Football Manager 2014 release date announced as October 31

The Football Manager 2014 release date has been confirmed, with publisher Sega revealing the latest instalment to the much loved franchise will land on October 31. Letting you take to the touchline as the manager of your own football team, the Football Manager 2014 release date will see the game hit retailers a full month after the two leading football sims, FIFA 14 and PES 2014 are made publically available. Confirming the new October 31 Football Manager 2014 release date, Sega has pegged the game as “the most feature-packed and technically advanced release in the series’ history.” Said to benefit from more than 1,000 enhancements over last year’s title, the Football Manager 2014 release date will see the game become more accessible, with developer Sports Interactive introducing cloud saves to let you access in-game progress from any computer. “The integration of Steam's 'cloud save' functionality means that managers will now be able to continue a single career across a variety of computers, as long as they are logged into their Steam account,” a Sports Interactive spokesperson said. “What's more, the cross-compatibility between the Windows PC, Mac and Linux versions means that a single career can be continued across any and all of these platforms.” 

 With the October 31 Football Manager 2014 release date covering PC, Mac and Linux versions of the game, Sega has revealed the title will benefit from full Retina display support, as well as the option of creating and exporting YouTube highlight packages from within the game. As well as bringing a raft of improvements to the computer based platforms, the Football Manager 2014 PS Vita edition will be the first mobile version of the game to support a 3D match engine. Discussing the mobile title Sports Interactive stated: “The PS Vita game will also be the first handheld version of Football Manager to feature the 3D match engine.” The developers added: “Football Manager Classic players will not only be able to continue a single career across the three computer platforms, they will also be able to continue that same career while mobile on their PS Vita (the PS Vita version of FM 2014 is also required).”

Managing change in Football Manager 2014

If carrying the weight of a beloved gaming franchise on his shoulders is a burden, Miles Jacobson certainly doesn't show it - in fact, if anything, listening back to my visit to Sports Interactive's head office, it was the interviewer that seemed under pressure.

Interruptions, meandering non sequiturs and, worst of all, repeated attempts to steer the conversation towards my Tonbridge game - I'd had a nightmare. Composure 4, Match Rating 4.2. I'd let myself down, I'd let Eurogamer down, and worst of all, I'd let the fans down.

The thing is, interviewing Miles isn't quite like your standard studio producer pow-wow. His enthusiasm is so infectious you feel like you need to apply topical cream afterwards. Here's

someone who lives and breathes Football Manager, a title that, in its 21 years, has grown from bedroom-coder hobby project to global empire. The studio director had just returned from Korea where a team, under his stewardship, is working on FM Live, yet another offshoot for the series. Add to that the success of FM Classic, mobile iterations and record sales for last year's FM13, it's no wonder he's excited.

"When people say, 'Surely you've added everything you can add,' I actually think they're bonkers." I'm sat in Miles' office, mug of tea in hand, and I feel like I've got off to a bad start. It's been a long-standing criticism of the series that it values complexity for complexity's sake - but, it seems, to lament the addition of fiddly new feature upon fiddly new feature is to fundamentally misunderstand the development process. Football Manager is, above all else, a simulator, and managing a football club in real life is such a complex, nuanced role, with parameters in a state of near-constant flux, that features are never foisted upon the game just to sell another year's worth of copies. Quite the opposite. Making a new Football Manager, more than anything, is about deciding what to leave out.

"We've been doing this process for a long time. The feature meetings were three weeks last year, rather than two, because we had 1500 features to go through. And that's not including the big stuff that's happening in the world of football. That's enough ideas for two years' worth of games in one year."

Miles and the team meet up shortly after each year's release, each bringing their own suggestions to the table. "Whether it's an idea from the forums, something we've heard down the pub, or something that's actually happening in world football, everything gets debated equally."

Each idea put forward then goes to a vote. Below 40 per cent, and it's sent back to the drawing board. Above 90, and it's all but guaranteed inclusion in a forthcoming release. If only football's governing bodies conducted themselves with such fairness and inclusivity.

The tricky part is deciding which of these approved ideas to fast-track and which to hold back, or which ones might simply take too much time. Another consideration is how improvements are best grouped. Some new features for the game's transfer system, for example, have been held ready for this year, where a revamp of the shortlisting system (which controls how the game's AI conducts other managers' purchases) is one of the most prominent changes.

Most important of all, though, is that the game feels like it's reacting to the real world outside of it. The transfer market has changed massively since the shortlist system was created, and the game itself must change in turn.

"For example, you've got a guy playing in the Championship a few seasons ago now playing in the Indian Premier League. And you're starting to see English lower-level players moving abroad to Sweden, to Denmark. That just wasn't happening 10 years ago."

The new, nomadic breed of British player is a mere footnote compared to Financial Fair Play (FFP) - the implementation of which has given the team more than a few headaches. Miles was road-testing the new system on his flight back from the Far East, and it's fair to say that making the system work within the game sounds just as hard as FIFA is finding it to enforce out here in reality.

These difficulties, however, must pale in comparison to those encountered in FM14's new tactics system. Gone are the sliders of old - which allowed you to, say, incrementally nudge your defensive line deeper or further forward - with more nuanced player roles and commands stepping up in their place. The decision to opt for such a radical overhaul is a brave one, particularly with such a passionate fanbase, but the reasons behind it - like so much of what goes in to every new FM - were both technical and grounded in real life.

The match engine, quite simply, had become too sophisticated to work within the 'classic' control system. And the changes, taken under great consideration, should allow for a much more realistic experience of how tactics are prepared on the training ground.

"Going to training grounds is now a big part of my job. Managers don't turn around and tell players, 'I want you to be two notches further ahead.' What managers do is give players roles and explain those roles to them," Miles says.

"With Gary Neville joining Sky last year you saw player roles become a much larger part of the accepted discourse on football - you don't have simple midfielders and forwards any more. You have ball-winning midfielders, anchormen, playmakers - that's how managers speak to players."

With the new system, players will be given defined roles before the game and instructed how to react to different situations on the pitch - essentially expanding on the touch-line shouts feature to give a more natural, organic feel to the control you have of your team. Whether or not the new engine is balanced - yet alone challenging and fun - is something we won't find out until we get our hands on it, but two teams of testers are working around the clock to make sure it's as good as it possibly can be.

"At some point in the future there will be a revamp of injuries in the game - it's something that's moved five times now. The injury module works, but it's not as great as we'd like it to be. We're now working withPhysioRoom, and that'll steer us in the future. It's one area that we've not got completely accurate yet."While I expect finessing and tweaking this most critical part of the game will dominate next year's release, Miles and the team plan three years ahead - and, asked for a world exclusive (I'm sure it isn't) of something we'll see in FM15 or 16, his eyes light up once more.

It says everything about the philosophy of the studio that as drab a part of the game as injuries, something that's hardly likely to lure new customers or secure five-star reviews, is being taken so seriously, and talked about with such clear enthusiasm.

As the way we consume football changes, so must Football Manager. It seems like a simple enough statement, but just thinking back to how football has changed over the last 10 years, let alone 21, makes me realise how Sports Interactive's greatest concern - far from worrying about running out of ideas - must just be keeping up.

"There's so much room for growth. We've been around for 21 years, but I feel like we're only just beginning. We want to entertain as many people as possible. There are other things we could do in the simulations space revolving around football that others haven't necessarily done yet."

NHL 14 Review

It's too bad that EA Sports doesn't have any competition for the hockey gaming market anymore. While the previous two editions of its long-standing hockey franchise were impressively playable--if not exactly groundbreaking refinements of the superb game that was NHL 11--too little of note has been added this time around. EA Sports is really pushing things this year with a game that incorporates nothing significantly new aside from arcade-style hitting, more fighting, and a lame re-creation of NHL 94.

It has now been two decades since NHL 94 changed hockey gaming forever, so EA is marking this with what's ostensibly a souped-up version of the usual release. But just like in Madden 25, there isn't much here worth blowing out the candles over. Game modes are similar to those offered last year. You still play one-off matches, get into careers running a player or a whole franchise, take on GM duties, mess around with Hockey Ultimate Team card-collecting, relive big games from last season in the expanded NHL Moments Live, and take the whole shebang online for multiplayer games, tournaments, and leagues.

Controls are identical to what was offered last year, save for the addition of a one-button deke move and some finicky dangles that are tough to pull off on a regular basis. And like last year, some moves are still overpowered, most notably poke-checking. You can control the nuances of nearly every stride and shot, or drop down to basic button-pushing as was offered in 1994. The game continues to include most of the international hockey world, from Major Junior in Canada and the elite European leagues to the NHL and its minor-pro AHL affiliate clubs. Team rosters are a little messed up, though, apparently dating back to June, and even the first downloadable update includes some noticeable mistakes and omissions, like the absence of the new division names that were announced in July.

Graphics and sound have been ported over almost intact from last year's game. Visuals remain very good, with impressive animations and TV-accurate depictions of players. The broadcast duo of Gary Thorne and Bill Clement spouts the same lines as before, the sound effects are ultrafamiliar, and the soundtrack includes the standard alt-rock lineup of new and old tunes where the most prominent track is Wolfmother's "Joker and the Thief" from its 2005 debut disc.

Additions are present, though they don't amount to much. The big new feature change is that the Be a Pro franchise mode, where you play an up-and-coming phenom or an existing star, has been converted to a slightly more elaborate role-playing experience called Live the Life. It never rises above being more than a half-baked version of what 2K Sports has been doing with its NBA 2K series, where you gain endorsements, design shoes, and even mess around with the media to make a name for yourself. Live the Life functions similarly, but there's no meat on this bone. Interactions are handled through bland text screens. You choose from several possible answers when teams quiz you before the draft, for instance, or simply say yea or nay when sponsors come calling with deals like putting your toothless mug on billboards in exchange for cash.

The results of how you mouth off to your team or the press directly translate to scores given to four audiences--fans, teammates, management, and family--that govern how things work off the ice. Be too much of a prima donna, and your team and management hate you, and might just trade you out of town. It's all too boring and rigid to feel authentic. Scores go up and down immediately after you finish answering questions, making the whole thing seem like you're painting a good guy like John Tavares or a nut like Steve Downie by the numbers, rather than creating a real hockey player.

The other headline new feature is NHL 94 mode. This is a retro option where you play arcade hockey just like you did in the Clinton era. It's a great idea, although it doesn't include many actual retro touches. The mode acts more like a dumbed-down NHL 14 sped up and locked to an old-school top-down camera. You get the distinctive blue-tinted ice, stars under players, 16-bit sound effects, and the zippy action that made NHL 94 so great back in the day. But the game uses the new graphics engine, mostly modern sound effects, and the current rosters.

Other modern touches that could have been more meaningful, like online multiplayer and league play, aren't supported in this mode. Ultimately, it's as if EA Sports couldn't decide between going full retro with the complete 1994 game or doing a modernized take on a classic, so it compromised and did neither. The result is barely a passing nod to this legendary hockey game, with the most standout detail being the bleepy-bloopy music you might remember well from long-ago marathons on the Sega Genesis.

Gameplay changes are also very slight in NHL 14. This is the second year of EA Sports' newest physics engine, but the action on the ice isn't noticeably smoother this time out. Granted, the skating physics are still very good. Momentum continues to be extremely well handled, especially when it comes to sharp turns and stops. Opposing defensemen get really aggressive in front of the net, and it's routine to see the net knocked off its moorings when forwards drive hard into the crease.

Collision detection has been altered to make matches more hit-happy. Now you can lay out opponents just by skating into them with momentum, and you can set guys up in the trolley tracks by hitting them. This adds more of an arcade feel on the ice, with players getting launched into the boards or sent sprawling during virtually every shift. Hitting has been amped up beyond what happens in the authentic NHL, but not to the point where you can turn a player into a Ping-Pong ball that bounces around hammering all comers. You also still have to line up players before you can hit them. Going for the big hit often leaves you out of position and out of the play.

One weird aspect of the emphasis on hitting is how hits coexist with penalties. There's feast-or-famine mentality, where you either get nailed a lot or get away with murder. Players on the receiving end of your hits turn into the boards a lot, resulting in instant penalties for boarding or hitting from behind. This applies a significant potential cost to acting like a tough guy and stepping up to make bone-crushing hits, which is fair and lifelike, all in all. But this somewhat tight interpretation of the rules goes right out the window when it comes to how much time you're given to level a puck carrier. You can demolish an opposing player a good few seconds after he's gotten rid of the puck and receive no penalty for the late hit. That's not so fair and lifelike, even while it can be satisfying when you're dishing out the hit, not taking it.

Along the same rough-and-tumble lines, fighting has been changed dramatically. Scraps now take place as part of the action. Fights aren't given the big production that they've been given in recent years, where the camera switches to a dramatic first-person view whenever players drop the gloves. Now, brawls take place as part of the play and are fought while looking through the usual third-person in-game camera. Where fights were rarer and more sideshow-like last year, now they happen on a regular basis.

There are markedly different types of fights, too. Most evolve right out of the action, with players going at it after a big hit, or one tough guy rushing in to settle a score after a teammate just got leveled. But there are also staged fights, where two tough guys square off out of the blue to rev up their teams. Fighting itself remains the same no matter what the type. You employ basic button presses to pull jerseys, grapple, dodge, and punch.

Even though it's good to see more brawls in NHL 14, especially the reaction ones where someone defends a teammate, the balance is too revved up. Fights are too common on the default settings now, and many are of questionable benefit. Most fights result in both teams earning energy for their lines, regardless of who wins. They often amount to little more than button-mashing for a minute or so, which can make for tedious interludes in the real action. This slows the game down, albeit with the compensation of adding meanness to the game present in real hockey. So you love the new fighting when it adds nastiness to close games between rivals like the Leafs and Sens; you hate it when it drags out blowouts between virtual strangers like the Leafs and Blue Jackets.

Despite the alterations, the general feel is similar to that of NHL 13. The action is insanely fast out of the box. Forwards fly, and pinball passes are common. You need to dial back a lot of the speed settings to get a more realistic game, but it can be done. Artificial intelligence hasn't been improved, and if anything, the game may be stupider. Dumb teammates are a problem when playing games with your pro in Live the Life or when you play games with the controller locked to one position. Your comrades often pause at the blue line, refuse to pass the puck even when you're wide open, and fail to head-man the puck properly. Playing at one position makes this much more of a stop-go game than real hockey, with little of the flow that makes the pro game so great to watch. As a result, you need to stop in full flight a lot of the time to avoid going offside, and hog the puck until a teammate gets into position for a pass.

The flow isn't nearly so bad when playing normally and switching from player to player. More offensive initiative is displayed by your teammates, and you see speedy forwards like Phil Kessel and Alex Ovechkin trying to get well behind the defense and setting themselves up to receive long stretch passes. Enemy defense is still sharp and smothering, giving you a serious challenge when playing on All-Star and above.

As in last year's game, opposing players pounce on loose pucks with unnatural speed. They also forecheck relentlessly and with speed that just isn't possible in the real world. Enemy goalies get their usual boosts at higher difficulty levels, as well. You can often pepper the opposition with point-blank shots from prime scoring positions and come away empty as the enemy keeper goes from post to post faster than you can snap the puck into the top shelf. This remains aggravating, particularly because the enemy goalie always tends to pull off these acrobatics just before your own netminder lets one through his five-hole from 60 feet.

NHL 14 is not a bad game; it's just a very familiar one. The core game remains quite good; the tweaked hitting physics and new fighting model can provide some spice, and the sheer number of solo and online options give you plenty to do. But the new features brought to the table don't add enough over what was available in NHL 13, making this a dubious buy for anyone who still has last year's game and can live without the crushing new hits and more widespread fisticuffs.

Grand Theft Auto V Review

Where do you begin talking about Grand Theft Auto V? Do you start with the vast, varied, beautiful open world? Do you start with the innovative structure that gives you three independent protagonists you can switch between on the fly? Maybe you talk about the assortment of side activities you can engage in, or the tremendous number of ways in which you can go about making your own fun. Or perhaps you dive right into the game’s story problems, or its serious issues with women. GTA V is a complicated and fascinating game, one that fumbles here and there and has an unnecessary strain of misogynistic nastiness running through it. But it also does amazing things no other open-world game has attempted before, using multiple perspectives to put you in the thick of cinematic heist sequences and other exhilarating, multi-layered missions like no open-world game before.

Those perspectives come courtesy of Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. Michael’s a former criminal who’s dissatisfied with his current life of privilege and relaxation. His marriage is on the rocks and he struggles to connect with his shallow daughter Tracey, who dreams of making it big in reality TV, and with his lazy, entitled son Jimmy, who spends most of his time spouting hate-filled trash talk while playing video games online. Franklin’s a talented young driver and repo man who doesn’t seem to have too many opportunities to move up in the world, until he has a chance meeting with Michael. Michael finds Franklin easier to connect with than his own children, and he promptly takes him under his wing and ushers him into a life of big-time crime.

When circumstances reunite the long-estranged Trevor and Michael, the tensions between them complicate the entire group dynamic; Michael, Trevor and Franklin may work together, but they don’t always get along. Their dialogue is sharp and snappy and it’s usually a joy to watch them interacting with each other, but unfortunately, the characters sometimes behave in ways that don’t feel consistent. For instance, Franklin takes the moral high ground in an argument with a paparazzo, then casts his reservations aside to help him take degrading photos of a female celebrity. And when Trevor shows up in Michael’s life after an extended absence, the speed with which the two start working together again is at odds with their deep-seated reservations about each other.And then there’s Trevor, a former friend and business associate of Michael’s who is now a methamphetamine entrepreneur living in a desert town north of Los Santos. Trevor’s a truly horrible, terrifying, psychotic human being--and a terrific character. He possesses a chilling combination of intelligence and insanity, and he’s so monstrously violent and frightening at times that he almost makes the other two protagonists seem well-adjusted by comparison. Exceptional voice acting and animation help make Trevor a character you will never, ever forget, even though you might want to.

Perhaps most troubling is a mission in which you’re instructed to torture a man. Trevor states that torture doesn’t work, and the person ordering the torture is an arrogant and corrupt government official, suggesting that the scene is meant to be a critical commentary on the United States’ use of waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” methods. But the fact that Trevor (and you, if you want to progress through the story) tortures the man regardless, and that he does end up spilling more information as a result, sends a very different message. These moments of hypocrisy and inconsistency diminish the otherwise strong characters; it feels like they are leaping into situations not because it's what they would actually want to do, but because the mission design demands that they must.

Thankfully, the missions are frequently incredible, which makes it a bit easier to overlook the occasional contradictions in character behavior, if not the mixed political messages. The high points of the game are the heists, big jobs planned by Michael and the gang. These jobs usually give you a few different options for how you want to approach a situation, and your choice completely changes how the heist plays out. On one job, for instance, one option has you posing as a janitor to infiltrate a building and plant bombs, then triggering the bombs and entering the building with your crew disguised as firefighters. The other, more direct option involves parachuting onto the building and busting in, armed to the teeth.
These are elaborate, multi-stage sequences that involve prep work. You might need to acquire equipment ahead of time, find a good place to hide a getaway car, and make other arrangements before you’re ready to pull off the job. You also need to select supporting members for your crew, as some jobs may require a hacker, an additional getaway driver, or another gunman. More skilled crew members typically take a bigger cut, but if you hire cheap, inexperienced people, they may end up failing at their tasks and compromising the operation. Of course, not every step of this process is thrilling, but these early steps make you feel more invested in the job when it does go down, and they evoke the feeling of films like Heat in which the slow buildup to the crimes makes the payoff in the action-packed scenes more intense.

Even when not on missions, you can switch between the three protagonists, and the transition is handled via a stylish satellite view sequence that zooms out from one character’s location and then zooms in on another’s, building up anticipation as you wonder what the character you’re swapping to might be doing at this particular moment. Sometimes you find them in relatively ordinary situations; you might happen upon Michael relaxing at home in front of the TV screen, indulging his love of classic movies. At other times, the circumstances you find them in are more dramatic. Trevor might be on the beach in his underwear, surrounded by dead bodies, with no explanation offered for how they got there. Each character has his own contacts and his own missions, and because the characters have such different vibes, the freedom to switch between them at will makes the game feel more multifaceted than it would otherwise. There’s a terrific contrast between the urban lives of Michael and Franklin and Trevor’s existence in a poor, secluded town in the desert.These missions and many others have you switching between characters. You might rappel down a building as Michael, provide sniper cover for him as Franklin, and fly a getaway helicopter as Trevor, all on one mission. In another exciting mission, you take out a plane’s engines from a great distance as Michael, then pursue the doomed, burning aircraft over land as Trevor. It’s exhilarating, swapping between these roles and these perspectives, and it’s part of what makes GTA V the current pinnacle of open-world mission design. Even putting the three-protagonist structure aside, the mission design is frequently surprising and sometimes stupendous. You don scuba gear to infiltrate a heavily guarded laboratory via the ocean, recklessly fly a small aircraft into the bay of a large cargo plane, and get thrust into all sorts of other memorable situations.

The three-protagonist structure also means that you can be engaged in street races in Los Santos one minute, and hunting elk in the forest the next. In fact, the number of activities available to you throughout GTA V’s world is almost staggering. You can play golf or tennis or darts, or participate in races on streets, offroad or on the water. You can take in movies, buy businesses, and play the stock market, which is designed to respond to player transactions, creating an opportunity for collusion and insider trading. You also stumble upon random occurrences in the world from time to time, creating a sense that this is a place with a life of its own. You might go into a salon for a haircut, only to find that the place is being robbed. You might rescue a woman from a burning car wreck who then becomes a potential getaway driver for you on future heists.

And of course, there’s no end to the ways that you can make your own unstructured fun. Maybe you want to use a truck to block lanes of traffic, pour gasoline from a gerry can all around the stopped cars, ignite the fuel and watch the spectacular explosion that occurs. Or perhaps you prefer to see if you can fly under bridges in a jumbo jet. Maybe you want to parachute onto the roof of the tallest building in Los Santos, or climb to the peak of Mount Chiliad. Or you can blow up a gas station and then run into the hills, where you might be safe from the cops but find yourself being pounced on by a bobcat. Whatever kind of freeform mayhem you cause, you’re sure to get the authorities on your case from time to time. Police pursuits here can be tense on city streets, where you might try to find secluded back alleys to hide in until the cops give up the chase. They can also be silly at times; you might shake off some police pursuers just by driving offroad up a hill in plain sight of the cops.

Whether you’re evading the police in a rickety junker or a road-hugging sports car, the handling in GTA V is great, and the fact that vehicles feel so different from each other means there’s a real reason to store the cars you like in the garages at your characters’ homes or in ones you can purchase in the city. Driving is so much fun that you’ll likely enjoy crossing even great distances in the game’s large world, taking in everything from the artwork on buildings along Vespucci Beach to the setting sun reflecting on the Alamo Sea. Should you tire of commuting across Los Santos, however, you can call a cab and warp to your destination.

When shooting breaks out, as it often does in the lives of these criminals, you have a terrific variety of weapons at your disposal that you can customize with suppressors, scopes, flashlights and other doodads. By default, your aim snaps to enemies. This makes picking them off quite easy, but gunplay is a lot of fun despite the ease of aiming, because you’re regularly fending off so many attackers and you still need to make good use of cover to stay alive. If you’re looking for more challenging shooting, you can switch to an aim assist option or to free aim at any time.
There’s so much more to say about GTA V. In series tradition, it has an eclectic assortment of radio stations featuring great songs from numerous genres and eras. In a break with series tradition, it also has an excellent ambient score of its own that lends missions more cinematic flavor. On a less positive note, it’s deeply frustrating that, while its central and supporting male characters are flawed and complex characters, with a few extremely minor exceptions (such as the aforementioned optional getaway driver), GTA V has little room for women except to portray them as strippers, prostitutes, long-suffering wives, humorless girlfriends and goofy, new-age feminists we’re meant to laugh at.

Characters constantly spout lines that glorify male sexuality while demeaning women, and the billboards and radio stations of the world reinforce this misogyny, with ads that equate manhood with sleek sports cars while encouraging women to purchase a fragrance that will make them “smell like a bitch.” Yes, these are exaggerations of misogynistic undercurrents in our own society, but not satirical ones. With nothing in the narrative to underscore how insane and wrong this is, all the game does is reinforce and celebrate sexism. The beauty of cruising in the sun-kissed Los Santos hills while listening to “Higher Love” by Steve Winwood turns sour really quick when a voice comes on the radio that talks about using a woman as a urinal.

So Los Santos is a place of contrasts, of luxury and poverty, tranquility and violence, beauty and ugliness. GTA V is an imperfect yet astounding game that has great characters and an innovative and exciting narrative structure, even if the story it uses that structure to tell is hobbled at times by inconsistent character behavior, muddled political messages and rampant misogyny. It also raises the bar for open-world mission design in a big way and has one of the most beautiful, lively, diverse and stimulating worlds ever seen in a game. Your time in Los Santos may leave you with a few psychological scars, but you shouldn’t let that stop you from visiting.

FIFA 14 Review

There's a change of pace about FIFA 14 that can be a little jarring at first. Those long-used run-and-gun attacks up the center of the pitch so beloved by FIFA players are met here with a steely wall of defence and a disheartening counterattack. This is a slower, more considered take on football that rewards careful buildup play and thoughtful strategy over brash tactics, and boy is it all the better for it. A slew of clever changes to the physics--some visible in the eerily realistic-looking animation and some working their magic behind the scenes--and clever control tweaks set this year's game apart from its predecessors. And in typical FIFA style, it's all wrapped up in some wonderfully compelling game modes and the glossiest of presentations.

This doesn't mean you can carve a mazelike path around the pitch without consequence, though. For every twist and turn you make, your players visibly shift their weight around and throw their arms out to keep balance. Overdo it, and the ball, which is no longer magically glued to a player's feet, drifts wide or too far out in front, giving defenders the perfect opportunity to swoop in and steal it. Naturally, some players are better at keeping control of the ball than others, depending on their stats. Figuring out who's the best man for the job and doling out the right strategy to the players is all part of the fun, and it's made easy thanks to a comprehensive and easy-to-use set of management tools that you can dive into before and during matches.

The best players are better equipped to perform showboating skill moves too, which are easier to pull off since you no longer have to hold down a modifier button. With just a few waggles of the right stick, you can indulge in all manner of body feints, stepovers, and sideways rolls, which--when combined with the looser dribbling and slick animation--look spectacular. The ability to actively shield the ball helps things along, giving you a little more time to plan an attack and giving your player those crucial seconds needed to line up a shot. It works well offensively too; some well-timed shielding lets you throw your player's weight around and turn on sixpence, and allows you to brute force defenders away from the ball.

What this all adds up to is a game that looks and feels more like a real game of football than ever before. AI performs more intelligently, boxing in players on the attack and performing runs in just the right places to create some real shooting chances, even if they're offside a little more often than you might like. And when you do get the chance to try to stick one in the back of the net, the ball dips, arcs, and moves with the kind of unpredictability you'd expect from a small round object being whipped through the air at pace. It's a wonderful thing to see in motion, and when you finally make your way to the box and score after a string of deft touches and considerate passing, it feels like you earned it. There's still an element of FIFA's heavy-handed automation at work here, but with FIFA 14 slowing down the pace and making you work harder for a goal, the automation is far less of an issue than in last year's game.

Off the pitch, things are largely the same, with modes like Head to Head Seasons, Ultimate Team, Online Friendlies, Virtual Pro, and Manager to play through, but they remain the most comprehensive and compelling you'll find in a football game. Real-world statistics ensure that every team is kept up to date before the start of every match, while the excellent EA Sports Football Club keeps track of any points earned and ties them to a real-world team for a ranking on a global league table.

A slick new interface that mimics that of the Xbox 360 dashboard not only looks far better than its predecessor, but also keeps the action flowing smoothly in Career mode thanks to a simpler layout and navigation that lets you access all the core functions with just a few flicks of the analogue stick.

Career mode has received some much-needed tweaks, including the option to disable the first summer transfer window, finally giving you the chance to maintain a real-world squad up until the January transfer window. A Global Transfer Network has been introduced too, which masks a player's overall rating (OVR), so you've absolutely got to use scouts to find the best youth players. A tile on the Career mode page keeps you up to date on scouting progress, letting you choose to move forward with in-depth scouting, after which the OVR is finally revealed and you can decide who to purchase. This is far more engaging than simply hitting up the search box and looking for players with the highest OVRs, and it means you've got to put a great deal more thought into your purchases.

Fun skill minigames, swift loading times, and some excellent commentary (complete with rambling pre-match banter) put the finishing touches on what is a fantastic football experience. And, like previous FIFA games, FIFA 14 is beautifully presented. Animations are smooth, and famous players, kits, and stadiums are faithfully re-created with great attention to detail.

You could argue that perhaps it all looks a little too perfect, and a little bit of grit here and there, along with some players who don't look like they've lost all feeling in their upper bodies, would go a long way towards making the game look even better, though it's still leaps and bounds ahead of the competition.

Despite the lack of a defining new feature to attach itself to, FIFA 14 is far more than the sum of its parts. It's a fundamentally different experience to last year's game, and an entertaining one at that, moving the series ever closer to the realism it so proudly strives for. The only competition FIFA has this year is itself. With a next-gen version just on the horizon, complete with a brand-new engine, you may be thinking about sitting this one out until then. But to do so would mean missing out on what is a fabulous football game, one that feels fresh yet familiar and that pushes even FIFA veterans into new, exciting, and engrossing ways of playing

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NBA 2K14 Review

You have to feel a little sorry for Tim Duncan. Labeled as boring throughout his career, The Big Fundamental captured four rings but never the hearts of the basketball-loving public. And there's no secret why; the man lacks style. A 12-foot bank shot may be an effective tactic, but it's not going to convince a casual fan to jump out of his or her seat to bellow a rowdy cheer. It's why a high-flying underachiever like Vince Carter was so highly touted while a multiple champion could elicit a collective shrug. Style is everything in basketball. NBA 2K14 embraces the artistic expression that surfaces only when trading baskets with sweaty men, and in doing so, it's an impressive and exciting representation of the real sport.

Last year's edition of NBA 2K tinkered with right analog stick control, but 2K14 goes full steam ahead with this initiative. Depending on what direction you move the stick in and how long you hold it, you can mimic the movements of a real NBA player. It's a worthwhile improvement that gives you greater control over how you attack defenders, letting you infuse your own personality into the action. Smoothly performing crossovers, jab steps, sweeping hooks, and even flashier moves such as behind-the-back passes with ease lets you orchestrate a show so entertaining even Miami Heat fans would show up on time to watch.

The improved controls are paired with diverse animations that make anything that could happen on an NBA court seem possible. Fouls happen because of how you and your opponent are positioned, so you know when you're smartly gambling for a steal and when you're just being stupid. Subtle body movements are important in creating (or eliminating) space between two players, and you usually feel in complete control of how things play out. Blocks are now a formidable weapon for a long-armed big man. Driving point guards can't expect to glide effortlessly to the hoop for free layups. If you're just trying to overpower your opponent, you're going to lose. You need finesse to get open shots, which makes you learn the intricacies of your players' skill sets and plan offensive sets accordingly.

There are still some oddities that detract from the realistic action. The most glaring quirk is that players often don't know how to react when there's a loose ball. They may stare longingly at a deflected pass instead of diving to control it, which would be worth a benching in real life. Plus, the ball doesn't always react like it should. Sometimes it might bounce as if covered in glue, or randomly ricochet like a Ping-Pong ball. These hiccups stand out starkly against the otherwise impressive visuals in 2K14. The franchise has always done a fine job of replicating the faces and movements of players, but now the rhythm of the action so closely mirrors the real thing it's almost eerie.

Despite the occasional technical missteps, NBA 2K14 is a great experience that deftly captures the essence of what makes the NBA so appealing. Nothing could perfectly replicate reality, but 2K14 has almost as much personality, and gives you the freedom to perform how you wish. With lifelike animations, realistic player models, and an assortment of moves that would make even Dwyane Wade blush, NBA 2K14 further blurs the line between the real game and its digital equivalent.

F1 2013 Review

If last year's Formula One game made Codemasters' series more accessible, then F1 2013 addresses the time commitment required to enjoy it. The addition of shorter challenge modes, coupled with some interesting departures into the sport's history, makes this year's edition much less intimidating. The bulk of the experience will be familiar to series veterans, but F1 2013 is a varied game that accurately mirrors the tension and excitement of F1 racing.

You begin F1 2013 with the young driver's test at Abu Dhabi's Yas Marina Circuit. This two-day event goes over the basic mechanics of the sport by testing your skills in cornering, handling, and wet weather conditions. It's a worthwhile crash course in the rules of the sport, and a safe place to familiarize yourself with the unique ways in which F1 cars handle. Once you're into the game proper, there are a multitude of modes to choose from, and here lies perhaps F1 2013's greatest achievement. Previous games in the series focused heavily on the full Career mode, which requires a rather substantial time commitment. F1 2013 has modes that finally cater to a much wider variety of play styles and social lives.

If you've got the time to put in, Career mode offers up plenty of challenge, but don't expect much difference from last year. You're asked to join a rookie team and make your way through consecutive seasons composed of full race weekends. If you impress the rest of the pack, better teams offer you contracts as you race your way to F1 glory. Season Challenge mode also returns; it's composed of a 10-race season, with five-lap races and one-shot qualifying. Here, you race to beat your chosen rival for a seat on his team. This compressed season can be completed in a couple of hours, and is much more friendly to those looking to get the season experience without having to dedicate hours of play time.

F1 is really about those incredible racing moments that define drivers and live in fans' memories forever, and this year, a new mode centres on just that. Scenario mode builds on last year's Champions mode by placing your custom driver into 20 testing race challenges. These range from using a safety car situation to close the gap on a rival, to nursing a broken wing back to the pits and attempting to gain back your lost positions before reaching the chequered flag.

For fans of the history of F1, Classics mode allows you to race some of the sport's most famous cars around vintage circuits. The standard version of the game lets you take on the role of famous drivers from the '80s and race around in their historically accurate rides. Sadly, those cars are limited to racing on two classic tracks: Brands Hatch and Jerez. Additional tracks, drivers, and cars from the '80s and '90s are available only in the game's limited-release Classics Edition, or via downloadable content.Some challenges even mirror real-life scenarios, such as Jenson Button's infamous final-lap victory in 2011's rain-soaked Canadian Grand Prix. These challenges are fun to compete in, and because each takes no more than a few minutes, you find yourself returning again and again to attempt them on harder difficulties. On top of this, mid-session saving is finally available across all modes, which means you can leave a race at any stage and return to your save state whenever you want.

The classic cars handle differently from their modern-day counterparts, wildly flying around corners and seemingly losing grip at any moment. Learning how to tame these shrieking, mechanical beasts is incredibly satisfying. Sadly, because of the small number of cars and drivers on offer, races include only 10 competitors cherry-picked from a variety of seasons. It's odd to see cars that never raced against each other sitting on the same grid, but races are enjoyable as long as you can suspend your disbelief.

Classics mode also includes Time Trial, Time Attack, and Scenario modes of its very own, all of which use retro television graphics and an optional colour filter. While the main modes of F1 2013 include voice-over by Sky Sports' David Croft and Anthony Davidson, Classics mode is presided over by the legendary broadcaster Murray Walker. This is a nice touch that floods this area of the game a beautiful wave of nostalgia.

The rest of the modes will be familiar to anyone who has played previous games in the series. Time Trial and Time Attack return, allowing you to attempt record lap times and race against ghost cars. Grand Prix mode is back and lets you step into the shoes of any of this season's drivers and participate in anything from short races to full-length weekends. Multiplayer can be played in split-screen, via system link or online, and Co-op Championship returns for those looking to play an entire season with a friend. This wide breadth of modes would count for naught if the on-track action weren't up to scratch. Thankfully, some minor but noticeable improvements across the board ensure that fighting for position and aiming for a purple lap time are as fun as ever. Rival drivers are smart and overtake you if you leave a gap, protecting their positions if you try to do the same. Each circuit accurately portrays its real-life counterpart, while some wonderful improvements to the lighting and audio design bring each race to life: you find yourself looking off the racing line to enjoy Abu Dhabi's runny sunset, and listening for rival cars screaming through Monaco's tunnel.

The cars are more fallible too; handling varies wildly depending on how a vehicle is set up and what the weather and track conditions are. Wander off the racing line, and expect to pick up marbles of rubber that reduce your grip, while a sudden downpour of rain causes havoc for drivers using the wrong set of tyres. There has been much controversy over the state of Pirelli tyres this season, and this year's rubber falls off the cliff remarkably fast. You might be posting record times one lap, but by the next, your tyres have lost all grip, causing you to lose speed on corners or, even worse, crash. Racing incidents around the track occur more frequently too, and if you find yourself involved in one, expect your pit crew to radio immediately with a "box box box." All this combines to make racing in F1 2013 that little bit more exciting.

Next year will see the sport of F1 change with the introduction of new driving technology, right around the same time a new generation of consoles start appearing in our living rooms. And when that happens, there's a hope that the next instalment of Codemasters' F1 series will be more than just the mere update F1 2013 is. For now, though, there's still plenty of exciting on-track action here to thrill fans of the sport. Compelling challenges, shorter and more varied modes, and some nice nostalgic touches add to an experience that, while familiar, does a grand job of keeping you entertained for a few minutes or many hours.