A huge thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler who was nice enough to invite me to their football community day this past week at the Tiburon Studios in Orlando, Florida. In this third part of a three part series, I will go over my experiences with Madden NFL 2009.

Initial Reaction
Wow. As soon as you turn on the console be ready for everything EA Sports throws at you. Not just because it’s the latest edition of Madden (as EA Sports has had some some great Madden’s in the past), but because this is the best Madden I have ever played. I will go over some news and notes and bring you some of the cool features that EA Sports is throwing into this year’s game. Read the rest of this entry »

A huge thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler who was nice enough to invite me to their football community day this past week at the Tiburon Studios in Orlando, Florida. In this second part of a three part series, I will go over my experiences with NCAA Football 2009.

Initial Reaction
Upon arriving at EA Sports last week,I was told that NCAA Football 2009 would be the first game that I would play. Man, was I pumped and let me tell you, the producers and designers didn’t disappoint. I immediately took control of Knowshon Moreno and the Georgia Bulldogs. Wow! I have always jocked Georgia since Champ Bailey left, so don’t think I just played with them because they’re #1. I proceeded to lose my first match up against Justin from EA Sports World by a slim margin. Back to the game though. I was simply taken away at the “crisp” player controls and juke moves. Have you ever wanted to pull a little shimmy/shake on someone instead of using a cutback? Well in NCAA Football 2009, get ready to used that feature. The producers of the game added a whole new breakaway engine that allows you to take full control of the animated athletes. Designer Ben Haumiller explained that it is much easier to run in and out of tackles, slap a defensive player with a huge stiff arm or even pull the new shimmy/shake on them. If you can get a team that allows players to easily get to the flats, you could do some damage.

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A huge thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler who was nice enough to invite me to their football community day this past week at the Tiburon Studios in Orlando, Florida. In the first part of a three part series, I will go over my experiences with NFL Head Coach 2009, NCAA Football 2009, and Madden NFL 2009.

Initial Reaction
I really didn’t know what to expect when I first sat down with the game. I knew I was going to be calling plays, but I had no idea that the game would include such off the field detail. I thought it was neat to prepare draft boards and bid on free agents, but I really loved the ability to create a play while you were in the midst of a game. I was playing against the Ravens as the Packers and Ray Lewis and company were blitzing the crap out of me in my full house formation. I went to five wide and created a new west coast offense scheme with short passes landing every which way. I pretty much out coached John Harbaugh after the first quarter. One of things that I had a bit of a problem with was the quarter lengths. You play the standard 15 minute quarter lengths just like in the pros so it can get a bit tiring after a half. When you just sit there and call play and not control players you tend to wish you were actually controlling them. So I can see where gamers would get a little tired of that aspect quick.

Senior Designer Josh Looman
To be entirely honest, I never played the previous NFL Head Coach that came out in 2006. I knew what the game was about, but like most other gamers I felt like I needed to control my players instead of simply calling the plays. So when it came to the presentation of NFL Head Coach I wanted to see what Senior Designer Josh Looman had in mind for the second edition of this game. Looman and his colleagues described right off the bat that they wanted to make the deepest football strategy game they could make. He also went on to say that this is game for all NFL fans who are experts at being armchair quarterbacks and who can’t help but scream at the decision making of teams on Sundays. Instead of groaning about certain play calls, NFL Head Coach lets you write the history book for your favorite franchise. To make this possible, Looman sat down with 30 of the 32 NFL head coaches in order to bring you the most in depth coaching experience ever.

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Earlier in the day, I chronicled my trip to Orlando, which included hands-on time with NCAA Football 2008, set to launch on July 17th. With tales of my cab ride and tournament beatdown now told, I thought it’d be appropriate to review the game I was sent to look at: NCAA Football 2008 for XBox 360. Keep in mind the game was not in its final build yet. I played a version that still had some bugs in it, bugs that will be corrected before release day. But from what I gathered, this game is going to be incredible.

After we spent some time with the game, Craig from ConsoleSports.net put it pretty well: We finally have our football game back. After the phenomenal NCAA ‘04 was released, the consensus was that EA Sports took a couple steps back in ‘05 and ‘06. After a couple disappointing installments on next-gen consoles (XBOX 360), everybody was itching for a football game that was worthy of such a powerful system. I think we have that now. The graphics and player models were obviously going to be phenomenal. But the big talk of EA Sports’ Community Event was the much improved gameplay.

The complaints about NCAA Football 2007 were numerous. While the current-gen versions of PS2 and XBox were both solid, the 360 version was lacking. But it definitely appears that incredible progress has been made. While playing with David Johnson from MaddenMatrix, we both noticed how tight the controls were. We were able to change directions smoothly and precisely this year, as opposed to last year’s momentum problems. If you caught a swing pass on 2007, all of your momentum would be going towards the sidelines and it would be tough to turn upfield. Not this year. The controls are tight and the improved framerate (60 FPS) insures you have complete control of your players at all time. Read the rest of this entry »

As you probably heard, I had the chance to represent Sportable at EA Sports’ inaugural NCAA Community Event, which gave me the chance to preview NCAA Football 2008 a full month before it will hit store shelves. All in all, the trip was a blast. I got to meet lots of different people involved in production over at EA Sports, as well as lots of big players in the fansite communities. Monday was basically a travel day. Most everyone slated to attend the event had different times of getting into Orlando. I flew U.S. Airways into Orlando, getting in around 4:15 PM local time.

There wasn’t much to report about the flight. I remember watching some movie with John Travolta, Tim Allen, and Martin Lawrence? Strong cast means good movie, right? Not really. The movie sucked complete ass. It was called Wild Hogs and it was one of the movies that is so weak, you really don’t mind if the outcome doesn’t favor the good guys. Travolta is uninspiring, Lawrence has seen better days and Tim Allen? Has he done anything decent in the last ten years? If Tim Allen is around, I’m going to need Al Borland as well.

The fun started when I landed early and walked to Mears Transportation, looking for a shuttle to the Sheraton Orlando North. Because that hotel is a bit far away from civilization, it was going to take an hour. After sweating my ass off in the humidity of Orlando (not to mention torrential downpour), my shuttle finally arrived. The cordial grumpy driver was named Gustavo, who looked at my hotel address and proceeded to drive 100 50 MPH on the Florida Turnpike. I finally reached my destination, paid Gustavo, and got my bags. The minute I said my name to the hotel recepionist, I knew I was screwed. Gustavo drove me to the wrong Sheraton. Who gets Sheraton Downtown mixed with Sheraton North, especially when they have the address?

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We like to think of ourselves as sort of a one-stop shop for sports fans. We analyze games, write about sports gossip, and cover the other things like video games and style. It looks like our attempt to be well-rounded in our content has been rewarded. Sportable has been invited to attend the NCAA Football 2008 Community Day next week in Orlando. I’ll get a first-hand look at the new game and get to ask the producer of the game some questions.

Because we’re not a huge resource for video game news, this invitation came as a real pleasant surprise. Needless to say, we’re grateful to the opportunity and promise to have some cool content regarding EA Sports’ studios in Orlando, as well as this year’s installment of NCAA Football. I’ll be arriving in Orlando on Monday evening, where I’ll get the chance to shoot the shit with the operators of some pretty cool websites. It should be a fun time.

If you’d like to ask the producer any questions about the game, feel free to let us know and I’ll do my best to get them answered.