Fanboys (and Fangirls) are everywhere in entertainment – TV shows, movies, comics and especially video games. When you start looking at how people interact on message boards and forums or on the comments section of YouTube videos it can be made abundantly clear that some people are devoted to a fault.
Fanboy – (noun) An extreme fan or follower of a particular medium or concept, whether it be sports, television, film directors, video games (the most common usage), etc.
Here are five ways to figure out if you are a dreaded Fanboy.
You Call Yourself a Fanboy – This is self explanatory. If you refer to yourself as ‘the ultimate fan’ or the ‘most dedicated’ member of a certain franchise’s community. You are a fanboy.
You Blindly Support Every Marketing Strategy – When a developer or franchise starts a commercial campaign or screen shot reveal and you gush over or J.I.Y.P. after every release like it is the ultimate moment of nirvana… You are a fanboy.
You Truly Believe Nothing Compares – If you believe your preference in a game like Call of Duty’s killstreak rewards are the best thing to ever happen to a game and playing any game without killstreak rewards is terrible – You are a fanboy.
You Become A Troll On Other Game Community Sites – They are everywhere. Trolls. You are so devoted to your game being better than another game that you decide to invade the sovereign territory of another website to start trash talking or disrespecting the people that enjoy something you don’t approve of… you now wear two (2) hats – you are a Troll and a Fanboy.
You Get A Tattoo (Make Yourself into a Billboard) – Believe it or not, this has been done. This really doesn’t require any further explanation, but just remember that your body is sacred and if you choose to freely advertise a product that you aren’t making money off of you are a fanboy… and a fool. (If you are making money off of it, you might lose the ‘fool’ label… but you will not lose the ‘fanboy’ moniker.
If you haven’t played Borderlands up to this point, you have been missing out. You haven’t just been missing out on a great game with an open world full of baddies. You have been missing out on some of the craziest weapons you will ever see in gaming. This isn’t an over-stated point… it might be an understatement. If someone says “BFG” and “Doom” in the same sentence it is usually met with some sort of reaction that entails it being the best gun ever made in a video game.
The omnipotent BFG 9000 from the Doom Series.
Then again, if you have played Borderlands, you might have a certain gun that has been the greatest ever made. What makes it better? It could be completely unique to your experience! We don’t use exclamation points often, but in this case it is worth it and necessary. Borderlands is a game that gives you the opportunity to explore a vast world and in the process you will find weapons that are randomly generated for your enjoyment. What type of guns can you find? Here are a few examples –
These are some guns collected in Borderlands… Take a look at some of the damage and bonuses that come with these guns, rifles and rocket launchers.
In Borderlands 2 you should expect a lot of the the same. Tons of guns (a lot of them will be crappy when you start) but once you get rolling you will never regret diving into this amazing open world FPS.
By the way, you should also know that when you team up with friends you can trade and give them some of the weapons you have found. Who says charity isn’t a good thing? When it gets you a shotgun that fires rockets with a sniper scope and it’s accurate to that range for 400 damage?… Yeah, we are excited like Tim Tebow.
We are Tebow-ing with ‘excitement’ for Borderlands 2
Call of Duty will never die if people keep playing it. The bottom line of any business is whether or not their product is selling or being used enough to keep them in business. In the case of the Call of Duty series, there is no doubt that the game is among the favorites of Xbox 360 gamers.
In Major Nelson’s recent update about the most played games on Xbox Live you will see four Call of Duty titles on the list of the Top 20. Modern Warfare 3, Black Ops (as people prep to play Black Ops 2), Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare are among the titles listed (which also includes the likes of Battlefield 3, FIFA 12, Minecraft, Madden NFL 12 and Magic The Gathering: Duels of the Planeswalkers 2012. This list shouldn’t tell you that games are necessarily ‘good‘ but that they are among the most popular to be played online.
The Call of Duty series is one that is being driven into the ground by its current publisher, Activision. Activision is notorious for taking titles to the point where people are just sick of them (see Guitar Hero). It isn’t that their games are bad or even that they aren’t fun. It is the fact that people get burnt out on spending $60+ on new games and add-ons every year. Guitar Hero (GH) even had a point where the guitars weren’t even compatible with every other game under the GH label. It was really a pathetic turn for the worst from a company that is becoming more and more synonymous with being more money hungry and brash rather than being a good developer of gaming goodness.
We don’t know what would happen if Call of Duty were to take a hiatus or even get to the point where it had simply played itself out; yet, we still look forward to the day when the series isn’t on the release list for November. There are some games that could use a break and Call of Duty is one of them.
It is the hope and expectation of many gamers and Madden NFL fans that the demo will be released next Tuesday, August 14. Keep in mind that the demos are usually earlier builds of the game you hope to buy. Also, you should take time with the demo in order to learn how to play the game and develop a feel for the new Infinity Engine.
No word on the teams you will get to use… Our guess is that the Giants will be one of them. Unless of course they want to show off the new Hall of Fame Stadium with a game between the Cardinals and Saints?
Either way it goes and however EA decides to release the demo of Madden, it should be known that this game is starting to pick up some steam and a lot of football fans’ hopes. The new addition of Connected Careers has brought some people to the point where they think EA finally ‘gets it’. This won’t be a part of the demo but you can hope and pray that it is worth your $60. On the other hand, there are a lot of people in the hardcore community that are already annoyed with many decisions about Madden 13 from the developer perspective. The primary issue revolves around the fact that the infinity engine is only going to effect tackles rather than every other facet of the game. Hopefully we can expect these improvements in Madden 14, but don’t hold your breath.
Surprisingly, Halo 4 has managed to sneak up on many gamers this year. It could be a case of the series being over-produced and pushed to its creative limit. It could also be a situation where people have pretty much had their fill with Halo and the expected gameplay that has become synonymous with the Halo series.
Master Chief is poised to lay the smack down with some black ops of his own… Call of Duty is probably going to respond with nazi zombies… from space.
This iteration of Halo allows you to pick your weapon load-out much like Call of Duty or Battlefield, however there are other tweaks that make it a more unique game than than the typical – Hey, lets go shoot the other team and rank up so we can prestige and call people noobs type of experience you see on Call of Duty quite often.
Halo 4 is also going to also allow you to sprint and play the game in a faster fashion than other Halo titles previously. It seems that playing a faster paced game is more important to the growing base of gamers than playing a more cerebral game that is slightly longer. This said, you can probably recall many Team Slayer matches that actually lasted until the final minute and they weren’t even close enough to call them good matches – they were just slow. That should hopefully change for the better with these new additions.
War Games is the new addition to multi-player that will essentially put gamers onto a ship – the UNSC Infinity that will allow gamers to experience a new type and form of multiplayer that features smoother gameplay and better lighting. Not to mention the new concept of teamwork and playing through endless scenarios with new ways to earn power-ups and develop your Halo 4 experience. Stay tuned to NoobTubeTV for more Halo 4 updates and other news as we enter the busiest part of the gaming year! Don’t be afraid to pre-order Halo 4 either – we are providing a link below so you can join the experience on November 6!
EA Sports’ Victor Lugo was recently interviewed by ESPN. While this interview gives a lot of interesting details, it does leave us to wonder whether or not Madden 13 is going to be nearly as amazing as the developers are pushing us to believe it will or should be.
We are still of the opinion that real-time physics without real-time injuries is a lackluster feature. What is your take?
No two tackles look alike? Sounds like a time to place bets.
Check message boards, tweets or sports gamer chatter from around the Web and all you’ll hear are the same complaints: “Madden” is nothing but a roster update every year, and “NFL 2K5” is still better.
“Everyone loves the underdog, and I think that’s where a lot of it comes from,” “Madden 13” producer Victor Lugo says when confronted with the complaints, admitting that the design team is all too familiar with them (especially the comparisons to “2K”).
But to Lugo, everything is about to change once gamers see the new real-time physics engine he helped develop. In “Madden 13,” no two tackles look alike, and the physics affect everything on the field, from the ability of running backs to roll off of a downed tackler and keep running to the way a receiver gets hit midair and helicopters his way back down to the turf.
“To not have an element that another game has gives people the right to complain, but I think at this point we have a lot of stuff that our competitors have had, and right now, we’re just concentrating on expanding ‘Madden’ and making the best simulation football we can,” Lugo adds. “It doesn’t really bother me too much what other people say, because we have brought a lot of the community guys in, guys who have been notoriously hard on our game for years, and they were really, really enjoying the game and how the Infinity Engine turned out.” ESPN Playbook: Only a select few have gotten their hands on “Madden 13” so far, so for people reading this article, how would you explain the Infinity Engine and how it completely changes the game from “Madden 12” to “Madden 13”?
Lugo: “Madden 12” used a pretty interesting system. The collision system was more of your old-school collision volume around the character, and when the collision volumes intersected, an animation played out. Now, because of the Infinity Engine, you see a lot of variety in our hits because it’s not based around one collision box around a character, it’s based on individual limbs and individual muscle strengths and tensions throughout the whole character. Because of that, you see a lot more variety, and you see a lot more impact. It’s so different from last year’s game that now, when you’re playing, you can no longer recognize the outcome before it happens. The variety of interaction is what people want.
The way tacklers bounce off of running backs like Frank Gore, and the ability to spin receivers in the air with a vicious hit is pretty sweet. What else can gamers expect to see?
Because we factor in momentum and weight and we also factor in tensions based on what they’re doing, you’re going to see so much variety. You’ll see Frank Gore run over a lot of people this year. By the way, we went to college at the exact same time at The U, so I use him all the time to run people over and he’s featured in all of our videos. You’ll also see a lot of great stuff when receivers are up in the air. We set the tensions up so you don’t have a leg to stand on when you’re in the air, so that leads to all of the spins. There are all these immersive interactions that you just wouldn’t see in the past. You may be going to the ground, fall on somebody else and regain your balance and keep going. I can’t even anticipate for people what is going to happen because there is so much going on. It looks awesome, especially when you’re up in the air.
What’s your favorite sequence that you’ve seen in “Madden 13” so far that you’ve never seen in “Madden” before?
My favorite sequence so far was a short goal-line play from about 3 yards out. I ran up the middle, but I get hit and it looks like I’m stopped right at the goal line. But the guy hit me in the direction of the end zone and I end up rolling on an opposing teammate’s helmet, and I roll right into the end zone for the touchdown. In the past, I would’ve just hit the ground and that would’ve been the end of it, but I just rolled right off of this dude’s head to score. It was fantastic.
How about the Kinect controls in “Madden”? I know a lot of time, the hard-core community hears about Kinect being added to a game and they immediately start rolling their eyes. How have you guys made the voice commands an essential part of playing the game this year?
We had a couple of different goals in mind when it came to “Madden” and Kinect, and none of them involved forcing something cheesy or inappropriate to “Madden” in the game. We want to emulate what you see in real life, and that chatter is a big part of football on the field. A lot of our team has played football. I played football growing up and in high school, and chatter is a big part of playing, so we wanted to give people the ability to talk to their team and call out the audibles like you would in an NFL game. As a second goal, we want to make it easy for beginners to use it, so we put UI (user interface) on the screen to guide you toward what you can do and puts you in appropriate situations in context of the play. For hard-core people, we give you the ability to use both the controller and your voice in order to get that extra command in. A lot of the real hard-core players, and a lot of our really good players are taking advantage of the Kinect in order to do some of the commands that in the past have taken a lot of button commands or have been tough to get through before the ball is snapped, especially on defense. Trying to call man coverage on a specific receiver, for instance, takes a lot of steps, and with the buttons, you’re not going to get more than one of those before the ball is snapped. But with the voice commands, they’re able to get a couple of these commands in as well as adjust the line with the controller. People have been really enjoying it, and we’ve had some people who didn’t think they were going to like it at all now telling us they have to go buy a Kinect, so that’s great to hear.
How do the Kinect controls work with two players or with other people in the room? Can I just start shouting out player names and routes to throw my buddy off?
[Laughs.] Yeah, you’re going to need to tell your little brother to shut up, especially if he’s in the background. This year, we support the Kinect with single player, and with head-to-head online. What we decided to do with online is, you can talk and have a conversation all throughout the play and through play call, but then once you line up we mute you out for that 20 seconds before you snap the ball so you don’t hear what the other person is saying, and it also defends against you yelling hike through and having it get picked up through their surround sound speakers. We eliminate all of the trolling that way, but like I said there’s nothing you can do to defend against your brother. You’ll just need to find a way to shut him up.
People talk about the greatest “Madden” games of all time, and “Madden 2004” with Vick and all the offense and “Madden 2005” with the addition of the Hit Stick always seem to come up. With the addition of the Infinity Engine, where do you think “Madden 13” will go down on that list?
I think this is a revolutionary year for “Madden” both in gameplay and on the career side. In both cases, we’ve added something that is going to make the game bigger than it has ever been. With the physics, the Infinity Engine is something that we’re going to use moving forward forever. This is a fundamental change to gameplay that you will see forever, so this is a monumental year. This will go down in history, alongside some of those other games like 2004, because it’s a game that is bringing fundamental changes. You’re not going to forget “Madden 13.”
Once again, EA Sports has released their list of the Top 10 ‘skill’ position players – this time it is the Running Backs.
Even with a torn knee ligament – Adrian Peterson is towards the top of Madden’s HB list.
#1 Maurice Jones-Drew – 97 Overall
#2 Adrian Peterson – 97 Overall
#3 Arian Foster – 96 Overall
#4 LeSean McCoy – 95 Overall
#5 Ray Rice – 95 Overall
#6 Matt Forte – 93 Overall
#7 Frank Gore – 92 Overall
#8 Steven Jackson – 92 Overall
#9 Jamaal Charles – 91 Overall
#10 Michael Turner – 91 Overall
When looking at this list, keep in mind a few different facts (as you should for every player and position in Madden) –
Ratings are subjective and based upon the opinion of EA’s Donny Moore
Ratings are super-subjective as there is now input from the fanbase on Madden’s Facebook page
The Overall rating is one of the worst barometers for measuring how ‘good’ a player is in Madden
Depending on how you play the game, you will be able to make anyone into a superstar
One of the main issues with the ratings in Madden is the fact that one of the top running backs in the league (Chris Johnson of the Titans) isn’t in the Top 10. He had a poor year in 2011, sure. On the other hand, he didn’t suffer any injury that would make him actually lose out on how good he is/could be. On the other hand, players like Adrian Peterson and Jamaal Charles both suffered terrible injuries to their knees and are still rated as Top 10 Players.
It can be argued both ways, but Madden’s newest direction for rating players through a community vote for a few specific ratings is one of the more laughable developments in their new marketing direction. Hopefully they open up player edits for Connected Careers with a title update. If not, it looks like Madden 13 will be one of those games that makes you tilt your head to the side and wonder what the heck they are thinking with their ratings.
Why We Say “Overall” is the Worst Rating
Outside of the fact that it blows a player up to be the ‘best’ in the game, it is a rating that is comprised of a formula that brings into account the different skills that are necessary for each given position. There are also ratings that have no effect on gameplay (Awareness) and then there are ratings that should play a greater role that don’t at all – such as Injury and Toughness. A durable player is one of the more valuable assets in football, no matter which level you are playing. Yet, in Madden and NCAA these ratings mean nothing when it comes to the Overall value of each player?
A player’s value should also be dictated in career modes by their production. Notice, we didn’t say their ‘Overall’ rating, rather their ‘Value’ which is also a rating that doesn’t matter or in this case – exist. A player might not be the most physically talented or even have a dominating presence on the field but if they consistently lead their team to a Super Bowl or maybe even lead the league statistically chances are good that they will either demand or command a big pay raise and more respect as a player. A prime example of a player like this is Joe Montana.
Joe Montana wouldn’t be in our subjective Top 10 for throwing power or speed, but he would have a high rating for Toughness, Throwing Accuracy for short and medium range passes, etc. He was a super-skinny player that wasn’t a physical specimen like Cam Newton but he was a winner and arguably the best Quarterback of all time (again, our subjective opinion).
How do you feel about ratings? Are we blowing this out of proportion or is this getting downright silly to you too?
Just in case you are still on the fence about whether or not to buy Madden 13, you should consider it one of the safer sports titles to bet on this year. The problem that most people face when it comes to buying a sports game is that they are usually just a roster update with some sort of half-cocked mode enhancement like ‘Mascot Mode’ (see NCAA Football). Madden 13’s Connected Careers could be the mode that finally turns the game into a new direction… maybe even the right one.
When you retire as a real player (Tebow or RG3) they won’t be out of the league you will just not control them anymore.
A Brief History
While Madden has a tendency to suffer from playing like a glorified arcade game in the guise of a simulation football title, it also has the benefit of consistency in gameplay. In other words – we usually know what to expect when it comes to Madden and how it will play. Player movement is something that hasn’t really changed in Madden since the PS2/XBox generation – especially when compared to titles that were competing with Madden. On the flipside – Career modes have suffered in Madden for years.
Madden 12 saw one of the biggest jumps in quality of Franchise Mode since Madden 05 (arguably the best Madden to date). This mode still lacked any real sort of ‘stand-alone’ quality that would keep the end-user from wanting to take control of editing players or simply controlling all 32 teams in order to make the mode feel more organic – ironic, but true.
A New Hope
Connected Careers is designed to bring Franchise Mode and Superstar Mode (where you control a specific player) together as one. You will be able to control a player or a team (as the Coach). Some gamers are going to relish the chance to play as a specific player. However, the real depth is going to come from being a Coach.
One of the more annoying parts of Madden 11 and 12’s Franchise Mode was the concept of ‘Potential’ ratings for players. What made this so frustrating was that you could take a player like Derek Anderson and make him into (statistically) the best QB in the league but his OVR (and therefore, his value) would not increase. Imagine Kurt Warner winning the Super Bowl with the Rams but never considered to be ‘great’ – that is what the potential rating did to Franchise Mode… it took away the feel that your players were any good unless they had a great potential rating.
This year, Potential Rating is gone. You have to earn XP for each player like in a Role Playing Game. So, if you want to make Brady Quinn or Derek Anderson your starting QB and develop them into a 99 OVR player – you can. The crux… you have to earn it. There are going to be some fun developments when people start making Connected Careers ‘their own’.
What To Watch For
As Madden 13 gets closer, there will be more details coming out of the woodwork. The real details that people will notice are the glitches in the game after it comes out. There are bound to be some things that happen in Madden 13 that make people cry foul and say that the game is broken. It happens every year and this year won’t be any different – Madden 13 will have some things that need to be patched (fixed via an update).
Connected Careers will probably have some things that need to be tweaked and the one thing to hope for is that when these issues pop up you won’t have to restart your CCM. Keep your eyes and ears open, your hopes up and you expectations grounded. Madden 13 is almost here.
EA Sports and Madden 13’s marketing department have fans voting on Facebook for the “Top Players” at each position with a few votes for other ‘key’ ratings.
No surprise, Aaron Rodgers is 99 OVR… Who are we kidding? – the only important rating is RG3’s 93 SPD rating.
If sports and first person shooter (FPS) Video Games were a ‘Nation’ and I were the Presidentof Sports and FPS Video Games, I would have to say that the State of our Union is weak.
This isn’t coming from the stand-point of the gaming companies like Electronic Arts or Activision (judging by their weakening stocks I would say that they feel the same), but from the aspect of gamers. There are numerous games that have grabbed our attention and held onto it for a few years such as the Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Mass Effect and some others that you might be able to throw out there in the comments section below. However, sports games and some shooter titles are constantly being thrown at us every year during the summer or fall.
What is becoming more evident as we get closer to the end of this generation of consoles (XBox 360, PS3 and Wii) is that sports and shooter games are really coasting along for the last few quarters before they jump into a new fray of next-gen console development (aka – more of your money).
We have recently focused on games like Madden NFL and NCAA Football sense they are the primary Summer Releases for EA Sports. The next game that will get our full attention is Black Ops 2. Call of Duty is a game that is technically released every two years if you want to dive into the fact that it is split between development teams (Infinity Ward and Treyarch). However, the series itself is pretty much the same concept with a few nuances that make each game slightly different.
These games feel disposable at this point. We aren’t in a time period of creative thoughts in entertainment in general. Movies are the same way with sequels and remakes that really aren’t too dissimilar from what annual sports games and FPS games like Call of Duty are doing. The publishers of these games like to sell you on trailers and big budget marketing rather than actually take the time to be creative and take a chance with something new.
If in 2013 there would be an announcement that Madden and Call of Duty would not be released in order to drive creativity and innovation in each series, would you applaud this decision or take it upon yourself to scream in ALL CAPS that it is the worst thing that ever happened to gaming?
NoobTubeTV would applaud this decision but what is your take?
has managed to sneak up on many gamers this year. It could be a case of the series being over-produced and pushed to its creative limit. It could also be a situation where people have pretty much had their fill with Halo and the expected gameplay that has become synonymous with the Halo series.
NoobTubeTV 