Finally It's Football Season - Madden 17 New Features

I must admit, i'm one of those gamers that play madden wearing my Titan's jersey.  It sucks that when the playoffs start me and my local team are doing the same thing: on the couch watching someone else compete for a championship trophy, lol.  Titans suck but this year I feel we have a good chance at at least being 8-8.  

Well in the world of Madden 17, I can change reality and go to the superbowl with my under-rated team.  This time around EA sports have made some improves to make the game more challenging and goal oriented.  Here is what you can expect feature wise. 

Big Decisions

Big Decisions come to you with the right information at the right time. Do you start your star QB with that lingering injury, or go to your unproven back-up with a playoff spot on the line? In Madden NFL 17 on Xbox One and PlayStation®4, Big Decisions begin a new direction in your career mode experience changing the way you approach your gameplay strategy for every match up.

Big Decisions: Season Goal

The first big decision you’ll make as a coach or player in the regular season is to set your season goal.  As a coach, you can decide whether you are going to make the playoffs or shoot low with a 7-win season.  The choice you make has an impact since if you miss your season goal, you have a chance of getting fired, but the harder the goal then the higher the experience point gain will be.

Big Decisions: Injuries

Once doctors have medically cleared a player that was hurt earlier in the season, you can either play him with a lingering injury or sit him to heal to 100%.  If your player plays a game with a lingering injury, then he has a higher chance of becoming reinjured, which could completely wreck the rest of your season.  If you go with your back-up, he will earn extra XP that will help him with long-term development.

While in-game, you’ll see new presentation banners that highlight your injured players.  You will even see a “with and without” comparison banner showing how your team did the last few weeks with your back-up QB compared to your regular starter.

Big Decisions: Acquisitions

Picking up free agents and players on the trade block is easier than ever with the new Acquisitions menu.  You will be able to easily browse the available players by position and compare them to your current depth chart.  Improve your weakest positions quickly by using the position grades that are right at your fingertips.  Expect the commentators during the game to call out recently acquired players when they make big plays.

Big Decisions: Re-Signing

When your players are on the last year of their contract, you can now re-sign them using a more intuitive menu.  All the information you need to decide if you want to retain the player is available.  The more prominent players will be open to negotiations earlier in the season, with the lower rated players available to sign late in the season after they’ve had a chance to prove themselves on the field.  It’s up to you to decide how aggressive you want to be when offering a contract, but giving a contract that is too low carries the risk that they may reject your team and opt to test the free agent market instead.  As you persuade your players to re-sign, the commentary team will take notice and mention it during the game.

Big Decision: Spending XP

Your players progress through the season as they earn experience points (XP) from training and by completing weekly game goals, drive goals, fantasy goals, season goals, and career goals.  You will be able to easily spend this XP to upgrade ratings and traits at the end of each game.  Quickly see who earned the most XP on the defensive and offensive side.  When there are at least three key position specific ratings available to upgrade, the player will show up in the Recommended list where you will be able to easily choose which rating to upgrade.  

When playing as a coach, you will see a breakdown of all the XP you earned that week, too.  You can easily see if you have an upgrade available and quickly take action.

Big Decisions: Cutting Players

During the preseason, you will now be presented with a new menu layout where your coaches will recommend players to cut based on position depth and player skills.  This allows you to make key decisions about player retention quickly so you can progress through the preseason.

Big Decisions: Free Agent Bidding

While bidding for players in the off-season, you will now be able to easily see your depth chart at the various positions so you know who to bid on.  Additionally, you will get feedback on how the player views your contract so you can adjust it to have a better chance of landing him.  Top rated Free Agents will now regularly sign quickly so you can spend the later stages battling over the next tier of players.  This better emulates real-life, where the top free agents move off the board quickly.

Community Requests

On top of everything else we’ve added this year, you’ll see features in the game directly influenced by community wishlists including the addition of the score ticker, full player editing, practice squad and more.

Around The League Score Ticker

Be immersed in Sunday football, with the new Around The League Score Ticker.  While playing your game, you will see score updates occur from games around the league.  For example, if you’re playing a 1pm Sunday game, you will see score updates and stat lines for all the other 1pm games.  If you’re playing a Monday Primetime game, you’ll see final scores tick by for all the other league games.  If you’re playing in a Cloud league with your friends, their played games will be treated like every other game.  The ticker still gives you updates on goal progress when relevant, too.  There is a setting to show everything, just scores, goal updates, or nothing so you can customize it as you see fit.

Full Player Editing

As the commissioner in your league, you now have the ability to customize almost everything about all the players.  You will be able to adjust appearance, ratings, traits, and contract information for the entire league, letting you make tweaks as you see fit to alter players.  Do you want to add one more year to someone’s contract? Do you think Aaron Rodger’s deep passing accuracy needs to be higher? You can do all this and more with full player editing.  It is as simple as pulling up the Player Card for a player and selecting “Edit Player” to begin.  In a Cloud league, other members can keep an eye on the commissioner since each player edited will show up in the Transaction log.

Practice Squad

Each team now has a 10-man Practice Squad that they can control week-to-week.  It all starts in week 4 of the preseason.  Instead of cutting players, you can now easily move eligible players to the Practice Squad where they will develop as you train the various position groups during weekly training.  These Practice Squad players are available in Free Practice so you can test them out down on the field.  At any point during the season, you can pull up a player from the Practice Squad to your active roster or vice versa.  Only players with less than 2 full years of NFL experience are available to move to the Practice Squad so you won’t be able to stash your veterans on it.  The Practice Squad is the place to develop younger players into guys that can have an impact on your team during gameday.  Just like in the real-world, your Practice Squad players are free agents and can be poached by other teams for their active roster.

Dynamic Development Trait

Each player’s development trait is the biggest defining factor in how he develops.  Players with a Superstar trait will stay in the league longer and develop into the top tier talent, while players with the Slow trait will not make it in the league long.  You will now be able to see it quickly on the Player Card with prominent placement and a new icon.  

Since the development trait is such a key part to a player’s success, we want to make sure you can influence it.  In Madden NFL 17, if a late round draft pick has a breakout season and wins Offensive Rookie of the Year, he will most likely go up a development trait level.  Actually, any major season award and weekly award will have a chance of increasing it.  What goes up must come down.  Once a player fails to reach their season goals they have a chance of dropping down a development trait level.  This fluidity makes sure the league is an organic system that reflects player performance.

Regression Feedback

As a coach or owner, you need to have a pulse on your team’s development and you need to know exactly when your team regresses and now you will in Madden NFL 17.  Anytime a player on your team regresses during the season or at the end of the season, you will be prompted with a detailed report so you can calculate your next move.

Player Card Improvements

The Player Card has been bolstered with three key improvements.  The first is a way to quickly see all the attributes for a specific player and how they rank in the league based on overall rating.  The second is a view so you can see the progression history for the player.  This lets you see where all the XP came from and when ratings have been impacted whether through progression or regression.  Last but not least, the player card is now accessible from more areas so you will always be just a step or two from seeing the information you want.

Big Decisions and the Community Requests will keep you coming back for more Franchise.  Play this and more in Madden NFL 17 available August 23rd.

Dragon Ball Super Episode 56 Super Saiyan Rose Goku?

I don't usually post about anime unless an EPIC situation happened.  This is that situation!  Dragon Ball Super Episode 56 was a game changer for the series.

This week's episode opened with Trunks, Vegeta and Goku time traveling to Trunk's alternative future to rid his timeline of the human hating god, Zamasu...aka Black Goku.  Goku is attacked by the human army and confused for being Black Goku by the fearful humans. Trunks calms the conflict and reassures society Goku is a good person and never confuse him with the doppleganger Black Goku.  The army informs Trunks that a familiar face is waiting him at the base.

When returning to base, Trunks discovers Mai, his girl friend not girlfriend, is alive.  Otaku fans you know in anime the boy is too embarrassed to claim a girl as his girlfriend until they are married. Trunks wasn't concerned if Bulma was alive though, lol. After the happy reunion, the Z fighters set out to take Black Goku out once in for all. 

When the Z fighters confront Black Goku, something odd is in the air.  Immediately, Super Saiyan Vegeta charges Black Goku to prove he is the best fighter and do what Goku can't which is kill a threat to peace.  Vegeta becomes concerned as he realizes his attacks are not hurting Black Goku.

At this point, Vegeta falls back to re-evaluate Black Goku's abilities.  As expected, Black Goku unleashes his new stronger form, Super Saiyan Rose.  SSR Black Goku thanks Goku for showing him how to gain more power to rival a god.  In an instant, Vegeta is cut down by an energy sword attack to the heart by SSR Black Goku.  Goku turns Super Saiyan Blue and tells Trunks to take care of Vegeta.

Goku and Black Goku fight intensely until Black Goku hits the crap out of Goku to prove he is in another class of strength.  As the show wraps up, Black Goku poses to do a kamehameha to end Goku's life, then Zamasu shows up in the sky and lands beside Black Goku!

The whole time we thought Black Goku and Zamasu were the same person.  Now we know Black Goku is someone completely different, but Zamasu reveals he does harbor hatred to humans and plans to kill every human especially Goku.  Wow! Told y'all it was an epic turning point for the series.

No Man's Sky: Fast Way to Learn an Alien Language and 10 Million Credits in an Hour

Alright some of your are tired of grinding looking for monoliths and knowledge stones in an effort to learn a new language.  Here is a quick and easy way to learn the language.

1. You want to reach level 3 standing with an alien race which you can do by doing activities.
2. You want to get at least 250 carbon or isotopes.
3. Interact with an alien or trader at a station.  You will have three choices when talking to the trader based on your level 3 standing.
4.  Whenever you have the option to get the new word, then get the new word.  Whenever you have the option to get fuel or isotopes, then get the isotopes or fuel.
5. Farm those options of requesting a new word and asking for fuel or isotopes to replenish your resources.

This isn't the fun way to learn a new language if you're an explorer, but you can farm these interactions as a sure thing.  You're welcome!


Earn Credits
You can make super fast credits too if you find a station that is buying constructed items at double price. You can find those same items on the ships that enter the station and turn around and sell them for double XP.  Pay attention to the stars to know which sells best. If you find a station that has good items buying like this, then you can easily make 10 mil in less than an hour. It's a little slower on non populated stations but still works.

It's not about falling, it's what you do when you rise that counts!

"It's not what you do when you fall down.  

It's what you do once you get back up that counts the most."

August 13, 2016.  Mo Farah's performance in Rio's 2016 Olympics was inspirational.  Early in the 10K race, Mo Farah was tripped up by another competitor.  After being tripped and pushed to the side, Mo fell to the ground falling from first to 15th.  As Mo tumbled out of the frontline, Mo watched others pass him by but remained calm.  Mo picked himself up, got back in line and battled against 35 opponents to achieve the come back from behind victory and take 1st Place.

It goes to show that being a competitor isn't about falling down accepting defeat or dwelling on unfair turn of events/circumstances.  Being a competitor means accepting change, adapting and getting up when you fall. Truly was a heart racing and inspirational race.

No Man's Sky: Game Changer for All Games

It's been a minute hasn't friends. Back to the game that will change the video gaming world: No Man's Sky.  I have to admit, I enjoy the heck out of this game.  There is so much to do and explore here that you can invest in this game for years.  From the beginning you are presented with the challenge of resolving the crisis of repairing your crashed star ship on an unknown planet.  You have to scan the planet's surface to find the resources you need repair your life suit and flight equipment. After you are back on your feet and your ship fully healed, you can begin your journey of space exploration.

This is where the fun begins.  Each planet you explore has different wildlife, resources, hostiles and condition that you must conquer to survive and thrive.  The one aspect about this game that I love and others hate is the sentinels.  Sentinels serve as ethics police for the game.  Sentinels will detain you if you over-mine resources or attack innocent creatures of the planets.  Sentinels serve as a motivator to make you respect the planet and only take what you need not over-mine your business for greed.

Once you begin your space journey you will encounter star wars in which you must take a side, galactic pirates, adventures to follow the path of Atlas or navigate your way to the center of the universe.  It's all good fun that really adds depth to the storyline and challenges your journey by choices which have results.

I found the ground game to be the best challenge.  Other than the sentinels, you may be attacked by animals and plants. Also, I like how you get to meet different races and you are challenged to understand their culture by learning languages and special items to increase you standing with their alliance.  The more you increase your standing with each diverse race the better your experience and rewards will be with the game.  I like how developers tried to foster cultural learning and diversity for gamers.

I am still learning all the aspects of the game and best way to play since it's new an unknown but so far I am giving it a 10 out of 10. The game treats me right, and makes me want to come back and play to learn and grow.