It seems that under the latest patch, which I applied on my Xbox 360 last night, a rectangular ad now appears pre-snap above the right third of the score graphic. I've seen ads for Gillette, Microsoft's Bing search engine, and Coke Zero on the Xbox 360 version. Ripten's Chad Lakkis, who first reported on this yesterday, says he was playing on the PS3 and was inundated with pitches for Madden NFL Arcade.

The ads now seem to appear before every non-special teams snap, provided there was no other cutscene graphic preceding the play, such as ones providing biographical information or recapping your drive length and time. Instant replays and backtracks seem also to keep the ads away. But in singleplayer games when you're on defense, such graphics are less common, and you can literally see three or more ads in a row, all flacking you the same product.

Their placement do not obscure critical visual information, and they disappear when the ball is snapped, but to say they are an annoying distraction is putting it mildly. Then again, the relative lack of an uproar about this must be noted. Maybe the Madden community doesn't mind it after all.

Before testing this out last night, I hadn't played Madden in about a month. But the advertising I saw definitely came up more frequently than I remember. Secondly, I started looking for this in a version of the game that had not been updated with Dec. 10's patch. After the patch was applied, the ads came out in force. Ripten says it notices lesser ad frequency now on the PS3, but this morning it was status quo on the Xbox 360 for me.

Earlier this year, in bringing up in-game ads with EA Sports, I was politely told that the ads were consistent with the team's presentational philosophy, that you wouldn't be seeing anything in a Madden game that you wouldn't also see in a standard NFL broadcast. Fair enough. But in no way do we see pop-up advertising this conspicuous over this many plays on CBS, Fox, ESPN or NBC. I might be late to the party on noticing, but I'm pretty sure about that last point.

I've emailed EA Sports to ask if it's gotten any complaints, and also to ask if this many ads is unintentional. Being the holiday week, I've not heard back. If I do, I'll update this post.

EA In-Game Advertising Abuse: Madden Arcade Ad Flashes Before Every Madden 10 Snap [Ripten]

Those are the cosmetic changes to the game. Many others are included with the next patch, which hits the PS3 as of now and the Xbox 360 sometime soon.

• Improvements in covering of the flats
• Improved pursuit angles
• CPU takes sacks more often instead of the last second throws while getting hit
• Worked on eliminating various exploits such as with the RB Direct Snap
• Fixing of problems caused by first patch such as black squares for numbers on some helmets
• Addition of Seahawks alternate uniforms
• Tribute sticker for Steve McNair added to Titans helmets
• Tribute sticker for Defensive Coordinator Jim Johnson added to Eagles helmets
• Doubled the length of replays
• Increased frequency of auto-replays especially after touchdowns
• Reduced the number of times the chain-gang measurement scene occurs
• Extended time in post-play to allow those scenes to fully play out
• Stats tuned for franchise mode
• Decreased chances of injury for players with high injury ratings
• Included each player's draft info to be viewable in franchise

The 360 patch is coming later. "Unfortunately, during the certification process for the 360, update issues were found that will prevent it's release this week," said Phil Frazier, a senior producer on Madden. "Assuming all goes well with our new submission, the title update for the 360 should be released this time next week."

Second Patch for Madden 10 Now Available (PS3) [Pasta Padre]

Not only have a slew of new, blockbuster titles come out for the emerging platform, Apple finally realized that maybe they should wake up and start touting the gaming benefits of their smartphone and media player.

This is by no means all of the iPhone and iPod Touch games we reviewed this year, but it's a quick look at some of the more memorable ones. Don't forget, just because they're download only, doesn't mean you can't present a list with the iTunes card you give someone.

Any we missed? Any you would suggest for a friend?

Asphalt 5

Price: $6.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Racing
Subject Matter: Gameloft brings Burnout's adrenaline-amping crashes and Ridge Racer's wind-in-your-hair thrills to the iPhone with Asphalt 5.
Value: A strong competitor to the PSP's racing games, Asphalt 5 offers three modes-quick race, career, local and online multi-player, 33 cars, 12 tracks, vehicle customization, and unlockable stat-boosting babes.
Buy it for: Gamers ready to go vroom.
Read the Full Review

Command & Conquer: Red Alert

Price: $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Real Time Strategy
Subject Matter: EA brings its over-the-top real-time strategy series to the iPhone, allowing on-the-go gamers to wage war wherever they please.
Value: While things like C&C's cheesy cinematics didn't make the leap to the iPhone, the platform's touch screen display is ideal for RTS style gaming.
Buy it for: RTS players looking for a mobile strategy game.
Read the Full Review

Doom Resurrection

Price: $6.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: First-person touchscreen shooter
Subject Matter: Loosely based on Doom 3, Resurrection is an impressive port of the demonic sci-fi FPS that's easily controlled with the iPhone's accelerometer.
Value: As iPhone games go, Doom Resurrection is priced almost right, offering a solid campaign, but not much more.
Buy it for: budding space marines who enjoy killing hellspawn between phone calls.
Read the Full Review

Dungeon Hunter

Price: $6.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Diablo-esque action.
Subject Matter: Dungeon Hunter has gamers play as a fallen prince back from the dead to save the kingdom from his evil wife. Plenty of dungeon crawling, loot gathering and virtual button-mashing in this game.
Value: A single play-through of the game can take 25 hours, and there are three character classes to play with. This is probably the best value you'll find on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Buy it for: fans of adventure games like Diablo and light role-playing titles.
Read the Full Review

Madden NFL
Price: $9.99
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: EA Sports delivers its bestselling Madden franchise to the iPhone for the first time.
Value: Fully licensed, with all of the teams, players and game modes from the console version of the definitive NFL video game title.
Buy it for: A great stocking stuffer for any football fan with an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Read the Full Review

Metal Gear Solid Touch

Price: $0.99 to $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Third-person touchscreen shooter
Subject Matter: Metal Gear Solid Touch brings 20 stages lifted from Metal Gear Solid 4 but focuses more on arcade-style touchscreen shooting than the stealth gameplay that Solid Snake is famous for.
Value: Depending on how much you pay (the game was marked down to 99 cents recently) MGS Touch offers a decent amount of replayability and cool items to unlock.
Buy it for: the serious as a heart attack Metal Gear fan who doesn't have access to a PlayStation.
Read the Full Review

NBA Live
Price: $9.99
Genre: Sports
Subject Matter: The NBA goes mobile in EA Sports' first port of its popular pro basketball simulation.
Value: All teams, all players, plus season, playoffs, and pick-up-and-play modes, with customizable rosters.
Buy it for: Any hoophead with a gadget fixation will love having a full basketball sim in his or her pocket.
Read the Full Review

Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition

Price: $6.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Shooter
Subject Matter: Resident Evil 4 Mobile Edition is a screen-tapping, stop-and-pop, suspense shooter.
Value: With a dozen settings and two dozen timed stages, this iPhone title is worth the money.
Buy it for: Resident Evil fans, shooter fans, anyone interested in gaming on their phone or Touch.
Read the Full Review

Rock Band

Price: $9.99
Rating: N/A
Genre: Music
Subject Matter: It's Rock Band. It's on the iPhone. Yeah!
Value: Packed with 20 tracks, Rock Band has a set list that boasts the likes of Foo Fighters, the Pixies and Joan Jett. Players can jam on all four instruments. Multiplayer supports up to four.
Buy it for: Music game lovers on the go.
Read the Full Review

Rolando 2

Price: $4.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: A charming side-scrolling puzzler.
Subject Matter: This sequel to last-year's must-have iPhone game, Rolando 2 introduces more story, character development and challenges.
Value: This is the first time Luke has ever played an iPhone that felt truly substantial.
Buy it for: fans of LocoRoco, Rolando or cute, cleverly-crafted puzzle games..
Read the Full Review

Space Invaders Infinity Gene

Price: $4.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: Shoot em up
Subject Matter: Space Invaders Infinity Gene is a re-imagining of 70s classic arcade game Space Invaders.
Value: One of the most played games on my iPhone, Space Invaders Infinity Gene offers you 19 levels with a number of interesting new weapons. But almost more importantly, the game can create levels on the fly designed around music played from your iPhone or iPod Touch's music library.
Buy it for: fans of Space Invaders, fans of shoot-em ups, fans of fun.
Read the Full Review

Star Defense
Price: $.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Tower defense
Subject Matter: Defend a planet outpost from an amazingly orderly bunch of aliens walking there way along the paths that lead from landing port to your base.
Value: It's just a buck, and it's a ton of fun.
Buy it for: Fans of tower defense and globes.
Read the Full Review

Streets of Rage

Price: $4.99
Rating: 12+
Genre: Genesis brawling side-scroller
Subject Matter: This is a straight-up emulation of the Sega classic for the Genesis with chop-socky music and over-the-top tiny graphics.
Value: Not much of a deal here even at $5. It's a straight, troubled port.
Buy it for: With a bad framerate and problematic controls, only hardcore fans of the game and nostalgia freaks should get this.
Read the Full Review

Waterways

Price: $.99
Rating: 4+
Genre: Puzzler
Subject Matter: Winner of the 2008 Japan GameGam Competition, Waterways is a puzzle game with cows, ducks and water.
Value: For a penny shy of a dollar you can't go wrong with this portable game.
Buy it for: Puzzle enthusiasts who want a some brain teasing on the go.
Read the Full Review

Zenonia

Price: $2.99
Rating: 9+
Genre: Adventure role-playing game.
Subject Matter: Zenonia follows a young man named Regret as he searches for answers to the mystery surrounding his birth after the sudden death of the man who raised him.
Value:With about 20 hours worth of play and the ability to choose good and evil paths, this is a no brainer.
Buy it for: fans of The Legend of Zelda.
Read the Full Review

Pasta Padre called it earlier. "Entourage" brings in four offensive linemen for pass protection, no small deal considering you only get one (and a tight end) in this five-on-five shootout. The others include:

Triple Threat – Disguise which receiver you're throwing the ball by sending out two other decoys with the Power Ball game changer.

Bonus Play – Give yourself an additional down to help get in the end zone and earn some much deserved points with Bonus Play.

Make it, Take it - If you're good enough to score when you trigger Make It, Take It, the ball is yours to keep on the next possession.

Turbo – The Turbo game changer will send players in fast forward by giving them an extra speed burst.

Molasses – Game too fast for you? Use Molasses to take down the action on the field to a less frantic pace.

Fumbilitis – Turn your opponent's into butter fingers as they'll have a difficult time holding on to the ball with Fumbilitis.

It's Alive – Make any pass a scramble for the ball as its Alive will turn any incomplete pass into a live ball.

Frostbite – Put the freeze on one opposing player from moving by using the game changer Frostbite.

Fast Pass – Fast Pass gives the power to a QB to throw the ultimate bulleted pass.

Flying Blind – Sabotage your opponent by using Flying Blind to turn off their passing icons.

Flip Flop – Jealous of your opponents score? Flip Flop will nicely borrow the score and never give it back.

Dud – Hey, they can't all be winners.

Wow. Flip-flop looks like an egregiously douche move. Can't wait to try it.

Some of these sound like the old Madden and NCAA Football cheats. If you're nostalgic for those, the game is out on PSN on Tuesday and Xbox Live on Wednesday, both in time for the ultimate football powerup, that six-legged turducken monstrosity Fox Sports serves at the Lions game on Thursday.

Madden Arcade Power-Ups [Pasta Padre]

That would be ESPN NFL 2K5, the last and best of an uncommonly good crop of football games in the first half of the decade and, perhaps not coincidentally, the last one before EA Sports inked its exclusive license with the National Football League. Certainly, the stupefyingly good value 2K5 delivered on an unheard-of $19.99 price tag moved the needle on its high regard. But reviews of the game still said things like "the best-looking football game ever made," and "the most entertaining show in video game football."

This coming week will see the last glut of AAA releases in the autumn sales cycle, and then it will be on to the question of Game of the Year. Sports titles are like the offensive lineman in modern Heisman voting. Just being mentioned would be honor enough, because the prize is completely inaccessible to your class of performer.

Maybe 2K5 did the best of any sports game, judged among others, in its year. It's impossible to say definitively. I dialed up Brandon Justice, a producer on the 2K5 team to ask him where that game fit in the larger context of 2004's top titles. Five years later, you can still hear the pride when quotes the game's feature set, as if he was back on the team going head-to-head with the Madden franchise.

"People are out there, today, talking about whether Madden 10 is overall a better product (than 2K5)," said Justice, who later worked on Madden and now is the director of design for Quick Hit Football (profiled Sept. 19.) "Five years later. They're just now doing features that 2K5 did first - and not doing them as well. They now have online franchises; we had that mode. We had SportsCenter presentation with a highlight reel; they're just now doing that kind of thing."

But the feature-packed game wasn't put out there to take home a statue, Justice said. It's not to say that is the sole motivation of any past game of the year, but such artistic recognition is at least in the mix for your typical AAA adventure. Not so with sports titles, which seek a more product-oriented recognition, Justice said.

"Ironically enough, trophies matter little to the sports crowd," he said. It's very much focused on sales and beating direct competition where it exists. "Our main mission in 2K was to beat Madden's score. Whether it wins sports game of the year or not, Madden's still going to sell millions of units every year. More than anything else we just wanted to make a good sports game. And having worked on the Madden team as well, those guys have the same spirit. You want to crush the competition, and make the best product out there."

In 2004, NFL 2K5 couldn't afford to think about taking on Half-Life 2, Halo 2 or Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. That year's Madden also went out to wide acclaim; just beating it would take best-in-class effort.

But it's also a little pointless, Justice said, for a sports game to shoot for anything outside best-in-class accolades. A former games writer himself, Justice said the criticism operations of major opinion leaders just aren't set up to give sports titles the same exposure as shooters, RPGs and other traditional genres.

"Every magazine I've worked for, they have a sports guy," he said. And, working for IGN, he remembers plenty of sports copy being handed off to freelancers. "Everybody plays Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, Fallout, Gears of War, but you really have to find someone who's into baseball games, and then he always reviews it." Inevitably, when that outfit polls its staff for game of the year, few voices speak up for a sports game because few have played them.

"You've got one or two voices voting for a sports game," Justice said. "A lot of time it's a question of volume."

Could a sports title ever win Game of the Year? My gut feeling says the opportunity has passed. Criticism of video games is increasingly considerate of a game's narrative, and a sports simulation fundamentally has none. And sports deal with creative limitations specific to existing rules of a game, plus the veto authority of a licensor who may not buy into daring creativity.

David Littman, a producer on EA Sports' NHL title - taking 19 different sports game of the year awards in 2007 and 2008 - points out another basic limitation of sports games. "These big action games have huge worlds to explore, while sports games take place mainly inside a confined stadium," he told me.

Plus, he said wryly, "Sports games don't have guns. People seem to like guns."

True. Shooters also don't have to outdo themselves every year, lest they be branded as just a prettied-up roster update. The innovations in a sports game, year-to-year, may seem small, but comparing versions three years apart, the way one would Halo 3 to Halo 2, or Grand Theft Auto IV to San Andreas, and maybe a sports title's advancement would look more profound.

"NHL 10 and FIFA 10 are two of the highest-rated sports games ever on this console generation, but FIFA 09 and NHL 09 were also among the highest scores," he said.

Littman's right. This year FIFA 10 and MLB 09 The Show became the first sports titles in the current console generation to post a Metacritic score of 90 or better. (NHL 09 and 10 both got 88.) From 2000 to 2004, every single Madden and 2K football title on every console got at least a 90.

But it's not to say that we'll never see a truly revolutionary sports game again, or that when it does come, its excellence will go unrecognized. There's no way NFL 2K5 could have won Game of the Year five years ago. But it still enjoys a fame that's outlived those that did.

"Do you really think, five years from now, you're gonna hear ‘Is Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 4 as good as Grand Theft Auto on PlayStation 3? Will Halo 6 people really say, ‘Is this as good as Halo 1?'" Justice muses. "I don't think so."

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Pasta Padre has the full list of all 32 teams. Everyone gets 10 players, five on offense and five on defense. On offense, each team gets a quarterback, running back, wide receiver, offensive lineman and then either a tight end or a second wideout. On defense, they get a defensive lineman, linebacker, safety and two corners. There was also some reference made to "entourages," which are additional linemen, but it wasn't clear if they're a power-up, an unlockable, or a separate game mode altogether.

Unfortunately, many players on the launch roster are out-of-date, and there will be no updates. So that means the Oakland Raiders are stuck with:

• P Shane Lechler
• OL a traffic cone
• QB JaMarcus Russell
• WR drunk rodeo clown
• RB Four-year-old in a Power Wheels

But hey, with the game's trick passing feature, Russell now has the ability to over- and underthrow his receivers on the same play!

Madden Arcade Rosters [Pasta Padre]

Madden NFL Arcade will release Nov. 24 (Tuesday) on the PlayStation Network, and Nov. 25 on Xbox Live. It will cost $14.99/1200 Microsoft Points.

The above trailer shows some of the reality-defying gameplay you can expect, such as throwing three passes at once, freezing defenders in place, and the Washington Redskins scoring two touchdowns on offense. For a closer look at what this game's all about, Totilo wrote up his impressions about a couple weeks ago.

Madden NFL Arcade Drops The Week of Thanksgiving [IGN via Pasta Padre, video via Padre]

Functionally, it'll operate in much the same way as FIFA's system. Players will start the game mode with a random pack of cards. The players on those cards are the players on your team. They'll mostly be the dregs of the NFL to begin with; as you play more and earn points, you can buy better packs of cards that will feature a higher calibre of player (they'll still be random cards, just, the more expensive packs will have better players in them).

Point being it spices up online gaming a little, creating random teams (to break up the monotony of people sticking with big/good teams), with the added compulsiveness of Pokemon-esque card collecting.

I've played the FIFA version, and it was pretty neat, though the downside was that the FIFA version cost money. The Madden edition, however, will be free, so the least you can do is check it out when it's released in January.

Madden Ultimate Team First Look [GameSpot]

The meal comes in four configurations, offers four "collector's cups" featuring NFLers rendered, interestingly, in their cartoony Madden-for-the-Wii forms. McWhertor, still nauseous from last year's unboxing of the Guitar Hero meal, assigned this to me on the pretense that as the sports writer, it was my responsibility.

I selected the five hot wings version over the two-piece grilled chicken (white or dark meat), the three chicken strips or the Twister (a wrap with lettuce). I went with the hot wings because I figured five pieces would allow me to burn 66 percent more calories reaching into the box than I would with three crispy strips, and that would be healthier than whatever I got from the Twister's vegetable matter.

The KFC Madden Box also comes in a standard $5 version and a $7 special edition that, while it doesn't include night vision goggles, is packed with enough pupil-dilating sodium you'll see in the dark on your own. I went with the $7 configuration, which is supposed to deliver an extra side item and a dessert.

But as you can see in the above unboxing, this product shipped in such an incomplete state I'm not sure any patch or update can fix it. Opening the box reveals just the five wings and the mashed potatoes and gravy - which I had declared as my extra side item. No crumbly biscuit doused in butter pheromones. No chitinous coleslaw in mayonnaise the color and consistency of watery ejaculate. In fact, since the hockey-puck brownie bites come in plastic and I poured the Diet Pepsi (oh hell yeah, I went with the diet), there are a grand total of two items here actually prepared by KFC employees, even though the loading time for this was an unacceptably slow seven minutes.

KFC #D705027, Springfield, Ore., you fail. Well, maybe you were thinking of my health by subtracting 360 needless calories. Either way, my review of this meal's components follows:

Hated (Secretly Loved):
Hot wings: These babies start slow, not really hitting you with the spice until midway through the third piece. Then it was like Cayenne Frankenstein farted in my face. Even after the meal my mouth had this residue on it that reminded me of the time I drunkenly kissed this chick who had that bee-sting toxin lip gloss to give her the Angelina Jolie pouty look. Both encounters were degrading, but this one diminished my self-esteem. Also, these are not boneless wings; I thought "wings" was an allegorical reference in lieu of "nuggets," a competitor's term, because these things were fried up to the point they no longer resembled the limbs of any known terrestrial animal. So I took a big mouthful of bone on the first attempt, and believe me, that's not a sentence I ever wanted to write. I didn't expect the amount of meat in this item to be nourishing; I did expect it to at least be filling. Rating: Anorexy.

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy: The pudding-like body of potato flour and pureed notebook was at least free of lumps or standing water. It was thoroughly mixed with the viscous tailings of cooked chicken, whose bouquet hit artful notes of obesity, unemployment, and parole. If the chicken didn't fill me, this sure did, as not soon after polishing off the MP&G it felt like my large intestine was mixing up Redi-Crete, certain to turn my commode into a birdbath. Rating: Lunchlady.

Brownie Bites: These pucklike treats came packaged in a cellophane sleeve upside down on a piece of waxed cardboard, evocative of the conveyor belt that shat them out. In March. But ultimately, they were chocolatey and thus the highlight, comparatively speaking, of this dining experience. Rating: Hockey.

Despite the grandiose packaging and $7 pricetag, even if this order had been completely filled it would still be engineered for a 15 minute experience, tops. I expected that this calorie bomb would have left me doing the old Dad thing of unbuttoning my pants and laying on the couch to watch Jeopardy and blame my farts on the dog. But all it took was one tuberculose belch-cough and I was back to full strength.

If there was $1.95 worth of actual food in this meal I'd be astonished. That, coupled with the EA Sports sponsorship, must make this cross promotion an insanely profitable no-brainer for Yum! Brands, and all but guarantees a sequel in the coming year.

KFC Madden NFL Box was developed in a conference room by marketing geniuses and produced by KFC, a subsidiary of Yum! Brands, Inc. Retails for $5, $7 if you want the extra side-item and brownie bites, assuming they remember to pack all the base items. Eaten until regretted.

Collinsworth (as voiced by NYC comedian Rob Lathan) has to start out somewhere, so here he begins by calling the action for Intellivision's Rural New Mexico Six-on-Six Football NFL Football (and the later All-Pro Football, with the forward pass perfected by the Mattel LED handhelds years before).

Remember, "You've never lived until one of those clowns flips you upside down." It's a sound bite you hear 48 zillion times in the most mundane Madden NFL 10 game. It'd also take up 20 times the memory of one of these ROMs.

Collinsworth NFL 10 - Rated E for Effort [YouTube, thanks Ian V.]

Huang, co-founder of Red Octane and parent of the Guitar Hero franchise, went so far as to predict that this generation would be the last to own physical media. In five or 10 years, he said, everything would be digital download-based.

Moore — current head of EA Sports and former overseer of all things Xbox — agreed for the most part. He said that the console model of video games (where you get one complete game on a disc for $60) was a "burning platform." As in, do you stand on a burning platform and face certain death or jump into the waters of digital distribution and face probable death?

Clearly, you want the digital distribution. Right?

Despite Moore and Huang's faith in the future of digital distribution, however, both developers are releasing three to four disc-based games on console a year. Complete with plastic peripherals which cost even more money to manufacture than video game software, mind you.

Huang explained Red Octane's Activision's motivation behind ubiquitous releases as accessibility. "We need to give [our users] channels to access additional content," he said. Not everybody is ready for the DLC revolution, apparently, so they have to keep putting out physical media for the next five to 10 years. Or however long it takes for my physical-media-dependent generation to die out and accept digital everything.

Young had a slightly different take on the digital future. He would, because he develops games almost exclusively for the iPhone like Rolando and Eliminate. Young said episodic content doesn't work because you can't chop a complete game into tiny pieces. Rather, said Young, game makers should be looking at ways to monetize usage. To him, this means making a game that's free to play and then finding ways to trick you into microtransactions. Like shelling out for extremely nerdy clothing for your virtual avatar in a free-to-play role-playing game.

It all comes down to the fact that the video games industry is risk-averse. If console makers believe that the next generation of gamer won't shell out for $60 for a disc that gets scratched up eventually anyway, then we can expect the next iteration of console to not have a disc tray. And when that happens, maybe we can all stop shelling out for plastic guitars and a new copy of what's essentially the same football game every year.

No word on when this patch goes live, but when it arrives, the development team has promised defensive tweaks that improve the chances you record a sack (rather than the CPU quarterback throwing the ball away), improving defenders' pursuit angles, and improving the coverage of the flats. Better simmed stats in franchise mode also are coming, as well as other unspecificed uniform and presentation changes. The official blog post on the patch reminds that the list of fixes and updates is not final.

Madden NFL 10 - 2nd title Update Preliminary Details [Inside EA Sports Blog via Pasta Padre]

Two weeks ago The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported that Thompson's lawyers had canceled a procedural conference because the case is in the process of being dismissed. Thompson, a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's "Hall of Fans," who wears a bug-eyed dog mask, hard hat and waves a bone, had sued EA for a similar character appearing in Madden NFL 2005.

The Plain Dealer's Oct. 5 report said the suit was expected to be resolved in three weeks. His suit sought at least $25,000 and a promise from EA to no longer use his image.

Browns Superfan John 'Big Dawg' Thompson's Case Against Game Maker Likely to be Resolved [Cleveland.com via Gamasutra]

All three have filed suits over the unauthorized use of likenesses in EA Sports titles. Byron Bishop ended his injury-filled career with the Tar Heels last year, but has sued the NCAA, which licensed EA Sports NCAA 10 game, because a player with the same number, state of birth, appearance and position also appeared on the roster in that series. Like the former, and more noteworthy, player Sam Keller, Bishop seeks a class-action status in his suit.

The sports management group Fighters Inc. claims EA put boxers it represents into Fight Night Round 4, flouting exclusive licensing agreements the group says it had with the fighters. Further, Fighters Inc says EA Sports continued to pursue boxers under its brand, signing them for downlowdable content packs. Fighters Inc. isn't messing around, they want $25 million in actual damages, plus punitive on top of that.

But the best is John Big Dawg Thompson, one of the inaugural members of the Pro Football Hall of Fame's "Hall of Fans" class. Thompson, who changed his middle-name to Big Dawg, is the bug-eyed, hard-hatted, dawg-mask wearing denizen of Cleveland's notorious east end zone stands. He contends that a "Big Dawg" fan character in Madden NFL 09, similar except for jersey uniform number (92 instead of Thompson's 98), is an unauthorized use of his image. He wants 25 grand.

The good news is, by no longer making a baseball game, EA Sports can't be sued by every douche who sits behind home plate talking on his cell phone and waving at the camera.

EA Tackled by More Sports License Suits [GameSpot]

Loved
Come-Back Story: Unlike NFL 2010, which kicked you back to the beginning of the current quarter, in iPhone Madden you may leave a game at any point - whether or not you select pause from its menu - and come back to it exactly at that point. This alone makes it the football sim to buy for your Apple mobile.

A Monster in Your Pants: For such a pocket-sized download (102.3 megabytes) this still delivers the core gameplay and presentation one uses and expects through 90 percent of a console Madden experience. Most notably, you get roster management - including trades - within your full season simulation. The real-life stadia are used; booth commentators Tom Hammond, Cris Collinsworth and (a bit obtrusively, however) John Madden himself supply analysis. The stadia you play in are the ones you see on Sunday, not generic clones. And most of all, the framerate and camera remained reasonably smooth and definitely well positioned. The game definitely exceeded what I expected to find in a Madden port to this platform.

Hated
The Clock Stops You: Madden, like NFL 2010, employs a bullet-time mechanic to let you pull off running back jukes, punishing hits, and timely pass breakups. The good news is in Madden, you have a manual trigger, and don't have to rely upon the game to slow down time for you, which sometimes never came. The bad news is it's one more part of the screen to touch, and fat-fingered button-spamming spazzes (*raises fat-fingered hand*) will face an inscrutable learning curve as to when to key this feature, and even hitting it correctly. I want to be clear, my quibble is only with the trigger; bullet-time itself is the best solution to performing finesse moves on this platform, and once I figured it out, I was springing runs of 12 and 20 yards, and more. It's the only shortcoming of what is, overall, a very solid control scheme given the platform. I loved drawing the custom receiver hot routes with a flick of my finger, and being able to touch any player on the screen and take over his control, rather than cycle through them with a pre-snap icon.

Now I can see why Gameloft hustled NFL 2010 out the door for the iPhone. They won the race to be first, but not to be best, and its offering shows glaring weaknesses against what Madden 10 on the iPhone brings to the table, even at double the price. You're still playing a complex game with a virtual stick and buttons - but once you grow accustomed to that, it easily becomes a football experience that fulfills both the Madden brand and the promise of mobile gaming.

Madden NFL 10 was developed and published by Electronic Arts for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Released to the iTunes App Store on Sept. 3. Retails for $9.99 USD. Reviewed on an iPhone 3G. Played through play-now and season modes.

It really is that simple. Well, it assumes you have both the PS3 version and a PSN account, but yeah, you probably do. So quit watching Jimmy, Terry and Howie laughing gratuitously at Frank Caliendo and go pick up some free football. And Xbox 360 owners, tough luck, but you can watch this sweet video below. It's free too.

AFL - Reebok [Reebok.com via Joystiq]

A Costa Rica casino is now taking proposition bets on when the Madden Curse strikes Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals, Troy Polamalu's cover co-star. Polamalu was sidelined for three to six weeks after spraining ligaments in his knee in week one. This, of course, was attributed to the Madden cover jinx, which has dinged pretty much everyone except Marshall Faulk (2003) since they started putting athletes on the cover.

Playblackjack.com is giving 9:1 odds (bet $100, win $900) on each of Fitzgerald's remaining 15 games. Basically, the terms are that Fitzgerald gets injured for at least one game - not the kind of season-ending, career death spiral the Curse is cracked up to be. He needs to be listed on the Cardinals' official injury report for that game to win the bet, says the casino.

Larry Fitzgerald must be listed on the Arizona Cardinals official injury report for a bet to be graded as a winner. If he's injured during practice or outside practice, the upcoming game is the wining game. If he stays healthy throughout the year, all bets are off and all money is returned.

You can see where this is headed. First, a player can be listed on an official injury report and still play the entire game. See Patriots, New England, whose coach has listed Tom Brady as "probable" since scouts watched Brady play for Michigan. Second, it suggests that Fitzgerald could get both legs broken in the first quarter of, say, week four, but the winning game is actually week five. Third, it leaves open the possibility that Fitzgerald gets a hangnail in weeks two through 17 and every game is a winner.

Betting on a specific player's injury? What a fantastic idea! If only there were some way to affect the outcome. Like, if only the people who organized such an honest gambling business also had professional relationships with people whose job it was to injure others ...

Will the Madden Curse strike again? Bet on it! [PlayBlackjack.com via Go Nintendo]

"I'd say, ‘I guess I didn't get that memo,'" said Anderson, CEO of Quick Hit Football, which will ramp up for the public as a free online game in October, advertising a combination of MMO and fantasy sports traits, and plant a flag in what Anderson considers huge customer territory, all without a full NFL license.

Foxborough, Mass.-based Quick Hit is a notable example of where the competition has flowed, like water finding gaps in the floorboards, in the fifth year of EA Sports' exclusive - and commonly reviled - licensing arrangement with the NFL. Quick Hit's zero-cost web-based game confronts EA Sports' Madden NFL franchise as a competitor where it suits them - price, download/file size, flat or unimpressive sales or platform absence. And in areas where Madden purely outclasses the startup - reputation, console presence or gameplay depth - Quick Hit then repositions itself as simply a free and casual alternative.

That said, "the NFL does add an air of authenticity," Anderson conceded. And were the opportunity available, his business would definitely be on the phone with the league. However, market research done by his company in its 18 months of existence found that fully-licensed authenticity does matter, but it is not a deal-killer, provided a challenger defines and pursues the territory correctly.

Anderson, in his forties, is the former CEO of the studio Turbine, and brings experience in dealing with high profile IPs. He said Quick Hit did two studies, of 1,000 guys each, about a year ago. "Both studied males in the 14 to 40 age range," Anderson said, "and we asked those questions, ‘Is the NFL important? How important are the players?'" Also, a few months back they put their product in front of a focus group and asked if it noticed the lack of real teams or licensing.

"We were surprised that there wasn't that sort of response," Anderson said. "We expected 90 percent to say, ‘You have to have the NFL.' It turned out to be a much lower number."

Anderson declined to say what percentage wanted the NFL, or if it was a majority. But it was low enough that his company went forward. "What we took away is that it's a valuable part, but it was not something that had to be included," he said, "and that's partly because we are not trying to appeal to the hardcore demographic. We're not trying to replace Madden as a product. But also, on the PC, they're not there."

Brandon Justice, the Quick Hit director of design and a veteran of Visual Concepts to 2005 and a producer in the Madden franchise to 2007, likens this to a pre-game matchup. No undersized team would run straight at a brick-wall defense up the middle. And yet no juggernaut can cover every gap.

But the objective is still there - end zone or audience - and then however it can be monetized. So a full license is a powerful means, but not the end, Anderson says. His company figures the casual/fantasy football crowd, multiples larger than a hardcore Madden installation base, is where the growth is. And he's running hard for it, in a free-to-play Web-based arena.

This is unlike many competitors in the Madden-exclusive era, which have gone after a slice of the console market, failed conspicuously, and have been all but driven into the wilderness. Midway's Blitz: The League, and its sequel, relied on outrageous subplots and scrotum-rupturing renegade appeal. Visual Concepts, the studio behind the much lamented ESPN NFL 2K5 - the last fully licensed title to compete with Madden - tried to hang in later with retired heroes John Elway, Barry Sanders and Jerry Rice in All Pro Football 2K8. All went straight into the value bin, and All-Pro closed after one year.

All-Pro Football 2K8 tried negotiating with retired players for their likeness on a one-on-one basis, to replace a standard roster. It was a Pyrrhic victory, paying a premium for Hall of Famers while telling customers they were getting yesterday's stars. Quick Hit went after current players on a one-by-one basis but found that such negotiations were capped by the NFL Players Association - they couldn't pursue individual deals with everyone, even if they had the time or money - so the company focused on licensing five current performers at commonly understood skill positions, offense and defense.

Another 100 all-time greats -outside the NFLPA's scope - round-out the lineup of likenesses. And like All-Pro 2K8, each deal had to be done individually, Anderson said, another opportunity cost posed by the lack of the license enjoyed by EA Sports. But unlike the console game, Justice argued this can still fit within Quick Hit's game design.

A fully draftable league could put superstars at every position and distort competitive balance, he said. Seeding a team with two all-pros or hall of famers and randomizing the rest of the lineup, according to team tendency, places more of a premium on playcalling, he said. and it encourages leveling up, either investing in players you have or discarding underachievers for ones with better potential. Plus, it keeps a diehard fan from being married to his franchise's awful history.

"If you're a Bengals fan, as I am," said Justice, the design chief, "they're terrible year in and out. On a console game, I can't make them into the team I want because of the roster they have at the beginning of the year."

Thus Quick Hit, whose closed beta is underway, focuses less on action and more on strategy, hoping to siphon from the millions in the fantasy football market who know more how to draft an elite running back but less how to weave him through the line off-tackle with a PS3 controller in Madden 2010. Games are won and lost against other players, or coaching AIs, according to a familiar fantasy-football scoring formula. Points earned from that can level up both players and the coach. Progress is maintained in a persistent league, somewhat like an MMO. If any of this fails to catch, here's the bottom line - Quick Hit tries to give a graphical representation to fantasy football, with play-calling thrown in.

The problem, of course, is Quick Hit seeks to do this without a full, accurate league roster, a fundamental of fantasy football. But Anderson and Justice are betting that the millions of hardcore NFL fans who play fantasy sports, and have no problem drafting superior players on competing teams, likewise won't balk at populating their squads with anonymous players with strong numbers.

All of this is conjecture. The casual, free-to-play market in the United States might present enormous growth but it is relatively unexplored - especially in sports - and is routinely shouted down by core players of any genre. Any game offered for free trails the assumption that it's not worth money, and therefore, not worth your time.

But in football, compared with a $60 title on a console, it's all you've got for now.

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

Hell, yes it is. I've seen unranked and untelevised N.C. State and North Carolina squads get into a helmet-swinging brawl in 1993. Clemson and South Carolina's fourth quarter throwdown 11 years later - including cops on the field - left both schools sitting at home instead of going to bowl games. And we'll all be dead a long time before there is ever again anything like the unforgettably amazing Miami-Florida International gong show of 2006, which showcased state troopers, 13 ejections, a kickoff from the 10-yard line, and running back A'Mod Ned on crutches, striding forth into the maw of disaster.

Really, though, the answer here is so obvious as to be not worth asking: There's no way in hell the NCAA would license a product that featured fighting, no matter how awesome. And you can forget about it in Madden, too. Football is the most institutionally conservative and image-conscious of the major team sports, and clearly prefers to keep its violence well regulated and between the lines. Anything else is left for games like Blitz: The League.

Two licensed sports games, however, do acknowledge illegal or semi-legal aggression in some way: baseball has its beanings, and hockey, well, need anyone say more. In fact, the physicality is going into new realms in this year's NHL 10, says producer David Littman, himself a former professional hockey goalie who had brief appearances in the NHL.

But the violence isn't a gratuitous minigame, Littman said. It's intended to function as hockey fighting does in the real world: A means of policing opposing players' conduct, responding to intimidating tactics and relentless checking, or to fire up the home crowd and inspire solidarity on your team.

"For me, fighting has a place in hockey because it does have a calming influence," Littman says, making a case that many have - without fighting in hockey, massive guys with sticks would seek dirtier, and more injurious, means to dissipate aggression. "We have that authenticity in this game. If you're being checked all over the ice by the other team, and being run out of your own building, you can bring out your fourth line, start a fight, win it, get the crowd back into the game, and it takes away the effects of that intimidation."

Is the NHL cool with this? Absolutely, Littman says. "We work very closely with them [and the NHL players' union] throughout the development process, on what goes in the game," he said. "It's their names on the box with us, too. And we go through yearlong approval processes with them. They're very happy because of our sales and quality, but at the same time they have to protect their names. We worked with them all year, particularly on fighting this year, and no doubt, fighting is a hot topic. There's always controversy, but that was something we worked with them all year on."

In fact, the eminent Edmonton enforcer Zack Stortini was brought in to consult with NHL 10's developers on how to build a first-person fighting engine. His guidance is what tied the fighting to in-game performance boosts, Littman said.

"When you fight in our game, the lines get their energy back, you hear the commentators talking about that, you see the crowd on its feet, banging on the glass," Littman said. "That comes from Zack. He said that there's nothing like being at home, and you've showed the other team that your team's not gonna take it on your home ice."

NHL 10's openness about aggression is authentic to something else: The league's posture on fighting. It's always a prickly subject, because the lessons of hockey's fisticuffs are much more subtle than the beating one sees on a screen. It's also not tolerated in any league other than the North American professionals; in all other ranks, fighting players are ejected, not sent to the penalty box for five minutes.

But the league has repeatedly refused to crack down on fighting with the intent of its elimination, tacitly acknowledging its fundamental relevance to the game. Officially, the league considers the issue from the standpoint of player safety. And if that's its only concern, the fighting in NHL 10 is no problem, because no one is ever injured at the end of a brawl.

"It's a safe way to fight," Littman said. "You can punch people and get punched and you're still sitting on your couch, no bruises. I played professional hockey and was in a lot of fights. To be honest, fighting isn't really where you see the injuries happen."

If bench-clearing brawls are authentic to baseball, MLB has clearly said no thank you to the idea. Then again, it's a league that fines and suspends nearly all of its combatants. Drill a guy in the back in MLB 09 The Show and he'll glare at the pitcher, mouth some unpleasantries and argue with the catcher. You can put a fastball right in his earflap and the reaction is similarly sanitized - he trots down to first no problems. Do this repeatedly and someone might charge the mound. But the animation ends just as the batter breaks out of the catcher's restraint and, it is implied, goes for the pitcher.

This is similar to how beanings have been handled in other licensed MLB games, meaning that league has probably drawn a clear line to developers. (On Tuesday I emailed the game's publicity representatives to talk about beanings and fighting; unfortunately, no one could be made available for comment by the time this was published.)

Interestingly, the NHL games carry a slightly higher age-rating than their colleagues. NHL 10 and NHL 2K10 are both rated E10+, whereas Madden, MLB 09 The Show and others are all E. And there's only one reason: the fighting.

"We have to weigh the pros and cons of that," Littlman said. "Really, I don't think too many 8-year-olds are buying $60 video games. Their parents can for them, sure. Have we ever thought about taking fighting out? The answer is no, because we are striving to be authentic to hockey." Also, fans would desert the game.

And anyway, Littman points out, a concerned parent worried about video game athletes setting a bad example for their youth hockey players can just deactivate the fighting in the game's options.

Stick Jockey is Kotaku's column on sports video games. It appears Saturdays at 10 a.m. U.S. Mountain time.

According to an internal communication intercepted by Bloomberg, Riccitiello appears disappointed that "one of our highest-rated and best-marketed ‘Madden' titles in years is facing strong headwinds" in its debut month. The NPD Group is expected to release its August sales figure estimates later today.

Riccitiello noted that Madden sales were down in line with the trend of declining game sales.

Last year, Madden NFL 09 sold well over 2.2 million copies in its first month on the market across the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2 and Wii platforms. EA Sports head honcho Peter Moore pegged sales of last year's edition at $133.5 million during its first month on the market, a 6% increase from the year prior.

As of October 30, 2008, Madden NFL 09 had sold 4.5 million copies, according to NPD data offered by EA.

While this year's edition of the football game appeared to have been doing well on the pre-order front, it's doubtful that Riccitiello would send such a memo if things were as positive on the actual sales front.

We've asked EA for comment and a copy of the memo from Riccitiello for better context, but reps did not respond to requests.

Update: The Wall Street Journal has printed Riccitiello's memo in full.

Electronic Arts Says ‘Madden,' Industry Sales Drop (Update3) [Bloomberg]