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Out of the Park Baseball 14 Offering Early Pre-Order Deal
The next version of the highly regarded Out of the Park Baseball series is now available to pre-order and at a discount to those who do so by February 15. The PC/Mac baseball management sim can be had for $35 until then which is $5 off the retail price. In addition everyone who pre-orders will be entered into a drawing for a 64GB iPod touch or one of three $100 Amazon gift cards. All those who pre-order, whether prior to 2/15 or after, will have access to the game three days before the official April release date as well. Continue on for a look at all the new features and improvements for OOTP 14! Read more
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NBA 2K13 Week 13 Roster Update Details; Acrobat Sig Skill Removed from Players
A new roster update for NBA 2K13 arrived today but includes no ratings changes to any players. The trade between the Cavaliers (receiving Marreese Speights, Josh Selby, and Wayne Ellington) and Grizzlies (Jon Leuer) has been reflected. Chris ‘Birdman’ Andersen has also been added to the Heat roster. Alvin Gentry remains on the sideline as coach of the Suns with the switch to Lindsey Hunter having not yet been completed.
Injury Status Changes: Anderson Varejao (-19 to 57), Lou Williams (-24 to 54), Raymond Felton (returns at 79), Hedo Turkoglu (-3 to 69), Manu Ginobili (returns to 86), Nikola Pekovic (-19 to 57), Alexey Shved (-8 to 63), Meyers Leonard (returns to 59), Cartier Martin (-9 to 58)
Also of note is that the “Acrobat” signature skill has been stripped from players because of an ongoing online gaming tournament. Though an unexpected development given that the sig skills have been part of the game from day one and worked to better define player abilities doing so may be related to a prominent exploit that has plagued the online experience. The Euro Step three pointers should have been addressed by now – and certainly will disrupt that tournament – but disabling the “Acrobat” skill was likely done to reduce the effectiveness of that.
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Take Two May Have Obtained WWE License
Take Two, parent company of 2K Sports, may have acquired the WWE license that had entered a free agency period due to the THQ bankruptcy proceedings. Initial rumors were that EA Sports was the company that came to an agreement with WWE but follow-up information I received indicated that it was more likely to be Take Two. IGN has confirmed those rumblings though it is important to note nothing yet is official. Read more
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NCAA Football 14 Cover Vote Field Narrowed Down to Eight Schools
EA Sports today announced the schools that have advanced to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Football 14 cover tournament and have opened up the voting. Once again it is being handled through Facebook with a main poll which will be followed by secondary ones.
Alabama led the way in the round of 16 followed closely behind by Texas A&M and Michigan. Those three had the benefit of being listed first in the poll options on Facebook which provided a huge advantage as users had to click through to another page to see the other programs. The trio totaled 88K votes which was more than the remaining 13 schools combined with 78K. That represents yet another gaffe in what has been a poorly staged cover vote process from the start. 6 of the 8 options from the primary poll are displayed on the main FB page with Oregon and Texas A&M now seemingly at a disadvantage.
Penn State slipped out after looking as though they would likely advance. That leaves Notre Dame as the only program that EA would certainly like to avoid now given the Manti Te’o story. If they had planned for him to be a cover option that at least will have been scrapped now. Within the next 10 days the company will be announcing the potential cover athletes for the programs leading into a voting stage to choose the eventual candidate for each that will end on February 18.
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Scouting Madden NFL 14 Cover Candidates from the NFC
Last year the cover campaign for Madden NFL 13 began in late February with the announcement of the two candidates nominated from each team. The voting started in March and involved trimming the field down by facing them off against each other before moving on to a tournament style bracket. It was a hugely successful initiative for EA Sports and something similar will surely roll out for selecting the cover athlete for Madden NFL 14 as well.
With the initial candidate announcement period nearing it makes sense to evaluate what players are most likely to be a part of the process. EA last year surprised by including some players that were set to be free agents or who had been involved in previous years. Despite that I’ll be eliminating a number of those and choosing primarily on who most deserves to be included – performance, status with their team, and national relevance will be a big part of that consideration – and for most teams picking one player from offense and one from defense. Make sure to check out the look at the AFC and continue on for the NFC. Read more
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Jose Bautista’s Canadian Cover of MLB 13: The Show Now Up for Vote
Unlike the cover campaign for the standard edition of MLB 13: The Show, won by Andrew McCutchen, the Canadian version already has the athlete determined. Toronto Blue Jays’ slugger Jose Bautista will be featured again with three potential cover art options to choose from.
Last year Bautista wore the alternate blue jersey. This time around the choices are between the home white, road grey, and Canada Day red. The red edition looks likely to win even though that particular jersey is only worn once a year and fittingly of course on Canada Day (July 1). The cover option with the most “likes” and “tags” on Facebook through Friday night will be the one included with the game when purchased from Canadian retailers.
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Scouting Madden NFL 14 Cover Candidates from the AFC
Last year the cover campaign for Madden NFL 13 began in late February with the announcement of the two candidates nominated from each team. The voting started in March and involved trimming the field down by facing them off against each other before moving on to a tournament style bracket. It was a hugely successful initiative for EA Sports and something similar will surely roll out for selecting the cover athlete for Madden NFL 14 as well.
With the initial candidate announcement period nearing it makes sense to evaluate what players are most likely to be a part of the process. EA last year surprised by including some players that were set to be free agents or who had been involved in previous years. Despite that I’ll be eliminating a number of those and choosing primarily on who most deserves to be included – performance, status with their team, and national relevance will be a big part of that consideration – and for most teams picking one player from offense and one from defense. Read more
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NBA 2K13 Updates All-Star Rosters
2K Sports today released an update to the All-Star rosters in NBA 2K13. Chris Paul, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, and Dwight Howard are now starting for the West. Rajon Rondo, Dwyane Wade, Carmelo Anthony, LeBron James, and Kevin Garnett lead the East. This is the first year in which a traditional center was not required to be voted in and that makes for a lineup in the East that features three forwards instead.
Though the All-Star reserves won’t be announced until Thursday there are some changes there as well in this update with what looks like an attempt at guessing who’ll be selected. David Lee, James Harden, Stephen Curry, Jamal Crawford, and Tim Duncan join LaMarcus Aldridge and Russell Westbrook on the West squad. Over with the East it has been cleaned up notably less however as Joakim Noah and Paul George are added to holdovers Chris Bosh, Luol Deng, Joe Johnson, Paul Pierce, and Deron Williams.
The All-Star Weekend content was recently made available to purchase through the Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store for $5. Prior to that it had only been accessible to those who originally pre-ordered the game.
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