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With Battlefield 2142: Northern Strike, EA and DICE continue the trend of adding "booster packs" to their popular multiplayer action franchise. Booster packs aren't large enough to be traditional expansion packs, but these relatively inexpensive ($9.99) downloadable additions offer up a small collection of maps and goodies to an audience that's usually voracious for new content. Northern Strike represents the first Battlefield 2142 booster (Battlefield 2 had two), and its three new maps, added vehicles, and one brand-new gameplay mode are a welcome addition to the core game.

Northern Strike is a nice little collection of new maps and vehicles for Battlefield 2142.

In the setting of Battlefield 2142, the onset of a new ice age sparks a fierce war between the European Union (EU) and the Russian-centric Pan Asian Coalition (PAC) as they attempt to flee the cold and resettle in North Africa. The Northern Strike maps are all set in the frigid climes of Northern Europe, offering some cool geography and gameplay dynamics.

Perhaps the best of the new maps is Port Bavaria, which combines a desperate vertical assault up a cliff with intense fighting at the base atop the cliff. Attackers have different routes up the cliff, but they face withering fire from the defenders above. However, another way up is to park an armored personnel carrier at the bottom and take an assault pod up to the top. Then there's Bridge at Remagen, which is in homage to the famous World War II battle where the US Army captured a key strategic bridge over the Rhine River. This map is defined by its soaring, narrow bridge, which serves as an excellent choke point. And then there's Liberation of Leipzig, a warren of alleyways and narrow streets that offers brutal urban warfare.

While Leipzig and Remagen can be used for Battlefield 2142's fun titan mode, Northern Strike also offers up a new gameplay mode called assault lines. This is basically a variation of Battlefield's traditional conquest mode, where both sides battle for a series of control points on the map. The twist is that the PAC, the defenders in the story, have one control point that the EU, the attackers, cannot seize until it controls all other points on the map. This increases the challenge considerably because the EU needs to concentrate its forces to seize the final flag while defending the other flags from capture.


This in-game billboard could be yours, for a price.

In addition to the new maps, Northern Strike introduces a couple of new vehicles. The new PAC Hachimoto is a fast hover vehicle that's a bit tricky to control (it feels like it's slipping on ice), but it's got a nice combination of speed and firepower. Then there's the dreaded EU Goliath, which is basically a land-based Titan. Ponderously slow, the Goliath is armed with multiple turrets and features regenerating armor, which makes it difficult to kill. The only way to take it down is to first destroy the seven glowing panels on the vehicle, which neutralize its regenerating capability. This makes the Goliath a powerful centerpiece that walkers and other units can support, though its glacial speed balances things out for the opposing team.

When you throw in the new medals and unlocks, the Northern Strike booster pack is a relatively inexpensive, must-have addition for anyone who likes to play Battlefield 2142 regularly. There's a lot of good content, and the new maps are some of the best yet for Battlefield 2142. The only thing we could wish for is some kind of graphical upgrade because the engine (based on 2005's Battlefield 2) is starting to look its age. And it's too bad that EA doesn't simply rely on the in-game advertising to offer this booster pack for free to the community. But at approximately $3.33 per new map, it's a reasonable price for the rich gameplay that you will find in the booster pack.

While the core content itself is still plenty good, this port of an Xbox 360 game is weighed down by stability and performance issues.

The Good: Fun, responsive gameplay; engaging, varied career mode; lots of great, subtle detail in the sound design; maria sharapova; surprisingly deep player creation.

The Bad: Menus plagued by the same three generic tunes; facial features can be eerie; less-than-optimal camera angles; animations look choppy; occasional texture dropout.

 

PAM Development delivered a high-quality game of tennis when it originally brought Top Spin 2 to the Xbox 360 a year ago. It wasn't particularly revolutionary, but it offered a flexible character creation system, a playful career mode, first-rate production values, and most importantly, some of the sharpest, most nuanced tennis action to be found anywhere. Aspyr has now brought Top Spin 2 to the PC, and although most of what made the Xbox 360 version great remains applicable here, the passing of time and some sloppiness in the translation make it a less impressive package all around.

 

 

Those weaned on Virtua Tennis may have to adjust to Top Spin 2's more technical style.

 

First off, you should know that this is a game that simply demands you play it with a gamepad, and unsurprisingly, the Xbox 360 controller proves to be ideal. This necessity is driven by the fact that Top Spin has always offered a slightly more technical game of tennis than Sega's standard-bearing Virtua Tennis franchise, though it's still quite easy to pick up. You've got four basic swings, including the aptly named safe swing, which will never go out of bounds, though the other three shot types require a bit more finesse to keep inside the lines. The slice shot flies low and fast and is great for crossing up your opponent; the topspin shot flies straight and bounces high but moves fast and can slip right past opponents who aren't on their toes; and the lob shot, which should be used sparingly, can be very potent against aggressive opponents apt to ride the net.

 

While the four basic shot types can be used at any time, eight additional swings require some portion of your momentum meter. Momentum is gained and lost naturally as you score points and are scored on and can be used for either risk shots, which take up big chunks of your momentum, or advanced shots, which eat up a more modest amount of momentum. The advanced shots are high-powered versions of your standard swings. Risk shots are even more powerful, but as the name suggests, they're rather risky, too. Holding down the assigned modifier button before you start a swing will bring up a rising power meter, which you need to stop right at the top. If your timing is off, you'll botch the shot and likely give your opponent the upper hand. If you nail it, the ball moves hard and fast and can be difficult to return.

 

As potent as they can be, though, risk shots are usually worth taking only during your first serve, when you have a free pass to hit the net. Otherwise, the stakes are too high, and it's prohibitively difficult to keep an eye on the meter and your opponent while also keeping your player in motion in the middle of the match. While the risk shots still don't have an optimal risk-to-reward ratio, they've been refined a bit since the first Top Spin, and they don't have any ill effect on the rest of the gameplay, which is consistently responsive and, thanks to some aggressive and skilled artificial intelligence, regularly quite intense.

 

Digesting all of the tennis jargon in Top Spin 2 can be a bit much if you don't know the sport, and hopping right into the game's exhibition or tournament modes may give you a bit of a rocky start. It's best, then, that you go into the game's career mode, which does a fine job of casually acclimating you to the nuances of the gameplay as you play. Before you start mastering your smokin'-fast ace serves and humiliating dump shots, though, you'll have to create your own custom tennis pro.

 

In addition to offering basics like gender, age, and nationality, the character creation system in Top Spin 2 gives you rather impressive control over the facial features and physical build of your player and is almost comparable to the character creation system found in 2K Games' The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion--though, as far as we could tell, there's no option to create a crazy magic-adept lizard-man tennis pro in Top Spin 2. Maybe next year! There's kind of an "uncanny valley" thing going on with the facial features. The skin tones often have flat, mannequinlike sheens to them, but the player models still feature a good amount of realistic detail. Despite the support of higher screen resolutions, it can be tougher to make the tennis pro you want in the PC version, as the work-in-progress model you're shown during the creation process is blurry and indistinct, making some of the finer details hard to make out. It's odd, because once you're actually in the game everything is crisp and clear. The animation has also suffered in the translation. There's still some nice subtlety to the players' movements, but the smoothness of the Xbox 360 version has been replaced by erratic choppiness. This isn't just a minor aesthetic problem, as it can affect the timing of the gameplay as well.

 

 

The players themselves look good, but the animations can look choppy.

 

Once your player is created and dolled up in some appropriately fresh gear from major tennis apparel companies like Adidas, Nike, Wilson, and Lacoste, you'll start your career at the bottom of the barrel with a rank of 200 and a low-level sponsorship. Your goals over the course of your career are to build up your player's skills, rise in the ranks, and rake in an obscene amount of coin. The game progresses a week at a time, and each week has room for one training event, one tournament event, and one special event. The training events should be your primary concern when you first start off--you won't qualify for most of the tournaments when you first start anyways, and even if you did, the competition will more than likely eat you alive.

 

Training is handled much the same as in the original Top Spin, and the Virtua Tennis games before that, turning the tennis court into the stage for a series of skill-building minigames. Sometimes your task is as simple as hitting specific spots on the court a number of times, but more often than not, you'll be hitting balls into rows of giant dominoes, bowling balls, gigantic tennis balls, and towering walls made out of translucent bricks. The variety of training games you'll encounter over the course of your career has increased since the first Top Spin, and it's a change that helps make the career mode here much more compelling--while training has been a little tedious in the past, the variety and the novelty of the minigames here makes training something to look forward to. Successfully completing a training event nets you stars that you can apply to up to three of the 11 different attributes, techniques, and skills that define your player's performance.

 

 

But training events cost money. Eventually you'll run out of money, and the only way to get back into the black is to participate in and win tournaments. You'll start off competing in minor regional tournaments, which are often held in extremely inauspicious locales such as community centers or outdoor public courts, and go all the way up to centre court at Wimbledon. Aside from the distraction of stands filled with thousands of tennis fans watching you during a grand slam event, you'll find that the kind of surface you're playing on will affect the speed of the game. There are subtle atmospheric differences between the courts, too, such as the casual poolside chatter you'll hear when playing at a Mediterranean resort, the international announcers you'll hear at different venues, the way tennis shoes will squeak across a hardwood floor, or the way a player's grunt will echo in a large stadium (it's just too bad that there isn't a greater variety of grunt sounds). Additionally, no matter where you go, you'll be treated to the same generic rock and hip-hop Muzak over and over again.

 

 

Despite some technical problems and unfortunate camera angles, Top Spin 2 is a good-looking tennis game.

 

Winning or even placing well in a tournament will increase your rank, which will in turn open up bigger and better tournaments to you and will also garner you invites to special events. Before you know it, you'll be playing for your country in special international events, getting invitations to play in private matches for the amusement of wealthy bon vivants, putting on exhibition matches for your incredibly grateful sponsors, and trading barbs with rival players.

 

The career mode goes on for years and years, and if you chose to play every last match yourself, it could take that long to finish it. Taking a cue from the lengthy career/dynasty/franchise modes found in nearly any other serious professional-sport game, Top Spin 2 will regularly let you simulate your matches, and it does it on a surprisingly granular level. You can choose to simulate an entire tournament, all the way down to a single game. So, if you want to step onto the court only when it looks like you might lose otherwise, Top Spin 2 makes it possible.

 

If you'd rather not invest yourself in the career mode, or you'd rather play against someone with a pulse, Top Spin 2 has several options for you. Exhibition matches are available from the main menu, and you can choose both your player and your opponent from dozens of today's hottest tennis stars, including current top-ranked players like Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Maria Sharapova, and Lindsay Davenport. You can also build your own custom tournament, which lets you choose the number of both real and AI players involved, the venue, and the name of the event.

 

Both the exhibition and tournament modes allow for multiplayer action, though Top Spin 2 also features some multiplayer-only modes. The party games are somewhat similar to the training minigames in that they put a wild spin on conventional tennis. Time bomb sees you trying to score points to slow down your own countdown clock; wall breaker challenges you to knock down your opponent's wall of boxes while protecting your own; and splash court covers portions of the court in paint whenever a point is scored. Additionally, Top Spin 2 includes online support for up to four players, though the match options are pretty bland and include only the most basic match types. Also, you can play online ranked matches only with a custom tennis pro, which means you'll have to spend a lot of time in the career mode if you intend to compete seriously online. The online play in Top Spin 2 could and should have been much more fleshed out.

 

 

Top Spin 2 all but requires a gamepad to play right.

 

While it didn't do a lot of technical grandstanding, Top Spin 2 was a sharp-looking game when it appeared last year on the Xbox 360, and all told it still holds up pretty nicely on the PC a year later, though we did experience some strange texture dropout issues. Player portraits would disappear, player clothing would appear as black, and in the strangest occurrence, entire player models would lack any texture at all, making them look as if they just fell out of an iPod ad. The most egregious problem with the presentation also happens to be one of the most basic, and is carried over from the Xbox 360 version. When you're playing solo, rather than being able to keep your player on the side of the court closest to the camera, you'll regularly find yourself on the far side of the court, which presents some frustrating perspective issues. Your only option is to switch to the zoom camera, which is lower and closer to the player. It can take some getting used to, but it's definitely preferable to playing on the back side of the court.

 

Technical hiccups aside, Top Spin 2 for the PC is still a good game of tennis, and its $19.99 price tag makes it that much more attractive. But it definitely has its flaws, the majority of which are so head-shakingly clear-cut it's hard to understand how they made it into a product that is otherwise pretty well thought out. If you haven't cared for tennis games in the past, Top Spin 2 won't change your mind, but if you enjoy the genre, you'll be hard-pressed to find much better on the PC.

 

 

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When it comes to racing, few games out there are as simple or as addictive as those in the TrackMania series from French developer Nadeo. Both 2004's TrackMania and 2005's TrackMania Sunrise offered up a lot of fun as you raced through elaborate, challenging tracks. Now Nadeo is working on TrackMania United, which looks to unify the large TrackMania community with an extensive online system.TrackMania United is even more challenging than previous TrackMania games, but the emphasis is still on fun.TrackMania United has a simplicity to it that's part of its charm. While other games try to incorporate realistic physics or have you worrying about the quality of your car's suspension, tires, engine, and other parts, all you have to worry about is going fast--ridiculously fast. This is a PC racing game that doesn't require a racing wheel, or even a gamepad, to play; all you need are the four arrow keys on your keyboard. Up accelerates, down brakes, and the left and right arrows steer. That's it. You don't even need to worry about hitting other cars, because there are no vehicle-to-vehicle collisions. Nadeo just wants you to focus on the track and driving.This simplicity belies the depth of TrackMania, however. The game's challenging tracks require a mix of driving skill and puzzle-solving, even more so than in previous TrackMania games. Some of the more difficult tracks, for instance, have a new tile that will automatically kill your car's engine when you pass over it, making you coast until you get to the tile that reactivates it. This forces you to drive with little margin for error, as any bump against the rails will kill your momentum. In case you stall out, simply hit the space bar to reset to the last checkpoint (with a time penalty, of course).The single-player modes in TrackMania United remain the same from previous games. In addition to the race mode, there's a puzzle mode that requires you to create the fastest possible track between a start and end point, as well as a platform mode that requires you to navigate through a puzzle-heavy track with as few resets as possible. TrackMania United seems to have better integration with the online leaderboards, as you can easily compare your times against the best in the world (and you'll probably wonder how those drivers managed to achieve their times).Multiplayer seems improved in many ways. When you start the game, you identify your location and TrackMania United sorts all the player bases by region, country, and even city, so you can locate the closest players. A large community supports the game with countless user-made tracks and cars that are shared online. TrackMania United should make that sharing even easier with the new ManiaLink system, which will let you browse user-made content, including models, tracks, and skins. ManiaLink will also help keep you in touch with the community, letting you know about competitions and news. And ManiaLink can also get the latest user-made TrackMania videos, which is a popular feature of the game. United also introduces a new in-game currency system called coppers, which are used to purchase content. The nice thing about coppers is that you don't have to buy them with real money; rather, you earn coppers for simply playing the game, and you earn more by doing well or the more you play.The new ManiaLink system integrates the far-flung TrackMania fan base nicely.TrackMania United will ship with the latest version of the TrackMania track editor, which is the same one used by the developers. This tile-based editor is simple to use: Just select a tile and click to place it, or click and drag the mouse to create a line of it. While the tool is relatively simple, the complexity of the tracks that you can build with it is fairly impressive. You can easily spend hours building a single track if that's your thing. The good news is that you can also download the fruits of other people's labor, if you just want to spend your evenings racing.When you consider the popularity of TrackMania, particularly overseas, TrackMania United is a fitting name for this new game. The online integration seems well thought out, and it should help unify the worldwide community that's grown around the series. TrackMania United is scheduled to ship this summer.

-GameSpot

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