First Prizefighter full preview

IGN has posted up their early preview of Don King Presents: Prizefighter. Some of the areas discussed include the story mode, aspects of gameplay, the controls, and the soundtrack. You can read the full preview here.

From what I’ve read I really like the sound of the story mode and the overall presentation. 50 fights would be more than enough for me but I’m sure some people out there will wish there was more to it. Still beats what you could get out of Fight Night’s career mode.

As to concerns around gameplay it sounds like some of the things I got a sense of from the trailer, especially the lack of fluidity, is an issue with the game. Although it is worth stating that depending on how old the build was those things could’ve been addressed to a certain extent by the time the game is completed.

Gametap puts odds on the Madden 09 cover athlete

Jon Robinson over at Gametap has posted his top 10 candidates for the Madden 09 cover along with odds on the likelihood of each occurring. After putting a list together for Madden 08 (while at IGN) I began to wonder if he knew more than he was letting on when he had Vince Young listed second behind only LaDainian Tomlinson (who actually was the first choice but turned it down). Up until then no one had really considered Young to be a top candidate.

So if you look at his the list for 09 does anything jump out in the same way that Young did last year? Not really. The top ones mentioned are the obvious guys like Adrian Peterson, Eli Manning, and Tom Brady with John Madden thrown in due to the 20th Anniversary angle. He has Tomlinson fourth but I have my doubts that EA would even consider him again after his agent made it public that they weren’t offering enough money to get him last year. You can check out the full write-up of the top 10 candidates here.

Look for my analysis of the possible cover athletes for Madden 09 as well as the PS3 version of NCAA Football 09 to be posted by next week.

Gamestop begins Madden Mondays blog

Gamestop will be hosting a Madden 09 blog every Monday spotlighting a new feature in the game. These features will not have been revealed anywhere else although the way they describe them makes it seem as though they won’t be the “big” features in the game.

It’s interesting to see Gamestop revealing this Madden info. I don’t think that has ever been done before. Usually media sites are relied upon rather than a retail site although it appears they are attempting to branch out from that.

This week’s “Madden Monday” blog describes new user controlled celebrations. As can be seen from the image above the celebrations are manually triggered by hitting a button and by reaching different spots in the end zone there are different ones that will be performed. Some players will have their own unique celebrations as expected. A few specific mentions are made such as the Lambeau Leap and “stealing” an opponents celebration (think T.O. doing the Ray Lewis dance I suppose).

You can check out the full blog posting here.

MLB 08: The Show roster update 4/14

The weekly roster update (4/14) for MLB 08: The Show is now available by visiting the SportsConnect section of the game. This updates includes 121 player movements. It also should fix the minor issue caused by last week’s update which removed some player equipment. SCEA has highlighted some of the changes made below. If your PS3 doesn’t have access to online you can download the file from here and then transfer it over.

SP John Smoltz moved from Braves Minors to Braves Starting.
SP JoJo Reyes moved from Braves Starting to Braves Minors.
SP Josh Beckett moved from Red Sox Minors to Red Sox Starting.
CF Jim Edmonds moved from Padres Minors to Padres Position.
RF Jody Gerut moved from Padres Bench to Padres Minors.
LF Paul McAnulty moved from Padres Position to Padres Bench.
RP Bob Wickman moved from D’backs Minors to Free Agent.
C Michael Barrett moved from Padres Bench to Padres Minors.
LF Dmitri Young moved from Nationals Position to Nationals Minors.
RP Hideo Nomo moved from No Team to Royals Relief.
CF Tony Gwynn Jr moved from Brewers Position to Brewers Minors.
LF Ricky Ledee moved from Free Agent to No Team.