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Thursday, September 2, 2010
Out of Bounds: A Sports Gamer's Manifesto
12:28 PM - September 2, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS.
The first time I realized how big a business video games had become was when I went to Gamestop in 2002 to pick up a copy of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. Like most gamers, I'd spent the better part of the previous year playing the hell out of GTA III and was ready to take to a new set of streets. Back then I was going to Indiana State University, and I rounded up a couple of friends and headed for the Honey Creek Mall in beautiful Terre Haute, Indiana. Imagine our surprise when we found a line around the corner that threatened to spill into J.C. Penney.

Big games bring big numbers. When there's a new installment in the GTA series, or Halo or StarCraft or World of Warcraft or whatever, people come out in droves and drop good money to get their games. There's nothing like it. New movies hardly ever top the $20 mark, and albums, when they're not being stolen, come nowhere near the $60 range video games are fond of pushing.

Read More - Out of Bounds: A Sports Gamer's Manifesto

Thursday Other Stuff (9-2-10)
06:26 AM - September 2, 2010. Written by Steve_OS
If any of these links interest you, talk about them.QOTD: Based off of what you've seen and read so far, are you more of an NBA Elite 11 or NBA 2K11 fan?

Happy Birthday to the following OS'ers!

FSU4LIFE (37), jonpt (37), Rob. D (24), sraczk2011
Blog: Steve's World...
Some New NBA 2K11 Screenshots (Worthplaying)
12:26 AM - September 2, 2010. Posted by Steve_OS. Written by Steve Noah

Worthplaying has posted some new NBA 2K11 screenshots.

Thanks chaosJutsu!

Game: NBA 2K11Hype Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PC / PS2 / PS3 / PSP / Wii / Xbox 360Votes: 147 - View All
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
NBA Elite 11 OS Exclusive Video: Milwaukee Bucks @ New York Knicks
11:21 PM - September 1, 2010. Posted by Steve_OS. Written by Steve Noah

NBA ELITE 11 is back with the first of two gameplay videos featuring 5 on 5 action. This video is a user vs. user matchup with NBA ELITE Gameplay Producer Novell Thomas taking on NBA Community Manager Yaw Obiri-Yeboah (also known as blackflash83 on the forums) . The game is being played on a Pre-final build with some tuning left to do but it provides a good representation of how the game will play once you developed your skills with the new Hands-On control.

Be sure to check out some of the quick plays being called during half court offensive sequences (press X on the 360 to begin a quick play or the Square button on PS3) and the importance of playing the passing lanes as balls can get deflected. You have complete control this year in NBA ELITE 11.

Game: NBA Elite 11Hype Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes: 83 - View All
New NBA Elite 11 Screenshots and Features List
06:54 PM - September 1, 2010. Posted by Haval93.

*Click here to view the new NBA Elite 11 screenshots.

Features

Hands-On Control
NBA ELITE 11 reinvents the entire basketball experience by allowing you to take control and showcase your skills. For the first time in a basketball video game, all elements of the experience are based on skill, not luck. With the left stick controlling your feet, and the right stick controlling your hands (one-to-one dribbling, shooting, passing, stealing, blocking etc), NBA ELITE 11 offers the most authentic basketball experience yet.

Real Physics
Radically improved game physics rid the days of locked animated sequences leaving you in control of the player at all times. When you drive aggressively to the net and go up with authority, you can be sure that whoever is standing in your way has a pretty good chance of getting tossed to the ground.

Real AI
Driven by the technology of other best in class EA SPORTS titles like Fight Night and NHL, NBA ELITE 11 offers CPU play that truly plays like a real human. Thousands of captured moves (including some captured by Kevin Durant himself) play back when the CPU is on offense. The end result is CPU offensive moves which are extremely responsive and mimic what a user player would do. There are Real AI sequences for dribble moves, post moves, shots, and signature player moves.

Become Legendary
You’re the ultimate star in the all-new Become Legendary - Be a Pro mode. Pick up the demo and start your career in the Jordan Draft Showcase to get drafted into the NBA! Once you land on your new NBA team, work your way through the 23 Legend Levels creating your own unique career, making ESPN headlines and gaining endorsement deals on your way to becoming legendary.

ESPN In-Game Broadcasting
Our primary focus for presentation this year was to integrate the authentic ESPN broadcast package. With this year’s game feeling more like real NBA basketball than ever before, we wanted to make sure that it looked and sounded just like a real NBA game on ESPN. We’re bringing you a dynamic, exciting and realistic experience like no other in which you will truly believe you are in the game.

EASBA
Online Team Play in past iterations of the NBA franchise has been popular, but lacked a sense of player and team progression. For NBA ELITE 11, we created the EA SPORTS Basketball Association; an online multi-player league, complete with your own created player and created teams. If it sounds familiar it is because we have taken a page from NHL’s EASHL (which has over half a million users).

NBA Jam
Included with the purchase of NBA ELITE 11 is a one-time downloadable code that will enable users to access three modes of NBA JAM – Play Now, Classic Campaign and Online. Already set to revolutionize the way basketball simulation games are played, the inclusion of NBA JAM will make NBA ELITE 11 the ultimate basketball video game experience available on the Xbox360.

Game: NBA Elite 11Hype Score: 7.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS3Votes: 83 - View All



The 2K Sports Facebook page has released some more NBA 2K11 My Player news.

Originally Posted by :

"Become a star in My Player mode and you'll get sponsorships from iconic brands. What sponsor would you most like to have? Jordan Brand? Gatorade? Sprite? 2K Sports???"
Game: NBA 2K11Hype Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS2 / PS3 / Wii / PSP / PCVotes: 147 - View All
NHL 11 HUT Producer Blog: Rammer Building a Foundation
04:56 PM - September 1, 2010. Posted by ezio.

Hey everyone…Rammer here again to talk about the most addicting mode I’ve ever played, Hockey Ultimate Team in NHL 11. Right now, the entire dev team (at least those not on well deserved vacation) are playing in the EAUHL and already we are seeing very different strategies for building a team. As we’ve stated before, this mode is all about YOU being the GM of YOUR team and building the way YOU want to for success against the rest of the world.

We’ve all heard Brian Burke’s philosophy for building a championship team. He wants six ‘white collar’ guys to put the puck in the net and six ‘blue collar’ guys to bang and crash so his team is tough to play against. We see other teams like Pittsburgh which were not very good for many years but during that time, they were accumulating top draft picks (like Crosby and Malkin) and creating a young talented core that grew together until they were ready to make a run for the cup. Once they were ready, management brought in some key free agents to play specific roles and that’s how they were successful in building their championship team. In a lot of ways, Chicago followed the same recipe of taking their lumps while accumulating young superstars (Toews and Kane) through the draft and building around them. They won the cup this year but as we’ve seen this off-season, they’ve had to retool their line-up because they couldn’t re-sign all of their players under the cap thus making it a lot tougher to build a dynasty.

There are so many different approaches to building your Hockey Ultimate Team that over the next week, myself and some of the other members of the dev team will be sharing their philosophies and documenting how they’re doing in our ‘dev team only” EAUHL.

I’ll start with me…With the addition of the CHL this year, my approach is to rack up as many top prospects as possible and build around a solid core of young superstars that I can keep together for a long time and not have to worry about the cap. The key for me is that the young guys have the most training slots, are a small cap hit and have the longest careers.

hall-and-fowler-chl-2

So…after earning a couple packs and making a crafty trade, I get Cam Fowler and Ryan Ellis playing D together. Both these guys played defense for the Windsor Spitfires last year so their chemistry is through the roof. Along the way, I earned several training cards so I decided that I was going to train up Cam Fowler first and try to get him up to a 90+ rating. I put 6 training cards on him and got him up to an 85. A couple games later, I tried advancing to play a game and was reminded that I had a player without a contract. Guess who…Cam Fowler. No problem RIGHT? I’ll just go put a 40 game contract card on him which I had waiting for use on one of my young players. WRONG! I could put the contract card on him no problem…AT TWICE THE SALARY!

GM lesson 101: When you try to re-sign an 85 rated player, he will cost more than trying to sign a player rated in the 70’s! LOCK UP YOUR YOUNG TALENT TO LONG CONTRACTS BEFORE TRAINING THEM UP.

I haven’t made that mistake again but what I began to notice was that I was using up games of my key players and my team was nowhere close to being ready to make a run. I want to build a dynasty and reign supreme for a long time. To do that, I want at least 6 young forwards and 4 young d-men who have all been trained up playing together for at least 35 - 40 games. I changed my approach once again.

Now I’m keeping all of my key young players on my Scratched Roster and in My Collection (instead of playing with them). This is essentially my farm team. As I gain good training cards and 35+ game contract cards, I’ve been applying them to these key guys (contract cards first including AN 80 GAME CONTRACT CARD). Hopefully, in the next couple of days, I can bring all of these guys into my active roster and start reaping the rewards of my patience. As other GM’s start to run into salary cap issues near the end of this season and the start of next season because they have to resign their players, that should be when I really capitalize with my approach. Stay tuned…

In the meantime, you’ll be hearing from some of the other dev team members and their experience to date in the EAUHL.

Enjoy,

~Rammer

Source - NHL 11 In the Crease Blog

Game: NHL 11Hype Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS3Votes: 62 - View All
Dynasty Musings: NCAA Football 11 Recruiting Tips
03:34 PM - September 1, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS.
Hey everyone, it's time for a little strategy session during this edition of Dynasty Musings. We’ll be talking about recruiting in NCAA Football 11 by EA Sports.

With the roulette feature that EA has added this year, you no longer just get to pound the same topics over and over again. A much needed addition, the roulette requires you to pick your spots wisely because you might not get to talk about your A-plus pro potential as much as you’d like. I’ll go over a few tips, and hopefully you guys chime in with some helpful tidbits as well in the comments.

Read More - Dynasty Musings: NCAA Football 11 Recruiting Tips

Game: NCAA Football 11Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS2 / PS3 / iPhoneVotes: 50 - View All
Interview with NHL 2K11 Cover Athlete Ryan Kesler
12:26 PM - September 1, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Christian McLeod


Operation Sports got a chance to talk with NHL 2K11 cover athlete Ryan Kesler yesterday. Read on to find out what Kesler thinks about being a 2K cover athlete, video games and a certain Chicago Blackhawks theme song.

Read More - Interview with NHL 2K11 Cover Athlete Ryan Kessler

Game: NHL 2K11Reader Score: 5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: iPhone / WiiVotes: 2 - View All
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
NCAA Football 11 Patch #3 Coming Soon, Possibly This Week
09:32 PM - August 31, 2010. Posted by Steve_OS. Written by Steve Noah

Just in case you missed the Operation Sports Radio Show #2 with Chris Sanner and Senior Staff Writer, Christian McLeod. It was announced that we could possibly see NCAA Football 11 patch #3 as early as this week.

You can catch the replay of the show, right here.

Game: NCAA Football 11Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: iPhone / PS2 / PS3 / Xbox 360Votes: 50 - View All


* View all of the Madden NFL Superstars screenshots, right here.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. – August 31, 2010 – Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced today that Madden NFL 11 is delivering a strong performance in August in both retail sales and direct-to-consumer digital revenue. Based on internal estimates, Madden NFL 11 is the #1 selling game in North America in August – sales are projected to be up approximately 5% year-over-year across all platforms for the month.

Today, Madden NFL Superstars, an all-new NFL social game experience, launches on Facebook.

“Madden NFL 11 is the number one selling game in August, and the game has created enormous enthusiasm in the online community,” said Peter Moore, president of EA SPORTS. “Each day on consoles, fans are playing as many games online as the equivalent of 750 full NFL seasons. Now on Facebook, Madden NFL Superstars will bring a whole new dimension and audience to the Madden NFL experience.”

This month, Madden NFL 11 has reached a number of important milestones:

• On the strength of the Madden NFL Ultimate Team game mode being released this year at launch, digital revenues for Madden NFL 11 are up more than 200 percent year-over-year.

• Madden NFL 11 gamers have averaged more than two million online connected game sessions each day. Nearly 20 percent of all online play has been logged on a brand new feature, Online Team Play. The mode allows fans to go online and play 3-on-3 with, or against, their friends.

• The innovative new GameFlow play calling system in Madden NFL 11 has been a hit, with 85 percent of players having used the new feature that streamlines play calling and shortens overall game length for a more accessible experience. Says ESPN.com: “GameFlow is a complete game-changer.”

• Madden NFL 11 debuted as the #1 top grossing application for Apple’s mobile platforms on the day it launched – the first time one game franchise has held the top grossing position in multiple platforms in the App Store.


EA SPORTS and Playfish Launch Madden NFL Superstars
Leveraging the combined expertise of Playfish and EA SPORTS, Madden NFL Superstars is launching today. Madden NFL Superstars is an all-new NFL team management experience on Facebook that enables fans to create their ultimate fantasy squad by collecting NFL players and competing in gridiron matchups against their friends.

“The highly celebrated Madden NFL video game franchise from EA SPORTS is loved by millions. Madden NFL Superstars is a unique new experience that gives those fans, and tens of millions more, an opportunity to enjoy the excitement of NFL football on Facebook,” said Kristian Segerstrale, vice president and general manager of Playfish. “With the start of the NFL season right around the corner, we’re looking forward to feedback from the Madden NFL Superstars community to help us create the most authentic and entertaining NFL football experience possible on Facebook.”

Madden NFL Superstars is a dynamic team management game that features fun and accessible game play, more than 1,500 current players from all 32 NFL 2010 team rosters, and all-new game modes that allow fans to play head-to-head or against the millions of other Facebook users. In Season mode, players compete in increasingly challenging matchups against other player’s teams through a progressive ladder to earn championship trophies. NFL Pro League mode puts players’ Madden NFL Superstars teams to the extreme test to compete for supremacy in a series of contests against each of this season’s actual NFL teams. Scrimmage mode thrusts players into head-to-head contests against their real life Facebook friends for ultimate bragging rights.

From opening kickoff, Madden NFL Superstars will showcase a lineup of features and items that can be earned through free game play and gifting, or purchased via micro-transactions. Features include Game Changers, which enables a team to even the playing field against overpowering competition by instantly increasing its scoring potential; the personalization of stadiums with team names and logos; the ability to open player packs to build a team of real NFL stars, and more.

Try it out for yourself, right here.

Game: Madden NFL SuperstarsReader Score: 2.5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PCVotes: 2 - View All
OS Radio Show Tonight at 9PM EST!
05:26 PM - August 31, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Chris Sanner
What: OS Radio Show

When: Tonight at 9pm EST!

Where: We will be live both on OS and on BlogTalkRadio!

Hosts: Our Executive Editor Chris Sanner as well as NCAA Football 11 Reviewer Christian McLeod.

Listen Link: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/operationsports
Listen live in the top right hand corner.

Chat With Us: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/flashch...perationsports

Call in Number: 347-843-4864

Game: Madden NFL 11Reader Score: 7/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / Xbox 360Votes: 33 - View All

The NBA 2K11 facebook page has given us another update to My Player mode.

Originally Posted by :

"If you're gonna Become The Greatest, you gotta have your own signature shoe. Dominate in this year's version of My Player mode and you'll see your customized kicks on the feet of other guys in the league. What's your signature shoe gonna be called?"
Game: NBA 2K11Hype Score: 9/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS2 / PS3 / Wii / PSP / PCVotes: 147 - View All
The Franchise Man: Dynasty Mode vs. Franchise Mode
02:04 PM - August 31, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS.


There were a lot of improvements with NCAA Football 11 and Madden 11 this year. But I think we can all agree that their dynasty and franchise modes did not necessarily follow that trend.

Madden gave us literally the same Franchise mode we have seen on current-gen consoles for the past few years -- even the NCAA imported draft classes are broken.

NCAA Football seemed like it was going to make huge strides with its Dynasty mode, giving us the option to play everything online and save all stats and replays for 30 seasons. That has not panned out since it can take too long to advance through the offseasons and weeks online. Plus, you can’t receive conference invites either.

So which mode wins out this year? Well, here’s a breakdown of which mode I think is the best this year.

The Franchise Man: Dynasty Mode vs. Franchise Mode

Game: NCAA Football 11Reader Score: 8/10 - Vote Now
Platform: Xbox 360 / PS2 / PS3 / iPhoneVotes: 50 - View All

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