In this blog you will find insights into game design decisions, concepts, mechanics and execution from a hard core long time gamer with an extensive gaming collection (over 600 titles) that spans every console ever created from the Pong paddle to the PS3
I'm a huge fan of the Assassin's Creed series, and created a custom team that I've used the last 3 years now in the NCAA series. They can be found here for NCAA 13, and believe there is an 11 and 12 team for them as well if you want an earlier version.
As much as I dislike the animation in EA Football games due to missing frames, I have to admit that I am greatly enamoured with the graphics/art of NCAA 2011. The images are breath taking, and nigh close to the real thing. Here are some more I took with my offline franchise Devine Dragons in a game that went into 4 OT's!
TeamBuilder was originally planned for Madden, but due to other priorities was never able to be delivered. It finally found a home in NCAA 2010 and definitely for the better of the NCAA franchise. Though a year older now, and with little new functionality (from what I have been told), I have found TeamBuilder thoroughly enjoyable to use to create a team, and even more enjoyable to play with my custom team in Dynasty mode. I recently created a team called the Devine Dragons (from a city in Texas, ... Read More
First thing I noticed when playing the game was Gus Johnson coming through all 7 of my speakers, which was nice as few games make use of all surround sound properly, especially on the 360. The next thing I noticed was that the rendering yet again has not been fix. Animations are not fluid and it still looks like I'm looking at a flip through book book from the 1920s rather than a game rendered on a ... Read More
Whether you think NCAA is a great game, or yet another bust, one of the things that stands out about the game, and has for most EA Football games for years, is the still images. While the game failed to fix the rendering problems, and the animations continue to play out faster than the game can render them, when paused, the game looks great. In fact, from the right angles, it's nigh photo realistic.
People have been taking great shots from their games and sharing them online. Don't ... Read More
In March of 2009, prior to learning of the new leadership at Tiburon and the new direction for the Madden franchise, I wrote a forum post titled "Why Madden 2009 Sucks". This was at a time I was extremely frustrated with the quality of Madden as I had just finished up my 1000 points on the XBox 360 and couldn't even continue playing franchise offline.
A couple of months ago inspired by all of the complaints about Madden and all of the negative speculation, I thought I'd have some fun make a top 10 list. I ended up making some bogus news items. This was originally written for a thread on the Madden forums, but the mods didn't think it would go over well and based on the last weeks responses from some users I have to agree. So enjoy these in the spirit they were meant - fun!
EDIT/RETRACTION: Not sure what the best way to do this is as several folks have read it and replied. I could delete it, but folks might claim I was trying to hide it, so I'm choosing to leave it and explain my error.
Upon further review of the video, it looks like Coca Cola Zero Ad is part of the video loop and not part of the game. After last years use of the overlay Ads in the ... Read More
Madden 09 contained a feature called Madden Moments. Now, I can't claim to have played it, but there's one game that I always replay with every football game I own year in and year out, and that's the 1994 NFC Championship game (actually played in January of 1995) where the Dallas Cowboys faced the San Francisco 49ers. I watched this game, I screamed at this game, and the outcome was one that to this day I wish I could change. It's a Madden Moment I would definitely play over and over agian if ... Read More
I'm not a windows fan, especially after purchasing my first MacBook Pro laptop a little over a year ago which I'm still using and loving to this day. However, after viewing this Ad for Windows 7, I have to say I am VERY interested in the new OS. I don't know what it is, but windows has never looked or sounded more sexy.
I absolutely loved the Saints Row series of game. Saints Row 2 so enthralled me that I joined the official forums where I stumbled upon the Stilwater Stories, a collection of short stories written by fans of the games. One of the stories there by Lossefalme really motivated me to take a stab at writing my own story.
The XBox 360 has been the worst console I have ever owned in 30 years of gaming. That in and of itself speaks volumes, but the fact that I'm having to take it apart in order to fix it screams either inferior design or corporate greed. Greed you say? Yes. Greed. In their zest to get to market first, MicroSoft released their XBox 360 to the public knowing full well they had 50+% failure rates. Dumping a product that consistently fails within a year of the sale would typically lead to a ****action ... Read More
I was looking for screenshots for Madden Ultimate Team and came across this image. If you are familiar with Madden and his love for Brett Favre, then you'll appreciate the pic. Enjoy!
There's been a lot of discussions regarding Madden sales, whether they are down or up over the last 5 years. Everyone seemed to have a different opinion on the matter. To clear up the confusion I decided to take a few minutes to graph it out. I used VGChartz.com as the source. Unfortunately they did not have any PC numbers for the game, so I believe the graphs don't quite tell the whole story.
PC sales slid over the years to the point they stopped supporting the PC back in 2008 ... Read More
I have never purchased from GameStop online before, but today that changed as they were having a buy 1 get 1 free on their preOwned games. I ordered 22 games for roughly $250 total or the cost of 4 brand new games. Take a look at the list and see if I got a good deal. For 22 games, the total came to about $11.50 per game. Needless to say, my 'to play pile', just got a LOT bigger.
I absolutely loved the Saints Row series of game. Saints Row 2 so enthralled me that I joined the official forums where I stumbled upon the Stilwater Stories, a collection of short stories written by fans of the games. One of the stories there by Lossefalme really motivated me to take a stab at writing my own story.
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