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Just ran across this video preview from IGN’s PC editor Jason Ocampo. He highlights a few interesting tidbits you may not have heard before. Release is only a handful of months away, it’s almost time for my yearly Call of Duty hype machine. You ready???
As I said in my post earlier this week, online franchise is finally here….and it’s now official. Today at E3 Electronic Arts announced the mode with a trailer that made me want to skip my life until the moment that game is in my hands as fast as Adam Sandler skipped through his entire life in Click. Apparently I don’t learn from the morals in movies. Whatever, I don’t care, this game mode looks awesome.
I am assuming the lag will be minimal and everything will run as smoothly as the video seems to imply it will. If it does you will not see much of me. Madden players will be on the web setting their depth charts more often than my little sister checks her Facebook. Seriously, just watch the video (trailer is about a minute in).
I work, and have an real people job that I have to go to every day. Sadly one of those days is today, the start of E3. So instead of sitting on the couch and watching live coverage I’m watching crap videos on youtube and game sites. I’ll do what I can on breaks to post videos but I’m not making any promises.
I just watched the Beatles Rock Band stage demo and it looks great. The gameplay looks no different, but if it ain’t broke don’t fix it I suppose right?
I did notice wireless microphones, I’m hoping this is standard with the retail box because I don’t want a third microphone sitting around my apartment if it’s just like the other two. Take a look at the guitars, both look absolutely gorgeous! Feast your eyes. I’m off to work!
Every thing about the Xbox Live Primetime system sounds great to me. Players are given opportunities to win marketplace points, XBLA games, HDTV’s and all sorts of other goodies by competing in the 1 vs 100 gameshow based on a now cancelled NBC program.
There will be “live” shows with an actual host, the players in live games will be selected using accuracy and speed ratings from the weeks games. Play more and you’ve got a better chance to star, play smarter and you’ve got an even better chance!
The other really cool thing about this is that anyone can watch the live contests. You can join up with a group of friends or compete with random players. And get this, even as part of the crowd you can STILL win prizes. Smaller ones of course.
I see no downside to this Xbox Live gameshow thing. You don’t have to leave your couch to play. You don’t have to pay to enter competition. You get to show off your smarts, and everyone loves showing off. Lastly and most importantly, you can win free shit.
IGN.com designer series video showcases online co-op for the first time in the Madden series. A great addition in my opinion, I’ve always been a co-op gamer at heart despite my competitive side. Another note: after a second watching of this video I noticed Ian Cummings mention “Online franchise” mode. I haven’t seen any specifics on this game mode yet but I would absolutely LOVE to see it. The idea of a multiplayer franchise mode has always thrilled me.
ESPN.com recently posted the Madden 10 top player ratings. It hurts me to see Tony Romo ranked higher than my beloved Matt Hasselbeck. But I suppose I can find comfort in John Carlson’s top ten ranking among TE’s.
I also ran across the Madden 10 rookie player ratings. Some nerd took the time to put them all into a searchable database, which is pretty cool really. You can just look at your teams choices or all picks from a specific school. I did notice however that the last couple rounds of the draft have been left out. Not sure why or if I’m just having problems with the site.
One last item worth noting is the video from EA producer Iam Cummings explaining the new Pro-Tak system. They’re using it for both passing pocket creation and tackling animations/physics. Using only the video as evidence I’d say it should work in an amazing fashion. However, the Madden series has always seemed to find ways let me down when I’m at my most excited state.
As I announced last week, this last weekend was the F00T clans Gold Cross 55 Marathon. I just wanted to take this opportune free moment to let everyone know how it went, in as brief a fashion as I’m able.
It was about 10am when my buddy showed up and woke everyone else up, at which point we all helped him unload all his gaming gear into my third story apartment. We figured it’d be a good idea to stock up on food that was quick to make so we ran to the local Papa Murphy’s for some bake it yourself pizzas and finished off the trip with a run to the store for some energy drinks and soda pops.
We finally got the party started at just before noon and it wasn’t more than 20 minutes before Will realized he’d need cigarette breaks. If we were going to make it to level 55 we didn’t really have time for any break that didn’t involve food going in or coming out of our bodies. Thank the lord he’s smarter than he looks because he pulled off one of the more clever moves I’ve ever seen. He put the television up against the sliding glass door and played in a lawn chair on my deck.
With smoke breaks taken care of and everyone on board things were rolling fast, we lost only 10 of our first 50 or 60 matches and the points were flooding in. After about 5 hours it really looked like we were going to make it!
Sadly however, a lot can change over the course of an entire day. It was about 7am on Sunday morning when one of our key contributors had to pack up and take off. Within an hour of that our spirits had been seriously depleted…things were looking grim. As you can see in the pic below, even our in game selfs were throwing in the towel.
In the end we made it to 24 hours played straight. We were however not able to hit 55. I myself got through 46 levels. My counterpart made it to 43. There was much sweat, many tears, excessive use of eye drops and a garbage bag full of empty cans. I can’t give enough thanks to all those of you who joined us in our endeavor. There is no way I could have made it as far as I did without my in house teammates and those from the forums.
Special thanks go out to Howy96 - we played with Howy when he woke up for a couple hours before he went to work, then he joined back up with us when he got home 9 hours later. And one more time when he woke up the next day before work again. That really made us realize how long we’d been sitting in front of our LCD’s. Thanks Howy, we love you too.
I was lucky enough to run into a Guitar Hero Arcade at my local movie cinema, and I’ll tell you what…. It was far from a perfect experience. The cost, setlist, and gameplay were all sub par.
At a dollar a song I’d say it’s slightly over priced, which wouldn’t be too bad since all arcade plays are over priced these days. The problem was in the game itself. The setlist lacked any new songs that I found, and on top of that there were “premium songs” that require another dollar to play. **MAJOR RIP OFF ALERT** Notice to Activision: Please stop ripping people off, we don’t like it. There is nothing that could make me boycott Modern Warfare 2 but I’d gladly boycott all the rest of your releases I swear!
As far as gameplay goes it was business as usual, minus the whammy bar which was obviouisly removed from the arcade version due to durability issues. Speaking of which, the guitars seemed horribly durable. So much so that they were actually uncomfortably heavy for the two females that were playing the game when I walked up to it. I myself had no trouble with it however.
The biggest problem I had with the game was the lag. Someone explain to me why there would be audio/video lag in a pre-built arcade game because I really don’t understand. You put the tv screen in there and you hook up the guitars. Doesn’t that mean you’d know exactly what to set the lag calibration to? Major misstep here guys.
Overall I think it’s great that they’re bringing Guitar Hero to the arcade… If only because I truly rock at it and love opportunities to show off in public. Sadly though, this first attempt just really isn’t good enough in my opinion.
Try again
This coming Saturday the 23rd of May I will be marathoning to Gold Cross 55! At around 10am pacific time I’ll be rolling over to level one and will continue on playing until I reach level 55. There will be a few people here with me lanning it up. One of which is also making the trek through all 55 golden levels. Our goal is to make it in 24 hours of play…. which will be a tough task for sure.
We’ll have one extra Xbox set up it looks like so if you’re in the Seattle area feel free to hit me up on Xbox Live and we can get you over here for some live action. If you’re not you can still join in on the action by partying up with us whenever you can throughout that day.
My Live gamertag is DymndHeartKilla. Message me anytime between now and then to get the scoop.