Archive for Video Games
NBA Jam is easily one of the most beloved arcade games from the 1990s and, in its further incarnations, continues to be tremendously loved to this day. Of course, the announcer’s histrionics and signature lines were integral to the impact and success the game enjoyed. From “He’s on fire!” to ”Its Gooooooood!” to the above-mentioned “Boomshakalaka!”, the catchphrases took on a life of their own, developing into a distinct aspect of the game’s contribution to pop culture.
But what if video surfaced of the announcer dropping f-bombs and the like while calling the classic arcade game? Wouldn’t that be something? Turns out, such video exists.
While it is merely a coincidence due to the juxtaposition between a player and the goaltender, an amusing glitch in FIFA Soccer 13 gives rise (heh) to what appears to be a goal scorer consoling a goalkeeper courtesy of an act commonly referred to in some cases as a “happy ending,” a “handy” or what have you.
After putting the ball in the net for a goal, said scoring player gets down on his knees and breaks into a “sad violin” celebration. Unfortunately — but hilariously — since he is in such close proximity to the dejected goalie’s crotch, well, you know…things get awkward.
In what sadly qualifies as an NHL-related “highlight video” in this tragic wasteland that features a dearth of actual hockey videos due to the lockout, here’s Philadelphia Flyers center Max Talbot, wearing a black hoodie and armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, shooting a puck out of the air with a bow and arrow as part of series of promotional spots for the upcoming release of Assassin’s Creed III.
With the lockout dragging on and so foreseeable end in sight, NHL fans will have no choice but to get their hockey fix from playing the newest incarnation of EA Sports’ beloved NHL hockey video game,NHL 13.
Not surprisingly, NHL 13 does contain a few minor glitches that are to be expected given the complex technical issues inherent to creating a video game. And then there is one major glitch that now has been documented that is profoundly hilarious.
Dubbed the “Hercules Check” by Dom & John of 2BC Productions, the move showcases how a player that delivers a hip check while hopping over the wall during a line change will send the checked player flying over the glass and into the stands.
To properly document the otherworldly power harnessed by the “Hercules Check,” the guys provide video of the powerful move as it is used upon Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby as well as other NHLers.
On July 11, 2012, dynamic swingman Joe Johnson was traded to the Brooklyn Nets, leaving the Atlanta Hawks, the team he had suited up for the last 7 NBA seasons.
Hearing news that one’s life has been completely uprooted based only on the whims and hunches of a bunch of guys in suits that run NBA teams must be a bit disconcerting at first, but if you ask Johnson, he simply rolled with it, but he did have one thing he had to do immediately after finding out he’d been dealt. And it all had to do with his video game persona.
When he’s not busy filming public service announcements for New York City’s Department of Transportation, he apparently spends his idle time coming up with pretty neat-looking video games.
Davis, currently rehabbing an injury he suffered in a game playing for the New York Knicks in May that saw the point guard tear both his ACL and MCL as well as partially the patellar tendon in his right knee, has had some idle time and it appears he decided to make the most of it.
Getting Buckets, the brainchild of Davis and business partner and video game industry veteran Sean O’Brien, teamed up to form the company 5 Balloons Interactive. The company’s first game is designed as a 3-D, “endless-runner,” and features the likes of Davis, Steve Nash, Rajon Rondo, Brandon Jennings and Candace Parker, individuals all handpicked by Davis himself.
After a year-and-a-half of behind-the-scenes planning and development, 5 Balloons Interactive released Getting Buckets, a mobile gaming app.
Said the business partners about their first game offering, via SLAM Online:
“There’s really no kind of fun, immediate game that you can play that involves your favorite athletes,” Davis says. “What Sean and I wanted to do was to really create a gaming app that would connect fans with athletes.”
Adds O’Brien: “The first vision that Baron had was to create something accessible. He didn’t want to do a simulation game where there are a lot of controls that you have to try to master. He wanted casual fans to be able to pick up their iPhone or iPad or iPod Touch and just be able to play and interact with the athlete. And we really felt there was an opening in mobile gaming.”
The official game trailer follows.
The Philadelphia Eagles and Rovio, the outfit behind the wildy successful Angry Birds franchise, have announced an unprecedented partnership that will at the very least include an Eagles-centric version of the game, tentatively scheduled to be released this fall.
Said Andrew Stalbow, Rovio’s General Manager for North America:
“We’re very selective, we haven’t done a lot of partnerships so when we do them we want to do them deep and well,” Stalbow said. He said you can count those deep partnerships on one hand–including the most notable one, a deal with 20th Century Fox’s film “Rio.” The company also paired with racing league Formula One for a mini-game, though the Eagles are the first sports team to ink a deal.
“I think if we can be smart, there are organic partnerships and it’s a great way to grow our business,” Stalbow said. “One of the things we’re quite proud of is that we were able to grow our business without spending money on marketing and partnering is key.”
Ari Roitman, the Eagles’ senior vice president of business, added how the team jumped at the opportunity:
“This is, for them, a test the waters type of a partnership and we desperately wanted to go first,” Roitman said. “We did not want anyone else in this country to have a partnership with these guys before we did. It’s a pretty competitive avian sports nickname landscape out there.”
Indeed. As a Wall Street Journal report points out, there are a gaggle (pun intended) of bird-themed sports team in the North American market alone, including the Atlanta Falcons, Arizona Cardinals, Baltimore Ravens and Seattle Seahawks in the NFL; the St. Louis Cardinals, Baltimore Orioles and Toronto Blue Jays in Major League Baseball; the Pittsburgh Penguins, Atlanta Thrashers and Anaheim Ducks in the NHL; and in the NBA, the Atlanta Hawks. With that in mind, it was a no-brainer for the Eagles to partner up with a game franchise that has had reportedly over 1 billion downloads.
But all the above data, quotes and whatnot are all merely academic angles and not the reason why we made mention of this announcement here at SoB. The primary reason, of course, was to upload the video of an animated Andy Reid holding a press conference with a bunch of Angry Birds. It follows.
When it was announced this week that among the personalized celebrations to be featured in Madden NFL 13 would be the now-iconic image of New York Jets quarterback Tim Tebow striking the familiar “Tebowing” pose, I suspect anyone who’s anyone barely could bear to wait to see it for the first time in digitized form. Yep.
Well, the folks at EA Sports were kind enough to upload to Twitter a screenshot of Tebow doing a little Tebowing. The game version of the quarterback, resplendent in his green and white Jets uniform and kneeling in the end zone at MetLife Stadium, is truly a sight to behold.
One question: if Detroit Lions linebacker Stephen Tulloch, more more appropriately, the Madden NFL 13 version of him, should ever sack Tebow in the game, have the programmers coded the game so he bust into a Tebowing pose as well, much like he did in a game last season? Only seems fair.
[image via]
(click to enlarge)
Following a two-week play-in round where two players from each NFL team competed head-to-head to determine which one would represent their franchise in the next round which pits one player from each NFL roster in a fan-driven vote to see who will be the cover star on EA Sports Madden NFL 13, only one player from each franchise remains. The screengrab (via) above depicts those selected and who they will face-off against in the first round of the Cover Vote.
Questions abound. Is there a 16-seed that will be able to topple a 1-seed? Are the 6-seed against the 11-seed match-ups where you will see some upsets? Will a Cinderella Story emerge from this year’s tourney the way in which Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis took the fan vote by storm last year? Is anyone running a bracket for this and if so, how much do you have to pay to get in on the action? Fascinating stuff.
Oh, I kid. Here’s some quotes from some talking heads from ESPN and EA Sports, who have once again teamed up for the fan vote, talking about how awesome it all is:
“Every football fan has an opinion on who should be on the Madden NFL cover, which was highly visible given the overwhelming response and debate that ensued during last year’s campaign. We’re proud to once again put the fate of the game’s cover in our fans’ hands and let them decide who is worthy of becoming the Madden NFL 13 cover athlete,” said director of marketing Anthony Stevenson. “Our collaboration with ESPN and SportsNation helped elevate the campaign to new heights last year and we’re thrilled to team up again on this award-winning program.”
“Sports fans are embracing the new structure of the Madden NFL 13 cover vote and the response has been tremendous for the play-in round, which gives each team’s fans an increased voice in the player selected for the vote,” said Jamie Horowitz, Vice President, Original Programming and Production, ESPN. “SportsNation has the most engaged social audience across the ESPN network, and enabling them to share their votes across Facebook was an ideal way to tap into some of football’s most passionate fans.”
That’s right, kids, you can make your voice heard. Find out more about how you can participate in the democratic process here. Neato. It’s kind of like presidential elections, but your vote apparently matters in determining the outcome.
To promote XBox 360′s upcoming release of Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13 which features the employment of the gaming system’s Kinect motion sensor, the folks at EA Sports came up with idea of having Woods take on O’Neal in some video game-based Shaq-Fu action and the results are pretty amusing.
Employing a reverential nod to the clunky voice dubbing from classic kung-fu movies where the words being said do not match the movements of the actors’ mouths in no way whatsoever, Tiger and Shaq engage in some back-and-forth prior to busting out some nifty karate moves which culminate with a golf swing. Pretty neat.
Said Shaq (via Game Hunters):
“I’ve been a fan of MMA since the 90′s and even used it to train and stay in shape,” O’Neal says of the shoot with Tiger. “Anytime I can do a little Kung Fu it’s always a good time.”
Awesome. The only thing missing is an appearance of Michael Winslow to reenact his Kung-Fu scene from Police Academy. That would have been pretty sweet.
