Author Bio
Jayson YoungHome Town: Nashville, TN.
Sports: Football, Basketball, Hockey, Soccer
Games: Old: Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball, Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition, NBA Hangtime, New: All Pro Football 2K8, NHL '09
Teams: Vanderbilt Commodores, Tennessee Titans, Nashville Predators, Memphis Grizzlies
OS Username: OS: wEEman33 Xbox Live: wEEman33 BSD
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Saturday, January 30, 2010
11:23 AM - January 30, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
It is amazing, that in the 27 years since Konami debuted Track and Field in the arcades, Olympic-themed video games have not advanced a single step beyond Konami’s original formula of mashing buttons until your fingers bleed.
Only Sonic and Mario have come close in recent years, but not even gaming's most-celebrated duo can compete with one of Konami's least-celebrated titles -- the one that, to this day, continues to surpass the efforts of all other Olympic games -- thus making it a fine recipient of the title "greatest video game Olympian.”
Read More - Tiny Toons, the Olympics, and a Lack of Evolution
Friday, January 22, 2010
05:18 PM - January 22, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
Ask any Xbox 360 owner for an opinion about Microsoft’s downloadable content policies, and the response will likely include the words "rip-off," "nickel and dime" or "horse armor."While the Xbox 360’s "microtransactions" have given developers the opportunity to release new content for games that have already made it to retail, many game companies have been abusing the feature by rationing out downloadable content in small, separate packs (usually at inflated prices) or deciding to withhold content from the original disc so it can become "release-day DLC."
But for every "horse armor" or "dynasty accelerator," there comes the occasional piece of justified downloadable content, such as the Trials HD Big Pack that goes for 400 Microsoft Points ($5).
Read More - Trials HD: Big Pack Review
Thursday, January 21, 2010
11:48 AM - January 21, 2010. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
Like many of the features added to current-gen Madden, Ultimate Team is a mode that performs much better in press clippings than it does on the playing field.While the idea of building a fantasy team of your favorite NFL players is sound, Ultimate Team's execution is poor enough to make even JaMarcus "Mr. Indifferent" Russell blush.
Read More - Madden Ultimate Team Disappointing
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
05:59 PM - December 2, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
It’s sometimes easy to forget that video games are a business like any other -- run, not by consumers, but by corporations and shareholders. Like many businesses outside of the video-game industry, many game companies have recently been forced to downsize their range of products to all but the safest, most essential wares.
For many sports gaming companies, the "arcade" department seems to have been the first group to receive its pink slip in these tough economic times. Fans of the genre have recently seen franchises like EA’s Street games or Midway’s classic Blitz and Jam titles either completely abandoned by the parent company or given little more than a low-risk, low-budget sequel.
But despite EA shutting down its Street brand and taking a year off to reassess its approach to the genre, EA’s relaunched arcade sports department still does not seem to have learned from the mistakes it was making earlier this generation with games like NBA Street Homecourt or NFL Tour, i.e., releasing half-baked sequels that fail to match the modes or features of their last-gen counterparts.
EA’s 3 on 3 NHL Arcade, the company’s first shot to recapture some of its past arcade glory (Mutant League Hockey, anyone?), ended up being a fun but shallow experience that wasted a great hockey engine on a game that was completely bereft of modes or features -- to the point that 3 on 3 NHL Arcade felt more like a mini-game that should have been included on the NHL 09 disc instead of a standalone downloadable game.
The nine months since 3 on 3 NHL Arcade was released does not seem to have taught EA any major lessons. I say that because Madden NFL Arcade is another feature-thin game that, at its $15 asking price, does not seem to justify its status as a full, arcade release. In reality, it’s little more than mini-game that has been lifted from the "arcade mode" included in Madden 10 for the Wii.
Read More - Madden NFL Arcade Review
Monday, November 16, 2009
11:18 AM - November 16, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
If last year’s disappointing Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff was not evidence enough, NBA Unrivaled should help confirm what Tecmo fans have been angrily realizing for the last decade: The company has no idea how to update its classic sports franchises for modern consoles.In Tecmo Bowl: Kickoff there were too few updates to the dated portions of the game's old-school formula. In NBA Unrivaled the developers not only ignored the existing flaws in the source material, but also eliminated the strengths that made Tecmo NBA Basketball an 8-bit/16-bit legend.
NBA Unrivaled has been removed from its simulation roots and turned into the equivalent of a low-budget, Saturday-morning cartoon.
Read More - NBA Unrivaled (DLC) Review
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
11:47 AM - November 11, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
If there’s one area where NHL 2K10 significantly outperforms NHL 10, it’s in the variety-of-goals department. NHL 10, while fun to play, really limits the ways you’re able to generate goals. So hockey fans who pick up the game and try to replicate the kinds of scoring strategies they see on TV might have issues earning wins at first.Fact is, if players wants to score consistently in NHL 10, they have to drop some of those real-life strategies (scoring off clean shots) and lean a bit more on the side of “video-game strategy.”
So with that in mind, here are some ways to consistently score in NHL 10.
Read more - NHL 10: Scoring Strategies
Monday, October 26, 2009
While it's true that NHL 10's AI goalies may still be better at the position than 95 percent of their human counterparts, it still seems like a poor reason to avoid what has become -- thanks to this year's tweaks -- one of the game's most fun positions.
So for anyone who is brave enough to step in the net and attempt to become a part of that top five percent who can actually outwork the AI in goal, here are some quick tips that should help you lead your team to victory.
Read More - NHL 10: Goalie Guide
Monday, October 12, 2009
11:06 AM - October 12, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
It has been two full years since a non-EA football sim was released on a Xbox or Playstation console –- five if we disregard 2K Sports’ one-and-done All-Pro Football experiment. No doubt, then, that football fans have been waiting with open arms to embrace any sort of competitor to EA’s continued stranglehold on the genre. But does Nerjyzed Entertainment, an upstart company with a single neglected PC game in its portfolio, have what it takes to tackle the EA football giant that, for 20 years, has dominated the industry with its massive advertising campaigns and multi-million dollar development budgets?
The answer, at least for this year, is no. While developer Nerjyzed nails the "Xperience" of spending a Saturday afternoon at a HBCU football game, it still has much work to do before it gets the "Football" part of its title up to par with the giants of the genre.
Review - Black College Football: The Xperience Review
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Give the NHL 10 team credit, then, for coming the closest anyone’s gotten in recent years to fixing everything that plagued the last version of a sports game -- in this case I'm obviously talking about NHL 09.
Fact is, if you had a problem with something in NHL 09, there’s a good chance it has been fixed for NHL 10:
Read More - NHL 10 Review
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
09:26 AM - September 8, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
Like a lot of sports fans, I have spent time getting to know the “popular girl” of sports gaming, EA’s Madden 10. What probably separates my experience from most is that, as someone who has yet to buy an EA football game this generation, I’m usually content with a rental of the latest Madden or NCAA Football. I'm usually content because a weekend of play tends to be enough time for me to realize that the game is still way behind my old flame, All-Pro Football 2K8, in the one area that matters most: gameplay.
This time around I spent more than one weekend with the game, but now that I have had some time to get a feel for the game, here are some reasons why I feel Madden 10 still can't match up to the standards set by my reigning king of gameplay, All-Pro Football 2K8.
Read More - Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
That’s why it’s refreshing to see that, in 2009, a game like Trials HD can come out of nowhere and deliver the kind of dropkick to the dome that NES classics like Battletoads, Contra and Ghosts 'n Goblins all did back in the day.
Read More - Trials HD Review
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
09:51 AM - August 12, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
As a follow-up to our NFL 2K5 roundtable, I'm here to talk about an EA/Sega rivalry from another era: the Sega Genesis era.Read on to discover the results of this classic matchup as it's re-examined through a modern lens.
Read More - Football Time Machine Tussle: EA vs. Sega
Thursday, August 6, 2009
10:54 AM - August 6, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
As the "HD" subtitle might suggest, Trials HD is not a brand new IP. Rather, it's an update to an under-appreciated PC series that will be making its way to consoles for the first time on August 12.What Trials games have historically offered is the opportunity to strap on a helmet, step on a motorbike and become a virtual Evel Knievel.
Trials HD looks to continue that tradition by giving riders the chance to tackle obstacle courses full of explosive stunts and and deadly jumps, the full depth of which can be explored on developer Red Lynx's forums.
For your quick fix of info, here are the hot topics of conversation leading up to the game's August 12 release.
Read More - Trials HD: What's Hot and What's Not
Friday, July 10, 2009
03:54 PM - July 10, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
It's not surprising that a non-EA football game is generating a bit of intrigue and hype prior to release, but what’s unusual about Black College Football Xperience is that it has garnered some attention for the wrong reasons. Some people are not interested in what the game has to offer on the field, but instead are interested in the title of the game.In two weeks, Operation Sports will be reviewing Nerjyzed Entertainment's Black College Football Xperience: The Doug Williams Edition for the Xbox 360. Rather than ignore this issue and let it cloud over our review, Operation Sports is here to tackle the issue head-on in this article, so that the review can be solely devoted to what’s coded into the game disc -- instead of what’s written on the game's box.
Read More - Black College Football - The Xperience: What's behind the Name?
Monday, July 6, 2009
10:40 AM - July 6, 2009. Posted by MMChrisS. Written by Jayson Young
Since the humble beginnings of Pong, tennis has always been a sport that has translated well to videogames.With Wimbledon now in the rear-view mirror, what better time than now to take a look at some of the past champions of videogame tennis, a genre that's almost as old as videogaming itself.
Here are five of the best offerings from the last five console cycles, starting with the era of the NES and Sega Master System.
Read More - Five Tennis Games You Should Have Played
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