Tag: Sports »

Mutant League Football is probably one of the (if not the) most beloved alternative football video games in history. At least as far as an adoring, nostalgia-driven cult following goes. And after what feels like decades, because it has been decades, the ultra violent and gloriously twisted take on one of America's most popular sports is back! Or at least it's trying to come back.

Series creator Michael Mendheim has turned to Kickstarter to try and bring the spiritual successor of the EA classic to multiple platforms, including iOS! The project is still in the early stages, but the plan is to keep all the violence and tongue-in-cheek humor fans have been craving intact.

As one of those fans who's been lamenting the distinct lack of Mutant League over the past 20 years, I could not be more excited about this. Of course it's too soon to know how it's going to turn out, or even if it's going to meet its $750,000 goal in time, but simply knowing that the series' creator is interested in bringing it back is more than enough for me!

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.

I’ve haven’t played many sports titles on iOS with good reason; like fighting games, the gameplay is all dependent on latency. For developer Mobage, Inc., the solution for translating fast-paced hoops to the non-buttoned platform is to remove the ability to play basketball all together. Instead, we are left with a situational analysis app, an almost coaching approach, where every player action is dictated by the statistical probability of its outcome. From passing to shooting to playing defense, each action is a timed decision where players must choose the best course of action to score a bucket.

The way Showstopper sets up this grand experiment is placing a 5-member squad against an opposing team in league play; the catch is that I didn't actually play but rather governed the team of stars. After the opening tip, it is up to me to decide the actions of the team ,as every two seconds the players pause and I am given five seconds to decide whether to dish the rock or shoot the pill. This may seem to be a lengthy process but as each game takes less than three minutes to complete, I am hungered, like looking for seconds on Thanksgiving with none to be found. Upon loading the first match-up, my first thought is, “this is different." However, by the tenth league game, I'm sure that I'm not enjoying the basketball portion nearly as much as the collectible card game (CCG) component.

Did I utter basketball and CCG in the same sentence? That I did. How Mobage came to the conclusion to unite the two is well beyond me but what I do know is that it feels compelling enough to stick with (even if basketball gameplay is non-existent). At the conclusion of every match-up, the standouts from my team level up and continue to gain xp that translates into new abilities on the court. So, instead of continually shooting jump shots right under the basket, new window options of “layup” or “dunk” appear at my coaching disposal. Customizations are also the rave, as new gear equates to in-game attribute bonuses. With the gamut of CCG depth for such a simplistic sport, I could not help but imagine what could have been if this type of CCG were layered onto a different genre.

Is Showstopper Basketball a great sporting experience with excellent b-ball gameplay? Absolutely not. Is it worth a glance to imagine what cool CCG and sports could possibly become on iOS? Absolutely.