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.

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

Another 5 map package will be coming our way in June. It’s unknown how many maps are actually new and how many are rehashes from the original Modern Warfare.

Halo Reach Beta has been released today, and with it we also get a nice presentation video. Aisha Tyler’s trash talk covers up her Halo ignorance well enough but it’s hard to ignore that fact that Bungie/Microsoft have the budget to create a professional presentation for their Beta release. I can’t wait to see what we get on the official release.

Halo Reach might just bring Halo back to the forefront which is so dominantly held by Modern Warfare 2 right now. It helps that MW2 has the multi-platform element but with Halo Reach’s new multiplayer system and gameplay enhancements we’re definitely not just getting another Halo clone.

I really liked the Active Roster feature that was mentioned in the video. Queued Join is actually the feature, and Active Roster is the umbrella name for all the User Interface features that take away the need to use the Xbox Guide to see what all your buddies are up to and join games.

This brings us to the next-big thing that we have wanted this since Halo 2. We couldn’t get it in to Halo 2 or Halo 3, but Reach will have: Queued Join. We built this sytem where you can queue a join to a friend that’s not in an immediately joinable state (in the middle of matchmaking or watching a film). When he becomes available, it will automatically put you guys together in a lobby.

-Luke Timmins

This Gears of War 3 ad popped up on Xbox Dashboards around the world this morning announcing the arrival of the epic conclusion.

This has been recognized as a likely mistake because Epic’s Cliff Bleszinski who was supposed to appear on the Jimmy Fallon show was bumped from April 8th to April 12th. It’s possible someone didn’t notify the Xbox Ad team or maybe it was just too late to pull the ad all together.

Scheduling Conflict

The first Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2 map pack is ready to launch next Tuesday March 30th exclusively for Xbox 360. PS3 owners will need to wait a little bit longer.

The “Stimulus-Package” map pack will include 5 multiplayer maps and is hinted at costing $15 (1200 MS Points). While 3 of the maps will be all new (Bailout, Storm, and Salvage), the other 2 will be remakes from the original Modern Warfare (Crash, Overgrown). Crash and Overgrown were some of my favorite maps from the original game and I’m glad to see them return.

Here are the short descriptions of the new maps:

“Bailout” a multi-layered apartment complex; “Storm” an open industrial park littered with heavy machinery; “Salvage” a snowy junkyard fortified by stacked debris and crushed cars.

This is good news for all the players who having been playing Modern Warfare 2 from the day it was released. I’ll admit that I was originally disappointed at the number of maps included in the game. This pattern of multiplayer FPS games releasing map packs is becoming all too familiar. While it continues to work from a business stand point, I can’t help but imagine where this trend will end up in the future. The worst case scenario would be games getting shorter while tagged at full-price and downloadable-content prices increase for less content. Of course this is just glass half-empty talk but it’s all very possible.

*UPDATE – This roster update is now available (02/20/2010).

To recap, the latest Madden 10 roster update removed this years retiring players from the game completely. This includes Kurt Warner, Bertrand Berry and Junior Seau. The roster update created an uproar in the Madden community being the first time players were removed for retirement in the same year they were active. Normally retiring players are simply not including the following years version of Madden. EA Sports simply thought being accurate going into the summer was the best choice but it turns out they are flipping the script in favor of the community decision.

Due to the overwhelming response, we are going to release another update that adds the retired players previously removed back into the game. Our fans have spoken and we’ll do our best to have this update done before the weekend. We also plan to push this update to Online Franchise shortly after it’s ready.

It’s great to see that EA Sports is listening to their fans. We’ll see if this continues with features and fixes going into Madden 11.

Full Story

All is well in the world of Modern Warfare 2 Multiplayer… Until someone finds a new annoying way to exploit the system.

FourZeroTwo

If the infinite care package glitch has become the bane of your existence then you’re just like me. Luckily for us Infinite Ward has dealt with the exploit and has issued a patch that is now under Xbox 360 certification. This will be the second fix on this same issue. It turns out the glitchers found an alternative way to do the same exploit.

I still need to give props to whoever these glitchers are who spend hours upon hours to figure out how to exploit the game. However, I hate the fact that they spread these glitches like wildfire which in turn allows the mob to dishonorably use it in ranked matches.

Patch details:

• Care Package, Emergency Airdrop, and Sentry Gun marker grenades sprint speed normalized.
• Fix for “infinite care package” exploit.
• Sentry Guns: Improved placement detection, preventing cases of Sentry Guns inside geometry.
• Model 1887: Bling using Akimbo and FMJ combination now has same range and damage as non-Bling Model 1887s.
• Fixes to prevent various XP hacks.