This rather short demo consists of a single 4 minute quarter where the user is locked in to playing as the Dallas Mavericks in a Championship Finals rematch against the Miami Heat.

I sort of feel a bit shorted by the length of this demo because Madden 12 offered a full length game this year. You would think in a down year for the franchise where rosters won’t be updated the franchise would try to sell the game on improved gameplay. It’s also rumored that the Classic teams will not be usable online. This is very disappointing when considering what new features will actually be added this year.

The latest developer blog highlights a lot of areas of improvement that will be hard to experiment with in just 4 minutes.

It will prompt you to save your current roster, do this so you can revert back to the default roster if you ever want to. After it completes you can exit the online menu. Since the Roster Updating is done through the online menu you won’t be able to download the Roster Update if you do not have an EA Sports Online Pass.

You may also try to get the roster file from a friend using a Memory Unit or a USB drive.Once you’ve downloaded the Roster Update, it will show up in your file list in the Load section. This roster should be automatically loaded every time you start up the game but if it doesn’t you can always load it manually.

The first roster update came out on Friday August 26th for Madden Season Ticket holders and includes most of the preseason transactions.

Shaped kind of like the original Xbox 360.

Sega Game Gear mated with an Amazon Kindle.

UPDATE: The Wii U will not support DVD or Blu-ray playback

The Wii U is a backwards compatible console offering HD visuals and a new touchscreen controller. The console itself will connect to your television via HDMI and offer internal flash memory as well as SD and USB ports for external storage. The wireless touchscreen controller also features a built-in camera, speakers, microphone and gyroscope for motion controls.

The Nintendo Wii has been a power house in console sales since it’s inception in 2006 and revolutionized the gaming industry by making video games ubiquitous amongst the general public. Heck, even my own parents bought one. The Wii’s inviting motion controls have made it possible for anyone of any age or gender to throw themselves into the casual gaming sphere. Gameplay so revolutionary for its time it took Nintendo’s competitors until 2010 to release their own motion control devices. While Microsoft took an innovative leap of faith with it’s Kinect, Nintendo saw Sony release an almost exact replica of the original WiiMote.

While the Nintendo Wii garnered recorded sales numbers the Wii failed to impress hardcore fans. Nintendo is finally trying to reconcile their losses with the Wii U’s high-definition graphics and processing power, but is it too late? My personal opinion is that it’s too late but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Nintendo has solidified itself in the casual market with the Wii and the success of the DS. The Wii U and the 3DS will just further their cause. While I don’t see the Sony Move being a feared competitor I am certain Nintendo is at least mildly worried about Kinect’s potential. However, Nintendo is just leaps and bounds ahead of the competition already, I don’t think it’ll shake Nintendo’s resolve one bit.

The PSP2 is here! Earlier today Sony unveiled their newest edition of the PlayStation Portable at a special event in Tokyo. They’re calling it the NGP (Next Generation Portable). The NGP will feature dual analog sticks, a touch sensitive screen, tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, front and back facing cameras, built-in Wifi and 3G connectivity and hardware comparable to the Playstation 3. Sorry no UMD support.

Instead of UMD, Sony has chosen to go with flash media storage for their games. Flash memory can easily be increased in size, giving the NGP a theoretically limitless storage size.

I still remember in 2009 I thought it’d be looking like this. That sliding screen still would have looked pretty slick.

UPDATE: Patch #4 is now live (10/28/2010)

EA Sports has detailed the features and fixes for the upcoming Patch #4. Release date is still unannounced. EA Sports claim they have fixed the Disconnect issues when playing any games online versus and human opponent. Madden Ultimate team will also be receiving a Tournaments feature that will require your team to have a certain Chemistry and Skill Level to enter. This will be a new way to earn coins and cards while playing against evenly matched opponents.

Full Details

I had a chance to check out the Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2 Demo yesterday and right away I could tell the graphics received a face-light. It seems the developers added more of an artistic feel to the visuals of the game. In addition the textures look more detailed and the motion blurs really make the action sequences look cinematic. The best part is that none of these added visuals take away from how smooth the game plays.

The controls haven’t changed much so it was easy for me to jump right in and wreak havoc with all of the force powers. One cool thing you’ll notice when fighting enemies with the lightsaber is that their limbs will be sliced right off.

It seems to me this game will be a lot like the first with upgraded graphics. If you enjoyed the first game you’ll definitely want to check out the sequel, especially since the story elements are all supported by George Lucas.

I had a chance to check out the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Demo this week and after the quick play through I came away a little underwhelmed. This hack and slash adventure reboots the franchise while staying true to the original concept. You play as Gabriel Belmont a holy knight in search of dark magic to revive his deceased wife. Yes, yet another Belmont.

Graphically the game seemed a little sharp to me, I would have preferred a little more anti-aliasing around the edges. However, the cut scenes do a nice job. During battles I felt the frames per second drop a little but it just be because its a demo. The button configuration worked well and the hacking and slashing seemed to live up to the Devil May Cry and God of War mechanics.

The demo gives you a sample of the decent voice acting but I think I still would prefer a Japanese Voice track which won’t be shipping in the states. In fact the Japanese version of the game was delayed because they’re still working on the dubbing. At least Gabriel doesn’t seem too chatty from what I’ve seen in the demo.

The demo is short but since Hideo Kojima had some part in development maybe its worth checking out the full game.

UPDATE 2: The NBA Elite Demo has been removed from Xbox Live and PSN

UPDATE: It sounds more and more like NBA Elite 11 is truly canceled. EA has announced they will support Roster Updates for NBA Live 10 for the entire 2010 – 2011 season.

NBA Elite 11 has been officially delayed and won’t be releasing on October 5th. Rumors are circling that EA knew the game would flop and have canceled the game completely, pushing it back to next year. If that is the case NBA 2K11 will completely dominate NBA console sales this year, without even acquiring an exclusive license.

I truly believe “delayed” means canceled in this situation. It makes no sense for EA to try to fix all their issues and release the game late when early adopters have already picked up a copy of NBA 2K11. This is the logical business decision for EA after seeing the negative feedback the demo produced. Supposedly EA will also garner a fine from the NBA for not releasing the product this year. It is unknown whether EA will rename the franchise again for next year.

I actually feel sorry for Kevin Durant for being on the cover of a game that got aborted.

NBA Jam will now be released separately later this year.

First off when you start up this demo you’ll notice you weren’t given the option to choose a team. This hit me instantly, I even started the demo over because I thought I pressed through choose team screen. Unfortunately there is no choose team screen, and you can’t change teams through the pause menu. You are forced to play as the Lakers against the Celtics. For Laker haters this is tough to swallow.

Once you get over that you’ll notice the flow and spacing of the game have improved over last year. Dribble moves seem more under control than before and transitioning into a shot is more realistic. The improved spacing is due to the improved AI that moves players around depending on where the ball handler is. Not only do you get better spacing but you also have players coming off screens with a sense of urgency.

Unfortunately the gameplay is only limited to a single quarter. This forced me to play the demo over a few times to get a real feel of it. Presentation wise we were shown the new pregame animation which focuses on stats of one player from each team and then quick portraits of each teams lineup.

NBA Elite 11

When you fire up the game you’ll be met with a Create A Player screen. It was unexpected but I made a few changes and quickly got through it. Following the Create A Player menu you’ll be taken straight into a tutorial to get you started on the new controls.

The new dribble moves with the right stick feels really natural. Cross the right stick in almost any possible way and it’ll be a crossover of some sort, anything from a regular crossover to a between the legs or a behind the back. The spin move is done by doing a half circle from one side to the other. Once in a while I accidentally did a spin instead of a behind the back but I guess players could eventually get really good at performing the moves over time.

Shooting has also been moved to the right stick. Simply push up on the right stick to shoot. I thought I’d have problems with accidentally shooting while trying to dribble but luckily it didn’t occur a single time. Layups are done by hooking the right stick up. It didn’t seem natural to me at all and I feel like this new layup control limits the types of layups to either a left or right layup. Dunking is simple, just push up on the right stick.

The new control that I simply hate is the pass button which was moved to the right trigger. I’m guessing they wanted you to be able to pass without moving your finger off the right stick or something but it just feels weird. Of course any issues I have with the controls are just initial concerns and probably just need time to get used to.

On defense, stealing the ball is done by pushing the right stick down and blocking is done by pushing the right stick up. These both worked fine but the blocking animation looked down right awful.

After the tutorial you can jump into a game of Celtics vs Lakers. You’ll play the last 5 mins of the final game, and the best part is that you can actually choose which team you’re controlling. This is when you realize this game didn’t receive the proper development time it should have. You’ll notice when passing the ball it doesn’t always go to the player you’re trying to get it to. It almost seemed that way for the computer player as well since my team constantly created turnovers. Animations pretty bad, rebounding and blocking animations in particular. Coupled with some poor graphics and things start looking grim. Lastly, the dribble moves you spent time learning don’t seem to have much of an affect in the game.

Overall this demo won’t sell anything for this game and it might even detract some people from the game. It really seems to me they just started developing the game after shipping NBA Live 10. Building a new game from the ground up takes longer. The best part of the demo was the intro video of Kevin Durant and the tutorial.

The patch also introduces Madden Moments Live which will update throughout the course of the season. This must be downloaded separately for Xbox 360 users under the game content menu. Lastly of course the update addresses some bugs and stabilizing issues. Still waiting on those official Week 1 Rosters though…

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