Madden and Me

With the NFL heading to to season kickoff, gamers are booting up the latest football video game, EA Sports Madden NFL 11. With updated rosters, a new play-call system and an extensive multiplayer mode, Madden promises to be the best one yet, however, the game is inherently broken and unplayable. How?

There is no save function for half played matches. With consumers age expanding, having a shorter and shorter play sessions, the ability not to save a match in progress is video-game blasphemy.

I have played Madden since the Sega Genesis, where my older cousins played each match for quarters. I am not the greatest one on one players, but I enjoy the franchise mode of comp stomp with my fantasy draft of stars.

The problem, as I grow older in age, I have less time to play and progress. In the past week, I had to quit three games in Franchise mode, Raiders v Seahawks, because either; my two dogs daily walk, time with my significant other and gym. In general, life would interrupt all of my Raider games (yes I roll Silver and Black.)

The only solutions was to either leave my PS3 on or have the ability to save a match mid-way. Leaving the PS3 on, as it hums like a gatling gun, provided to be useless, as the playstation is dedicated to be the entertainment provider of the household. Movies became unplayable, background downloading in limbo, as my PS3 became dedicated to saving a half finished game.

The functionality of saving a match is really a common cornerstone video-games. PC gaming has had the feature for years, from first person shooters, RPGs and Real Time Strategy games. Why does Sports games have to be behind the curve? Espcially in sport games like Football and Baseball, where the clock stops on certain plays or the game ends until there is a winner. My Madden games were lasting 40 minutes or longer, whereas FIFA matches last eight to ten minutes! The discrpency betweem games are huge.

So life continues to get in the way of my Madden matches, as Raiders v Seahawks has became a never ending nightmare of replays, and try again. For EA Sports, it is a feature worth implementing, as your audiences continues to grow. That, or suffer sleeping on the couch with on eye open on the lookout of a disgruntled wife for the rest of my adult life. How do you think I managed to get to week four in pre-season?

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Mass Appeal in Video-games

With my thirtyish birthday nearing, I came to the realization of having consumed video-games more than any other entertainment medium. Regardless, video-games struggle for mass appeal has lead to a damaged reputation. Video games has lost it's art form.

Art, not in the Ebert sense of the word, but as a distinctive artistic form. My main issue with video-games, as developers push for a universal medium, games lose their distinctiveness. How so?

Walk into any video-game store, can you name the difference between two off the shelf shooters? How many titles feature bald space marines as the main protagonist?

Limbo is a video game that should influence other developers look at their respective genre. Playdead Studios took staple video game mechanics, some a given in their respective format and choose to be unique vis-à-vis another Super Mario rehash or clone.

With the early buzz on Tomb Raider Guardian of Light; there is hope that developers are starting to think outside of their comfort zone of established franchises.

The medium craves it.

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Irrational's Ken Levine on Bioshock Infinite

With the announcement of Bioshock Infinite, Irrational Studios head hit-man, Ken Levine sat down with the press to be peppered with mundane questions. But he also released a statement on Irrational's Website to the rest of us. With his State of Union address, gamers are clamoring for more information, but here is an editorial that the rest of the gaming media is igrnoing. Bioshock Infinite is changing how we think big-budget sequels are made.
Is Bioshock Infinite a prequel? Star Wars like prequel? Or is it only loosely based in the Bioshock-verse?

Levine is clear, there are no sacred cows in Bioshock Infinite (the sky is the limit). Viewing the trailer there is a sense of American expansionism (a la Red Dead Redemption), a Manifest Destiny of sky, before the invetible space-race. A floating sky city by the famed American ingenuity, a city that could of been built if a Rockefellar had of thought of it first. Columbia, as the sky city is named after one of the famous explorer known, is a departure of Rapture. As Levine points out, "that's the easy path for us... we took a harder path for ourselves."

Levine paints BI as a departure from their highly rated 2007 splicer-thriller Bioshock. The only core values that these titles share are the obvious; a fantastical world created by the same Irrational team. And there is no confusion on the Levine's view of American 1900 Historcity, nationalism and internationalism are key themes in the game. These ideas are not ones would link to a sequel or a prequel to milti-million sold series.

Levine is adamant on Infinite is more of a "re-imagining" of the original Bioshock, building on ideas of their precedent game and exploring the world artistically and questioning the bigger, badder and better philosophy other game series fall into. With that in mind, Bioshock Infinite swoops in our space with breath of fresh air.

Source http://irrationalgames.com/insider/announcement-from-ken-levine/

Chivas on the cusp of Futbol History

Hours away on what is expected to be a dramatic showdown between two futbol giants of North and South America. Chivas de Guadalajara hosts, in their French designed Omnilife Stadium, 2006s Copa Libertadores Champion Internacional of Brasil. Both teams come from grueling matches, with Chivas scoring two away goals again U de Chile. Inter faced a strong Sao Paolo side, but again, the away goal scored by Inter sealed their fate into the final.

Not at stake for tonight's match is the World Club Cup birth held in the UAE in December. Inter will go as the South American representative regardless of the outcome. Tune in to Fox Sports Espanol, match starts at 8:00 PM EST.

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I'm Back

The one and only Latino-Gamer is back. If you want the end all coverage of sports and video games, go elsewhere. Latino Gamer will cover interesting trends in football/ soccer and a bit of video games.

Since this blog is the whim of thoughts of the writer, topics may be daily or weekly.

Tomorrow we have coverage of the friendly, Mexico vs Spain and the first leg of Chivas de Guadalajara vs Internacional.

Cheers!

Latino-Gamer

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FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa Group A Preview

Group A in the FIFA World Cup South Africa is one filled with interesting opponents; the host nation coached by a former champion, a nation with help of a lucky handball and lost without their talisman, a young-fiesty nation looking to build from their youth championship and a nation struggles with their past glory.
First, the Bafana Bafana as they are called by their fans, the host nation South Africa is lead by one of two men who has coached Five different nations in the World Cup. Parreira's sixth World Cup, as he coached Brazil twice, is faced with the prospect of a possible elimination during the group stage. But the fans of the Bafana Bafana are not to worry, with home-field advantage, wisdom of a winning coach and the luck of the home nation, getting to the group stage is far from a dream.
But they must face the stiff competition, although in poor form at the moment, of Les Bleus or the French National Team. No one can argue the deep heritage of great football of France. Platini and Zidane are walking legends, but that is the core of the problem, their best players are retired and with no one to fill the void left. With poor form during qualification, Serbia won the group, France faced a give-no-inch Irish team on a playoff. At the end of it all, the French stole the World Cup birth by a blown non-called Henry handball. The French team are cursed to be ousted within group round and without a talisman to ward the bad mojo away.
For the Mexican community, the 2005 Youth World Cup victory was the rally cry for the youth to push the once-chiseled stalwarts to move on, and they have. Donning a black jersey, a rarity of Mexican soccer, the team has the swagger, the speed and the leadership in their coach Aguirre. A team mix with veterans, but fueled by youth, Mexico is one of my surprise tickets to make a semifinal birth, a la Bulgaria in '94, '98 Croatia, Turkey and South Korea in '02. If El Tri does well in the tournament, the black jersey may become the form rather the colors of the flag (See Italy).

The Uruguayans are the older cousins no one remembers about in South American Football. Them with Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru, Bolivia and Columbia all seem to battle for the final birth. And battle they did, although Argentina had to beat Uruguay for the fourth spot, it was the Uruguayans who fought Costa Rica tooth and nail for the World Cup birth. La Celeste will need a goals, and lots of them, if they are to dream of their past glory.

Assassin's Creed 2 Hispanic Market Campaign

According to a pbr.com report, Ubisoft and Univision partnered up for an Assassin's Creed 2 marketing blitz during the festive holiday week. The ads will be shown through univision.com Deportes and Liga Mexicana digital portal landing page and the televised quarterfinal playoffs of the Mexican Soccer League. David Lawenda, president of Advertising and Sales of Univision, details the campaign as a "business imperative to market to Hispanics... one of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population." The announcement also includes statistical data of the Hispanic market, more than 80% of Hispanics between the ages 18-44 are gamers, and half of the said Hispanic gamers are Spanish speaking or bilingual. Ubisoft widely reported a 1.6 million first week of sales and surpassed the 2007 predecessor. (I land in both categories, as well as, over indexing in buying new gadgets, and less price sensitive than non-Hispanics. )

Will Ubisoft's Hispanic blitz be the swing vote in increasing November's NPD numbers for the coveted number 2 spot, behind Modern Warfare 2. For context, the only other video game to advertise for Spanish networks was EA's FIFA 10. AC2 and FIFA 10 both come in the Spanish language.

Singstar Latino info right here....

Sony and Gamestop announced today that, select Gamestop stores are releasing the Hispanic focused SingStar Latino for the PS3 and PS2 consoles. Popular Spanish speaking stations are to promote release events in core Hispanic markets in California, Texas, and Arizone. SingStar is one of Sony’s popular music franchises that does surprisingly well outside of the United States Market. Earlier in November, Sony released the game to Latino markets in Mexico and select Latin American markets. Musical hits are from select artists from Paulina Rubio (pictured) to Oreja de van Gogh.

Will Activision and EA/MTV put a tailored Latino/Hispanic product in the next year, as Sony is testing the water, who else will jump in. Ubisoft earlier courted the Hispanic market with a partnership with Univision with Assassin’s Creed 2 promos running during the Mexican soccer playoff games.

A Guitar Hero: Paulina Rubio video game would make my thirty-nine Guadalajaran friend freak in his pants.

Tiger Woods and EA Sports dire relationship

In a study released today by two UC Davis Economic Professors, Christopher R. Knittel and Victor Stango, detail the 5 to 15 billion loss Tiger Wood's sponsors suffered ten days after the now infamous November 27th incident. The report can be found here in PDF form. I have included a graph from the linked report below.

The 10 day cumulative decline by the sport related sponsors of EA, Gatorade and Nike saw a 4.3% decline or a 5.71 billion loss. Much money loss for all those "transgressions" and will shareholders continue to support any future endorsements that involve Tiger Woods? Evidently, there is a downside to a sponsors' celebrity spoke person in the video game industry. Will EA Sports continue to have Tiger Woods as a spoke person, or drop the golfer, and use a rotating cast of PGA members, as they do with their FIFA, Madden and their other sports series?

FIFA 10 UK Cover Athletes

Our British cousins, across the pond, website GamingShogun, has the scoop on the cover athletes, football stars that are to grace FIFA 10. Man U's Rooney, Chelsea's Lampard and Arsenal's Walcott are the coverboys.