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Pigskin Metareview: NCAA 08 vs All-Pro 2K8 vs Madden 08
We're about halfway through the summer, and for football fans it's one of the itchiest times of the year. The official season is scant weeks away from starting, and you have to find ways to while away the time until you can play sideline coach once again and scream at the television until the veins in your forehead spell out the initials of your college team.Some people pass the time by going on vacation, others read quietly, some take up a new hobby, like whittling, and still others reflect on the nature of man vs. the infinite. The rest of us simply purchase the latest football games and pick up the yelling and screaming like it never left off. With that in mind, we're rounding up the reviews for this year's crop of gridiron offerings. Choose wisely, and prepare yourself for some thumb blistering goodness.
Shipping this week: gridiron editon
Are you ready for some football? We said, ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL?!Ahem, well, we hope so, because this week it's your only choice for new retail games on the Xbox 360. Whatever your tastes in sports games, though, this marks a special week for football games. Yes, this week we finally see the release of 2K's return to football, All Pro Football 2K8. It's time to see if a non-licensed football game can make a dent in a world where Madden is the only NFL game in town. Will players gravitate towards (historically) more refined gameplay in lieu of licensed teams? We'll just have to wait and see. It will be interesting to see how APF2K8 fares against this week's other release, NCAA Football 08.[Via Joystiq]Update: Clarified question meaning.
Sunday deals offer free Live and gift cards too
Today is Sunday and that means it's time to talk about this week's Xbox 360 super-Sunday-deals-of-money-savings-greatness! As usual, Circuit City has all the savings this week by offering up a free year of Xbox Live with purchase of any Xbox 360 console. You want video game deals? Well, if you're looking to get your Madden on later this year, plop down a preorder on Madden 08 and Circuit City will give you $25 towards a FansEdge.com order. And if Madden is too long of a wait to play football, this week NCAA Football 08 is available and if purchased at Circuit City they'll give you $10 gift card to boot. There you go, that was the best of the best Xbox 360 deals this week. Pull out your plastic and shop, shop the day away!
NCAA Football 08 demo available on XBLM
Less than an hour ago we were graced with our first Bringing it Home XBLM content which offered up gamer pictures and a theme. And now we're happy to announce that we have our first Bringing it Home demo! Up for download off the Marketplace is a NCAA Football 08 demo coming in at 684MBs of what we expect to be full of football fun. Though, this cannot be guaranteed. We welcome football fans to give the demo a download, tell us what you think and share your overall impressions as we aren't overly familiar with the genre. Heck, maybe you could count every frame in a second to see if the game runs at its promised 60 FPS.
Advertising coming to Xbox 360 achievements
They've been embraced by major publishers. They've infected everything from first-person shooters and MMOs. They even occasionally served as the entire basis for a game's existence. Now, in-game advertising's inevitable extension is reaching into a new area -- Xbox Live Achievements.A quick skim down the list of achievements for EA's upcoming NCAA 08 Football shows sponsored goals such as the "Old Spice Red Zone Perfection" and "Pontiac 4th Quarter Comeback." Each achievement is accompanied by a logo for the company in the achievement's image.We can only imagine the possibilities for future Xbox 360 games. Halo Around the Collar, sponsored by Tide? Mass Effect sponsored by the Axe Effect? Grand Theft Auto IV's Bounty Beatdown (great for sopping up blood spills)? The possibilities are endless.
60 FPS: Football will be better on the 360
1UP is reporting that all the heavy hitting football games coming out this year (Madden 08, NCAA Football 08, and All-Pro Football 2K8) will be running best on the Xbox 360. 30 frames smoother to be exact. 1UP says that they've confirmed with developers that the 360 versions of each football game will run at a buttery smooth 60 frames per second while the PS3 version will have to settle for 30 frames per second. What does that mean? Well, it means animations will be smoother, faster and less jarring than the PS3 version. And that's a good thing.We aren't sure why the PS3 versions of the games are stuck at 30 FPS, but we're thinking the dev teams just didn't find it worth the extra cash to optimize it for the platform. But even if that were the case it should still put a feather in Microsoft's ego cap, because it would just further prove that the 360 is easier to develop for.
NCAA Achievements have product placement
Xbox 360 Achievements got their hands on NCAA Football 08's Achievement list earlier this week. It looks like this year, EA's making an effort to require you to play the game, rather than just simming your way through it, though we can't say for certain that you can't get any of them via simming. The last three did grab our eye, though, they all have blatant product placement for Pontiac and Old Spice, even using the company's respective logo. Fight Night Round Three kind of did the same thing, though the events were "sponsored by the companies". Still, give the list a look, and if your like EA Sports previous offering, hopefully this will fit the bill this year.
NCAA Football 08 trailer tackles Marketplace
A new trailer for NCAA Football 08 popped up on Xbox Live Marketplace this morning. Try as we might, it's hard for us to find ways to colorfully describe it. It is football, of that we're certain. There are players, a field, and there is most certainly a ball. The graphics look decent enough, and the hits look good. All in all, it looks to have most of the necessities required by a football game. What more do you need, right? Check out the trailer for yourself, conveniently embedded at the top of this post.
