Upcoming Madden 08 Community Event

Next week brings the annual Madden community event, in which a handful of community leaders get an opportunity to spend time with Madden 08. Unfortunately we will not be joined in person by the producers however we will be given an opportunity to submit any questions to them after. This year it will be taking place in Los Angeles and runs from the 10th-13th with the Madden gameplay session taking place on the 12th.

As always, I'm open to taking any suggestions of what to look for or questions to ask. I'll be writing up my impressions of the game as well as a general recap of the event. I may also do a PadreCast right from LA. 

Since it is a limited amount of time we have obviously some things will not be addressed. For example I don't intend to spend much time if any at all with Franchise mode, however I'll jump in and try out Owner mode and Superstar mode. After posting up my reports I'll attempt to answer any questions that are presented to me. We do our best to dig into the game and give a general overview of our experience with it, and anyone who has followed my previous reports from community days would have an idea of what to expect from my end. Since there is a group of people, usually you'll be able to find a wide array of info in the days following.

If there is anything you'd like me to look out for or try and get a response to, feel free to use the contact form or leave a comment.

Checking in from NY: Day 1

Traveling in I arrived early in the AM with the only thing scheduled for the day being the EA Sports NBA Live party in the evening. There we were joined by members of the press, Kevin Durant and Gilbert Arenas, as well as other players. There were a couple stations with NBA Live however we spent minimal time with it since we'll have six hours with it on Wednesday. I should be able to put up my first impressions of the game and the input we made with the producers late in the evening/early in the morning.

Upcoming NBA Live 08 community day

Next week I will be headed out to New York for the NBA Live community event. Amongst other festivities (such as attending the NBA Draft) I will get to spend some a good amount of time playing NBA Live 08.

This is a pretty unique opportunity to get significant time in with the game this early in the development cycle. On the positive side of that, it’s early enough that feedback could be taken into consideration. Generally community days are held closer to release time and things are set in stone by then. We’ve still got until October 2nd until Live hits stores. On the other end, its still a work in progress and much of what will be there in the final build will not be evident, tuned, or possibly even implemented. Thus it seems that I’ll be able to get a feel for the game and the direction it is going, but as to specific gameplay elements and such it will be difficult to really assess them at this stage.

Another question is what we’ll be able to report back on, and I haven’t gotten word on what (if anything) will be held under NDA. I’m also waiting for a response on whether we’ll be able to take pictures and videos. I’m hoping to find out what exactly we’ll be getting and all the specifics on the event within the next couple days.

As always, I’m open to taking suggestions for what you’d like to hear back on about the game, questions to ask the developers, ect. Just leave a comment on the article or use the contact form to send me an email. I’ll do my best to get some sort of a response for everyone. Just keep in mind, especially due to this event being held earlier in the dev cycle, that I probably won’t be able to report back with the same level of detail as previous community days I have attended.

I’ll be updating the site while I’m in NY, and blogging some of my experiences while I’m there. Hopefully I’ll even be able to get a picture with Kevin Durant.

Further updates are to come leading up to the event next week. So shoot me anything you have on your mind related to NBA Live and I’ll do my best to respond to everything that I can.

First ever PadreCast

I have uploaded the first edition of the PadreCast. You can listen to it with the player below, download it from the link provided below, or listen with the player in the sidebar of the site.

This is basically just a rough first shot at it. In PadreCast #1 I recap the news of the very busy last week and drop in my thoughts on some of it. In the future the PadreCasts can be much more substantial. That is if people enjoy it or would like for me to continue doing them. If not, it didn’t hurt to give it a shot.

Yes it is 16 minutes of me just talking. I have a lot of respect for anyone who can manage to sit through all of it

As of right now, I am having an issue with the podcast player showing up on the permalink page. So if you are reading this from there, you can use the player by viewing the article on the homepage, PadreCast category, or the one in the sidebar.

Let me know what you think by commenting or emailing me.

Pastapadre.com is now mobile friendly

For anyone who browses the web on their PDA or cell phone, the site is now presented in a much better way to be navigated on them. It also loads quicker due to that. When you visit with a PDA or cell phone it should automatically detect that and it should display the mobile version of the site.

Instead of seeing the normal layout, the homepage will simply list the links of the 10 latest postings underneath links for home, recent posts, and pages. If you click on an article it will display the full text and any images included in a way that fits the screen. From any page you can see the 10 latest postings for quickly jumping from one to another.

Hope that makes it a more enjoyable experience when visiting the site on mobile devices.

New page added with release info

I’ve added a new page to the site accessible via the tab on the header labeled “Release Dates”. This page will be updated as details are made available regarding the upcoming sports titles. It will include release info such as the dates and platforms the games will be available on.

Padre out of the office

On Wednesday Padre was visiting the EA Canada studio for a media event. However now he leaves for the wonderful city of Las Vegas for a much needed vacation that runs through Monday.

At some point over the next couple days, his first hand look at NBA Live 08 will suddenly appear.

Understand though that the updates on the site will not be as frequent over the weekend. However he claims that he will attempt to check-in and post up any of the important news at least once a day.

Also you can check the sidebar for updates from Padre throughout his time in Vegas via Twitter. The “What I’m doing” area contains the last three Twitter entries. You can also follow along by clicking here.

Out most of the day Wednesday 5/2

I’ll be gone for most of the day on Wednesday May 2nd attending the media event at EA Canada. New updates will come possibly very late on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.

Another chance to win

With the sooner than expected announcement of the Madden NFL 08 cover athlete, the contest previously being run to win the faceplate ended without a successful guess of Vince Young. So now we’ll give it another shot.

To qualify simply sign up for the site’s newsletter which can be found in the sidebar. For details on the newsletter read this post. Anyone on the list by Thursday April 26th will be eligible. Once that date is reached, one person from the list will be randomly selected to receive their choice of the Madden 07 faceplate or a copy of NBA Live 07 for the PC. The winner will be contacted via the email address provided to choose which prize and to provide their shipping address. Good luck!

Weekly Newsletter

I’ve added a weekly newsletter signup on the sidebar of the page. Simply enter in your email address and confirm the sign-up in the email that is sent to you. You can always opt-out of the newsletter by clicking the link within them or by contacting me and I can do it manually.

The newsletter will contain the title and link to all the articles that have been posted over the course of the week. This way you can stay up-to-date with the news and make sure you didn’t miss out on anything important!