Author Archive
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NBA Live 09 Online Team Play Improvements
Online Team Play is easily the aspect of the NBA Live 09 that I am most excited about. EA knew it was a big hit not only by the overwhelmingly positive response from gamers last year but also by seeing how online usage quadrupled after being released. Producer Julien Carron even talked with me about the list I published of how the mode could be improved and how a good deal of those suggestions were met. This year you'll be able to form "Clubs" which will have their own ranking system. A l...
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Madden 09 Fantasy Football Integration
One of the new aspects to using EA Sports Fantasy Football this year is the ability to import your fantasy teams in Madden 09. While I initially had an issue getting the process to work EA was able to fix it so now there shouldn't be any trouble uploading the rosters to the locker where the game will grab it from. Anyone with an EA Fantasy Football team can seamlessly transfer them into Madden (PS3, 360) to use in play now, dynasty, or unranked online games. I set up a fantasy league to t...
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The Line Drive
With so much focus going towards the new releases of Madden and Head Coach 09 it was easy to overlook news on other games and even some that were related to Madden. Here I recap items that may be of interest from the last couple days but didn't make the cut for a full posting. Jon Robinson, formerly of Gametap and IGN and now with ESPN, played 24 hours straight of Madden. He recalls the events of the night here. There is no way I would have been able to pull that off. Shawn @ 5WG h...
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Madden 09 Online Plagued by Problems
After the disastrous online play of last year it was going to be important to see how Madden 09 performed right out of the gates. The only additions to online this year were the "leagues" and having random weather. So overall performance had to be a focus. While lag was an issue last year it was disconnects that caused the most headaches. In fact my first 17 attempts with 08 ended in disconnects. In regards to what EA was doing about it I was told that four engineers were dedicated to making...
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NFL Head Coach 09 Online Play Impressions
NFL Head Coach 09 decided to go the unique route of using a supersim setup for online play. Thoughts on this decision seemed to be split. Most people would prefer to watch the plays and have full coach control, but in turn that would lead to a time commitment upwards of an hour. Most of my time spent today was through online. I've included a video showing off a full first quarter and part of the second. Continue on to watch that as well as read my online play thoughts. (more…)...
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NFL Head Coach 09 Roster Update #1 Details
Producer Josh Looman has made the basic details of the first roster update for NFL Head Coach 09 available. As stated in the Q&A the plan is for another update during the opening week of the NFL season and then a new one every two weeks. The updates apply to anyone who starts after the draft rather than before it and for online play. (more…)...
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Madden 09 Coverage Wrap-Up and Your Impressions
Madden 09 has made its way out and with that brings an end to the prerelease coverage of the game. I still have plans to complete full online impressions, a look at fantasy football importing into Madden (which looks like it has been fixed), an EASW video highlight contest, and the setting up of the custom team online competition to look forward to in the near future. Otherwise I'll be directing my immediate focus towards NFL Head Coach 09 which I'll have later today. As always I'll be cu...
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Brett Favre Jets Cover Now Available To Download
As promised EA has released the new cover art with Brett Favre as a New York Jet and it is now available to download and print off. They've used the same image seen on the retail cover but have gone to painstaking lengths to photoshop him into a Jets uniform. It appears that the Wii version is being left out. Given that the image used was completely different I suppose they didn't find it to be worth the effort that would've been needed. While there is no word of future packaging runs ...
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