digitard
10-12-2005, 03:28 PM
This review is solely dedicated to the game itself, how it plays, and how well I enjoyed things. There have been a ton of reviews that really talk about the features, but how they feel and how the game benefits from them. For a full ‘inclusive’ look at all the main stuff you can check out www.ghtp.net and there is an indepth commentary on that there.
When I sat down to play the XBOX version of MAX’D I was anxious and skeptic at the same time. The original game had come out less than a year ago and now we’re seeing a second re-incarnation and I was anxious to see if those little enhancements and new features really made that much of a difference. After sitting down for a quite a while I can honestly say they do.
The glitches are gone… which will make many a player happy. The developers heard you talking and listened and squashed the bunker/field glitches. They’ve even gone and added a safeguard. If you do somehow find a way out of the field (which I tried for 20mins and couldn’t) it will detect your player exiting the field boundaries and you’re out… simple. So while they feel confident its fixed they put up a second wall just to make sure that crafty player doesn’t manage to find something anyhow. This was excellent because one of the deterents from online play was the constant glitching players.
They've also added BUNKER SWAY so when you hit a bunker it moves slightly and if you smash into it you get more movement giving a much needed realism aspect to that part of the game.
So lets get into the gameplay here. The first thing I really wanted to see was the field creator. I mean that option has been the biggest thing I have wanted in the game since release day. I loaded it up and was struck by how easy it was to create a field. Since I had just created my profile I only had the core airball bunkers but that was enough. I quickly setup a simple field of about 10 bunkers and mirrored it to the other side while creating. Using the ‘field view’ I was able to free float around or view it in standing/crouching/prone positions to make sure the angles and everything was perfect.
So I had my field and I hopped into EXHIBITION MODE and loaded up a bot team to play against and set my character up with the equipment I wanted and started the game. The field ran flawless and the other bots (I put them on Pro which was a bad mistake…lol) played it without an issue. The one thing I had to get used to was my team interacting with me, and me telling them whats going on as well. Using the white button on the Xbox controller or the headset I was able to tell them what bunker I saw people in, they told me, and I could even get them to move up or have them just all move up at once and attack that last lone player. So I played them a few more times and got back into the rhythm of the game and figured I’d give CAREER MODE a shot.
First let me preface, the game runs very similar to the original GHTP. You get the same type of player movement you’ve grown used to but with some new commands using a few trigger options. You can also customize a few things in the controller menu.
Career mode loads like normal… you see the globe/etc, everything seems pretty standard until the first match is about to start. BREAKOUT FEATURE comes up. I had been curious about this because of the control factor, but I was not aware of the ‘little things’ that made it really cool. First you can set your player to lane, run-n-gun to the bunker or just sprint to his bunker spot. Once there you also designate WHERE you want him to shoot after he gets there. So if you have a player run to the back left can you can have him sprint to the bunker, then fire a cross with the back right player and keep the back corners at bay. It also sets that bots ‘field of vision’ so they have a tendancy to pay attention to that portion of the field instead of just going on their own after reload. I had my players do what I mentioned above in the first 3v3 game and I bolted for the center. Once there I saw a guy at the back center so I highlighted his bunker and hit the WHITE key and it yelled out ‘back center’ and as I watched my back players they both checked the back center and my right side player got the drop on him. The feature is awesome for setting up your players. You can also give other commands from the back up to the 50, as well as you can have specific players move up, or the whole team move in for an attack on a last remaining player. After beating the first event I was given the first unlockable field editor part. As you keep going through the events you get the money of course, but you also unlock more and more field components til you can build some insane stuff to share online, or just with friends. While starting the second event one of the Dev’s came in and sat down next to me and picked up the second remote and while in the Team Manager they took control of one of my bots. So then we were split screen playing career mode. You can play up to 4 player split screen all co-oping through career mode.
After that I wanted to learn a bit about the LIVE play so I grabbed Darrin, the XBOX LIVE guru, and he gave me tons of info. He showed me a few things on the game, but since obviously the game isn’t out he gave me info on stuff I wasn’t able to see as well.
First off… in LIVE you have two major options. Normal LIVE play and COMPETITION. In normal LIVE setup its a lot like what we had in GHTP. A solid match-maker and the ability to choose between rooms. The ‘Competition’ screen is where it gets cool. You can setup competitions of up to 32 clans and go through a ‘bracket’ type play til there is a winner. The competition stats system will keep track of things via a leaderboard that keeps track of specific competitions for a week, but also has a ‘all time’ leaderboard based on the points you’ve gotten in competitions. You can setup between 4 and 32 team competitions. The cool thing is that if you play an 32 team event and win you’ll be weighted slightly higher than a 4 man gold trophy so those who play more and more games will get a bit better rating. You can host up to 3 competitions at once and it uses the ingame MESSAGE system to notify players involved in the clans that their games are going to begin. The other excellent part of this is that competition matches, and regular matches are stored differently so you don’t have to worry about people getting into your room cause only invited clans can even check-in to that event. You can also setup the competition rounds to start every 2hrs, daily or weekly at the time of your choosing.
Then you have CLAN SUPPORT. This was a big requested feature. You can have up to 7 players on a clan, and each clan can select a logo and set the rank of their players. You’ll also have the ability to bring up a clan page that gives the logo of the clan, their name, their roster and each members clan status (Captain, Recruit, etc). Its all really cool stuff that I wish I had more time to talk about.
You can play your fields online that you’ve created and they download almost instantly. The cool thing is that even if you haven’t unlocked a part of a field if someones room is running a custom field you haven’t unlocked parts for you can still play it, but you cant create yours until you have unlocked those. So you’re not hindered by it.
After playing the game for a few hours the game is VERY solid. I thought the guys fixed the bugs in the first (including the no tank if you look left w/ gun raised) and put a lot of effort into the new features. I’m probably missing some info here so if you have questions just ask… I’m tired. I’ll probably refine this review tomorrow.
There will also be a guide coming with info on everything. Less of a review, more of a personal recap of TONS of features.
**edit: Updated info on the competition to correct the amount of teams**
** second update: You can hit up www.ghtp.net and pictures of the competition system and clan page are there in the screenshots. **
When I sat down to play the XBOX version of MAX’D I was anxious and skeptic at the same time. The original game had come out less than a year ago and now we’re seeing a second re-incarnation and I was anxious to see if those little enhancements and new features really made that much of a difference. After sitting down for a quite a while I can honestly say they do.
The glitches are gone… which will make many a player happy. The developers heard you talking and listened and squashed the bunker/field glitches. They’ve even gone and added a safeguard. If you do somehow find a way out of the field (which I tried for 20mins and couldn’t) it will detect your player exiting the field boundaries and you’re out… simple. So while they feel confident its fixed they put up a second wall just to make sure that crafty player doesn’t manage to find something anyhow. This was excellent because one of the deterents from online play was the constant glitching players.
They've also added BUNKER SWAY so when you hit a bunker it moves slightly and if you smash into it you get more movement giving a much needed realism aspect to that part of the game.
So lets get into the gameplay here. The first thing I really wanted to see was the field creator. I mean that option has been the biggest thing I have wanted in the game since release day. I loaded it up and was struck by how easy it was to create a field. Since I had just created my profile I only had the core airball bunkers but that was enough. I quickly setup a simple field of about 10 bunkers and mirrored it to the other side while creating. Using the ‘field view’ I was able to free float around or view it in standing/crouching/prone positions to make sure the angles and everything was perfect.
So I had my field and I hopped into EXHIBITION MODE and loaded up a bot team to play against and set my character up with the equipment I wanted and started the game. The field ran flawless and the other bots (I put them on Pro which was a bad mistake…lol) played it without an issue. The one thing I had to get used to was my team interacting with me, and me telling them whats going on as well. Using the white button on the Xbox controller or the headset I was able to tell them what bunker I saw people in, they told me, and I could even get them to move up or have them just all move up at once and attack that last lone player. So I played them a few more times and got back into the rhythm of the game and figured I’d give CAREER MODE a shot.
First let me preface, the game runs very similar to the original GHTP. You get the same type of player movement you’ve grown used to but with some new commands using a few trigger options. You can also customize a few things in the controller menu.
Career mode loads like normal… you see the globe/etc, everything seems pretty standard until the first match is about to start. BREAKOUT FEATURE comes up. I had been curious about this because of the control factor, but I was not aware of the ‘little things’ that made it really cool. First you can set your player to lane, run-n-gun to the bunker or just sprint to his bunker spot. Once there you also designate WHERE you want him to shoot after he gets there. So if you have a player run to the back left can you can have him sprint to the bunker, then fire a cross with the back right player and keep the back corners at bay. It also sets that bots ‘field of vision’ so they have a tendancy to pay attention to that portion of the field instead of just going on their own after reload. I had my players do what I mentioned above in the first 3v3 game and I bolted for the center. Once there I saw a guy at the back center so I highlighted his bunker and hit the WHITE key and it yelled out ‘back center’ and as I watched my back players they both checked the back center and my right side player got the drop on him. The feature is awesome for setting up your players. You can also give other commands from the back up to the 50, as well as you can have specific players move up, or the whole team move in for an attack on a last remaining player. After beating the first event I was given the first unlockable field editor part. As you keep going through the events you get the money of course, but you also unlock more and more field components til you can build some insane stuff to share online, or just with friends. While starting the second event one of the Dev’s came in and sat down next to me and picked up the second remote and while in the Team Manager they took control of one of my bots. So then we were split screen playing career mode. You can play up to 4 player split screen all co-oping through career mode.
After that I wanted to learn a bit about the LIVE play so I grabbed Darrin, the XBOX LIVE guru, and he gave me tons of info. He showed me a few things on the game, but since obviously the game isn’t out he gave me info on stuff I wasn’t able to see as well.
First off… in LIVE you have two major options. Normal LIVE play and COMPETITION. In normal LIVE setup its a lot like what we had in GHTP. A solid match-maker and the ability to choose between rooms. The ‘Competition’ screen is where it gets cool. You can setup competitions of up to 32 clans and go through a ‘bracket’ type play til there is a winner. The competition stats system will keep track of things via a leaderboard that keeps track of specific competitions for a week, but also has a ‘all time’ leaderboard based on the points you’ve gotten in competitions. You can setup between 4 and 32 team competitions. The cool thing is that if you play an 32 team event and win you’ll be weighted slightly higher than a 4 man gold trophy so those who play more and more games will get a bit better rating. You can host up to 3 competitions at once and it uses the ingame MESSAGE system to notify players involved in the clans that their games are going to begin. The other excellent part of this is that competition matches, and regular matches are stored differently so you don’t have to worry about people getting into your room cause only invited clans can even check-in to that event. You can also setup the competition rounds to start every 2hrs, daily or weekly at the time of your choosing.
Then you have CLAN SUPPORT. This was a big requested feature. You can have up to 7 players on a clan, and each clan can select a logo and set the rank of their players. You’ll also have the ability to bring up a clan page that gives the logo of the clan, their name, their roster and each members clan status (Captain, Recruit, etc). Its all really cool stuff that I wish I had more time to talk about.
You can play your fields online that you’ve created and they download almost instantly. The cool thing is that even if you haven’t unlocked a part of a field if someones room is running a custom field you haven’t unlocked parts for you can still play it, but you cant create yours until you have unlocked those. So you’re not hindered by it.
After playing the game for a few hours the game is VERY solid. I thought the guys fixed the bugs in the first (including the no tank if you look left w/ gun raised) and put a lot of effort into the new features. I’m probably missing some info here so if you have questions just ask… I’m tired. I’ll probably refine this review tomorrow.
There will also be a guide coming with info on everything. Less of a review, more of a personal recap of TONS of features.
**edit: Updated info on the competition to correct the amount of teams**
** second update: You can hit up www.ghtp.net and pictures of the competition system and clan page are there in the screenshots. **