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.

EA-Take Two Saga Continues

In a press release today it was stated that EA and Take Two discussed the the potential acquisition over the course of the weekend. EA has now accepted Take Two’s offer to provide them with a presentation that includes non-public information. EA will allow their offer for the outstanding shares to expire at at midnight eastern tonight.

Basically what this means is that because EA doesn’t feel it could integrate Take Two in order to take advantage of the holiday season and as such they will reevaluate the offer. From the beginning that was the first goal of the deal for EA. On the other side Take Two is attempting to prove they are actually worth more than what EA is offering. But the two sides are talking which is more than could be said previously.

At this point regardless of what happens the upcoming 2K Sports releases (NBA 2K9, NHL 2K9) should not be affected.

Tiger 09 and NHL 2K9 Demos Available

The Tiger Woods 09 demo is out for both the 360 and PS3. It contains three different holes to play, feedback and custom drills with Hank Haney, and the opportunity to try out the new club tuning feature.

The NHL 2K9 demo can be found for the PS3 and should be following on the 360 as early as next week. It offers a three minute period with the Detroit Red Wings facing the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Does Tiger Woods feel like an advancement from last year? Does NHL 2K9 really come across as having been built from the ground up? Feel free to leave your thoughts on both of the demos in the comments.

NBA Live 09 Online Team Play Improvements

Online Team Play is easily the aspect of the NBA Live 09 that I am most excited about. EA knew it was a big hit not only by the overwhelmingly positive response from gamers last year but also by seeing how online usage quadrupled after being released. Producer Julien Carron even talked with me about the list I published of how the mode could be improved and how a good deal of those suggestions were met.

This year you’ll be able to form “Clubs” which will have their own ranking system. A large group will be able to form a club of up to 50 people. As long as an OTP game is played with at least three club members on the same team it will count into the rankings and record/statistics. In theory there could be multiple games taking place at the same time for a club.

Positional success is tracked and is a way of the Club’s GM to scout potential members and put together good balance. A player gets credit on their performance bar for making good plays related to their position, while making bad plays or allowing their assignment while on defense to score will hurt your rating. At any time the GM can remove a player from club, so performance along with desire to stay in a club will provide incentive for people to play the right way.

Some other details: The camera in OTP is similar to the broadcast camera except that it pulls out to provide a wider view when away from the action. The mode includes menu areas for blogs and trophies. You can set screens this year. There are areas for “Club Tryouts” which are ranked games that can help build up history and stats as well as regular unranked OTP. There are no additional tie-ins to EA Sports World unfortunately.

I’m really excited about the forming of the Pastapadre Club! This will be a better way to really involve the community and I think we could have a club that competes at the highest level.

Madden 09 Coverage Wrap-Up and Your Impressions

Madden 09 has made its way out and with that brings an end to the prerelease coverage of the game. I still have plans to complete full online impressions, a look at fantasy football importing into Madden (which looks like it has been fixed), an EASW video highlight contest, and the setting up of the custom team online competition to look forward to in the near future. Otherwise I’ll be directing my immediate focus towards NFL Head Coach 09 which I’ll have later today.

As always I’ll be curious to see how the masses receive the game. I suspect for the head-to-head crowd it will be considered very good, while those who heavily invest in CPU offline play or online play will have mixed feelings. As I stated in my random thoughts write-up it is a huge jump forward in gameplay and presentation but the overall experience feels somewhat empty as it doesn’t have a feature or mode that can compare to NCAA Football 09’s Online Dynasty or the Online Team Play of several other EA titles.

Here are links from the prerelease coverage. Feel free to leave your impressions of Madden 09 in the comments!

Random Thoughts on Madden 09
Roster Update Details
Online League Impressions
Full Game of Madden 09: Seahawks @ Chiefs
Full Game of Madden 09: Bengals @ Colts
Full Game of Madden 09: Texans @ Titans
Full Game of Madden 09: Bills @ Jets
A Few More Videos (Madden Moments, Superstar Mode)
Community Event Impressions
Live Blog from Community Event

Random Thoughts on Madden 09

Having gone to the community event and gotten an extensive amount of time with the game there I have already been able to give my overall impressions on the game. My thoughts from then basically carry over to now. Madden 09 is a significant upgrade in gameplay and presentation. At the same time the overall experience feels more empty after having enjoyed NCAA Football 09’s online dynasty. There just isn’t a feature or mode in Madden that matches up to that.

So I thought I would just drop some of the random thoughts I’ve had about the game as I’ve played it over the last few days. I may continue to add to this list through tomorrow.

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Brett Favre Traded to the New York Jets

It’s now official…Brett Favre has been traded to the New York Jets. For the first time ever a cover athlete will be playing for a different team than the one represented on the game. What does it mean for Madden 09?

While a roster update is already out that had moved Favre to the backup slot for the Packers, another one is expected by the official release date. Favre will certainly be the starter on the Jets by the time people pick up the game. I’d fully expect to see downloadable Brett Favre covers on the EA website soon. I even believe there is a possibility they’ll release a new edition of Madden 09 with a Favre-Jets cover sometime in the future. This is a unique opportunity that EA will surely look to take advantage of.

For those interested, Chris Littman at FirstCuts has a 360 and PS3 cover using the Favre-Jets screenshot above here.

How much will Favre help the Jets in Madden? Can the Jets contend in the AFC? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

NFL Head Coach 09 Q&A

Thanks to suggestions from the community I was able to compile a list of questions for NFL Head Coach 09 producer Josh Looman. While a lot has already been answered over the last few months these were questions that seemed valuable given the imminent release alongside Madden 09 in the Collector’s Edition. I also sought to get a look at the online play aspect of the game and screenshots from that may come later today.

Will there be a demo for the game?

Yes. In fact, it will be completely different than any sports game demo you’ve ever seen before. We’re not just giving you the opportunity to play a Coach Now game. We’re giving you a whole lot more!

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NCAA Football 09 Patch Details

The complete list of what is being fixed in the second patch is now available thanks to producer Adam Thompson. This patch is expected to be submitted to MS/Sony today which means it could potentially arrive before September if things go smoothly. The first patch, which fixes the player editing issues, may be out as early as next week.

Expanding on what was already known the patch will include the ability to view your Online Dynasty headquarters through EA Sports World along with some bug fixes. Continue on to view the full list of items included in the patch.

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Madden 09 and Facebreaker Demos Now Available

The demos for EA Sports Madden NFL 09 and Facebreaker are now available for download for the 360 and should both be coming this afternoon for the PS3. Generally the PSN is updated around 3pm PT. It turns out Madden came one day earlier than expected as it had been advertised for August 1st.

The Madden 09 demo features a run through of the virtual trainer and then the “Madden Moment” controlling the Giants on a last minute drive in the Super Bowl. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments or in this forum thread.

The Facebreaker demo offers a minute of action with the choice of three different characters as well as the ability to upload your face into the game for placement on them. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments or in this forum thread.

Check back this evening for videos and impressions on the two demos. I’ll be doing a breakdown of the old demo vs the new demo vs the community event build from late May for Madden.

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