Operation Sports

Sports Gaming News Weekly Wrap-Up – Tiny Football Review, Retro Knock-Out Impressions & More

Published on December 25, 2022

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Every Sunday we get you caught up on the sports gaming news you might have missed during the busy week. This week we have our Tiny Football Early Access review, impressions from the Retro Knock-Out beta and more.

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FIFA 23 OS Community Sliders: Version 10

Matt10 and the posse are always tinkering with sliders, and as of late obviously FIFA 23 has been getting loads of attention with the World Cup wrapping up today. Version 11 of the sliders are currently in beta testing but Version 10 has been very popular with the community (again, I’m sure in part because everyone has a bit more of a soccer itch than usual).

With that in mind, let’s run through what the community has been tweaking as of late with explanations coming from Matt10 (and the most complete explanations coming by going to the thread on our forums).

Tiny Football Early Access Review (PC) – Slightly Overpriced but Fun

A throwback top-down soccer game that reminds you of simpler times, Tiny Football reminds you how far games have come yet stays true to its core as a fun bite-sized arcade classic capable of sucking you into pixelated goodness. Tiny Football features 64 national and club teams playable through exhibition matches against friends or tournaments against the AI, as well as a season mode if you enjoy the grind. Despite not having authentic licenses, each club and national team is modeled after their real life-like counterparts.

Straight out of the early ’90s, Tiny Football uses pixelated squares, even down to the ball that moves around the pitch in that old-school way of yesteryear. While there isn’t much by way of graphical differences between the players, they still move in a much more realistic way than those early ’90s games. There are even weather effects like rain, which will lead to your players occasionally slipping as the ball skips across the surface.

VanillaBeast Retro Knock-Out! Demo Injects Attitude and Humor Into a Classic

The answer to what would happen if you crossed Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! with ’90s Maximmagazine culture, VanillaBeast Retro Knock-Out! is positioned as a lewd, crude, and unapologetically rude updating of the classic NES title. Borrowing the exact look of the fights from Punch-Out and leaning into its trademark pixelated style, your enjoyment of this game will depend on how fond you were of that old game and your preferences for raunchy humor. As someone who considers himself to be not too easily offended (and wasn’t by the demo), I found Retro Knockout‘s in-your-face politically incorrect sensibility to instead be mostly hollow, unfunny, and kind of desperate.

The retro gameplay from the late ’80s inside the ring makes a much more charming return than the crass comedy that’s seemingly been transported from an earlier era as well. With only three fights that can be played within the demo, it only seeks to give you a small taste of what the game has to offer while promising to save the truly tasteless parts for the full game.

Will MLB The Show 23 Release Earlier Than Normal?

We’re a few weeks away from 2023, which will bring excitement in all forms. In this realm, it means we’ll be closer to the next installment of MLB The Show. Looking ahead to the next iteration might seem a bit silly to some, but MLB The Show 22 content seems to be winding down and this has led to many of us looking past whatever remaining time there is with ‘22 to simply look forward to what’s next. There have also been a couple minor developments that have taken place that could possibly hint at MLB The Show 23 releasing earlier than ’22 did.

Let’s talk about it.

Even Pro Wrestling Lawsuits Used to Be Better

Pro wrestling will never be hotter than it was in the late ’90s and early 2000s, but it seems this is true for wrestling lawsuits as well. Over at Wrestling Inc, David Bixenspan recently wrote about the chaos that surrounded WWE’s licensing deals as THQ, Acclaim, and Jakks all fought for positioning in the fallout of WCW swapping its video game licensing from THQ to EA.

While all we remember is WCW games going in the toilet as WWE games got to have the AKI development team swap over from making WCW/nWo Revenge to classics like WWF No Mercy, it turns out WWE employees and contractors were in the shadows turning this into a delightful story of backroom dealings. While this story might not have the sex and drugs that make so many of the Dark Side of the Ring stories, well, dark, it has so many other hallmarks of a good lawsuit.

AEW Fight Forever: Breaking Down the Latest MJF Trailer

The last time we received news regarding AEW Fight Forever it was Full Gear, and Michael Jacob Friedman was hours away from defeating Jon Moxley — with the help of William Regal — to become the next AEW World Champion. The video that was released the weekend of Full Gear looked great and showcased some of my favorite things about wrestling games: belts, in-depth story mode, over-the-top moves, lots of weapons, and match types.

Yesterday, THQ Nordic dropped another little breadcrumb, this time showcasing All Elite Wrestling’s World Champion MJF, fully equipped with his Burberry scarf. Sure, we saw bits of him during the Full Gear reveal, but this showed more in-ring footage and extended clips from what we’ve seen previously. Here’s a look at the official character reveal of “The Devil himself” Maxwell Jacob Friedman.

How Madden 23 Gameplay Feels as It Enters Stocking-Stuffer Season

The holidays are the busiest time of the year, and with many gamers asking Santa Claus for Madden 23 this holiday season, EA Sports is fine-tuning their game before the inevitable holiday rush. Madden’s latest update via Patch #5 dropped a few weeks ago. And after finally finding time to play through some of the changes, I’m ready to break down the good and the bad from the latest update with the help of the Operation Sports community.

While the last Madden 23 update added visual improvements to some players — including Jaylen Waddle’s infamous touchdown celebration — the latest update focuses more on some of the superstars’ abilities and X-factors. Here’s a list of all the players who have received an upgrade in abilities. And, of course, some impressions from myself and the community.

Voting Has Begun for the 2022 Operation Sports Community Game of the Year Awards

It’s that time of year when we ask our OS community to vote in the Operation Sports Community Game of the Year Awards. Voting will close on December 31 at 11:59 PM ET.