EA Sports Message Board older than one year ago

Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice was voted the "cover star" for January's reboot of NFL Blitz. Of course, it's a downloadable title, so this game actually has no physical cover. So that mean Rice won't actually tear his ACL in the playoffs after the game releases on PSN and Xbox Live, right? More »

#stickjockey For the past two years, Stick Jockey has, at the end of the season, used EA Sports' NCAA Football to supply an alternate-reality simulation of a postseason involving a true college football playoff, one that invites every conference champion. I've become resigned to the utter fantasy of this idea ever happening in my lifetime. More »

#virgingaming Competitive Madden gaming, for the better part of a decade, typically involved a weekend of long drives, cheap hotel stays, and lots of standing, sitting and sometimes sleeping on ugly convention center carpet. It fairly assured that only the diehards and elites would show up for preliminary rounds. More »

#tigerwoodspgatour I had high hopes when EA Sports hinted a couple months ago that "figures recognizable to the sports world" would be playable golfers in Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13, due in March. That kind of longhand comment, as opposed to just saying "former sports stars" had me thinking the game might include some kind of celebrity pro-am event. More »

#xboxlive Since October, we've heard anecdotal accounts of Xbox Live members finding suspicious purchases on their credit cards and learning their accounts had been recovered to another machine. Now it's happened to a games writer—just this past week. Dan Crawley of VentureBeat provides a detailed rundown of exactly what happened, and in the process asks some detailed questions of Microsoft. More »

#ssx We may be closing out the hype cycle for 2011, but that means 2012's is already underway. SSX is still looking hawt for its Feb. 14 release, as this ski-porn gallery attests. Happy early Valentine's Day. More »

#nflblitz Though not a retail release, the January reboot of NFL Blitz will still have a cover star, following a fan-voted campaign taking place during the Spike Video Game Awards next weekend. More »

#stickjockey In between two of the most-watched college basketball games ever played in November, the NBA's Doomsday Clock inched closer to midnight when its players rejected a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum and dissolved their union. It's the nuclear winter scenario analysts imagined when they pegged worst-case losses at $40 million for NBA 2K12, the lone video game caught in the crossfire. More »

#nflblitz When NFL Blitz was announced in October, I asked the game's producer, Dave Ross, what kind of hitting action the game would feature, given the league's increased sensitivity to violence and head injuries since the last version of the game was released in 2003. Ross said at the time they were still working through approvals with the league, but promised it'd still "contain over-the-top, fast arcade action with big hits and guys catching on fire." More »

#stickjockey For a short time this summer, Florida State was the rumored target of a Southeastern Conference raid on the Atlantic Coast Conference, in the protracted and sometimes absurd realignment that still is reshaping college football's landscape. Ben Haumiller, a proud Seminole alumnus, knew that change was unlikely in the real world. Florida State burned a bridge when it chose the ACC over the SEC in 1992. But on his Xbox 360, FSU was already lacing up in the nation's premier league. More »

#fightnight As tipped off yesterday, Fight Night Champion is being offered a la carte over PlayStation Network beginning today—gamers can buy the boxing title's "Champion Mode," the cinematic narrative of fictious boxer Andre Bishop, for $5. If they enjoy that, they can add other game modes on a piecemeal basis. More »

Hey fight fans, I’m here to give you the run-down on Fight Night Champion Customizable, available later today exclusively on PSN starting at $4.99.

With Fight Night Champion, we delivered a dramatically new gameplay experience. In creating Champion Mode, it was the first time that EA SPORTS had incorporated a story-based game mode into a sports title. Inspired by classic boxing movies, Champion Mode allows players to step into the shoes of Andre Bishop, an up-and-coming middleweight contender who learns that the road to becoming a champion in professional boxing is one that is filled with unimaginable highs and brutal lows. Champion Mode tells a story of redemption and perseverance in one of the toughest sports ever imagined.

Now with Fight Night Champion available as a customizable digital download exclusively on PSN, we’re once again delivering a new experience to gamers; we’re giving them the opportunity to customize their experience to meet their gaming needs. We anticipate a few questions, so here’s more detail on this unique approach to downloadable games:

How does the customizable download work?
Fans have the opportunity to purchase Champion Mode, downloading it via PSN as a standalone game and experience one of the richest narratives in sports gaming. Users can then customize their experience within the Fight Night Champion in-game store by subsequently purchasing any of the following modes: Fight Now, Legacy Mode and Online Play.

Why did you decide to offer Fight Night Champion as a customizable download on PSN?
It’s all about providing choice. We know that gamers play in different ways. Some people are very into battling opponents online. Others prefer narrative-based stories, like you’ll find in Champion Mode. It’s really about letting fans customize their own experience by purchasing the game a la carte.

Why offer Champion Mode as a standalone game at $4.99?
Champion Mode is really what sets this game apart from Fight Night Round 4. It’s the first time EA SPORTS has had a story-based game mode. Champion Mode is inspired by classic boxing movies and provides hours of captivating and emotional gameplay. It’s the most instantly accessible mode and we felt the story line would draw gamers in who may not be huge boxing fans. By releasing Champion Mode as a standalone at $4.99, it allows gamers who may not be looking to purchase a full boxing title an opportunity to try it out.

What kind of player was the Fight Now piece created for?
Fight Now is for people who just want to get in and fight. They’ll have access to all the boxers and venues in the game. They can even create or download their own boxer.

Can they take that boxer through a whole career?
For that they would want Legacy Mode in the Games Mode download. This is where you get to create your alter ego and put him in the ring against past champions. You start with training and then fight through all your scheduled bouts. You’re goal is to establish yourself as the fighter to beat.

Is there a way to take your ‘alter ego’ online and fight other boxers?
You can purchase the Online Mode which will allow you to play people head-to-head or you can compete for local or worldwide belts.

Will the PSN trophies work any differently with this customizable version?
No, there’s no difference in how PSN trophies work. That being said, there are some trophies that are associated with specific modes, so you’ll have to have downloaded those modes to earn them.

Thanks for checking out this blog post! Bring your questions up here and we’ll do our best to answer as many as we can throughout the day.

#nflblitz A year after appearing in NBA Jam (with Vice President Biden, and eight other political figures of both parties), President Obama will not cameo in January's NFL Blitz, one of the game's designers said recently. More »

#ssx Each time I see SSX, I'm a bit more impressed with the wide variety of challenges and map types that'll be in the game. From the avalanche-chase I saw at E3 to this latest video above, which details three of the locations in the game—Patagonia, Antarctica, and New Zeland. More »

#ssx SSX's latest slap-full-of-ski-porn trailer also includes a relevant piece of information: a release date. Feb. 14 it is, about a month after the hoped-for January release, but still in the middle of a winter wonderland. More »

#cloudgaming To very little fanfare, the PC demo of FIFA 12 is now playable without a download. All you have to do is go to the game's YouTube page. Provided you have a decent Internet connection and up-to-date Java, simply clicking a banner puts you on the pitch. More »

#easports You can't buy a cold six-pack* in Oklahoma, but next time you're at the likker store for a carton of Parliaments and a fifth of Evan Williams you can buy some EA Sports-branded lottery scratch cards. More »

#nflblitz Lost in the shuffle with the announcement of NFL Blitz's return is the fact the game is actually rated more strictly than its Madden counterpart. As the inaugural hype video for the game shows, it's an E10+ for, among other things,"mild language." More »

#nflblitz Midway's classic game of over-the-top seven-on-seven football returns with online multiplayer and HD graphics this January, when EA Sports releases NFL Blitz, a downloadable game for the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. More »

#stickjockey As a 10-year veteran of the Madden NFL series, Ian Cummings has plenty of experience building video games with bears in them. More »

In an interview over at The Guardian, EA Sports’ Andrew Wilson has been talking about foot-to-ball game Fifa 12, which according to sales figures all of you own several hundred copies of. There’s an interesting curveball of a comment from the interviewer though when he compares Fifa to an RPG leading vice-president Wilson to respond thusly:

“I think it’s pretty perceptive to look at it as an RPG, and while we don’t use that terminology for the game externally, we certainly look at it that way internally. An RPG is made up of a number of things: you have to have a unique ID – or unique character – you need persistence and progression for that character, ever-changing content which keeps the world rich and it’s a good idea to wrap it up in a rich economy.”

To the Deciphertron!

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#stickjockey As multiple lawsuits have been brought in multiple venues by multiple former college athletes—some of whom are actually more recognizable as professional stars—I've tried to pull back to the big picture of what really faces video gamers and (principally) EA Sports in the parade of litigation over unauthorized use of likenesses in sports video games. More »

#fifa EA Sports' hot streak at retail continues to ride strong; FIFA 12 sold 3.2 million copies in its first week, the label reports, citing internal analysis. That means FIFA 12's launch was bigger than Gears of War 3's More »

#easports Rowshambow, the studio formed by the former studio general manager over EA Sports' Madden and Tiger Woods franchises, is nearing its first release, less than six months after it opened. Woodland Heroes, built by a team with at least a dozen alumni of EA's Tiburon studio, will soon launch on Facebook. More »

#sports Canadian schoolgirl Lexi Peters is 14 years old, and is a big hockey fan. So much so that she plays the sport. She also plays the popular NHL video games all the time, but was sick of her and her friends having to play as men. So she sent developers EA Sports a letter. More »

#backbreaker Torsten Reil, the co-founder and CEO of NaturalMotion, on Sunday tweeted this picture which he says is from an iPhone version of Backbreaker: Vengeance, a spinoff of last year's football game Backbreaker which challenged Madden NFL without any NFL branding. Reil's picture shows someone for the Seattle Seahawks leaping over an Arizona Cardinals defender, in a stadium carrying NFL branding on its signs. More »

#stickjockey Earlier this week I got several versions of a small talk question I always field this time of year: "I haven't played Madden in X years. Should I buy it this year?" More »

#easports EA Sports, in collaboration with the NCAA, will this winter begin offering paid fellowships to former college football players seeking experience in a games development or sports entertainment career. The players will work in the EA Tiburon studio, where the NCAA Football and Madden series are developed. More »

#stickjockey Some executives, when they take over, try to keep it low key. The big leather chair and better office is good enough for a while. No need to go erasing all memory of your predecessor, especially if he's still lurking about the corporate campus. More »

#fifa12 A big criticism of EA Sports' annual games, and one that I for the most part agree with, is that each new version is often too similar to the last. More »