Looking at EA’s upcoming Wii releases
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Joystiq recently gave hands-on impressions of the EA Sports “All Play” titles coming out in the near future on the Wii. Included are the 09 versions of NCAA Football, Madden, Tiger Woods, NBA Live, and FIFA. Here are some excerpts as well as my thoughts on the potential each one has. While the “All Play” concept should result in better quality products that have wider appeal it looks like how successful that will be in year one will vary.
NCAA Football 09
The first release incorporating “All Play” in theory should’ve been appealing to gamers. The idea of running the option with the Wiimote sounds great. However it certainly doesn’t look like the game is going to deliver on much other than oversimplified gameplay and cartooney visual additions. NCAA is also the only game of the bunch that doesn’t have any form of online play. Despite being the first one to release the game was not available for hands-on which is a bad sign in itself.
Tiger Woods 09
Tiger benefits most from Wii’s unorthodox method, and the dev team has focused much of its efforts on improving last year’s already lauded swing technology.
Probably EA’s best received franchise on the Wii to date is Tiger and it looks like it’ll offer some good improvements this year. How precise can the Wiimote be? Well this year they’re claiming a one-to-one swing mechanic. Online play is added this year and it’ll have have the same simultaneous play that the other consoles get and that should result in an enjoyable experience.
Madden 09
Wii’s best exclusive feature “Call Your Shots,” where players can redraw their receivers’ routes at the line of scrimmage.
Madden seems to be much better than NCAA. “Call Your Shot” looks like a great addition and the five on five even looks fun. The mention has been made that Superstar mode is in which could really fit well for the Wii experience. Essentially that would represent the “All Play” ideal in a more natural way. Lets just hope that someone recognizes how embarrassingly lame that dancing for celebration thing is though.
NBA Live 09
The games certainly show the age of Wii’s processors, especially NBA Live, which was totally not-love at first sight.
Live looks to be the worst off of the Wii titles. They’ve basically decided to go the distance and make it a full on arcade game where the other titles still retain sim elements. Graphically it is worse than expected which is frightening considering the inclusion of WNBA player models. As with every other version of a basketball game a Superstar mode would be a natural fit, but the best they’ve done here is add a two on two mode. Also a newsflash…Kevin Garnett changed his number when he joined the Celtics.
FIFA 09
FIFA’s also got a simplified “8 vs. 8″ game, which is the only mode across the entire All-Play lineup we saw to get Nintendo’s coveted thumbs-up for Mii usage
After how well liked PES was for the Wii last year FIFA has a lot to live up to but it sounds like it’s on track from the early media impressions. It appears they’ve taken some of what made PES so enjoyable to improve the experience in FIFA.
July 1, 2008 at 8:54 pm
first
July 1, 2008 at 9:25 pm
i agree with madden and tiger and fifa looking good but ncaa and live sound pretty bad. ill probably get madden and if that is decent consider the others
July 1, 2008 at 10:17 pm
What happened to NBA 2K8? Did you forget about it?
July 1, 2008 at 10:25 pm
God i hate this casual movement. Before long all we’ll see are these crappy “family” titles. The likes of masterpieces like Metal Gear Solid 4 will cease to exsist….well maybe it wont go that far, but i still hate casual titles.
July 1, 2008 at 10:26 pm
I mean NBA 2K9.
July 1, 2008 at 10:39 pm
[quote comment="27324"]I mean NBA 2K9.[/quote]
I’m not sure what I would be forgetting. No info has been released except for Garnett being the cover athlete. If the game doesn’t appear at E3 I wouldn’t expect much on it until late August.
July 2, 2008 at 2:25 am
[quote comment="27323"]God i hate this casual movement. Before long all we’ll see are these crappy “family” titles. The likes of masterpieces like Metal Gear Solid 4 will cease to exsist….well maybe it wont go that far, but i still hate casual titles.[/quote]
the masterpiece that is MGS4? you mean the marginal game in comparison to its competition that is basically a two hour long movie? you spend more time watching movies of the game than you do actually playing the game in single player mode…
the problem is…everyone is trying to make this epic games with flashy graphics and cheap gimmicks…but i haven’t seen more than a handful of games with a deep and involved story line since ChronoTrigger on the SNES…and that was over ten years ago…
i know everyone will rock me for my comments…but honestly, what good game has come out in that past few years? i’m sorry halo fans…but that game is ridiculous and halo 3 was overrated by a mile. i give call of duty 4 mad props because it was well done, but it is still a recycled storyline. GTA4? are you kidding me? its the EXACT same thing as in the past, but with better visuals…and a worse soundtrack i might add…which was one of the higlights of all of the previous iterations. smash brothers brawl? redone nicely, and though it is mainly a multi-player game…it is virtually unplayable online due to nintendo’s lackluster online service. i give props to Bio-Shock that was a great game with a unique storyline…and in my opinion the best game on the XBOX 360 is still Gears of War…great story…solid gameplay…great use of the hardware…and outstanding online play…there is no game i am looking forward more than to GOW2…which is making all efforts to not be a simple re-hash…and is also doing some phenomenal things gameplay-wise…
i don’t bash nintendo for trying to make games for the casual gamer…or more importantly FOR KIDS…because isn’t that who games should be geared towards anyway? wii games are simply intended to be for fun, and anyone who has a wii should know that…
July 2, 2008 at 5:00 am
I for one, am looking forward to Tiger. A solid golf sim will be worn out on my Wii. Golf is not by it’s very nature…repititous. Any game that makes solid use of the Wiimote, is what I am looking for.
July 2, 2008 at 6:48 am
^ The first GOW was trash if you ask me, especially the online play. Have you not played Mass Effect? If you haven’t give it a try, it is really good story wise and gameplay wise. I am a huge Halo fan, and I’ll admit that Halo 3 was over rated from the start, and didn’t quite live up to expectations. It was leaps and bounds better than halo 2, but the original is still that best by a little bit.
I am just glad I don’t have a WII, they are ruining games like madden and Ncaa, although Tiger is pretty fun on it.
July 2, 2008 at 8:45 am
They have NCAA and Live looking awful, but I’ll give NCAA a pass until the second one is released next year. And who knows, maybe it will provide a little fun.
I’m looking forward to Tiger, Madden, and FIFA this year. With the addition of online play, Tiger is going to get many hours of gameplay from me. It’s a definite purchase.
I’m not sure if I’ll buy Madden or FIFA, but I imagine one of them will end up getting a purchase (probably FIFA). I’ll definitely rent both though, and it’s nice to see they are coming along nicely.
I’m still shocked we aren’t going to see an NHL 09 for the Wii. That just seems like a perfect fit.
July 2, 2008 at 10:16 am
[quote comment="27339"]^ The first GOW was trash if you ask me, especially the online play. Have you not played Mass Effect? If you haven’t give it a try, it is really good story wise and gameplay wise. I am a huge Halo fan, and I’ll admit that Halo 3 was over rated from the start, and didn’t quite live up to expectations. It was leaps and bounds better than halo 2, but the original is still that best by a little bit.
I am just glad I don’t have a WII, they are ruining games like madden and Ncaa, although Tiger is pretty fun on it.[/quote]
never played mass effect actually…guess i’m not into alien love affairs…but i’ll definitely check it out…thanks for the suggestion…and the first GOW was not trash…were there things that it could do better? of course…the way that you stuck to the walls at times was a pain…but for the most part it was an incredibly fun game to play…and one of the few games that i have played of late that i actually have beaten and gone back to beat again…that being said…there is not a single game in recent memory that compares to the depth and storylines that could be found on some SNES games…that was my main point…
July 2, 2008 at 10:31 am
[quote comment="27332"]
the masterpiece that is MGS4? you mean the marginal game in comparison to its competition that is basically a two hour long movie? you spend more time watching movies of the game than you do actually playing the game in single player mode…
the problem is…everyone is trying to make this epic games with flashy graphics and cheap gimmicks…but i haven’t seen more than a handful of games with a deep and involved story line since ChronoTrigger on the SNES…and that was over ten years ago..[/quote]
You obviously have not played Metal Gear Solid 4, because with that statement you just look foolish. You prove this by stating you haven’t seen a game with a “deep and involved” storyline and again you come off looking extremely foolish. The Metal Gear series is wrapped in one of the absolute best stories ever to hit the video game industry and Metal Gear Solid 4 does an incredible job at closing said story off. Its features the best visuals, voice acting and pure story that you will encounter this generation. It’ll take the Game of the Year and go down as one of this generations absolute best, if not the absolute best. But I’m getting off topic, i still think this casual movement is lame.
July 2, 2008 at 6:27 pm
Looks like a great lineup from football to basketball.