OS Weekly Wrap Up, Getting You Caught Up on Sports Gaming News (Aug 9 - Aug 15, 2020)

Prince is back this week to take us through some Skater XL tricks and crashes. Much like Bob’s journey with Skater XL, Prince took his lumps upon playing the game for the first time.

Brian is back to build off what Seann Graddy and the EA team discussed last week in relation to Madden 21 franchise improvements.

Version two of the College Football Revamped SEC mod gives folks an NCAA Football 14 mod that delivers updated SEC uniforms and stadiums. MJK highlights this mod and takes you through the really cool updates that have taken place here.

We have been running through various forms of WWE 2K wishlists in recent weeks and months. The WWE 2K series is one a bunch of us on staff care deeply about, and while we are excited about WWE 2K Battlegrounds, we’re still thinking ahead to the next “proper” 2K release. That’s where Matt comes in here with his WWE 2K wishlist where he details five things the next WWE 2K game must have.

It’s almost that time of year again. The time where I get to live out my digital gridiron dreams on the big screen. This year feels a little bit different though as fans (myself included) have a wide variety of indie football games to choose between in 2020.

Set to drop this year is of course Madden 21, along with the return of Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football 2020 and Axis Football 2020. We also have some newcomers in Legend Bowl and Sunday Rivals. Each developer has their own vision of what digital football should look like, play like, and feel like and that’s never been more evident than this year.

I spent a lot of time in part one, two and three of my NHL 21 wishlists discussing everything but gameplay. I did that because I wanted to focus solely on that component of the series in the final part of this NHL 21 wishlist series. It’s also because this sort of article fits right in with the start of playoff hockey. Beyond that, I just have some bones to pick with the gameplay and didn’t want anything else to be a distraction when talking about it for a wishlist article.

Believe it not, we’re less than two months away from the release of FIFA 21 (releasing October 6, 2020). As we get closer to release, the development team over at EA have stepped up their information through the popular “Pitch Notes” blog. Earlier this week, the team delved into what changes are abreast for FIFA Ultimate Team (deep dive forthcoming), and yesterday the team dropped a few changes for my personal favorite mode, Pro Clubs. Like a penalty to Manchester United, let’s dive right in to FIFA 21 Pro Clubs!

It’s August and NBA 2K21 is less than a month away. Yet thus far, next year’s game is still a mystery outside of a trailer here and there. So now seems like a great time to do some wishing and hoping, plus offer a little constructive criticism on 2K20.

The widely popular Ultimate Team mode has received a significant number of changes this year. Perhaps no other mode in the sports genre separates the community into opposing camps quite like Ultimate Team, and FIFA is the gold standard when it comes to that mode — at least when it comes to making money. While Pro Clubs and career mode are where I spend most of my time, there’s no denying that EA was back in the lab again looking for ways to improve Ultimate Team and bring in more players. Yesterday we dove in head first with Pro Clubs. Today, we channel our inner Neymar and get into the FIFA 21 FUT preview.

We’re now seemingly tearing through FIFA 21 information as the Volta and FUT Pitch Notes have dropped this week. My hands-on time with FIFA 21 afforded me the opportunity to play Volta and briefly get into The Debut, the new story-themed mode. With that in mind, let’s jump into my FIFA 21 Volta preview and early impressions.

Madden’s franchise mode notes earlier this summer were a bit…light. This caused franchise mode players to, once again, feel slighted. They turned their disappointment to social media and rallied around the #FixMaddenFranchise hashtag. When you read any of the stuff on Twitter or any of the posts on the message boards here, one thing is clear. A lot of the things we want in franchise mode are old Madden franchise features we want back in franchise mode.

So, is the Tony Hawk Remaster demo any good? Is it a boring, buggy mess that insults the originals? Or could it be the first breathtaking step in a full-on franchise revival? I cannot possibly overstate my love for this series altogether, and I was hoping that this remake would do it justice based on everything we’ve heard so far.