EA Sports Developing Tennis Game

One sport that has been missing from EA Sports lineup of games has been tennis. Today EA announced that they are currently working on one. The game will release first on the Wii in 2009 before coming to other consoles. It is being developed out of EA Canada and will be their first game to use the upcoming Wii MotionPlus.

EA SPORTS will bring tennis to life and allow players to experience the pressure and excitement of competing in the greatest theaters in the game, and it will be the only videogame to feature the All England Lawn Tennis Club – home of The Championships, Wimbledon. The all-new EA SPORTS tennis franchise will offer innovative ways to play, both as or against the greatest players from the past or present, letting you control the ball and work the court like you never have before in a tennis videogame.

NCAA Football 09 Wii Impressions

As the first of the All-Play titles it was pretty obvious that EA Sports didn’t have much confidence in NCAA Football 09 for the Wii. I even noted that a while back when EA was showing off the whole All-Play lineup…except for NCAA. Even feature wise it didn’t match up lacking the online component that the others had.

I took a different approach with this game (and will do the same with all Wii titles) going into it looking for something different. Would it provide a quick paced and fun experience? Few hardcore sports gamers are only going to have a Wii. It’s much more likely that someone would pick up the Wii version as a complimentary title to one they’ve already purchased for the 360 or PS3. So head-to-head would be a focus, areas such as the mini and mascot games would need to provide enjoyment, and how well the controls worked would be critical.

Continue on to read my initial thoughts on the Wii version of NCAA Football 09 along with a gameplay video.

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Looking at EA’s upcoming Wii releases

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.

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NHL 2K9 coming to the Wii

2K Sports today announced that NHL 2K9 will be released on the Wii in the fall with a likely date of September 9th. 2K9 was already known to be on the way for the 360, PS3, and PS2 featuring Rick Nash as the cover athlete and will be built from the ground up after the studio move to Visual Concepts.

“It’s our goal this year to bring the fun back to hockey video games,” said Christoph Hartmann, president of 2K. “NHL 2K9 for Wii includes the full feature set as available on other platforms, and added Wii Remote controls and other exciting features specific for the Wii console will allow dedicated fans the opportunity to fully enjoy and embrace NHL hockey in a brand new experience.”

I’ve been surprised to see that neither EA nor 2K had taken hockey to the Wii before now, though I anticipated an arcade style game to be the first one rather than one of their sim titles. Visual Concepts will handle the Wii version also which is reassuring to hear.

The idea of a hockey game on the Wii should have pretty wide appeal as long as the controls are responsive and simple. Just as running the option sounds fun for NCAA Football, hitting the puck with the Wii remote seems like a natural fit.

First details on Madden 09 for the Wii

As with what we’ve seen from NCAA Football 09, this year’s release on the Wii for Madden 09 will help to kickoff the All-Play brand of games on that console. The idea behind it is to make the games more inviting to inexperienced players who have felt the games have been intimidating and confusing. The entire line of All-Play will be designed from the ground-up for the Wii as opposed to receiving a port of the PS2 version with motion controls tacked on and mini-games added.

Yesterday Peter Moore showed off the Wii version of Madden 09 and talked the media through the thinking behind it as recapped by Kotaku. Included in the game this year will be simpler menus, a five on five mode, and the ability to create plays on the fly by outlining receiver routes. There will also be less that gets in the way of playing by eliminating timeouts, huddles, and cutting down on penalties which will keep the games moving at a brisk pace. We also know there will be online play, however whether it will differ in structure or options from last year has not been discussed.

Clearly the hardcore crowd isn’t going to be very interested in that but that isn’t who the game is marketed to for obvious reasons. The hardcore gamers will get what they want from the 360/PS3 and aren’t looking to the Wii for that experience. It is a different crowd on the Wii with those looking for more accessibility and fun, or for a different game than what they would already own on their 360/PS3.

Whether this will end up being more successful than the previous attempts remains to be seen. But given the focus on producing the titles to specifically take advantage of the Wii and offer a unique experience there is reason to be optimistic.

Sparty gets Wii cover of NCAA Football 09

EA Sports today announced that Michigan State mascot Sparty has won the voting for the cover of the Wii version of NCAA Football 09. He joins Arkansas’ Darren McFadden and three future announced cover athletes that will represent the different platform versions of the game this year.

After looking at the support that Sparty had received from facebook groups, forums, and media coverage I made the prediction that he would jump ahead of Washington State’s Butch T. Cougar to take the cover. It seems that the campaign behind him truly was the strongest and most organized and it paid off in the end.

Over 700,000 votes were cast resulting in a very close race. The final top 10 went as follows: Michigan State, Central Florida, Washington State, Auburn, LSU, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa State, Alabama, Penn State.

*Please note that the cover art pictured above is not final. This was put together quickly just for promotional purposes to go along with the announcement. The final cover art should be released soon.