Looking Back Over A Wild Week

by pastapadre
Posted February 8th, 2010 at 9:35 am

The last week was one of the busiest ever in terms of news and updates most of which were very substantial in relation to upcoming releases. It all started with sightings of a promotion to vote on the cover athlete for Madden 11. It turned out that three players (Drew Brees, Reggie Wayne, Jared Allen) were the eligible candidates. Brees is a certain lock and the inclusion of Allen after three DUIs was a surprise but ultimately EA shaped the contest to get the player they wanted all along so the risk involved was minimal. That Brees won the Super Bowl and was MVP of the game while Wayne is seen as a goat only establishes that even more.

In other Madden related news the Super Bowl halftime blog for Madden 11 was released offering an opportunity to hear about the vision for the game. The final roster update for Madden 10 arrived with a surprise of recently announced retired players being completely removed. As far as I’m aware its the first time off-season transactions have entered into the previous season’s game. EA Sports president Peter Moore also announced plans to bring a version of Madden to Facebook.

The biggest development that could represent a huge shift in NBA gaming came with lead gameplay designer Mike Wang departing NBA Live and rejoining NBA 2K. While both companies gave their spin on the events I recapped the situation and evaluated what it could possibly mean in the future. Needless to say the state of basketball at EA Sports is in crisis right now and it’ll be interesting to see what they do to attempt and recover. They don’t seem to plan on responding to the statements made about them which is going to leave that image of the company and a worrisome direction of Live brewing in the minds of those aware of the news for the months to come.

Exclusive screenshots for MLB 10: The Show were released at different points throughout the week. All of them can currently be found in the gallery. Another six will be posted likely sometime this evening. Also new gameplay videos, the first drawn from within the game instead of recorded off screen, were released featuring the Tigers @ Twins.

UFC Undisputed 2010 revealed Brock Lesnar as the cover athlete and offered up the first details on the game. Backbreaker appears to be starting its promotional push with the first video dev diary for the game. The two games release within a week of each other with Backbreaker out on May 18th and UFC 2010 arriving on May 25th.

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IOI

Thanks for the recap. Early February probably isn't a time where a lot usually happens like that.
T. DALEY

Who gives a crap if Mike Wang leaves to go back to 2k. He already has made the monumental changes that were needed to push live forward. His job is done their. Its not like he can take the code with him. Besides his going back to 2k is pretty obvious isn't it. Where else would he go. There are no other basketball games. Anyway his reason for leaving 2k in the first place will not have changed and in fact could be potentially far worse. With the state of the economy and the poor performance of MLB2k and NHL2k, surely 2k's resources will not be better for Mike Wang to create the basketball masterpiece that he claimed he couldn't do at EA or previously at 2K. Bottom line is this. 2k will continue to rehash the same game as 3 years ago and EA will marginally improve on what it put out last year and the 2k fans will still hate live and the live fans will still hate 2k. PERIOD!
http://pastapadre.com/ pastapadre

That could be the case, but his departing comments about EA going a different direction are a concern. Which is why I hoped EA would respond as now it appears that it is probably very true at least to some extent.
NoFro904

Superbowl was most Watches Show Ever.
thats crazy
T. DALEY

Being that neither you or anyone else know what direction Mike Wang was headed with this franchise, their is no reason for concern what so ever. You seem to think that Mike Wang is some sort of Savior. I am sure that EA isn't going to backslide from what Wang did. EA has always been about bringing something new and innovative to their franchises which is why Wang was brought in, in the first place. Now that he has accomplished what EA wanted now they will likely seek out another team or person to lead the way on 2010.

I think you are a little to melodramatic about all this stuff. Its just games Pasta. Take a deep breath and come to your senses. The universe is as it should be and always will. 2k will continue to pedal rehashed basketball games with insignifcant changes and game modes that don't work out of the box and EA will release a game that is better than its last but still perceived as less than 2k. Its a vicious cycle that will never end as long as fanboys exist.

What we really need is for another developer to take a stab at the genre and give us fanboys someone else to talk about. Similar to the nonsense that is going on with backbreaker. The only way to tame the fanboyism is to give them something new to chew on.
IOI

Thanks for the recap. Early February probably isn't a time where a lot usually happens like that.
T. DALEY

Who gives a crap if Mike Wang leaves to go back to 2k. He already has made the monumental changes that were needed to push live forward. His job is done their. Its not like he can take the code with him. Besides his going back to 2k is pretty obvious isn't it. Where else would he go. There are no other basketball games. Anyway his reason for leaving 2k in the first place will not have changed and in fact could be potentially far worse. With the state of the economy and the poor performance of MLB2k and NHL2k, surely 2k's resources will not be better for Mike Wang to create the basketball masterpiece that he claimed he couldn't do at EA or previously at 2K. Bottom line is this. 2k will continue to rehash the same game as 3 years ago and EA will marginally improve on what it put out last year and the 2k fans will still hate live and the live fans will still hate 2k. PERIOD!
http://pastapadre.com/ pastapadre

That could be the case, but his departing comments about EA going a different direction are a concern. Which is why I hoped EA would respond as now it appears that it is probably very true at least to some extent.
NoFro904

Superbowl was most Watches Show Ever.
thats crazy
T. DALEY

Being that neither you or anyone else know what direction Mike Wang was headed with this franchise, their is no reason for concern what so ever. You seem to think that Mike Wang is some sort of Savior. I am sure that EA isn't going to backslide from what Wang did. EA has always been about bringing something new and innovative to their franchises which is why Wang was brought in, in the first place. Now that he has accomplished what EA wanted now they will likely seek out another team or person to lead the way on 2010.

I think you are a little to melodramatic about all this stuff. Its just games Pasta. Take a deep breath and come to your senses. The universe is as it should be and always will. 2k will continue to pedal rehashed basketball games with insignifcant changes and game modes that don't work out of the box and EA will release a game that is better than its last but still perceived as less than 2k. Its a vicious cycle that will never end as long as fanboys exist.

What we really need is for another developer to take a stab at the genre and give us fanboys someone else to talk about. Similar to the nonsense that is going on with backbreaker. The only way to tame the fanboyism is to give them something new to chew on.

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