I’m a bit confused by this one here. I think the football gaming market is fairly saturated, but who knows. In an effort to diversify, Nerjyzed Entertainment in bringing Black College Football Xperience to the PC this November.

BCFx is a sports game that captures the unique culture of the black college football experience, fusing advanced videogame design with music, and entertainment. Nerjyzed has secured an exclusive 5-year licensing agreement with three HBCU conferences including the SWAC, SIAC, and CIAA, several schools within the MEAC as well as independent HBCUs. The game features more than 40 teams, bands and mascots; interactive halftime shows; realistic stadiums; play-by-play commentary; and ten authentic Classics.

I think we all learned a long time ago that using an uppercase “X” to start a word automatically makes your game awesome.

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More competition for Madden has come up from NaturalMotion. Their new game, Backbreaker, looks to revolutionize how players interact on the field.

Using the Euphoria engine, every tackle is different and players move exactly how they would in the real world.

“Backbreaker is the first football game with truly interactive tackles. By utilizing our motion synthesis engine, euphoria, players will never make the same tackle twice, giving them an intensely unique experience every time they play the game,” said NaturalMotion CEO Torsten Reil. “Backbreaker puts players in the middle of the gridiron by providing a pure, realistic football experience only possible on next-generation consoles.”

Well, the sure have tackling down right. Now if they can get the rest of the game to play well, this very well may put some pressure on Madden to actually make some more progress in the game.

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One of our editors brought you a full review of the new Madden 08 game for the Xbox 360 and for the most part it was very positive and he went as far as to call it “the best football game to ever hit next gen” but this editor has a bit of a different opinion. I see it as a solid game, but not worth the purchase as it has not evolved enough from it’s other iterations.

Proof that this Madden is still the same game is the fact that one of my buddies and I sat down for the first time without looking at one instruction manual and played a full game without losing a step. The only thing I had to ask about was what the speed burst was now, aside from that all of those extras in there (which there are a ton) are not that necessary. By these I mean the mismatch crap, the possesin catches, the icons for players and all of those other “upgrades” really don’t add value. It was funny because we played the 360 version and my buddy doesn’t even have a 360 and actually still plays Madden on the original Xbox, but he played just fine.
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So with all the new football games coming out Tom Brady finally gets one of his own. Superbowl MVP Tom Brady is named the cover player for the #1 kids football video game Backyard Football ‘08, which is slated to be released this Fall.

OK so he didn’t get the cover of Madden or 2K, but hey it could be worse, he could be doing info-mercials for hair products and Backyard Football is actually a pretty fun game, although very cutesy. It will be scheduled to realease on the Wii, DS, PC and PS2.

From the press release:
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In the very very remote chance he didn’t do it, I would feel bad for OJ. Not only is he giving up money left and right from his pension and other means to the Goldman family, but now he has to pay them any money he makes from his likeness being used in All Pro Football 2K8.

According to GamesIndustry.biz:

The fees, royalties and other compensation that Simpson was paid for appearing in All-Pro Football 2K8 will now go towards paying the USD 33.5 million judgement won by Goldman’s family in 1997.

Of course, there’s still the ever so remote possibility he didn’t do it. It’s more likely that aliens built the pyramids, but hey, there’s still a chance.

EA Sports had to reinvent their football platforms because the last few installments of both NCAA and Madden have been less than spectacular. The only caveat holding them back was the lack of competition. It seemed that since there are no other licensed titles, they were at a crossroads of sorts. It’s safe to say that after this release, EA Sports is back on the wagon for their football titles. NCAA 2008 gets back to the very basics and improves the core game play and delivers a monster title.

I bought this game at launch and really wanted to cover all angles before dropping the review on you guys. I also recently purchased a 46′ Samsung LCD TV at 1080p and 15000:1 contrast, so I really wanted to see the game on the big screen before making my final decisions so I apologize for the tardiness.

Presentation and Graphics: EA Sports games have not changed their menus and I see no reason why they should. If you have played one title, you have basically memorized the layout and thats a good thing. The great think about college football is the music and fanfare and this is very apparent in the game. You can pick your favorite team and will be greeted to their fight song and a trophy hall with the banners of their rivals and an empty case where your trophies will sit after you unlock them. More on that later. The game runs at a smooth 60 fps and looks absolutely awesome on HD. Their is little to no collision detection and the uniforms, especially the helmets really shine. One of the coolest things to do is play on Boise State’s blue field which looks stunning and a nice change of pace from the usual green. There is also a Weather Channel option when on Live. if you are playing in Texas today, and its 95 degrees in Austin, that will be the temperature of the game. 4 of 5

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We are seeing more deals involving different dynamic ad agencies and video game developers popping up with the biggest one involving EA and Microsoft. These in game ads are billed as great things and from an advertisers perspective that is getting in product placement opportunities across a widespread demographic they are fantastic, but what do they mean to us the consumer?

Since we are allowing all these ads into our homes involuntarily, will we get an option to turn them off? I paid for a video game not commercials, on television I can change the station but what about my video games, I am forced to sit there and see ads I don’t care for as I race through whatever stage I am on.

Will this dawn of new ad placements in our video games lead to lowering of prices or consoles? I doubt this very much, ads are already in certain games and we all are still paying top dollar. We as video game consumers are not benefiting in any way shape or form, from these new “dynamic” ads, so why should I sit and take them?

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So it begins, two empires come together to conquer all. Microsoft announced today that it will be placing ads into Electronic Arts Inc. sports franchises, starting with Madden 08. Don’t expect to see the ads just be confined to the football title, Microsfot and EA have already confirmed ads for Skate, Tiger Woods, NHL and NASCAR.

It looks like a lot more emphasis will be put on in game ads as Google, Microsoft and others push the nvelope to deliver dynamic ads in our video games. But more importantly what will this all mean to the consumer?

From the article on CNN:

The deal comes as Massive faces increased competition from Google, which bought game ad service Adscape for a reported $23 million in March, and from privately held companies such as Double Fusion.

“We need to build an overall network and this is a major stepping point to have us do that,” Van Arsdale said in an interview with Reuters.

Massive acts as a broker between companies that want to get their ads in front of gamers, and game publishers eager to tap new sources of revenue to offset higher development costs for flashy new titles that can cost $20 million or more to make.

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In case you’re on the fence about picking up All Pro Football 2K8 because it doesn’t have an NFL license, you now have a demo to play around with and see if you want to drop your cold hard cash on this game.

The demo is out on the Xbox Live Marketplace and weighs in at 681.90 MB, so prepare to wait a bit once you start your download.

There’s also a Nascar 08 demo available for the 360, so if you prefer making left turns for 3 hours instead of fast paced football action, feel free to download that demo as well.

As I mentioned before All Pro Football 2k8 has a real time scrolling ticker in game that gives you news and I found it interesting that I actually found it interesting and learned a few things. Here is what I learned while playing APF 2k8:

-Michael Vick was indicted in federal grand jury for dog fighting.
-Michael Vick troubles to suspend Nike product.
-Barry Bonds hit 752 and 753 homeruns.
-Yankees lost to the Blue Jays 3-2.
-Lebron James is scheduled to host “Saturday Night Live”.

This might have been the most news I have listened to in a long time, kudos to the folks at 2k sports for the cool idea. Although I have to say guys can you ease up on all the product placement ads on the field? Who says you can’t learn something while playing video games.