NHL 2K9 Demo Now on Xbox and PSN Marketplaces

2K Sports has released a demo for NHL 2K9 on both the Xbox Live Marketplace and the PSN Marketplace.  The demo allows players to participate in a three minute period as either the Pittsburgh Penguins or the Detroit Red Wings in historic Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.  Unfortunately, you cannot select the greatest hockey team ever in the Montreal Canadians.  So get your stick, your helmet and download your NHL 2K9 Demo and start crushing people into the boards.

NHL 2K9 Screens and Trailers Now Available

 2K Sports sent over a new gameplay trailer for their upcoming hockey game, NHL 2K9, one of the few leagues not exclusively signed to anyone.  The action on the ice looks sharp, and tight, and the graphics really look good.  For awhile now EA has owned the NHL title, but this game looks like it could become a serious contender, if they have ironed out some of the bugs that have troubled the series in the past few years.

Click the jump for some pictures from both the 360 and Wii versions of the game.

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MLB Power Pros 2008 Hits Shelves Today

MLB Power Pros 2008 has been released today by Konami and 2K Sports.  MLB Power Pros 2008 offers a deep story experience the game of baseball, to give players a unique experience.  In Season mode, you will drive a baseball player of your creation through the minor leagues, struggling to get to “The Show”.  Along the way, you are confronted with decisions that will affect your play, including dating, contract negotiation and more.

Once finished with Season mode, you have the option of moving to the MLB LIfe mode which allows you to take your player on a 20 year journey through the big leagues, with new story challenges, like buying houses and cars.

Other modes in the game include Exhibition, Home Run Challenge, and a Practice mode to help you build up your skills.  Look for MLB Power Pros on PS2 and Wii.

MLB Power Pros 2K8 Conference Call

On Thursday, 2K Sports was nice enough to invite Aeropause to their conference call for the upcoming title, MLB Power Pros 2K8.  The conference call was about 45 minutes in length, and allowed the writers invited to ask questions with the producer of the title, Rob Nelson.  The game is a unique partnership, with Konami designing the game in Japan, but with distribution coming through 2K Sports.

Last year, Power Pros was a surprise hit for 2K Sports, with the title offering a unique looking baseball experience, while adding a lot of story and RPG elements to make a deep and robust game.  This year, Power Pros has come back for another round, and it has the Major League Baseball license attached to it, due to 2K Sports exclusive agreement with Major League Baseball.  This allowed 2K Sports to implement all the ballparks, teams, logos and players into Power Pros, adding to a new gameplay mode.

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Venom Games Closes Up Shop

So here is an interesting conundrum.  What do you do when a developer closes up shop while you are reviewing their game?  Well, the review still goes on, but there is a benefit to know that you probably don’t have to worry about DLC to purchase.

Venom Games, developer of Don King Presents: Prize Fighter and Rocky Legends, has shut down production, and is closing their doors.  Formed out of the ruins of Rage Studios back in the late 90’s, Venom Games has been performing porting duties for several games, like Prey, but started putting together Rocky boxing games.  They were selected by 2K Sports to develop the Don King game, but lackluster sales and ill-fated reviews seemed to seal the deal for this small development house.

Venom Games was handling the development of the Wii version of Prize Fighter, so it will be interesting if the game is shelved or if it is handed off to another developer to finish.  Prize Fighter was going to make use of the Wii Fit board if you had it attached to your Wii.

Conference Call for Don King Presents: Prize Fighter

Chase over at 2K Sports was nice enough to send me over an invite to the press conference for their upcoming game, Don King Presents: Prize Fighter.  The conference call covered the Xbox 360 version, and only addressed the Wii and DS versions of the game as coming shortly after the 360 version of the game.  The call also gave us the surprise of both Don King and Larry Holmes showing up to answer questions about themselves and the game.  The only problem I had was not knowing how to get my new phone to record the conversation, because if you have ever listened to Don King, you realize that you need a seatbelt to keep up with the man as he speaks.

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Top Spin 3 Developer Call

Yesterday, Ryan Jones of 2K Sports, was nice enough to invite Aeropause to a developer conference call with the lead producer of Top Spin 3, Anthony DeLuca.

Anthony let us know that the Top Spin franchise has become the number one rated tennis game among fans and that it was only natural to continue the series.

2K Sports took the franchise back to the drawing board looking at the changes that needed to be made to make Top Spin 3 stand out among its competitors.  This time around the development team would be focusing on the shot mechanics, service mechanics as well as the graphics for the game. 

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EA Declares War on 2k Sports (Again)

According to Gamasutra, EA’s CEO John Riccitiello responded to questions about Take-Two and their 2k Sports division by saying that as a company that “keeps them awake at night” Take-Two must be prevented from repeating All-Pro Football 2k8.

“When you’ve got a competitor like Take-Two on the sports side, and they launch a football title using some of the industry legends, you want to make sure that ends up being a blip and is not repeatable, because we like to defend our franchises aggressively.”

ORLY? And how do you propose to DO that, EA? Are we now going to sign exclusivity deals with Jerry Rice and Troy Aikman? If you mean that it will not be repeatable because the overall quality of your *spit* franchise will outshine 2k8 so badly that no one will bother to buy a clearly inferior product, then by all means, BRING IT ON. But we all know it’s not going to happen. Madden isn’t suddenly going to become the game that NFL 2k5 was.

Cripes, it’s like that big crybaby that when he got tagged in the face during kickball, took his ball and went home bawling because he couldn’t compete. EA, you ARE that crybaby. If you want to “defend your franchise aggressively,” then MAKE A GOOD GAME, instead of the steaming turd that hits the toilet every time another Madden game is released.

Can you tell I’m still bitter about the NFL exclusivity deal?