Last week, I got the chance to review EA Sports’ NBA Live ‘09 a few days before it hit stores. While I felt the game had some great features and was moving in the right direction, I still believed it had a ways to go before reaching the level of the NBA 2K series. Now, after a few days of playing 2K9, the gap between the two franchises appears to be wider than ever.

When you first pop in NBA 2K9, you’re greeted by one of the game’s new features: Living Rosters. While not as deep and detailed as NBA Live’s incredible 365 feature, Living Rosters will enable players to constantly have the most updated rosters possible. Early reports say rosters will update weekly and there was already an update available on launch day. 

We know all about the deep franchise mode that sports video games possess. NBA 2K9 is no exception; “The Association” is incredibly deep. However, unlike NBA Live’s limited superstar feature, 2K9 does not offer a feature like this. However, if players want to control a single player, they have a chance to do so online. Read the rest of this entry »

Big thanks to EA Sports Canada for hooking us up with an early copy.

In the days of Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis, NBA Live was a testament to how sports games should be made. NBA Live ‘95 still ranks as one of my favorite sports games ever made. But in the past couple of generations, the franchise has fallen on some hard times. While the 2009 installment has made strides from past efforts, it still has a long way to go to catch up with the dominant 2K basketball series.

As usual, EA Sports has pushed out its hype machine for a couple new features. The big one here is the introduction of NBA Live 365, a truly revolutionary concept (albeit similar to a feature of NBA 2K9). Live ‘09 introduces Dynnamic DNA into the game, a concept used in the real NBA by a company called Synergy Sports. Synergy Sports is a dynamic engine that calculates player ratings, tendencies and all sorts of data from every single game on the schedule. While DNA encompasses about 60% of Synergy’s data, the concept is still the same.

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Big thanks to Marcus up at EA Canada for hooking us up with a review copy.

I’ve never disguised my persistent love-hate relationship with many EA Sports titles. From Madden to FIFA, EA Sports has consistently frustrated me by annoying glitches and gameplay. However, if one EA Sports title has it right, it’s NHL 09. Flying under the radar because of other titles, this game delivers not only an authentic hockey experience, but one that is truly a blast to play.

Following in the footsteps of the Madden/NCAA Football titles, NHL 09 features an all-new “Be a Pro Mode.” While I haven’t dove incredibly deep into the mode, it has enormous potential. After creating your very own toothless goon, you’re dumped into a team’s affiliate in the AHL, forcing you to work up the ranks all the way into the NHL. But unlike Madden and NCAA, NHL’s pro mode forces users to play with a little more strategy. Because it’s impossible to skate around for 60 minutes, it’s up to you to manage line changes to keep your player fresh. 

But your pro doesn’t have to be all about the glory. For every sniper, there’s a handful of ungraceful grinders that do nothing but kick ass and take names while on the ice. If scoring goals, winning fame and having sex with hot women isn’t your style, feel free to play as a grinder while sporting a mullet.

But that’s not all. One of the best parts about Be a Pro mode is the ability to take your player online and form a team with other users’ created characters. Have some friends with their own pro creations? Why not join forces and destroy skulls online? With NHL 09’s EA Sports Hockey League (EASHL), it’s possible to create teams of up to 50 players and join the league. A similar innovation is being used in this year’s installment of FIFA, which should promise an absolute shit show of 10 vs. 10 fun.

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Yesterday marked the official launch of Madden 2009 and to celebrate it EA Sports coordinated a huge blow out party at the Rose Bowl for the game’s release.  The event was chalked full of celebrity appearances (some were enthusiastic, others not so much), a concert that included Good Charlotte and Busta Rhymes, and of course an enormous tent loaded with Xbox 360’s, Wii’s, and Playstation 3’s to play the new game.  The event was somewhat exclusive (thanks again to Will from EA for hooking it up) and passes to the event were only given to people through local radio stations or to those who were willing to wait hours to hopefully snag one of the few hundred tickets available at the stadium before the event.

My time at the event was spent in various fashions.   I spent a great deal of time playing the game and hustling various Pasadena-ites in the gaming tent.  The tent was loaded with over 300 consoles, mostly 360’s with touches of Playstation 3 and Wii mixed in.  Both the 360 and Playstation versions of the game looked incredible, especially in high definition.  The Wii version…well…I just don’t think Madden belongs on Wii.  But then again that’s probably just my Madden ego talking.  A little bit of an inside secret on the game; if you can put up with their atrocious defense, Chad Johnson and the Bengals are some kind of nasty.  I both discovered and dropped that knowledge on Christmas Ape from Kissing Suzy Kolber who was there on assignment from Deadspin.  While I didn’t get cussed at by Warren Sapp like he did, I had my share of run-ins with the other athletes. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to the great guys at EA, myself and a few of the community leaders from around the globe were able to test out a very early build of FIFA ‘09 this past weekend, and the reviews are all glowing.  We were able to test the new game on PC, XBOX 360, Playstation 3 as well as Wii.  And let me be the first to tell you that major strides have been made in the game for all platforms. Pleas note that the version we played was 6 weeks old (apparently they have another big announcement they’re planning on making and want to keep it hush hush for now) so it was very rough, and the producers assured us that many of our concerns had already been addressed.

I will start with my thoughts on the next-gen version of this game, as that is mostly what people, at least in the US, play.  Tomorrow I’ll post thoughts on the PC and WIi versions of the game. I will be the first to say that I was not a big fan of FIFA ‘08, in fact I at times found it unplayable because of the tracks players appeared to run on and the difficulty of playing through balls.  Because of this I entered this community day a bit skeptical, but to be honest, my mind was blown with how well the team had done to overhaul many of last years shortcomings and put out a very impressive “alpha” build of the game for us to play.

Perhaps the most major change that I noticed was almost a complete redo of the way players react on the field.  The collision system was redone, so that this year physics are actually taken into account and the tackles are a lot more real.  If a player is clipped in their right leg they will fall the correct way, as if their right leg had been taken out, rather than just a generic fall as was the case in last years game. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to EA Sports’ Will Kinsler for hooking us up with a copy of the game.

EA Sports made no secrets about the emphasis of NCAA Football 2009. With “Big Play Saturday,” gamers were quickly told of how this game was going to play. It was going to be full of big plays and a wide-open attacking offense that we see so often in college football. But have they overdone it? Through a handful of games, these impressions are still relatively incomplete, but troubling at the same time.

Before I jump into some quick gameplay impressions, I’d like to talk about the game’s new feature, the “breakaway engine.” NCAA ‘09 has improved on the controls of its predecessor, making you feel like you’re actually in control of the ball carrier, not the other way around. This year, running the football is about more than mashing the turbo button until you get to the corner, or jerking the juke stick in traffic.

Actual running lanes get opened up inside, allowing backs to squirm their way to some nice gains. The cutback lanes are also open and if you’re good enough, you can really rip off some big gains. I’ve only played with one elite back (Tennessee’s Arian Foster) and was able to see the difference in his ability to a lesser back from another team. The running game aspect of this game is greatly improved. However, computer teams still don’t run the ball effectively. Some slider tweaks here and there should help fix this problem, but we won’t start seeing those sliders for another couple of days.

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