Digital Sportspage Blog

Our review of Top Spin 3 is up.

Other notes:

I’m currently working on an updated historical Japanese baseball database for usage in OOTP 9. It should be released next week. Because I’ve spent so much time in the world of spreadsheets, I haven’t gotten too deep into OOTP 9. Although I am a fan of including MLB rosters, the “no hitters on AAA rosters” bug is fairly annoying. We’ll hope to have a full review up, either in the next few weeks, or after the next major patch.

I’m eagerly awaiting NCAA 09, even though they have a history of building hype and then crushing our hopes with some major flaw. There is an interesting post at OS with a summary of a conference call with the lead designer of gameplay for NCAA and Madden. Some positive notes are decreased interceptions by linebackers and lineman and decreased “spectacular catch” effectiveness. However, they also noted that kick returns will be much easier (confirmed by Bill Abner’s impressions) and confirming the relative lack of a pass rush. I hope that the focus on open gameplay doesn’t lead to a lack of balance, something that EA football has had problems with in the past.