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EA gets tricky with latest SSX trailer
Remember SSX Tricky? Electronic Arts sure hopes you do. Presumably, it also hopes you don't mind having your nostalgia hijacked by a nearly unrecognizable remix of the game's title track, Run-D.M.C.'s classic, "It's Tricky."
SSX comes shredding in a few weeks late on February 14, 2012
Despite carving out a January 2012 launch window for itself earlier this year, it seems that SSX won't be making its way down from the peak (of ... uh ... development? or something?) until February 14, 2012. EA's official SSX site unceremoniously unveiled the release date on its front splash page, floating mysteriously above a snowy backdrop. Before the game's arrival on Valentine's Day, might we suggest practicing your transitional snowboarding slash wingsuit skills? You'll never know when a deadly descent (or descents, of course) will suddenly appear, ya know?
From the slopes to the air with SSX's wingsuits
Back when the latest SSX was first introduced, players worried that this supposedly "grim, darker" take on the franchise would lose the goofy, colorful elements that made the series so popular. Most of those elements (the over-the-top tricks, the larger-than-life settings, and the extravagantly ramped and rail-equipped levels) have survived just fine according to what we've seen so far, but art director Geoff Coates does say that some of the fun had to go. "If you look at the character design [in previous versions]," he says, "it's characters that are wearing t-shirts and jeans, and dresses or whatever, and they're being thrown out on these mountains." So it's fair to say that we won't see jean shorts or bikinis on SSX's latest class. "The character design now is taking the characters, retaining their personality, but still giving them that survival aspect. You'll see they have backpacks, they have gear that's a little more appropriate." "And the wingsuits," Coates continues, "are part of that." Yes, the wingsuits. Oh my, the wingsuits. %Gallery-135268%
FIFA Street revival arrives March 2012
Announced at EA's Gamescom 2011 press conference, FIFA Street has narrowed its launch window from early 2012 to "March." VG247 reports that EA announced the month of kickoff at last night's FIFA 12 launch event in the UK. Copies of FIFA 12 also reportedly have a pamphlet inside the box mentioning the March date. Not a whole lot is known about the FIFA Street reboot. We know EA Sports Season Ticket holders will receive early access to the full game, and that it features the EA Football Club, along with social network goodies. We expect to find out a lot more after EA Sports gets its biggest sports franchise out the door globally.
FIFA Street reboot in development at EA Canada, coming early next year
EA's Gamescom 2011 keynote has already brought about one intriguing bit of news about the revival of its more palatable, outrageous sports franchises: FIFA Street. Coming to PS3 and 360 early next year, the EA Canada-developed title will bring back the rough-and-tumble action of the original series, with the depth of the later installments in FIFA Prime. In fact, it might possess more depth -- according to EA, it will feature "twice as many moves as FIFA 12." The game will also feature the suite of EA Football Club features first announced at E3 this year, among other, unspecified social networking features. EA Sports Season Ticket holders will also get early (temporary) access to the full game, should they choose to accept it. Keep an eye out for the game's debut trailer in the coming hours.
FIFA Soccer 12 for 3DS finally shows street soccer in 3D
The 3DS is about to get its second soccer title, with the fall release of FIFA Soccer 12. In addition to the normal professional sports simulation, the new title will also simulate street soccer -- played with nothing more than a ball, a perfectly rounded street surface, and you. The new 3DS FIFA game features "all-new optional touch screen controls," allowing players to pick the destination for the ball and even control the trajectory of their shots by drawing lines. "Over 500 officially licensed clubs" will be available in Career, Tournament, and other modes. That sounds like a lot of clubs! However, if you prefer to see yourself in three simulated dimensions, you can create a player for the curved-pitch 3D Street Soccer mode, and take that player through the FIFA ranks in "Be a Pro" mode. Perhaps most excitingly you'll be able to play online, a feature that is still frustratingly rare in 3DS games.%Gallery-123212%
SSX dev diary brings back some familiar faces
Though it sounds like SSX is mixing up the franchise in some fairly bold ways, it won't be throwing out the series' tried and true cast of downhill daredevils. Check out the developer diary after the jump to see how EA Canada is breathing new life into these powder-caked veterans.
SSX dev diary explores the mountain range
All the flips, spins, grabs and other gnarly tricks in the world won't do you much good if you don't have anything to trick off of, you know. This latest SSX dev diary looks at EA Canada's level design philosophy, which seems to center around "let's make this half pipe as dangerous as possible."
SSX dev diary finally shows off the tricks of the trade
Okay, we've heard a lot about EA Canada's upcoming SSX (née Deadly Descents) -- but somewhat inexplicably, we haven't heard a lot about the sweet tricks therein. Fortunately, that ever-important mortar that holds the franchise together is discussed in great detail in the dev diary posted below.
New SSX drops 'Deadly Descents' subtitle
EA Sports looks to still any bad vibes that have reverberated from negative reaction to the debut teaser for SSX: Deadly Descents by toning down the emphasis on "deadly." The company has officially dropped "Deadly Descents" from the game title, Game Informer confirms, and has begun a marketing campaign that, in part, assures fans that developer EA Canada is not abandoning the series' arcade roots in favor of more realistic gameplay in the reboot. The cinematic teaser, which portrays a desperate snowboarder skidding down a dark and stormy Himalayan slope -- his last words: "I'm not gonna make it," as he shoots over a cliff side and into the air, deploying his squirrel suit -- seemed to suggest that the new SSX would be "moving away from the bright colors and crazy arcade feel of the early titles in favor of a more realistic tone," as Game Informer observed. "Is this true?" the site asked creative director Todd Batty. "No, absolutely not," insisted Batty, who described "Deadly Descent" as a "new" event type in the game, "which is all about survival gameplay." SSX will also include "Speed Descent" and "Tricky Descent" events, according to Batty. "We wanted to make sure we hit the over-the-top arcadey gameplay in all of these different gameplay modes. We decided to lead with the new Deadly Descent gameplay in that trailer, but all of the classic SSX style will be there, too." The image makeover isn't fully complete, however, as the original SSX: Deadly Descents logo and name are still prominent on the EA.com game page (as of publishing); though the new, just SSX logo was used in last week's promotional video and is featured on the game's Facebook page. Of course, as Joystiq commenter "ptcamn" pointed out last week, lost in this little fiasco is the fact that EA tried a very similar, "survive the ride" marketing campaign for 2003's SSX 3 -- skull-face lightning flash and all.
The third pillar of SSX: Deadly Descents: 'Survive It'
Following the ill-advised turn taken in 2009's SSX Blindside, EA Canada looks to sure up the game plan for the snowboarding franchise's latest run, Deadly Descents, by introducing a new aspect to the game design: "survival gameplay." We'll let creative director Todd Batty try to explain this one.
EA reveals some dark, dangerous details on SSX: Deadly Descents
EA wasted no time in getting up an official website for SSX: Deadly Descents -- or, as the cast of True Blood promptly renamed it during its reveal at last night's calamitous VGAs, Deadly Ascent (backwards snowboarding woooo). The page includes last night's announcement trailer and a few screens (posted in the gallery below), as well as a few intriguing details in the game's description. In short, it sounds like the worlds' first extreme sports/racing/survival horror game. The site explains "players will explore the story of a team who seek to be the first to descend the faces of the most treacherous mountain ranges on the planet." Players will visit "the peaks of the Himalayas, where the air is so thin that riders have to descend through the death zone at breakneck speeds to keep from blacking out, to the solid ice ranges of Antarctica, where a sunlit line is the only survival option when temperatures drop 50 degrees centigrade in the shade." We wonder if you get bonus points if you finish the race with all your fingers and toes un-frostbitten. The game won't defy the series' penchant for sweet aerial tricks, as the site explains "the first goal is to survive. The second, in true SSX fashion, is to look good doing it." Seriously, we're going to have a hard time remembering to do the latter while constantly fretting about the former. %Gallery-110394%
SSX 'Descent' sites registered
With Shaun White now taking it to the streets, perhaps there's an opening on the slope for EA's snowboarding franchise, SSX, to reemerge from hibernation. A mess of newly registered domains points to the possibility of a reboot of the series, which has been sidelined since 2007's pedestrian Wii release, Blur. Professional domain registration outfit Corporate Domains, Inc. (what a gig!) has locked down URL variations of "SSX: Deadly Descent," plus an "SSX: First Descent" domain -- suggestive of the popular reboot motif: the origin story. While none of this activity is confirmation of a new SSX game, EA has worked through Corporate Domains in the past in advance of public announcements, most recently to secure web real estate for potential Need for Speed names (though Hot Pursuit was ultimately recycled) and The Sims Medieval. As for SSX, it's been more than a year since EA Montreal's Alain Tascan left open the possibility for a new entry in the series, saying in September 2009, "If the market is there and is ready for a new one, then we'll consider it." Perhaps through Move and Kinect, EA Montreal sees its ready market and an opportunity to build on the motion-controlled framework established in its Blur effort. Of course, fans of the last-generation games might prefer to see the series' original developer, EA Canada, stage the comeback. And what a meta-comeback story it could be! (The studio could use a big win following the NBA Elite 11 fail, after all.) Still, all this domain fuss could just as easily be over the naming of the SSX iPhone game, which has been -- quietly -- in the works for too long.
NBA JAM trailer features the Washington D.C. Globetrotters
So, you've still got the burning urge to engage in politics following yesterday's Midterm election? Don't actually get involved with your local government bodies -- that would be ridiculous! Instead, watch this NBA Jam video, which features a bunch of showboating, high-dunking politicians.
There's a lot going on in these Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit commercials
EA has developed one of the most perplexing ad campaigns we've ever seen to promote its upcoming racer, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit. It's a five-part mini-series following the shenanigans of two valets, one of which is also secretly a renegade cop (?), and one of which is also a street racer (?). Of course, they don't bust fools or drive fast in these ads. They park cars, because they're valets. Sometimes, they don't park the cars, because they're edgy. Oh, and they're played by Jerry Ferrara and Kevin Dillon, whom you may know from the hit television series Entourage, or, if you're not an HBO subscriber, Hotel for Dogs. Check out the first two entries into this commercial series, titled "Officer Douche" and "You Park It," respectively, after the jump. After that, join us in wishing that these ads get their own spin-off television show, Cavemen-style. We'd love to see the complexities of these characters unfold, you know?
Next Need for Speed coming from EA Black Box, Burnout's not dead
Criterion may have swiped development duties for the upcoming installment in EA's ancient racing franchise, Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, but it seems the franchise will land in familiar hands for the series' next iteration. In a recent interview with Eurogamer, EA senior vice president Patrick Soderlund responded to a question about whether Black Box would be behind the wheel of next year's Need for Speed, saying "you can assume that, yes." Later, he cheekily implied that one could safely assume that. On the off-chance that you don't need the Need for Speed, Soderlund also shared a bit about the future of EA's other flagship racing franchise: Burnout. Soderlund explained, "we haven't made a decision to whether Burnout does this or that, but it's not dead for sure, no," adding that the publisher is currently "prioritizing what we want to do." Here, allow us to help arrange those priorities: A spiritual successor to Burnout 3: Takedown A new, non-motion-controlled SSX Everything else
NBA Jam review: Make new modes, but keep the old
Let's acknowledge something you've probably already realized if you've been keeping up with the numerous trailers and previews for EA Canada's reboot of the NBA Jam franchise: Your enjoyment of the game will be exponentially enriched if you're familiar with the culture of the original. Midway's NBA Jam didn't just introduce standards that most modern basketball games still include in some manner or another -- it created a language which only the game's players could fully comprehend. There's nothing wrong with the fact that EA Sports clearly targeted this community with the new NBA Jam by acknowledging the catchphrases, over-the-top maneuvers and arcadey gameplay of Jam the First. In fact, it's a testament to the undying strength of that original formula that EA Canada's attempts to tack new material on to it largely fall flat. %Gallery-89317%
EA Canada racing to add features to NBA Jam on PS3, Xbox 360
"We got this bomb dropped on us just a couple days ago, as well," NBA Jam creative director Trey Smith told Toronto sports radio show Got Game (interview begins as 00:15:38 mark), about EA's last-minute decision to turn the HD console version of the game into a standalone retail product. "So we're shuffling to get everything together, but we got a great team; we got a lot of stuff up and working; we're gonna polish it up; we're gonna get it out there before holidays." Smith and his team at EA Canada have completed the full-featured Wii version of NBA Jam (which will be released tomorrow) and "had online up" -- Smith characterized it as a "really basic online feature set" -- for the planned stripped-down, digital release of Jam on PS3 and Xbox 360. This bonus downloadable version, which was to be included with new copies of the now delayed NBA Elite 11, was to include just the Play Now, Classic Campaign and Online Vs. modes -- "we're trying to blow that out," Smith stressed. The Wii game includes the Remix Tour, which encompasses a number of new modes and takes EA Canada's "best testers" 38 hours to complete, according to Smith, who also confirmed "you get Remix" in the PS3 and Xbox 360 version, as well. At least, that's the new plan. "We're doing everything in our power to get as much on there as possible," Smith assured. "We're trying to throw it all in there."
NBA Jam developer diary mixes the old with the new
The NBA Jam developer diary posted below shows the considerations that went into solving the game's many artistic dilemmas. Like, how to make the game look new, but old? Rich, yet simple? Fun, yet serious? Modern, yet timeless? Basketball, yet golf? No, wait. Everything but that last one.
NBA Jam video takes aim at 'The Turmell Hit List'
It's easy to take jamming for granted. In NBA Jam, lighting one's self on fire and pulling off "the mad crazy dunks" looks so simple. It seems like all you need are some colorful shoes and a deep determination to dish rocks but, as creative director Trey Smith informs us in the video past the break, it takes more than that -- specifically, it takes knowledge. And that's the inspiration behind bringing back Mark Turmell, the lead designer and programmer on the original game. It's allowed EA Canada to identify what has been internally referred to as "The Turmell Hit List," a list of initially overlooked issues Turmell brought to the table.
