Electronic Arts has launched Madden NFL Superstars, which lets players create a fantasy football team and compete with others on Facebook.
The game, developed by EA Sports and EA-owned Playfish, features 1,500 current players from all 32 NFL teams.
I checked out the game this morning. When I first loaded it up, I was given 10,000 points to buy less-capable real-life players. Upon doing so, they were added to my team, which allowed me to play with others.
Aside from playing games, I was also able to "practice" with my players to improve their abilities. It … Read more
Microsoft plans to release a new Xbox 360 controller in November that features a transforming D-pad, the company announced Tuesday.
The first difference users will find with the new wireless controller is its design. Instead of a white finish with multicolored buttons, the new controller sports a gray and black finish. All the buttons are now different tones of gray.
But it's the new D-pad that will likely attract some users.
According to "Major Nelson," Microsoft's director of programming for Xbox Live who first unveiled the new controller in a blog post and video, users "… Read more
Not even the Jedi Mind trick could get LucasFilm to change its opinion on Jedi Mind's name.
The small software developer announced on Tuesday that it has changed its name to Mind Technologies. In a statement, the company said it decided to change its name "to avoid potential infringement of trademarks owned by LucasFilm."
Mind Technologies has also redirected its former Web site, JediMindinc.com, to its new MindTechnologies.com.
Mind Technologies' name was just one part of the issue LucasFilm had with the company. It also didn't like that it used "Jedi" in … Read more
If you visited the Japanese hot springs resort of Atami recently and spotted a disproportionate number of men gazing longingly at their smartphones, it probably wasn't because they were playing Angry Birds. This summer, the beach town became a vacation hub for guys who like to treat their girlfriends to sun-and-fun holidays. Girlfriends, that is, who only exist on-screen.
And yes, there are such men, particularly those enthralled with Konami's Love Plus, a popular dating sim for Nintendo DS that also comes as an augmented-reality application for iPhones. Players of the game know that to keep their virtual gals happy, they'd best spend quality time with them, throw them birthday parties, take them on dates, and yes, shell out yen for beach getaways. After all, at $84, a return fare from Tokyo to Atami on the Shinkansen bullet train ain't cheap (fortunately virtual girlfriends travel free).
Sadly for romantics everywhere, Atami's summer of virtual love ends Tuesday. It was geared toward players of Love Plus Plus, a sequel to Love Plus released this year. The object is to form and nurture a relationship with one of three high school girls with rotating outfits, distinct musical tastes, and clearly permissive parents. (See a game trailer featuring stars Rinko Kobayakawa, Manaka Takane, and Nene Anegasaki below.)
More than 2,000 visitors have taken part in events related to Atami's lovefest, according to reports, with some traveling from as far as South Korea and Taiwan, locals say. The young bucks did things fairly typical of suitors--gaze into their girlfriends' eyes during long sunset walks on the beach, admire their pixilated bikinis, and touch their virtual cheeks with a stylus.
The Asahi Shimbun newspaper quoted a 21-year-old Tokyo man as saying the game has encouraged him in his search for his first human paramour. "I hope that this will serve as practice for when I have a real girlfriend," he said. … Read more
Google has bought an awful lot of companies in 2010, but it hasn't been hard to spot a theme to its purchases over the last few months.
Inside Social Games spotted news posted on the home page of SocialDeck, a mobile-game developer, that Google has acquired the company for an undisclosed sum.
"We're super excited to announce that someone found our social games as fun as you have--in this case, that 'someone' is Google," the company wrote.
SocialDeck has created mobile games, such as Pet Hero, and Shake and Spell, on the back of a "… Read more
Gold members of Microsoft's Xbox Live premium online service should expect a $10 price hike in yearly memberships beginning November 1. Director of programming for Xbox Live Larry Hryb, or Major Nelson as he's commonly referred to, recently announced the increase on his Twitter feed along with a link to the new pricing structure.
Annual memberships will go up from $50 to $60, three-month rates from $20 to $25, and monthly prices from $8 to $10. Gamers in the U.S. aren't the only ones incurring the higher prices; Xbox Live members in Canada, Mexico, and the … Read more
Nintendo is reducing the price of the DSi and the DSi XL, the company announced on Monday.
Starting on September 12, the Nintendo DSi will retail for $149.99, down from its current $169.99 price tag. Nintendo is also reducing the price of its DSi XL from $189.99 to $169.99 on the same day. The Nintendo DS Lite's price will remain at $129.99.
Although Nintendo says it's reducing the DSi's price to give consumers more "value," its decision could be due to declining sales of the handheld. In June, the company sold 510,000 DS units, … Read more
Not so fast PS3 jailbreakers. Sony has succeeded, at least Down Under, in temporarily halting presales of a USB dongle that would allow PlayStation 3 owners to dump borrowed games onto the system's hard drive.
A federal court in Australia on Thursday ordered electronics retailers in the country to stop sales and distribution of the dongle called PS Jailbreak, which we told you about last week. Court documents indicate the injunction will remain in place until a hearing scheduled for Tuesday that could determine the permanent fate of the modchip in Australia, and have consequences for the device in … Read more
Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo may soon have a new competitor in the console business.
Lenovo has developed a game console, called eBox, that will launch in China by the end of the year. According to Lenovo spokesperson Jay Chen in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, the company "saw game consoles as an area with growth potential."
Lenovo has been working on the eBox for a while, but it only recently split off a team of employees into its newly formed game company, Beijing Eedoo Technology. According to the Journal, those employees built the eBox with Microsoft … Read more
A PR firm accused of writing phony iTunes reviews of its clients' iPhone apps is settling the case with the Federal Trade Commission.
As part of the proposed settlement (PDF), PR firm Reverb Communications and owner Tracie Snitker must remove any iTunes reviews that were written by Reverb employees posing as ordinary customers and who failed to disclose a relationship between Reverb and its game developer clients. The agreement also bars Reverb and Snitker from posting further reviews on iTunes that pretend to be from independent consumers or that neglect to disclose any connection between the company and its clients, … Read more
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