In past years I’ve used the Saturday before the Super Bowl to handicap the field for the next cover of Madden NFL. Since the last time I did that, EA Sports put the honours up to a fan-voted, 32-player tournament in 2011, and on Thursday announced it was doubling that field to 64 for 2012. More »
Considering the source, it’s an unlikely statement. When Oregon was marching to a #1 ranking and a berth in the national championship game last year, Richard Hofmeier was running an art gallery in Eugene’s funky Whiteaker neighbourhood. Where nearly every video game treats all-star status and on-field glory as the player’s birthright, Hofmeier built one to put you in the shoes of a guy selling hot dogs, far away from the lights and the stadium. More »
Of all ironies, it’s Electronic Arts now asking a judge to rule that some video game depictions of real-life names and symbols and products don’t need a licence. More »
I’ve tried to be open-minded about what constitutes a sports video game, largely because the genre has so few new titles or competing products in a given year. Pinball FX 2, one of my favourite games of 2011, has struck me as a quasi-sports video game for a while, I just couldn’t really articulate why. More »
Looking back on the list of video games I finished in 2011, it’s an embarrassingly thin roster. It may be my least productive year ever, in terms of what I finished, what I was expected to play and what I spent most of my time doing. It’s not a resume that really speaks of a professional video game writer. More »
A walk-on running back; a dad who couldn’t tell his kids what he did; a fat kid who started going to the gym and never stopped. A guy who came to know his sport’s greatest venue in ways some champions never will. The top man at sports video gaming’s dominant publisher, and a college student who considers himself a “virtual athlete,” watching every out from his wheelchair. More »
Chet Holzbauer can’t remember any other gift from that mad Christmas Day scramble 20 years ago. As far as he knows, the cacophony of torn paper came to a stop, like the needle coming off a record, when he and his brother unwrapped Tecmo Super Bowl. More »
With respect and admiration for, if not apologies to, the late Ernie Harwell, here’s something adapted from his famous Induction Day speech at the National Baseball Hall of Fame, Aug. 2, 1981, which itself was adapted from this 1955 essay. Stick Jockey published this last year on Thanksgiving weekend. I’ve updated it for this year, and I’d like for it to become a tradition. More »
