Sports

Any jerk can strap an ironing board on his feet, plow down a bunny slope and be like, "lookit me! I'm a snowboarder!" but SSX takes you beyond the edges of sane snowboarding, and shows off runs that take place inside an active volcano, in the Rockies and even in the Alps! Check out creative director Todd Batty and Environment Art Director Geoff Coates revealing footage of some of SSX's most challenging, amazing runs.

We've been bringing you exclusive and epic content all Epictober long, people, and just because it's Halloween and the last day of the month, don't think we're stopping. Check out the video below, featuring never-before-seen footage from snowboarding game SSX:

The original Kinect Sports was one of the early Kinect titles, and was one of those perfect party games. So the prospect of a sequel had me pretty excited - any chance to make my friends look like fools is a good time in my book. Now that the game is out, it's time to find out if it's going to be making appearances at my get togethers with our review.

"Most of the games can be completed rather quickly, with the obvious exception of Golf. Sadly, that also means you’ll probably do everything in an hour or two. The mini games this time around are fun and offer new challenges, but are, at the moment, limited to just one per sport. I hope that DLC with more mini games will be out soon as the ones out with the release are enjoyable, but lose a little of their luster after playing them a couple of times. The party mode didn’t seem to have an end, like all good parties, but you just play the games while being represented by a mascot on either the red team or the blue team, and then when you get bored, it’s over. The game keeps track of who wins what, but that’s about it. Again, another nice feature for families, but perhaps not quite the competitiveness that other gamers might expect."

Find out the final score in our full review of Kinect Sports Season 2.

I don't follow professional golfing because you'd have to be some kind of lunatic to care about a bunch of rich guys hitting a ball into a hole, but I follow golfing video games, and today I learned something big about Tiger Woods PGA Tour 13. Controversial cover-boy Tiger Woods will be sharing the cover of 13 with golfer Rickie Fowler.

Fowler was chosen by fan votes, and he even beat out the awesomely named "Bubba Watson" for the honor. "I couldn't let Bubba beat me," said Fowler "He wouldn't have let me live it down if he had won."

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Venerable over-the-top football franchise NFL Blitz is coming back, baby, as a downloadable title. EA's game announcement promises the "twitch gameplay and ultra-responsive controls of the original game" will be combined with all-new single-player and cooperative game modes. It will be out on the PSN and Xbox Live in January.

We spoke to NFL Blitz project lead Dave Ross and designer Yuri Bialoskursky to get the word on the game's new modes.

"The new NFL Blitz is chock full of exciting plays, but we’ve also got a bunch of cool new modes as well," said Bialoskursky. "Blitz Gauntlet is our single-player experience that lets you compete against the top teams in the NFL on your way to three different boss fights. Boss fights take place in the Blitz Coliseum and require you to take down a team of fantasy characters in order to unlock them for use in all of our other modes. The Gauntlet can be tough though, so if things start to get a bit tricky and you feel like you need a hand, don’t hesitate to have a friend join you in the fight so you can take down those bosses cooperatively."

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G4's Epictober means a lot of things to us here at G4, but one of the most important is the chance to show off exclusive videos of AAA games. Today, X-Play showed off some of the biggest ballplayers in the history of the game in NBA 2K12, and answered that age-old question: What was the best team in basketball history?

Check it out in the video below... and keep your browser tuned to G4 all month for more Epictober madness than you can believe!

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Tonight on Attack of the Show, Carmen Electra joins us in studio to tell us all about Mardi Gras: Spring Break and Adam Sessler goes in depth on the live Diablo 3 multiplayer beta on Game Break. We check out the Samsung Conquer on Gadget Pr0n and explore the best ways to upgrade up your bathroom routine, tonight at 7PM.

Tooth-loosening simulator NHL 12 comes out today, and you hockey-heads out there may notice a sublte but interesting additition to the franchise. For the first time ever, you can create female hockey players and use them in the game. The story behind the inclusion of skating chicks is pretty interesting. You can thank 14-year-old Lexi Peters for it.

Peters, a diehard hockey player, told Britains's Globe and Mail, “My younger brother got to create a character that looked just like him. I had never been able to experience that." 

Rather than simply complain on the internet like most people, Peters wrote a letter to EA asking them to add female players, writing, "It is unfair to women and girl hockey players around the world, many of them who play and enjoy your game. I have created a character of myself, except I have to be represented by a male and that’s not fun.”

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Madden NFL 12 is the only true NFL simulator, and while EA Sports' flagship franchise is still good, this years iteration of the game has somewhat taken a step backwards in a lot of ways according to our Madden expert Mike D'Alonzo.

Overall, Madden NFL 12 is going to be satisfying to Madden fans who buy the game year after year, regardless of what's changed and what's not. Usually, steps forward are made in the franchise, but this year, it seems that the steps forward have been made in the parts of the game that aren't the fundamentals. In other words, it's just fine to add lots and lots of extras, but when the core game takes a step backward, you need to really think of what's important.

Get in formation and read the rest of our Madden NFL 12 review.

Touting it as the "ultimate fan command center," sports network ESPN is overhauling its presence on Xbox Live. Beginning today, ESPN on Xbox Live will bring thousands of live events and highlights, including more than 400 college football games, 31 bowl games and more than 75 exclusive games to 360 gamers.

Underneath the "Read More" tag, you'll find the full, official list of new features coming to the service, and we'll bring you a video of the new ESPN in action soon. So stay tuned!

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When it comes to competition, there's little more direct than the full-on fight of a UFC battle! UFC Undisputed 3 will trade in the live-broadcast feel of previous titles in the series for a more classic fighting game camera. Adam Sessler gets the scoop from Producer Neven Dravinski in the video below:

Upcoming snowboarding game SSX features some amazing technical innovation along with it's fresh-powder, "duuuuude" vibe. Sinan Kubba was on the floor at GamesCom 2011 to put the game through its paces, and here's a taste of his preview:

"The technology going into the upcoming revamp of the flamboyant snowboarding franchise SSX is absolutely insane. The new game is using NASA satellite data in a program that EA Burnaby call Mountain Man to visualize around 150 real-life snowboarding ranges, including ones in Africa, the Rockies, and Alaska. If that’s not enough, the interface to select which range you want to ride down isn’t your typical menu-scrolling affair as that would not be enough for the developers. Instead, you navigate a globe powered by Google Earth. If that’s not abuse of privilege, then I don’t know what is."

Check out the rest of our SSX preview right here.

At its GamesCom 2011 press conference this morning, EA revealed some of the details of SSX's multiplayer functionality. The snowboarding game's online system is called RiderNet, and online play will be split into two categories: Explore mode and Global Events.

SSX will allow you to compete against other players -- your friends and strangers -- in a number of ways. You'll be able to race against other players' ghosts, even if they are not online, as well as competing in traditional leaderboard battles. The Global Events mode makes snowboarding massive, allowing up to 100,000 players to be online at once, riding in different events that you can jump into at any time, as well as allowing you to create your own events.

RiderNet will allow you to "rate" snowboarding drops, and then recomend other runs you might enjoy, based on your preferences. You'll also be able to keep track of your snowboarding pals, as well as make new friends using Ridernet.

The footage shown during the press conference was pretty "gnarly," as the snowboarders say, and we'll have it up for you on our site pretty soon, so watch out for it!

SSX is scheduled for release in January for Xbox 360 and PS3.

GamesCom is sometimes known as the E3 of Europe, and the conference kicked off this year with a very European announcement. FIFA Street, a street soccer game that is coming early next year.

The idea is to take soccer out of the stadium and bringing it to the streets, and around the world. Developed by EA Canada, FIFA Street promises to show off unique footie styles from around the planet. There will be 35 environments from London to Rio to Barcelona. Top street players were motion captured in and the game will also use the new player impact engine and the precision dribbling engine being that is used in FIFA 12.

"This is the first time our award-winning FIFA development team is creating a street soccer game, and we are going to deliver a level of authenticity never before seen in this genre, along with amazing gameplay," said Matt Bilbey, Vice President and GM of Soccer, EA SPORTS. "FIFA Street will appeal to new fans that are looking for a unique, fun soccer experience, and long-time FIFA fans looking for an authentic street soccer experience with the level of quality that they know and love from the FIFA franchise."

Football season is coming, brothers, and that means new Madden! We downloaded and played the demo for Madden NFL 12, and pitted the mighty Chicago Bears against the equally mighty Green Bay Packers, dredging up a half-century worth rivalry for maximum footballing action. Hike!

It really is an amazing looking game; who's excited?