XBL Boardgames| Review

June 01, 2009

XBL BOARDGAMES | REVIEW

OVERALL + (Looks) Neat interface with pleasing transparencies clean layout, smooth animations

(Ergonomics) The button-dropping animation upon changing menu screens is slow, and pressing A during the animation just presses the (invisible) currently selected button pressing A should just skip the animation while staying in the same menu screen (Looks) Backgrounds have spinning game tokens like chess pieces, etc which, in my opinion, look out of place (flying mushrooms with AA bugs) (Known Issue) The left analog stick behaves erratically (Known Issue) Obvious discrepancies in menu styles for the individual games, e.g. the Reversi menu has gray buttons whereas the Backgammon menu has dark-blue, slightly differently shaped buttons (NYI) No difficulty levels in most games (Bug) The text on the Play Online button in the main menu is only visible after the buttondropping animation is complete (Looks) Different graphic theme options would be a plus (Looks) The text throughout the game needs editing for grammar and polish (Ergonomics) Skippable animations across the board (no pun intended) would be nice, e.g. piece-moving animations, etc. (Ergonomics) Exit button inconsistency: Sometimes, the button to exit a screen/game is B and sometimes its X this needs to be streamlined and made into one universal button (Ergonomics) Some menu streamlining is evident compared to the Alpha DS Boardgames I tested, however, there is still room for improvement in my opinion:

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

XBL Boardgames| Review

June 01, 2009

CURRENT MENU STRUCTURE

Single Player Multiplayer Main Menu Achievement Play Online Leader Boards Help Reversi Backgammon Etc Basics Learn Play

SUGGESTED MENU STRUCTURE

Main Menu

Single Player Learn (Includes basics)

Multiplayer

Achievements

Help

Reversi

Play Online

Leader Boards

Play

Backgammon

Splitscreen (W/E)

Etc

Etc

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

XBL Boardgames| Review

June 01, 2009

BOARDGAMES REVERSI + + + + (Gameplay) Strong AI couldnt beat it in Play mode but that may just be me being crap ;) (Gameplay) Hint mode seems useful and the toggle is a good idea (Looks) The animation showing which pieces will be captured is slick (Looks) Overall looks and smoothness levels are good

(Looks) Wrong spelling of Reversi in the boardgame selection menu (Gameplay) The Basics section only has 3 slides showing the board, player pieces and opponent pieces it should also explain how pieces are captured, multiple-line captures, etc (Ergonomics) Basics: Each slides text is slow-scrolling and pressing A entirely skips the text and goes to the next slide pressing A should just skip the text animation, show the text and then, upon pressing A again, it should skip to the next slide (Ergonomics) Cannot select which Learn level to jump to (even if that bracket of levels i.e. easy, medium and hard has been completed) (Ergonomics) Turn indicator could be more obvious, i.e. a glow/highlight or marker (Ergonomics) No Exit or Menu button indicators ingame (Ergonomics) After completing Basics, it should default to the mode selection screen not many people would want to see the basics section twice or more times in a row (at the moment it just restarts the Basics section

BACKGAMMON + (Looks) The board and pieces look excellent

(Gameplay) In Basics, capturing pieces is not explained (Gameplay) In Basics, bearing off is not explained, but the last step says Whoever bears off first wins. (Gameplay) In Basics, the implications of a double-roll are not explained (Ergonomics) In Basics, dice are shown in the middle of the board, whereas they are at the bottom of the left-side-panel ingame (Looks) The highlights showing available slots to move a piece to need better anti-aliasing and the throbbing animation needs better alignment to make it look seamless (Ergonomics) After completing a game in Play mode and leaving the Resultsscreen, the game automatically restarts in play mode maybe it would be better to ask the player what he/she wants to do? (Gameplay) AI seems pretty poor, or maybe its just how the game is (Gameplay) In my personal opinion, it doesnt seem like a fun game, its based off the dice roll result too much

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda

XBL Boardgames| Review

June 01, 2009

MASTERMIND + + + + + + (Looks) Board and tokens look amazing (Looks) The piece-picking animation is a nice touch (Gameplay) Difficulty levels! (Gameplay) Good AI (Gameplay) Challenging game, personally found it fun to play (Looks) Good menu style

(Ergonomics) The Dark Pegs are of a dark-orangish colour instead of black this is a bit disorienting at first (Looks) Slight anti-aliasing issue with the holes on the Hint side of the board (right half) (Bug) Wrong spelling for beginner in the difficulty modes menu tooltip (Gameplay) No option to reset your guess after placing a piece

DRAUGHTS / CHECKERS (Ergonomics) No slow-scrolling text in Basic section (Looks) Hints, board, tokens look good as usual (Looks) No flying mushrooms in the background

(Gameplay) In Basics, there is no explanation of how to capture pieces etc (Bug) In Learn, there is a Hints Off button indicator but that disappears when activated with no replacement Hints On indicator this is not a problem in Play (Ergonomics) There should be a Move Available indicator for when a player thinks his turn is over but there are still other opponent pieces he/she can capture (Ergonomics) In case there is a move available, the movable piece (or one of them) should be selected by default (Gameplay) AI seems erratic it didnt kill my king even when it had a clear chance (Gameplay) No difficulty levels (Ergonomins) Turn indicator could be more obvious (Ergonomics) The CPU player is shown as Player x, x being 1,2, etc; whereas it could be simply be XBox, CPU or CPU 1, CPU 2, etc

SupInfo Game / UBIsoft

Harshal Chheda