Author Bio
Jayson YoungHome Town: Nashville, TN.
Sports: Football, Basketball, Hockey, Soccer
Games: Old: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition, NBA Hangtime, New: All Pro Football 2K8, NHL '09
Teams: Vanderbilt Commodores, Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators, Memphis Grizzlies
OS Username: OS: wEEman33 Xbox Live: wEEman33 BSD
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Tuesday, February 23, 2010
03:02 PM - February 23, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
The men's ice hockey preliminary round officially ended Sunday night, and with its conclusion comes the exciting knockout round of the Olympic tournament.
Here is how the tournament is about the play out, according to NHL 10.
Read More - NHL 10: Olympic Hockey Playoff Sim
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
01:16 PM - February 17, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
Raise your hand if you have ever cursed out an AI teammate in a video game.*All hands go up*
Keep that hand raised if you have ever cursed out an AI teammate in NHL 10.
*Most hands stay up*
For as much fun as NHL 10 can be, there is nothing more frustrating than watching your AI teammates commit dumb mistakes that lead to easy goals for the other team.
And for gamers not familiar with EA's NHL series or hockey in general, keeping those AI teammates on track can be completely mystifying since the game lacks any sort of tutorial that explains how to manage the on-the-fly coaching options mapped to the D-pad.
So for everyone out there who has no idea what a forecheck is or what separates a 1-2-2 High from a 1-2-2 Low, here is a guide that will help you get the most out of your AI teammates in NHL 10.
Read More - NHL 10: Improving your on-the-fly coaching
Sunday, February 7, 2010
03:22 PM - February 7, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
For all its improvements this year, Madden NFL 10 is still far from being a great game; what it is, instead, is a great first step in turning the franchise around from an industry in-joke to a respectable simulation of NFL football.When the football season officially ends on Super Bowl Sunday, Madden 10 may not go down as the greatest football game in recent memory, or even the greatest football game on the current consoles; Madden 10, instead, may be remembered as the game that finally got the Al-Davis-esque Madden series back into playoff contention after years of top-10 draft busts and stuck-in-its-ways ownership.
Here are five off-season moves that helped make Madden 10 a harbinger of continued success in 2010.
Read More - Madden NFL 10: The Game Which Almost Was
Saturday, January 30, 2010
12:23 PM - January 30, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
It is amazing, that in the 27 years since Konami debuted Track and Field in the arcades, Olympic-themed video games have not advanced a single step beyond Konami’s original formula of mashing buttons until your fingers bleed.Only Sonic and Mario have come close in recent years, but not even gaming's most-celebrated duo can compete with one of Konami's least-celebrated titles -- the one that, to this day, continues to surpass the efforts of all other Olympic games -- thus making it a fine recipient of the title "greatest video game Olympian.”
Read More - Tiny Toons, the Olympics, and a Lack of Evolution
Friday, January 22, 2010
06:18 PM - January 22, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
Ask any Xbox 360 owner for an opinion about Microsoft’s downloadable content policies, and the response will likely include the words "rip-off," "nickel and dime" or "horse armor."While the Xbox 360’s "microtransactions" have given developers the opportunity to release new content for games that have already made it to retail, many game companies have been abusing the feature by rationing out downloadable content in small, separate packs (usually at inflated prices) or deciding to withhold content from the original disc so it can become "release-day DLC."
But for every "horse armor" or "dynasty accelerator," there comes the occasional piece of justified downloadable content, such as the Trials HD Big Pack that goes for 400 Microsoft Points ($5).
Read More - Trials HD: Big Pack Review
Thursday, January 21, 2010
12:48 PM - January 21, 2010. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
Like many of the features added to current-gen Madden, Ultimate Team is a mode that performs much better in press clippings than it does on the playing field.While the idea of building a fantasy team of your favorite NFL players is sound, Ultimate Team's execution is poor enough to make even JaMarcus "Mr. Indifferent" Russell blush.
Read More - Madden Ultimate Team Disappointing
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
06:59 PM - December 2, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
It’s sometimes easy to forget that video games are a business like any other -- run, not by consumers, but by corporations and shareholders. Like many businesses outside of the video-game industry, many game companies have recently been forced to downsize their range of products to all but the safest, most essential wares.
For many sports gaming companies, the "arcade" department seems to have been the first group to receive its pink slip in these tough economic times. Fans of the genre have recently seen franchises like EA’s Street games or Midway’s classic Blitz and Jam titles either completely abandoned by the parent company or given little more than a low-risk, low-budget sequel.
But despite EA shutting down its Street brand and taking a year off to reassess its approach to the genre, EA’s relaunched arcade sports department still does not seem to have learned from the mistakes it was making earlier this generation with games like NBA Street Homecourt or NFL Tour, i.e., releasing half-baked sequels that fail to match the modes or features of their last-gen counterparts.
EA’s 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, the company’s first shot to recapture some of its past arcade glory (Mutant League Hockey, anyone?), ended up being a fun but shallow experience that wasted a great hockey engine on a game that was completely bereft of modes or features -- to the point that 3 on 3 NHL Arcade felt more like a mini-game that should have been included on the NHL 09 disc instead of a standalone downloadable game.
The nine months since 3 on 3 NHL Arcade was released does not seem to have taught EA any major lessons. I say that because Madden NFL Arcade is another feature-thin game that, at its $15 asking price, does not seem to justify its status as a full, arcade release. In reality, it’s little more than mini-game that has been lifted from the "arcade mode" included in Madden 10 for the Wii.
Read More - Madden NFL Arcade Review
Monday, November 16, 2009
12:18 PM - November 16, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
If last year’s disappointing Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff was not evidence enough, NBA Unrivaled should help confirm what Tecmo fans have been angrily realizing for the last decade: The company has no idea how to update its classic sports franchises for modern consoles.In Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff there were too few updates to the dated portions of the game's old-school formula. In NBA Unrivaled the developers not only ignored the existing flaws in the source material, but also eliminated the strengths that made Tecmo NBA Basketball an 8-bit/16-bit legend.
NBA Unrivaled has been removed from its simulation roots and turned into the equivalent of a low-budget, Saturday-morning cartoon.
Read More - NBA Unrivaled (DLC) Review
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
12:47 PM - November 11, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
If there’s one area where NHL 2K10 significantly outperforms NHL 10, it’s in the variety-of-goals department. NHL 10, while fun to play, really limits the ways you’re able to generate goals. So hockey fans who pick up the game and try to replicate the kinds of scoring strategies they see on TV might have issues earning wins at first.Fact is, if players wants to score consistently in NHL 10, they have to drop some of those real-life strategies (scoring off clean shots) and lean a bit more on the side of “video-game strategy.”
So with that in mind, here are some ways to consistently score in NHL 10.
Read more - NHL 10: Scoring Strategies
Monday, October 26, 2009
12:16 PM - October 26, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
It's hard to believe that, in spite of the game's reworked control scheme and enhanced animation system, there actually seems to be less human goalies playing online in NHL 10 than there were in NHL 09.While it's true that NHL 10's AI goalies may still be better at the position than 95 percent of their human counterparts, it still seems like a poor reason to avoid what has become -- thanks to this year's tweaks -- one of the game's most fun positions.
So for anyone who is brave enough to step in the net and attempt to become a part of that top five percent who can actually outwork the AI in goal, here are some quick tips that should help you lead your team to victory.
Read More - NHL 10: Goalie Guide
Monday, October 12, 2009
12:06 PM - October 12, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
It has been two full years since a non-EA football sim was released on a Xbox or Playstation console –- five if we disregard 2K Sports’ one-and-done All-Pro Football experiment. No doubt, then, that football fans have been waiting with open arms to embrace any sort of competitor to EA’s continued stranglehold on the genre. But does Nerjyzed Entertainment, an upstart company with a single neglected PC game in its portfolio, have what it takes to tackle the EA football giant that, for 20 years, has dominated the industry with its massive advertising campaigns and multi-million dollar development budgets?
The answer, at least for this year, is no. While developer Nerjyzed nails the "Xperience" of spending a Saturday afternoon at a HBCU football game, it still has much work to do before it gets the "Football" part of its title up to par with the giants of the genre.
Review - Black College Football: The Xperience Review
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Give the NHL 10 team credit, then, for coming the closest anyone’s gotten in recent years to fixing everything that plagued the last version of a sports game -- in this case I'm obviously talking about NHL 09.
Fact is, if you had a problem with something in NHL 09, there’s a good chance it has been fixed for NHL 10:
Read More - NHL 10 Review
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
10:26 AM - September 8, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
Like a lot of sports fans, I have spent time getting to know the “popular girl” of sports gaming, EA’s Madden 10. What probably separates my experience from most is that, as someone who has yet to buy an EA football game this generation, I’m usually content with a rental of the latest Madden or NCAA Football. I'm usually content because a weekend of play tends to be enough time for me to realize that the game is still way behind my old flame, All-Pro Football 2K8, in the one area that matters most: gameplay.
This time around I spent more than one weekend with the game, but now that I have had some time to get a feel for the game, here are some reasons why I feel Madden 10 still can't match up to the standards set by my reigning king of gameplay, All-Pro Football 2K8.
Read More - Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
That’s why it’s refreshing to see that, in 2009, a game like Trials HD can come out of nowhere and deliver the kind of dropkick to the dome that NES classics like Battletoads, Contra and Ghosts 'n Goblins all did back in the day.
Read More - Trials HD Review
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
10:51 AM - August 12, 2009. Posted by RaychelSnr. Written by Jayson Young
As a follow-up to our NFL 2K5 roundtable, I'm here to talk about an EA/Sega rivalry from another era: the Sega Genesis era.Read on to discover the results of this classic matchup as it's re-examined through a modern lens.
Read More - Football Time Machine Tussle: EA vs. Sega
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