that it is finally ready to take over from Call of Duty. Everything was on-point, the spawn system, the maps, the guns, the graphics, the bullet drop, dedicated servers. Yes.

Even better news is that to match these super-huge maps, there is more than likely going to be a major increase in team size on multiplayer, going from 24 to 64.

The game mode on show, Domination, did seem to go on for ages as there wasn't a time limit applied. My guess is that it was just an event feature.

HIT

Where do I start with this game? Of all the driving games I have ever played, I think I would rather play Need For Speed Underground on my old GameCube. This game is simply awful. The only good thing about it is that fact that Top Gear do all the talking.

The cars felt heavy and clunky, the handling was pretty dire. The graphics were good though.

MISS

Undoubtedly the best game on show. Even though it I runs at a disappointing, native 720p (upscaled to 1080p) and 30fps (not 60fps) it extremely pleasant to play. The gameplay was so fun I had to play the demo at least 3 times and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I loved killing zombies with lightsaber's so much that it will be the first game I buy.

HIT

That is it for part 2 people. I hope you enjoyed, stick around for the next one. See ya.

3 Lives Left

Handheld Fun - FIFA 14 for iPad

Hey guys, welcome back to 3 Lives Left.

As planned, today's post is Handheld Fun and I will be talking about the iPad version of FIFA 14.

FIFA 14 is free to download on all mobile and tablet platforms and promises a lot. However, as you would imagine, with a free version of such a huge title there must be costs somewhere along the line. These costs come in the form of having to pay for the privilege of playing Kick-Off mode and Career Mode, both costing £2.99/EUR 3.50/$4.79 each.

One good thing is that Ultimate Team is completely free and any activity that you do will sync to your console copy (if you have one).

It's graphics are pretty good considering the hardware lacks compared to consoles. The game also has full licencing so there has definitely not been any scrimping on game play experience.

There are two different ways to control the movement of your players/team.

One way is to use the Touch Controls. This method allows you to have more control not just over the player that has the ball but also players that don't have the ball e.g. being able to make an attacker go on a forward run and make space for a shot.

The second method of controlling your team is the standard button press commands (pass, shoot, sprint, etc).

One downfall is that every attacking move seems like it is repeated over and over. I don't know if this is down to the game design or if it is down to the fact that the game has to be limited as a result of it being on a handheld device.

Overall there is not much difference in the game other than the graphics and the platform that you play it on.

I would recommend downloading this game if you a FIFA fan purely because it is free and you have access to Ultimate Team.

Anyway, that is it for this week's post. Stay tuned for next week's article - Next Gen Weekend.

Thanks guys,

3 Lives Left

EA Sports Ignite - A Revolutionary New Engine?

Hey folks and welcome back to 3 Lives Left.

As I mentioned in the last post (PS4 vs Xbox One), I decided that I was going to attempt to breakdown EA Sports Ignite, EA Sports' new engine. It would be cool if you guys could put your opinions across on this new system to see what you think about it too.

So, introducing the brand new engine be EA Sports, which will now power games such as FIFA 14, Madden, NBA Live and UFC.

EA Sports have claimed that the new engine will aim to even out all of the issues we witnessed in previous titles. It also claims to have improved Human Intelligence for better decision making (At last!), Living Worlds, whereby the crowds are now in 3D as opposed to being like cardboard, as well as True Player Motion; haven't we heard this somewhere else before?

CVG compiled an article stating that the new-at-the-time Impact Engine would improve on areas such as First Touch Control (yeah, right.), Player Impact (really?), Complete Dribble (fair enough), Tactical Freekicks (erm...?), and Attacking AI (please.).

Below are just some of the screenshots taken from FIFA 13.

Puyol getting a bit aggressive in his old age.

Neymar has lost his heading ability.

Now c'mon, let's be serious EA. You promised a lot and delivered a little. Here are some of the issues that I fell across whilst playing the most recent FIFA title:

- Major glitching (more below)

- Server issues

- Massive lag issues

- More?

I recall one glitch at the beginning of this game's cycle where I saved a Career Mode with Borussia Dortmund and when I loaded the save file again it just crashed and I could not advance on the calender. Bare in mind, I also made it to 2019. I was extremely disappointed.

On many occasions it has also been very common that half way through a match, the football, or an entire player would completely disappear during the game. Imagine playing football without the football? It's just 22 people running after thin air.

Human Intelligence: EA Sports' attempt to not just improve the intelligence of the player you are possessing, but also the intelligence of your team-mates and the opposition. I believe they tried this in the last Impact Engine?

True Player Motion: Another of EA Sports' attempts to improve the gaming experience and the realism of gameplay. Again, I thought this was tried in the last Impact Engine?

Living Worlds: EA Sports' are trying to improve the sidelines and crowds in sporting arena's in order to give the player that immersive feeling that real-life sports stars feel as they enter the arena/stadia. Now although EA Sports have always tried to tweak the crowds and add more venue selection, they have never aimed to bring a real-life situation to the player in regards to offering that 'immersive feeling'.

The head of EA Sports was interviewed by IGN on the new EA Sports Ignite engine and pretty much openly admitted that this new engine was years in the planning and was intended as a protective measure for the next-gen consoles. Find the interview here.

So there you have it guys. The "new" EA Sports engine for the next-gen consoles. I have a feeling it is going to be more of the same. What about you?

Leave your comments below.

See ya later folks.

FIFA 14 - First Thoughts

Hi guys and welcome to the blog. This is 3 Lives Left and here you can find all of the new info on upcoming and current games and films, including my thoughts.

Today I am going to talk about the new stuff that EA Sports has released regarding the new FIFA 14 game. In order to keep this post short I will just be talking about the new career mode.

This screenshot shows FIFA's new scouting system. According to EA Sports, the scouting network and the entire Career Mode no longer bases it's player database off of an Over-All for each player. Instead, at first glance, it seems as though the game will require more tactics and the need to make the right decisions at the right time in terms of what players to buy, what players to sell, how to use the budget wisely, in addition to fielding the right team to get the win.

This is FIFA 14's brand new Career Mode interface. It looks much more crisp and elegant compared to previous installments of the franchise. FIFA 13's Career Hub was not very difficult to navigate around but this new hub looks even easier to navigate around and here's why:

The new RSS Feed replaces the old news feed so that all news can be seen in one, compact section.

Emphasis and extra inclusion of the new Global Scouting Network.

Preview of the next fixture plus other news in a side panel. This may or may not decrease the amount of on-screen pop-ups that we used to get in FIFA 13.

Anyway guys, that is the end of the post. Stay tuned for more info on FIFA 14 as well as other Games and Films.

- 3 Lives Left

For more information on FIFA 14, please visit - http://www.ea.com/uk/football/fifa14