We’ve been going through plenty of NHL 21 wishlists as of late (here, here and here), and Matt checks in with a video today discussing NHL 21 franchise mode. Since we know there will be no next-gen version this year, the focus is going to be more on updating what’s already in the EA NHL series. With that serving as a backdrop, Matt goes through his list below.

While we wait for more Madden 21 media and the actual NFL to ramp up, Alex is back with another Madden mix here hyping up Cam Newton on the Patriots in Madden. His previous Madden work includes showing off rookies in their new homes.

I also took the new DLC pack into season mode and found the AI, when tuned to my liking, was a blast to race against week in and week out. Depending on the track, I was lucky to crack the top 10, while at others a podium finish came my way. The AI was fair but aggressive, and the game allows you to tune the AI throughout the season both on skill and aggressiveness.

Playing a NASCAR game right now feels like opening up Madden and the only mode available is Face of the Franchise (although the dev notes certainly make it feel that way). And to be clear, this isn’t a 704Games thing. This has been happening as long as I can remember, regardless of who makes the game. It all comes down to what the developers want you to get out of their game. Do they want you to play a sports game centered around NASCAR? Or a single-player role-playing experience? Why not have both?

By now, most know the story of 2K’s in-house struggle to bring WWE 2K20 to fruition after the sudden departure of long-time developer Yukes. Caught in an unenviable trap between losing the primary developer and an annual commitment to the world’s largest wrestling entity, 2K raced to bring the new title to life. While patches were able to pull the game back to playable territory after launch, the community remained underwhelmed and uncertain of the new team’s capabilities and direction going forward.

Any time the community knows a new wrestling game is on the horizon, the first burning question is who will be in the game? The 2K franchise has by and large done a great job with its rosters selection, both for past and modern-day superstars. With perhaps the exception of 2K20, the franchise has usually managed to avoid taking a step backwards with the roster, and has even pulled off what some would call miracles, creating a bridge to damaged relationships with Warrior, Sting and others.

I like to check in on Mike Lowe’s sliders about once a month to see how they’ve changed as he tries to find the right MLB The Show 20 sim sliders. Mike plays the game a lot and cares deeply about finding sliders that work for the games he invests lots of time into. But I also like using his sliders because he’s very flexible about them and sticks with the general motto I also subscribe to that you have to make the sliders work for you. Everyone is going to need to tweak something here or there, so it’s about finding the right general base and tweaking from there.

We put together a list of signature home runs for all 30 MLB teams over the course of a month and graded them against their real-life counterparts. So why not watch some home runs in MLB The Show 20 while waiting for baseball to start tonight? Or if your team does not play until tomorrow, scope out your squad and see how they look in The Show before you get to see some pretty home run swings in the flesh.

Of course, you can pitch from the broadcast view in The Show and get away with it, but only the true ballers out there do zone hitting from the pitcher/broadcast view while at the plate. So by going to classic timed hitting, it alleviates that issue a bit as there’s not a cursor to worry about anymore. When pitching, this also also allows me to lean into the broadcast elements more and push for more cutaways (pre-pitch cameras on for both pitching and hitting) since I only have to move a cursor around rather than time anything up.

Like most trailers, the action is fast, mixing in gameplay with stay-at-home scenes from some of Europe’s most promising talents. Cover athlete — and what a terrible cover it is — star Kylian Mbappe is obviously the focus here but cameos from Joao Felix, Trent Alexander-Arnold, and Erling Haaland signals a transition from the two guys who have dominated the footy landscape for the past decade, Cristiano Ronaldo and Leo Messi.