Ridge Racer Unbounded Review

The Good

• Well designed tracks that reward destruction   
• Satisfying takedown system  
• Jumping your car out of exploding buildings   
• Community-led online modes that reward creativity.

The Bad

• Unintuitive track creator   
• Cinematic replays come at expense of gameplay.

Ridge Racer Unbounded is, as its name suggests, Ridge Racer without limits. Your cars are no longer simple drifting machines, but tools of destruction, and the fictitious, urban tracks of Shatter Bay are your calamitous playground. Cars leap, streets explode, and buildings crumble, all while your competitors are turned into fiery, slow-motion heaps of wreckage. This is no mere update to the series. It is a declaration of change, one that confidently throws out the tried-and-true but rapidly aging formula of Ridge Racer to create a blend of all-out destruction and high-speed racing that's tremendously exciting, if not entirely original.

It's easy to see where Unbounded's influences lie: the crumbling cityscapes are lifted from MotorStorm: Apocalypse and Split/Second; the slow-motion takedowns are those of Burnout; and the fast-paced multiplayer action is akin to Blur's. But it's thrown together with a great deal of care. Your cars are varied, plentiful, and oh so shiny. You can pick from all manner of machines, some faster and lighter, others stronger and better in the drift. All have a unique look that mimics real-world classics, yet they retain the pseudo-futuristic style that Ridge Racer is famed for.

Their handling is a blend of old and new too. Drifting still plays its part, but gone is the on-rails feel of old, replaced with a much more dynamic and exciting system that rewards careful timing of the hand brake and judicious tweaks of the steering to make it around corners. Overdo the steering, and you slam straight into a wall. Undercook it, and you won't even make it around the bend. Put simply, you can't coast through drifts anymore. This makes them more challenging, but the rewards for such skilful manoeuvres are greater than before.

The boost bar that fills during drifts isn't just for bursts of speed; it's your primary weapon of destruction. Competitors can be turned into twisted heaps of metal with a well-timed boost to the rear, resulting in spectacular--if overly long--slow-motion wipeouts of flame and shrapnel. Buildings that stand in the way of a straight path down the track are ripe for your boosts too, exploding with a vigour that propels you out the other side in a display of broken glass and rubble that would be worthy of any great action movie.

Such displays of destruction are not only a treat for the eyes, but a key to your success. For every car you wreck, building you destroy, or lamppost you topple, there are points to be won. Even if you don't take a podium place during an event--though there is a bonus for doing so--your time on the circuit isn't wasted: the points you earn from destruction go towards increasing your overall racing level, which opens up new districts (tracks) in Shatter Bay, new cars, and new events. They include Domination races that reward destruction, Shindo races that reward pure racing skill, Drift Attacks that reward your ability to go sideways, and Frag Attacks that reward smashing your opponents into a wall.

Districts you unlock give each event a new lease on life, such is their variety. The dusty, crate-filled roads and tight turns of the Docks area soon give way to the towering concrete skyscrapers of the inner city, with drift-friendly roads, explosive trucks, and mesmerizing jumps making them a joy to race through. The outer city brings with it highways and tight tunnels for close-quarters shunting, while the addition of nighttime races adds more beauty to the already finely crafted and detailed tracks. A minimal HUD consisting of just a speedometer ensures you're given an unobstructed view of the city; finer details like position, lap times, and score are cleverly overlaid onto the environment itself.

There's a case to be made for the cleverness of the multiplayer too, which shuns a traditional lobby-based system for something altogether more personal. A track-creation system lets you craft circuit events to place within a city hub of your very own. You can set a score in any of your events and send it out to the world as a challenge, or grab a group of would-be competitors and go head-to-head in action-packed online races. It's a shame the track editor isn't a little easier to use, due to its flaky camera navigation and confusing tools for placing tunnels, but the resulting circuit designs already add a great deal of longevity to a game that has no shortage of tracks right out of the box. That's not to mention the sheer joy of fragging other players just as they're about to reach the finish line in first place, leaving them to wallow in a fiery mess of machine.

And really, that's what Unbounded excels at: balls-to-the wall, explosive action. Truth be told, it's Ridge Racer by name only and a massive departure from previous games in the series. But there's so much to like here, so much joy to be had fragging your opponents, so much creativity to be poured into the track creator, and so much stupid satisfaction to be had from blowing stuff up that you'd be doing yourself a great disservice to dismiss Unbounded just because it doesn't handle like you're used to, or because Reiko isn't there to mentally undress during loading screens. Ridge Racer Unbounded is much more exciting than that, and much more compelling than anything that has come before. There's no point in looking back. Instead, celebrate the fact that you've got a brighter, sleeker, and more explosion-filled Ridge Racer. It's one hell of a ride.

NCAA Football 13 Review

The Good

• Small though welcome improvements   
• Exciting head-to-head competition.

The Bad

• Locking away Heisman winners is underhanded   
• Poorly designed, unresponsive menus   
• Bland Dynasty mode   
• Host of problems in desperate need of fixing.

In real life, sports are a merciless competition in which only the strong survive. Punishment is swift and severe for teams that languish, so there is a constant push to make huge improvements from one season to the next. Virtual sports are very different. The NCAA Football franchise has been lagging for years, shoving the same basic content out the door without any major changes to keep things fresh. Its lack of evolution goes against everything professional sports have been built upon. And NCAA Football 13 continues this unfortunate trend. Although the gridiron action is solid, dull off-field activities and crushing familiarity make this another tired entry in the stuck-in-the-mud franchise.

There is one notable addition to this year's update: Heisman Challenge. Previous winners of the prestigious trophy are included in a spin-off of the Road to Glory mode, giving you a chance to re-create the past successes of some of the most decorated amateurs to ever lace up a pair of cleats. Don't let historical accuracy limit your creativity. If you always imagined Barry Sanders donning the maize and blue of Michigan, you can break the hearts of millions of Oklahoma State fans by shipping him off to Ann Arbor. There is a definite appeal to putting on the helmet of these former greats. Running around as Charlie Ward before he succumbed to the lure of basketball delivers a nostalgic tug to anyone who grew up wishing the Seminoles would just stop doing their Tomahawk Chop for a second.

Despite the appeal of reliving past glories, there are two obvious problems with Heisman Challenge. The first directly affects the on-field action. Each dimming star has access to Reaction Time, a special move that slows down time. Considering that NCAA Football strives to provide an authentic experience, this out-of-place feature clashes with the realism (or attempted realism) present in almost every other area. Granted, the bar allows for only a few seconds of slow motion per play, but it refills quickly, so you can use and abuse it to your heart's content. The second major problem is a victim of the downloadable-content craze. Six of the players require an alternate means to unlock (preorder bonus, through the demo, future DLC), which is downright chintzy in a game sorely lacking new content.

Thankfully, once you move away from the Heisman Challenge and into the more team-focused modes, the action is as good as ever. NCAA Football 13 hasn't changed much from previous iterations, but there are a number of small tweaks to the passing game, which the diligent should appreciate. One problem that has plagued the franchise for years is a receiver's inability to properly navigate the sidelines. The frustration from previous games has finally been minimized. An assortment of new animations and improved artificial intelligence ensure receivers now catch the ball inbounds instead of running off the field, oblivious to rules and regulations. Furthermore, quarterbacks are more accurate than ever. Putting touch on a pass or slinging it to a specific place on the field is much easier now, letting you march down the field through the air with the biggest roadblock being your own skill.

The revamped passing game comes at the expense of a diminished defensive impact. Defenders are often slow to react, especially when playing zone, so they pose little threat for a quarterback who's feeling his oats. Interceptions are still handled extremely poorly. Catching an errant throw is completely random because the stone-handed cornerbacks can't hang on to a ball to save their lives. So when you do come away with an interception, it doesn’t feel like a prize obtained through skill and cunning; rather, it feels as if the computer randomly handed out a gift to keep you invested. This problem has existed in NCAA Football for more than a decade, and it's embarrassing that it has resurfaced in yet another entry. Dropped passes make defense feel unpredictable and arbitrary, draining the satisfaction of a well-executed play.

Persona 4 Arena Review

The Good

• Fighting mechanics balance accessibility and complexity   
• Gorgeous visuals and animations   
• Extensive narrative modes.

The Bad

• Inconsistent online play   
• Dry narrative presentation   
• Bare-bones tutorial mode  
• Problems with replay downloading.

Fighting games generally center around two combatants squaring off one-on-one or in a tag-team format. Persona 4 Arena combines these styles, requiring you to control two fighters in harmony: your character and his or her persona, an imaginative creature that fights at your side. The mechanics are easy to grasp--while maintaining a level of complexity in keeping with Arc System Works' pedigree--and support a fully featured game with few setbacks.

As with any fighting game, the quality of the combat mechanics is paramount. The game's basics will be familiar to anyone acquainted with Arc System Works' previous fighters, such as the BlazBlue and Guilty Gear series. Each round, two characters duke it out on a 2D plane using a combination of physical attacks and the abilities of their persona.

One of the most interesting features in this game is the personas: the unique-looking warriors who fight alongside your avatar. At first glance, these secondary combatants may remind you of the "stands" from the 1998 fighter JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. While this is an apt comparison, there are some key differences.

In JoJo's, most stands were toggled on or off, while in Persona 4 Arena, the personas are always active and ready to assist. Generally, a persona's attacks are situational tools--such as an anti-air grapple or projectile. The avatars handle the general-purpose, quick-hitting combos and are complemented by their personas. A few characters, such as Yukiko and Elizabeth, rely more on their personas to do the heavy lifting. Finding a balance between physical- and persona-based attacks, and using both of your fighters in harmony, is an interesting puzzle that's constantly changing depending on whom you're fighting. Plus, the personas' creative designs and outrageous attacks add spectacle to the fight.

Similar to JoJo's stands, personas can be "broken" in combat if they take too many hits. The four cards below your health represent the persona's vitality. Each time a persona is attacked, you lose a card. Lose them all, and you must wait for a brief cooldown to expire before you can call your persona again.

Most cast members also have a unique fighting mechanic. For example, Labrys' massive axe increases in power as she fights, while Aigis has an ammo counter that depletes after certain attacks. Effectively managing these individual traits helps each fighter feel distinct from the rest.

The bulk of the remaining fighting mechanics are managed with a single energy meter. The most important one to master is One More Cancel, which lets you instantly reset your fighter's animation to extend combos or quickly block if you miss a big attack. This technique costs some meter, but its numerous applications add flexibility to the combat system with one simple execution.

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For newcomers, Persona 4 Arena is very accessible, thanks in part to the auto-combo system. Similar to the boost combos in Capcom's Street Fighter X Tekken, auto-combos are a series of easily connecting hits that automatically cancel into a special move, and then into a super move (if you have the meter), simply by tapping one button. This combo is simple to execute, but is hardly the most damaging combo in any character's arsenal. More experienced fighters will find success using their own custom combos.

Metal Gear Solid HD Collection Review

The Good

• Remastered graphics shine on the Vita's bright, high-density display   
• Impressive amount of content   
• Every game in the collection is high caliber   
• Transfarring option extends the value of the product.

The Bad

• Vita-specific controls lack refinement   
• No Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker.

Konami has gone to great lengths to ensure that no man or woman misses the 25th anniversary of the Metal Gear series, reviving classic entries on every current platform with the exception of PCs. Its latest nostalgic stroke is Metal Gear Solid HD Collection for the PlayStation Vita, formulated to the handheld's unique qualities. There are small issues with the new control schemes, but they are minor in the grand scheme of things. The PlayStation 2 games translate beautifully to the Vita's crisp display, and the amount of content within will warm any Metal Gear fan's heart. All told, this collection is worth every penny, and these iconic games will satiate the cravings of game-starved Vita owners in need of quality software.

Barring the unique rendition of Snake Eater on the 3DS, these are the premier handheld appearances for all four included games: Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance, Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence, and ports of the first two Metal Gear games, based on the enhanced mobile phone versions of the classic MSX2 games. The Vita version of the collection carries the unfortunate stigma of omitting Peace Walker, the PSP Metal Gear game included in the equally priced console collections. Truthfully, there's a plethora of Metal Gear content in the Vita version, and any perception of a lesser product quickly diminishes.

The Metal Gear series chronicles the careers of Solid Snake and Big Boss, two soldiers with ties to military operations within and without the US government. The often complex storyline spans all four games, beginning with Metal Gear Solid 3, followed by Metal Gear, Metal Gear 2, and Metal Gear Solid 2. Metal Gear games have always emphasized stealth over action, but the military setting ensures you'll reload your clip from time to time, though you can make do with minimal use of firearms. Part of the beauty of the series is the variety of ways you can complete objectives and the accompanying rewards that entice you to do so

The other half of the Metal Gear love potion is the charming dialogue and the uniquely self-aware approach to storytelling. There are a number of self-references that will fly over the heads of non-fans, but the occasional moments of quirkiness are unavoidable and do a fine job of breaking up the weight of the heavy narratives at hand. There is a distinct personality and style to Metal Gear and once you see it, you can't un-see it. The mix of serious tones and silly easter-eggs might not be everyone's cup of tea, but there's nothing like it among Metal Gear's contemporaries.

As you'd expect, there are new inputs to take advantage of the Vita hardware as well as to compensate for the missing second pair of shoulder buttons. The Vita-specific controls are generally competent and intuitive, with the occasional exception. The main touch-screen functions are mirrored between Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, allowing you to peek around corners with a swipe and camera-zoom during cutscenes by maintaining a single point of contact. You can also zoom when looking through weapon scopes or binoculars by swiping up or down. Most importantly, the touch screen acts as the input for switching and toggling equipment, a feature that works flawlessly in lieu of additional shoulder buttons.

The rear touch pad has specific functions for each of the MGS games, only some of which are documented in the manual. Within first-person perspective in MGS2, swiping to the left or the right temporarily moves your character one step in the respective direction. If you pinch outward, also in first-person view, Snake or Raiden stands on tiptoe. When hanging, you can swipe down with two fingers to initiate a pull-up (used to level up your character's grip strength) and swipe left or right to shimmy in either direction.

Spec Ops: The Line Review

The Bad

• Stiff movement mechanics   
• Relentless killing overrides moral dilemmas.

Spec Ops: The Line is a game rife with contrast. In the sandstorm-wracked city of Dubai, refugees huddle in crude shanties erected in the opulent atriums of luxury hotels, and soldiers construct rough outposts in swanky rooftop clubs. On these makeshift battlefields, most of your time is spent casually gunning down hundreds of enemy combatants, but your squadmates still argue passionately over the value of one anonymous virtual life. Mechanically, Spec Ops is an utterly commonplace third-person shooter, but narratively, it strives to raise philosophical questions and put you outside of your comfort zone. These contrasts create some intriguing moments, but they are too often muddled by mediocre 

The environmental design is one of the highlights. A fierce sandstorm has left Dubai with an entirely new geography, one defined by sliding dunes and sandy canyons. Trapped by the swirling debris, the citizens are forced to create makeshift shelters amid the towering skyscrapers, carving out settlements in the luxurious wreckage. Walk just past the glittering peacock statues and extravagant mosaics to find rickety cots, shabby walls, and dirty sheets.

A battalion of American soldiers have taken up residence here too, following their failed evacuation attempt, and their military outposts add an ominous air of conflict to the landscape. The artifacts of the aborted exodus tell a story too; cars are abandoned, belongings have been left behind in a hurry, and desperate pleas for help adorn the walls.

These striking scenes are punctuated by the politically charged graffiti that some stranded artist has created around the city, anonymous accusations that target the suffering of the people (smiling images of hotel guests with their eyes hollowed out) and those who helped exacerbate an already bad situation (a skeletal news anchor holding a smiling yellow puppet). The disparate architectural and artistic threads intertwine to create a fascinating landscape, one that is a pleasure to explore despite the merely decent production values.

Unfortunately, no such creativity is found in the actual combat. Gunplay in Spec Ops: The Line is a simple matter of taking cover, popping out to shoot enemies, and advancing to more cover from where you will shoot more enemies. The guns you fire are a fine military array of assault rifles, shotguns, sidearms, and heavy weaponry. The enemies you fire them at return the favor vigorously but lack the kind of artificial intelligence that can liven up a firefight. There are a few neat opportunities to destroy barriers or ceilings and let the environment kill your foes, but the bulk of the time you're serving up headshots to anything that moves (and getting a nice slow-motion flourish for your troubles).

This humdrum gunplay is paired with slightly clunky movement mechanics, which might see you failing to sprint on cue or melee attacking a low barrier instead of vaulting over it. Spec Ops does not compare favorably to its genre peers when it comes to maneuvering around the battlefield, but these shortcomings are rarely an issue in the single-player campaign. In the competitive multiplayer modes, however, they become a hindrance exacerbated by your relative fragility. Some interesting map layouts, a light class system, and a nice array of objective-based modes can create some fun conflicts, but the creaky locomotion makes it unlikely you'll feel invested enough to make a significant dent in the bevy of unlockable weapons, perks, and gear options.

The campaign itself can be completed in under seven hours, and the journey you undertake is inspired by the novel Heart of Darkness, in which a man journeys upriver into the jungle to seek a powerful and enigmatic character who may or may not have gone off the deep end. In Spec Ops, you play as Walker, one of three Delta Force soldiers who arrive in search of Colonel Konrad, an American commander who took his battalion to Dubai against orders in hopes of saving the people trapped therein. It quickly becomes clear that the situation in the city has deteriorated drastically, and there are numerous factions struggling for survival.

Though your mission is to rescue survivors, the first humans you encounter are hostile. A failed attempt at communication leaves you no choice but to fight back, and this pattern repeats throughout much of the campaign, establishing one of the main narrative contrasts of Spec Ops. You're there on a rescue mission, but you just can't seem to stop killing people.

Sometimes, you are given a choice. Try to rescue the potentially friendly operative, or save two innocent civilians? Who is guilty, the man who stole water for his family, or the soldier who administered harsh justice? There are no right or wrong decisions, just a difference in who dies and how. These moments shine a spotlight on your squad chatter as Lugo and Adams chime in on the situation you are presented with. They generally argue different sides and react strongly to what you do, but your character's response is almost always to bully them with talk of "doing what's right" or "doing what you had to do." Then it's back shooting the guys who are shooting at you and exchanging profanity-laden victory shouts. The moments meant to encourage reflection fade to the background, drowned out by the overriding narrative justification of self-defense.

There are some story moments that make an impression, however. There's a humorous homage to the similarly inspired movie Apocalypse Now, and a number of licensed songs are piped in to the battlefield to set an appealing fatalistic tone. Both of these examples are the work of the mysterious Radio Man, a disembodied and incongruously jocular voice emanating from speakers rigged throughout the city. Other moments force you to look at the horrors you've wrought, but these often feel cheap because you so rarely have a choice in your action. It's not until late in the campaign that Spec Ops gets more daring and disruptive with its storytelling, but by then it feels like too little, too late.

The disconnect between the gameplay and the narrative elements of Spec Ops: The Line is numbing, which makes it more difficult to contemplate the murky morality of war in the way the game wants you to. There are some intriguing things to be teased out of your adventure through the lovely ruins of Dubai, but the contrast between ambition and execution makes the experience as unsteady as the shifting sands

UFC Undisputed 3

The Good

• New submission system rewards skill rather than speedy stick rotation  
• Comprehensive tutorials make MMA accessible to all   
• Career mode now focuses on fights and fight preparation   
• It's fun to rewrite history in Ultimate Fights mode  
• Option to share highlights online is a great addition.

The Bad

• Lengthy Title Defense mode lacks a save option   
• Clicking through TV-style intros and such takes too long.

While UFC Undisputed games have always offered great mixed martial arts action, UFC Undisputed 3 is the first in the series that also succeeds outsideof the octagon. It's also a significantly more accessible game than its predecessors, so you don't need to know a reverse mount from a rear mount to enjoy it.

If you're a newcomer to the series, or just in need of a refresher because you haven't played a UFC game in months, UFC Undisputed 3 has you covered with its comprehensive tutorials. Play through the Guided Tutorial mode's 62 quick exercises, and you learn how to perform everything from simple punches and transitions to dangerous moves like foot stomps and soccer kicks that, while effective in the new Pride competitions, are illegal in UFC matches. Some of the tutorials deal with new or significantly changed gameplay mechanics, so they're worth checking out even if you have previous octagon experience. Submissions are now attempted and defended using an entirely new system, for example.

Rotating the right analog stick as quickly as possible was an inelegant way to resolve submission attempts in previous games, and while it was technically skill-based, it wasn't at all analogous with the struggle onscreen. Thankfully this has been addressed in UFC 3, where submissions employ a minigame of sorts. Two icons representing the fighters move around the perimeter of an octagon-shaped graphic and, depending on whether you're attacking or defending, you either chase or try to stay away from your opponent's icon. It's unfortunate that you end up focusing so intensely on this visual representation of the struggle that you lose sight of the actual fighters, but it's a great system regardless, because it's always clear how well you're doing and what you need to do to improve your situation.

Another interesting improvement inside the octagon is the all-new interaction that you have with your trainer. Not only can he occasionally be heard yelling legitimately useful advice over the noise of the crowd while you're fighting, but in between rounds he offers feedback on both positive and negative aspects of your performance. He might congratulate you on your excellent ground-and-pound work while pointing out that you need to do a better job of blocking your opponent's transitions, for example. Furthermore, you have the option to look at an expanded version of his comments that, often, details what you need to be doing with your controller to act on his advice. MMA fighters have such vast repertoires of moves at their disposal that these reminders can prove invaluable.

If you find the move lists of pro fighters such as Anderson Silva, Cain Velasquez, and Scott Jorgensen overwhelming, a great way to familiarize yourself with the basics is to jump into the much-improved Career mode. There, you start out as a relative newcomer to MMA with a much smaller repertoire and significantly lower ratings for your physical attributes and fight skills. You might feel sluggish and underpowered early on, and it's an odd sensation to find yourself in a position in which you simply don't have good moves available. This forces you to master the basics though, and there's a great sense of progression as you train between fights.

Training hasn't always been much fun in UFC games, largely because so much of it was menu-driven. Thankfully, that's no longer the case. Minigames replace mathematics in UFC Undisputed 3, so where physical training used to take place on a spreadsheet, now it involves punching bags, focus mitts, and the like. Training exercises do a great job of reinforcing the idea that you're improving as a fighter, not only because you inevitably get better at them as your career progresses, but because they employ the same controls as the moves that they most obviously benefit. Grabbing large tires and flipping them around on a mat plays in much the same way that taking down opponents does, for example. Also, you no longer need to concern yourself with working training into your schedule in such a way that you leave enough time before a fight to recuperate.

In UFC 3 you typically get to choose one of five opponents for your next fight and then get just two training sessions beforehand, which you can choose to spend improving your skills and physical attributes, or visiting camps to learn and level up moves. You never have to rest, and you never have to waste time clicking through menus that are presented as media opportunities. You might still end up devoting chunks of time to arranging sponsor logos on your shorts and banner, but you don't need to do this often, and the systems in place for doing so (which also include a new option to design your own logos) are far less unwieldy than in previous UFC.

By Justin Calvert