Life and Leisure. Tech and Toys.

The Madden 11 Demo was just released last night on Xbox Marketplace and PSN but it’s already creating havoc with its new Strategy Pad. In previous versions of Madden the Defensive Adjustments could be made using the shoulder buttons and face buttons. Shifting your linebackers to the left would be a combination of a shoulder button and left on the joystick.

Now with the introduction of the Strategy Pad, all Defensive Adjustments are made through the Directional-Pad. This throws a wrench into what all Madden players are used to and also adds another step in doing simple Defensive Adjustments. To go along with that, the CPU player snaps the ball so quickly on offense that it’s difficult to get in a single adjustment when you previously pull off multiple adjustments. It doesn’t help that the Xbox 360 D-pad is stiff and worthless either.

There are rumors however that the Strategy Pad is optional in the full version of the game. Whether this means the Strategy Pad display just disappears or the original Madden 10 controls are returned is still unknown. It has been confirmed that this option only hides the display of the Strategy Pad. Sadly, the Strategy Pad is here to stay.

This is just another example of EA fixing something that wasn’t broken just for the sake of claiming they’ve done something new. What they’ve really done was take a step back from a proven working formula. The Strategy Pad is in no way “Simpler, Quicker, Deeper” as their new slogan suggests.

Today at Comic-Con Street Fighter X Tekken and Tekken X Street Fighter were both announced. The first of which is a 2D fighter with tag-able teammates while the second is a Tekken style 3D fighter. A demo of Street Fighter X Tekken was shown at Comic-Con but they said these games won’t be available for some time.

Exciting news from competing franchises but I think most of us will forget about this news when Marvel vs Capcom 3 is released.

This new trailer sets up the epic story line for the upcoming StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty set to launch next week. This is probably the most video and story elements we’ve seen from Blizzard so far. It really makes me wonder how much money they could make by just making a full blown movie.

Images of Thor and Okami Amaterasu have been sighted on the official Marvel.com website.

The two new characters to join the series are Super Skrull of Fantastic Four fame and Trish from the Devil May Cry series. Super Skrull has the powers of each of the Fantastic Four members. You can see some of his torch, stretch and stone fist attacks in this video. As for Trish she carries a large blade and has fire ball attacks. She seems to be similar to Dante but without the guns.

During Drew Brees marketing for Madden 11 in New York’s Times Square this past week, he handed out early copies of Madden 11 to the lucky crowd. However, Madden 11 isn’t due until August 10th. No, those aren’t real copies of the game. They are empty PS3 boxes with vouchers for the game. I wonder if they passed out any Xbox 360 or even Wii versions.

Hopefully the game will also be the greatest of all-time. After last years bug fest my expectations are low. However, I have a feeling that EA Sports’ NBA Elite won’t be blowing anyone away in its first attempt.

Motorola SLVR, iPhone 3G and iPhone 4

These are the last three mobile phones I’ve owned. I’ve actually have owned five phones all together but I no longer have all of them with me.

2006
In 2006 I switched from Sprint to Cingular and bought the Motorola SLVR. I liked the candy bar layout and Motorola was pretty popular at the time. Maybe you can recall the days of RAZR fever, I feel like everyone had one. At the time the SLVR was probably close to $200 but with a new 2-year contract I got it for around $50. Overall the phone was solid. I never had any real problems with it and the reception was strong. I got really good at T9 text messaging during my time with the SLVR.

2008
In 2008 Apple announced their second generation iPhone. The iPhone 3G brought higher speed data services and GPS to the iPhone. They also announced for the first time the iPhone could be acquired for a mere $199 if you signed a 2-year contract. When the first iPhone was released I didn’t even consider purchasing it because of the inflated price tag. Fortunately, this time around I was due for an upgrade, it was like the stars aligned.

Me and a couple of friends waited outside an AT&T store from 2am until opening on the iPhone 3G launch day. There were problems on launch day with activation but when the servers finally cleared up I could access the non-WAP internet from my phone for the first time. Having Google Maps at my fingertips changed my life. I could drive anywhere and I could decide where I wanted to go next on the fly. No need to call that 411 number ever again.

The iPhone apps brought flexibility to a device that would otherwise just be a phone. Steve Jobs was right. The touchscreen gave the phone the ability to be anything. It started with a keyboard with unlimited characters then a piano then a game controller and beyond.

On the downside the iPhone 3G suffered from pretty spotty reception and crashing. The hardware was just not up to par. For some reason it was incapable of making long calls in 3G mode from my bedroom.

2010
In 2010 Apple announced their fourth generation iPhone. The iPhone 4 brought a whole new look to the iPhone and sported a higher resolution screen, front-facing camera, and more powerful hardware. I was unable to upgrade my iPhone when the iPhone 3GS was released but the iPhone 4 was released as my 2-year contract was expiring. It was like the stars aligned again… but actually Apple just releases a new phone every year.

This time around Apple decided to go with a pre-order system. On June 15th hundreds of thousands of people rushed to make their pre-orders online. Obviously the web servers were crippled by the weight within seconds. That morning I headed to an AT&T store and found out they weren’t allowing any in-store pickup pre-orders. Lucky for me there was a Best Buy nearby that were giving out in-store pickup pre-orders. When June 24th came around I didn’t even have to wait in line. Best Buy’s appointment system made it really easy to just walk in the store pick up your iPhone 4. Unfortunately they only had about 20 iPhone 4’s on launch day.

The first time I saw the screen of the iPhone 4 I thought my vision improved. The iPhone 4 has twice the resolution of the iPhone 3G and it really makes a difference. The more powerful hardware was immediately noticeable. Finally, the front-facing camera allows the iPhone 4 to use FaceTime (wifi video chat).

Unfortunately, many people have complained about the iPhone 4 reception issues. I haven’t witnessed any dropped calls under regular use so far but I have been able to reproduce the depleted reception bars when holding the phone in the described way. I’m still claiming these people are just exaggerating.

The iPhone 4 hasn’t changed my life the way the iPhone 3G has but the hardware changes has made those life changing features faster and more stable.

So basically “Beast Mode” is the equivalent of the Gears of War 2 “Horde Mode” feature, but instead of playing against waves of Locust enemies you’ll be playing from the Locust perspective killing COG marines. Beast Mode will feature different Locusts types that you’ll need to unlock by advancing in the mode. In Beast Mode players will have more than a single life to live using a point system. Kill enough COG members to gain yourself more lives. This is especially important because you’ll even be able to take control of suicidal Tickers, those crawling time bombs.

Gears of War 3 is shaping up to be a pretty nice package with the 4 player co-op campaign but like last year the longevity of the game will hinge on the quality of the online multi-player system. Most importantly prevent hack/glitch abuse, fix lag and hosting issues, and finally a match system that doesn’t kick you out after each game.

Hacks and glitches will no doubt occur. Just take a look at Modern Warfare 2. However, I still believe Infinity Ward handled these issue diligently and Epic will need to match that same level of constant updating.

Full IGN Article with video

Other than the fact that I still frown at the character models everything else looks spot on. The hyper attacks and the combos are back! PROTON CANON! The match seemed a bit drawn out to me, but maybe it’s because I’ve been getting used to how short the Street Fighter 4 matches are.

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