facebreaker posts (Subscribe to this feed)

If you're okay with dropping $20 on a new game, Best Buy has a few 360 titles in that price range including (but not limited to) Bad Company, UT3 and Quake Wars. Happy shopping!

EA's Facebreaker didn't fare so well on the Xbox 360 and PS3 when it released. The Wii version, Facebreaker K.O. Party, just released this week and, well, we're not too optimistic for that, either. How about Peter Moore and the folks at EA Sports? They're staying the course, apparently.

"We're going to maintain our core relationships with our male consumer but our growth really is going to come from ... looking after the new consumer on the Nintendo Wii with innovative experiences that they wouldn't expect from EA sports, looking at new brands like Freestyle, looking at the Wii with our All Play collection," Moore said. "We're not blind to the fact that new consumers coming in are not necessarily hardcore sports fans that are looking for the experience we deliver with a Madden or a FIFA or with an NHL."

That's all well and good, Peter. But, we're not sure Facebreaker is the kind of title that would captivate the casual. Just because it's casual doesn't mean that it has to be some quick, slapped-together minigame compilation or shallow gameplay experience. If you want to captivate the casual, you need to take a risk on something new and engaging. Not cartoonish figures boxing in a ridiculous, over-the-top manner or trying to copy Nintendo.

In case you haven't been keeping up with the news, EA's Facebreaker was a bomb on the Xbox 360 and PS3. Their last hope the game could sell at all is the Wii release, Facebreaker K.O. Party, due out this week. Above you'll find a video of the Punch-O-Matic, which is a slot-machine based affair. After the break, you'll find another video showing some one-on-one action. Think the game will fall flat on Wii or are we the perfect audience for this game?

EA Sport's Freestyle brand, meant for a "more casual sports gaming audience," suffered a beating as its first title, Facebreaker, sold 52,000 units in September. The game's over-the-top nature, originally giving the impression of being a modern day Punch-Out!!, apparently didn't click with consumers ... or critics, receiving an average Metacritic score of 54.

A Wii version of Facebreaker, which may (?) perform better than its Xbox 360 and PS3 cousins, is expected in November. Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter says the poor sales aren't really that big of a deal for EA, considering how well it's doing with Mercenaries 2, Spore, Warhammer and Dead Space.

Have you been dreaming of an open world game with massive firepower and fully destructible environments without all the pesky legal repercussions in GTAIV? Mercenaries 2 just might be your game. You get to blow things up ... a lot ... with cruise missiles. Let's not forget online co-op either, which means you can blow things up with cruise missiles ... with friends.

As though Mercenaries 2 wasn't enough, we also have all of these:

• Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise
• Warhammer: Battle March
• Rapala Fishing Frenzy
• Infinite Undiscovery
• FaceBreaker
• NFL Head Coach 2009

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise? Infinite Undiscovery? FaceBreaker? Yeah, so apparently "Holiday 2008" is already upon us.

We're just gonna go ahead and not call the game Buttbreaker. We know you want to. We want to. But we're all simply better than that. It doesn't mean the latest news about the boxing title is any less hilarious, though.

Facebreaker K.O. Party already looked a little crazy, but it's about to get crazier -- reality-show, leopard-print, sex-tape kind of crazy, that is. In at least one version of the game (and probably all), Kardashian will appear as a playable character. We'd ask why, but it's so funny that we don't care. Maybe someone should add in Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Nicole Richie for a full set. The battles would be epic.


[Via Game|Life]

We're so mad at ourselves for in some small way perpetuating the sphere of influence of Kim Kardashian, who, as Joel McHale correctly points out, is famous for having a big ass and a sex tape. But news is slow this morning, OK? It was either this or another cake shaped like the Companion Cube.

That said, here's EA Sports chief Peter Moore beating up on Kim Kardashian in Facebreaker, a fight you can re-enact at home with just a few free minutes and a semi-truck full of self-loathing. Who wins this historic clash of titans? All we can say for sure is not us, dear reader. Not us.

In the red corner, weighing in at 214 pounds is former Microsoft executive now turned EA Sports head honcho. With a legendary right hook thanks to the Spartan power he receives through his Halo 2 tattoo, witness the FaceBreaker boxing all-star Peter "Big Guns" Moore!

In the blue corner, weighing in at 142 pounds is reality show "star" and beautiful face who has dabbled in celebrity fashion, acting and the apparel business. Sporting a pair of short shorts, a ponytail of abuse and a sour attitude, welcome to the FaceBreaker boxing ring Kim "Big Bottoms" Kardashian!

Let's get it on, FIGHT!

Electronic Arts has today released the one-two punch of both Madden 09 and Facebreaker demos on Xbox Live [update: and PlayStation Network] (via Major Nelson). Both downloads are approximately 1 GB apiece, and Facebreaker has the added benefit of a character creation feature that lets you transfer your created fighters to the full game. PlayStation 3 owners can expect the Madden 09 demo today, but face breaking will have to wait until August 7.

[Update: A Sony rep called to let us know that both demos will be coming to PSN today, as well]

Just like clockwork, this morning EA released a freshly new FaceBreaker demo to the Xbox Live Marketplace. A demo that should scratch your over the top boxing mayhem itch.

This 954MB FaceBreaker demo allows gamers to experience over the top boxing action, including three different boxers, two distinct arenas and, for the Vision camera owners among us, the ability to put you or your enemy's face into the game using EA's Photo Game Face technology. Put some Vasoline on those gashes and get back into the ring, because there are faces to break. Ding, ding!

Preparing for its September release, EA's over the top boxing game FaceBreaker will be making its way to the Xbox Live Marketplace next Thursday, July 31st as an all out face-breaking demo, no less.

Included in the release of the demo will be three "unique" boxers (Ice, Sparrow and Steve) and two arenas (Booty Caves and Trailer Park), playable versus locally or against an AI opponent. So, no Xbox Live demo experience. Most interesting though is the fact that the FaceBreaker demo will include EA's Game Face tech allowing players to Vision camera their face into the game. Fun times, at least for the beautiful people of the gaming world.

[Via Joystiq]

We're not exactly sure why anyone would want to punch EA Sports' charismatic figurehead, Peter Moore -- especially in his cherubesque face. Still, we guess it's nice to have that opportunity available, should you someday develop a strong Moore aversion. However, traveling to Pete's home and mercilessly pummeling him would likely be a costly and illegal venture -- luckily, EA's upcoming Facebreaker will reportedly allow you to perform a beatdown upon a digital representation of Moore's visage, free of travel expenses and assault charges.

At their E3 booth, Electronic Arts revealed that Moore's face had been scanned and entered into the game using the title's boxer creation feature. EA mentioned to gaming blog ButtonMasher that Moore's face will make it into the final retail version of Facebreaker, perhaps as an unlockable character. We'll politely abstain from exercising our pugilistic prowess on the exec, though admittedly, we wouldn't mind seeing how the tattooed spokesman held up in the ring.

During their E3 press conference, EA released assets for a bunch of upcoming games. We showed the new SimAnimals earlier today -- these are the assets from the games we already knew about. More Sim stuff of a sort (SimCity Creator), more animal-related stuff (the utterly terrifying Littlest Pet Shop), and ... other stuff.

We've posted the gallery of the nice-looking MySims Kingdom below. Wait, why does the medieval MySims game have rocket rides? After the break, you can find the rest of the galleries, including Pet Shop, Creator, FaceBreaker KO Party, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It's at least an excuse to break out old EA slogans.

When EA changed the title of the Wii's FaceBreaker to FaceBreaker K.O. Party, we couldn't help but moan, groan, grumble, and sneer. Not every Wii game needs to have the word "party" in it, and we do enjoy things that aren't party games from time to time (shock, gasp!).

While the video above does ease our fears a bit, it's clear that the focus of K.O. Party is on the multiplayer. Then again, it's a fighting game, so that's okay. Producer Trey Smith talks up the Wii version a bit, and hints at some of the features exclusive to K.O. Party. The part that caught our ears was the "one-to-one" responsiveness, which would be amazing if true. As much as we enjoy Wii Sports: Boxing, flailing around like idiots does not make a good fighter. Smith also boasts about the visual style, which does look nice (although obviously not as nice as its HD counterparts), as well as the multiplayer, of which there will be two different modes.

As for the exclusive unlockable character, that's a neat bonus but won't make or break the game -- unless, of course, it happens to be Little Mac, which is unlikely but would make us die happy.

[Update: For unknown reasons, GameTrailers no longer has the video up! We summarized most of what happened above, but if the video shows up again, we'll put it in.]

[Update 2: The video is back up! And well worth watching.]