AFL Live (Xbox 360 and PS3) - OUT NOW!

[Ambrose Burnside]

Oh shit:

The guys played many seasons and earned all the trophies but did simulate the season for some teams, which is the workaround. I played exhibition matches and was waiting for the release copy before going to seasons.

We have found the issue and it effects you if you are playing as the following teams/rounds in season mode.

Teams and rounds to simulate are:

round 6
Carlton
St.Kilda

round 16
North Melbourne
Western Bulldogs

round 19
West Coast Eagles

[jobbidiar]

Thanks for the impressions sounds quite good, looking forward to getting it thursday!

[Pat]

Certainly my good man. Bear in mind I've only played 2 and a bit games so far. The "bit" was my first game, I was getting smashed by Freo so dropped the difficulty down one level from the default and started again

Try picking a good team.

[guttermouth]

Really enjoying it, great fun indeed. Took a bit to get use to the controls, got slaughtered in my first 2 games. When playing the Eagles gave em a good pumping, but Cox killed me in the ruck I rekon I won maybe 2.....Love some of the ahievements...

[Ambrose Burnside]

Certainly my good man. Bear in mind I've only played 2 and a bit games so far. The "bit" was my first game, I was getting smashed by Freo so dropped the difficulty down one level from the default and started again

Try picking a good team.

Essendon and West Coast both have two wins from four games

Really enjoying it, great fun indeed. Took a bit to get use to the controls, got slaughtered in my first 2 games. When playing the Eagles gave em a good pumping, but Cox killed me in the ruck I rekon I won maybe 2.....Love some of the ahievements...

What achievements do you have? My favourite was getting the 'Fruity' one, easily my best goal so far Came close to getting a draw too, I lost to Hawthorn by a point, then beat Freo by a point.

In the ruck, try going for the punch instead of the tap. It seems to help me

[guttermouth]

Two good ones where The beautiful game one, where you soccer a goal through and the End-to-End which is From a kick-in, score a goal without the opposition touching the ball.

[Ambrose Burnside]

We are working on a patch.

Any game that has an update when you first get it near release is what we call a zero day patch - many, many games have this. If the date hadn't been broken we would have been close to the zero day patch.

Awesome news

[Kangawallaby]

My initial impressions after 10 or so games last night....

Just try and remember that this is a game developed buy a tiny studio based on a sport with 18 players on the that has no offside rule and is there for pretty unstrctured when compared to Grid Iron, Rugby and Soccer.

Lets get the negatives out of the way first.
The commentary is terrible especially when compared to other sports games on the market. The graphics are average and the animations do enough to get the job done but arent great by any stretch. Lack of game modes is a bit of a dissappointment but again this is a first effort by a new developer of an AFL game.

Now on to the positives.
This is a really solid game, I really love the way it tries to represent our great game. I think it is so much deeper than I was anticipating, marking contests are affected by body positioning. The kicking game is so much better than any AFL game before the fact i can hit a target on the lead is awesome and so rewarding. Goal kicking is great and at first i though too easy, but get out of Etihad and into some wind and its a perfect balance as its quite easy to take the shot but hard to perfect. Game play is great.

Overall I am wrapped with this first effort by BigAnt and cant wait to see what future installments are like.
If you love footy get this game, keep playing as you will initially get smacked by the AI but once you learn the ruck contests and the nuiances of the marking contests you wont regret sticking with it.

Best AFL game I have played.
Score as a Video Game 6/10
Score as and AFL Game 8/10

Played a few games online too and all i will say is I hate quitters, i got smashed by 45 in one game and played till the end, and the next two games I get up by 5-6 goals and the jerks quit, damn I hate that...... Otherwise the game playes smooth as silk online, as you would expect with all players being in au.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Played a few games online too and all i will say is I hate quitters, i got smashed by 45 in one game and played till the end, and the next two games I get up by 5-6 goals and the jerks quit, damn I hate that...... Otherwise the game playes smooth as silk online, as you would expect with all players being in au.

You'll be pleased to know quitters are punished quite harshly by the game:

The quitter:

• Gets zero XP for that match,
  Has a loss recorded on his stats (it shows in the "forfeits" row, but in every other respect is counted as a loss),
  Loses any progress toward the "dropbear" badge (which gives bonus XP for not dropping out of matches),
  Has his winning streak reset to zero,
  Has his Reliability Rating lowered. Once the Reliability Rating drops past a certain point, the game starts reducing the XP he receives for all future matches until the mark is removed. The only way to increase your Reliability Rating and remove the mark is to finish your matches.

The quittee:

• Still receives an amount of XP for the match (depending on how far along the match was),
  Will still received any badges that have unlocked during that match,
  Is awarded a win if he is quit on during the last quarter -- even if he was losing,
  Won't be awarded a loss, ever, if he is quit on while losing,
  Doesn't lose his winning streak or progress toward the "dropbear" badge.

Why don't I get a win?

• We don't award a win by default when someone ragequits on you, as otherwise it is possible to game the leaderboard: using two accounts, one can give themselves as many wins as they want by simply having the other account constantly quit mid-match.

Some more news on the patch, Big Ant are monitoring the forums for issues, most commonly requested fixes are the Season Mode bug (will definitely be fixed imo), Jack Darling's name and people want sprinting to be more noticable, which will hopefully speed up play and result in less congestion and ruck contests.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Some more info just posted:

Just want to reiterate that a patch is coming. We are looking at peoples concerns and indeed will be making some changes based on feedback here.

On the online quitters front, you have our design as posted yesterday, what do you all think about moving the quit time to a "real" clock (rather than game time) so it's harder for the quitter to judge, and that at any time if you are three goals in front and someone quits you get the win?

I guess the advantage of being local and smaller is that we can be accessible, listen and make rapid change.

[Froggy]

So you all got it on 360?? I looked around London today for it in one of those hope its here because there's so many expats ideas that my brain fed me to make me feel better I'm missing out.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Yeah, 360 JB Hi-Fi post overseas

[Froggy]

fuck I wake up and Ports lost by 3 points to the Gold Coast... wtf they rest Brogan and it's when the Coasts brought in Fraser so they dominate the contests... fuck it's like they are all on crack down there. Hopefully it's not like NBA and has stat updates? Coz it's gonna be fucking hard for me to win the cup with Port lol

[Ambrose Burnside]

Patch details (no release date yet):

Season mode will progress without need to simulate AI games first.
Increased difficulty when playing legend
Decrease injury count
Matchmaking based on player skill, number of players, and reliability
Allow modified teams online
Salary Cap changed to 6.5Million for starting 22 (same as current Collingwood cap)
Anti-Rage code awards a win if 18 points have been scored or a minimum time has been reached (time is a random time from 0 to 4 minutes).
Add players met functionality to PSN
Show PSN/XBLA ID prior to game selection
Save team lineup selections for online play
Save controller settings online (ie manual player select)
Only show Mike if microphone is attached
Reliability loss due to quitters/loss of connection will be fixed and previous loss due to this will be restored.
Display best streak in leaderboard
PS3 issue when controller goes to sleep
Ball up/throw in – punch through goals/behind to award free kick
Ball up/throw in – punch out of bounds to award free kick
PStewart and DStewart stats reversed
Jeff Darling => Jack Darling


There are other items but to announce them would alert people to potential online exploits.

[Ambrose Burnside]

IGN's review is out. I think they're the first. I'll just post the closing comments:

Football fans should heed the old cliche of taking each game one week at a time: AFL video games have a strong foundation with AFL Live, but still have a few years of hard work to go before we can expect genuinely great things. In the end, the highest compliment I can pay to AFL Live is that it looks like it has the makings of a potential top-tier franchise. Is AFL Live a great sports video game? No. Does it feel like football? Sometimes. And for those who have been punished by a decade of near-unplayable AFL video games, ‘sometimes’ will be enough. The rest should keep an optimistic eye on the future of AFL Live and Big Ant.

Source

So, basically, it's what we've all been saying - a great foundation upon which to build I'm confident of sequels too, EB Games sold out of preorder bonuses, and my local JB Hi-Fi has had a big "Preorder Now for Second Shipment" sign up since launch day

The patch should be released within the next week or so (on Xbox, I dunno when poor PS3 owners will get it)

[Ambrose Burnside]

The patch will also add the ability to use the right stick to bump opponents in marking contests

It should also make shepherding the ball through for a goal possible The inability to do so was really starting to annoy me!

Can't wait. Marking still seems a bit hit-and-miss to me, so I tend to go for the spoil too often, so being able to out body opponents should make things a lot more interesting

[Froggy]

I'll grab it when I get home for sure.

[Ambrose Burnside]

Australian Rules Football video games have a long history of mediocrity, so it may not seem much to proclaim AFL Live as the best digital re-creation of the sport to come along in years. The praise may be faint, but it's still deserved, because AFL Live nails the basics of Aussie Rules much more so than other recent attempts, feeling and moving like an authentic re-creation of the fast-moving, bruising sport.

It then goes on to note that the commentary is shit, and it's rather bare-boned (things we've known all along).

Gamespot's Review

[Froggy]

I bought it today, won't be long before i smack west coast down with Port online Ambrose!