:: FREE-TO-PLAY FOOTIE FUN :: Read Review »The free to play FIFA 14 is now out! Grab it and hit the pitch. But note that if you want to unlock all modes, you'll need to pony up a $4.99 unlock fee. Let us know what you think in the comments.
:: A GORGEOUS RIDE From what I understand, football (i.e. soccer) has the most intense fanbase of any sport. And intense fans require intense apps, right?
Okay, so maybe FTBpro - The Football News App isn't necessarily intense, but it certainly seems useful. It enables users to create their own custom news feeds that follow only the leagues and teams they want. In addition to up-to-date match stats and scores via push notifications, naturally.
:: THREE AND OUT :: THREE AND OUT :: Read Review »It seems like just last week our own Carter Dotson was sharing exclusive Madden NFL 25 gameplay footage. Wait a minute, it was just last week! And now the wait is over!
EA Sports has just released Madden NFL 25, titled after the series' 25-year anniversary, onto the App Store. Players will be able to build their own NFL teams via a card-collection system, play through multiple game modes (Exhibition, Head-2-Head, Solo Challenges, and an offensive shootout mode), and make use of an improved set of touch controls.
And since it's free, there's really no reason not to check it out, right? So go on, celebrate 25 years of Madden the right way: with a game of FOOTBALL!
You'll Never Walk Alone!
The English Premier League (EPL) is the single largest sports league in the entire world. Until this season, those of us in the USA that follow it had to search all over to try to find the live matches of our favorite teams. Well this year, things are different. Things are very different.
This year the EPL license for the US was bought by NBC and the US will get to see every single match. Matches will show on NBC, NBC Sports, streaming from the NBC site, and for the first time ever, live streaming in the NBC Sports Live Extra app. According to NBC, every single match will be live streamed in the app. That's right, every single match of the entire EPL season. The US is the only country that gets that luxury, not even the home country of the UK gets to watch every single match. I'm a bit excited, can you tell?
The best part of this new license is that to view the games is free as long as you have a cable subscription with NBC Sports channel. Most US cable providers should have that as a basic package station and you should be covered. You will need to validate your cable subscription in the app via your cable system login, something that has become common in apps.
Get ready, the English Premier League starts this weekend!
Sitting down with Michael Marzola today, President of Run Games, we got to take a quick look at his company's new arcade football game, Football Heroes. It's not your typical football game, either, with some Techmo Bowl and League of Legends game mechanics thrown into the chaos.
Check out the video below for a quick look, and stay tuned here for more details and a review when the game goes live once football season starts in the real world.
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:: GO LONGFootball Heroes, Kickstarted a year ago, is coming to fruition. Michael Marzola, one of the game's developers, showed off an early build of the game with non-final art, but this title already shows promise. It's inspired by classic arcade football games such as Tecmo Bowl, with a dash of the brutality of NFL Blitz, and World of Warcraft. Wait, what? That's because the players on a team can be endlessly customized, with skill trees to help make them play better and avoid more tackles. The game has a long way to go still, but expect to play this one during NFL season.
[vine bjxIaDhO9Au]
Where exactly did you pull Slamjet Stadium's inspiration from? Not just the wacky-looking gameplay; I'm talking about the physical roughhousing, too. Super-intense family game nights as a young boy perhaps?
Haha, I don't know really! I'm generally a fairly calm and friendly guy. I was never into rough-housing at all when I was a kid! I am very competitive though, as my friends know - I'll always be looking for a way to mess up my rivals in any game.
So I wanted to experiment more with this kind of game design. The original prototype for Slamjet Stadium came out of a big batch of experimental multiplayer games I did over the summer and tested out in the pub.
Often you'll find yourself scoring by spotting a really awesome shot or powerup, so paying attention to the board is really important. Hand-grabbing is certainly a useful tactic, but it's only one way of doing things. That makes play really dynamic. One moment it could be best to play rough, the next moment you might need to think fast, or play accurately.
While we're on the subject of the multiplayer, how are you going to influence players to stop being polite?
People tend to jostle as much or as little as they feel comfortable with, and surprisingly that's usually quite a lot! There's typically a "eureka" moment when one player realizes they can get in the way of their friend, or use their opponent's characters instead of their own. The physicality often grows from there!
So I've put messages in the loading screens suggesting ways you can "cheat." The game's advising you to play foul, so it must be okay! That eureka moment has to inspire creative play, so it's important that players know that the game isn't degenerating into chaos.
Would you mind going into a few specifics? Stuff like general gameplay, number of teams, differences between teams (if any), etc.
Each player gets two characters on a team, and the rules are fairly simple. You grab a character with your finger, pull back to charge their engines, and let go to send them flying across the screen. You want to hit the ball into your opponent's goal, and the first to score five points wins the match.
There are also various power-ups and stage hazards that appear: rage power to smash up your opponents' characters, freeze power that traps them in ice, multiball release, powerful gusts of wind.
My favorite activates "Last Man Standing" mode, where traps come in from the side of the screen, and it's up to you to avoid them (or throw your opponents into them); a point is awarded to the survivor!
There are nine different arenas in the game, with different effects and hazards. As for the teams, there are six to choose from and each has different physical properties: shape, weight, boost power and grip.
Are there going to be multiple game modes? Might we be able to look forward to something similar in a future update?
Right now it's split into Multiplayer and Solo Play. In solo, you take on a gauntlet of computer-controlled opponents over three leagues of increasing difficulty. Beating each one unlocks an extra multiplayer stage, and you can compete via GameCenter over your fastest completion times.
In Multiplayer it's very much a quickmatch format: you choose your teams and arenas, and can have a rematch or pick new teams after someone wins. I'll probably add some extra variations and setups in updates; I guess it depends on what players want to see after the initial launch. My focus was on getting players into the action as fast as possible.
All the elbow-slamming, wrist-grabbing, butt-nudging madness of Slamjet Stadium can be unleashed upon your iPad on March 14th for $2.99.
BBC has released an iPhone app specifically targeted to the UK sports lover. In other words, Football fans. In my quick look it's well done, and generally snappy version of their mobile site. Though it does seem to lack features that you would expect like the ability to add favorite teams. (or favourite teams if you prefer)
:: UNEXPECTED SPECTATOR
:: FIELD GOALThis week at 148Apps, we left our white shoes behind and got ready for some football with Carter Dotson's round-up of apps for the NFL 2012 season: "Are you ready for some football, in particular the 2012–2013 season of the premier American football league, the National Football League? Well, with the season kicking off tonight with the Super Bowl champion New York Giants playing the Dallas Cowboys, I’ve collected four apps to help make the game-watching and fantasy-football-playing experience better. No matter what, they’re better than the replacement refs are going to be!"
Read all of Carter's picks for the season at 148Apps.com.
Over at GiggleApps, Amy Solomon reviewed This Is My Body-Anatomy for Kids, saying, "I have really enjoyed perusing this application, consisting of many sections that cover such topics as how fast one grows, the skin, one’s senses, as well as the different systems of the body, such as digestive, respiratory, muscular, nervous and skeletal, going into a very nice amount of depth for children to appreciate.
As this app opens up, children are given a choice of characters to follow, nicely including boy and girl choices some of which are children of color and an Asian character – lovely inclusions still not seen often enough in the US iTunes store."
Read more about this fun and educational app for kids at GiggleApps.com.
The flagship is the Kindle Fire HD. This will come in both an 8.9" variety and a 7" variety; the specs on the 7" are supposed to be the same as the 8.9", but Amazon was more keen to show off this version. It's got a 1920×1200 screen (true HD!) which is 254 ppi (compared to the iPad retina display's 264 ppi), to go along with a Texas Instruments OMAP 4470 processor, which Amazon claims can do 50% more floating point operations as compared to the Tegra 3 processor in the Nexus 7."
Want more? Get more by reading the full article at AndroidRundown.com.
And that's a wrap of this weekly wrap-up! Join us throughout the week for the latest contests, reviews and news on our Facebook site as well as on Twitter. Until next week, remember - no white after Labor Day!
Are you ready for some football, in particular the 2012–2013 season of the premier American football league, the National Football League? Well, with the season kicking off tonight with the Super Bowl champion New York Giants playing the Dallas Cowboys, I’ve collected four apps to help make the game-watching and fantasy-football-playing experience better. No matter what, they’re better than the replacement refs are going to be!
