OS Weekly Wrap Up, Getting You Caught Up on Sports Gaming News (Mar. 29 - Apr. 4, 2020)

We’re happy to have DBG contributing to Operation Sports. He’s a wealth of knowledge when it comes to MyTeam, and that’s what made us fans of his videos long before this. In his first video for OS, he discusses who the cheapest must-have card is in MyTeam.

We’re still waiting for that resurgence in arcade sports games, but developer Story Fort is trying to help with that revitalization via the physically-charged, two-on-two basketball game Dunk Lords. Prince Horton checks in with this first video for Operation Sports to check out the title in the first of a two-part series.

Brian Mazique checks in from the land of the giants as he shows off the galaxy opal Wilt Chamberlain card you get from going 12-0 in MyTeam Unlimited. This card is a certified monster, and Mazique puts Wilt through his paces in Triple Threat online play while chatting about the card.

EB is another person making his video debut on OS this week. He’s a former football coach and someone who loves breaking down football at a more granular level. In his first video, he goes deep into discussing inside zone strategies and some other permutations of the play. It’s a very powerful concept in Madden 20, and so he explains why that’s the case and how you can use it.

The one other “new” feature in franchise mode is the ability to relocate and rebrand a team to a new city of your liking. It’s not a full suite relocation engine like some others titles include, but users do have the ability to replace current teams with custom teams with a system built from the Diamond Dynasty create-a-team engine. Gamers can change the team name, design a brand new logo for your new team, build out a brand new set of uniforms and select a new home ballpark.

Trying to acclimate yourself to the style of racing in Kylotonn’s sequel is a bit easier than what I experienced with the previous iteration. The tutorials do a very good job of explaining how each bike works, handles and performs. It also explains how to approach different types of track sections and switch your racing view. This may seem like pretty basic stuff, but because of the challenge and difficulty that is built into the game, the tutorials are almost a must.

There is no doubt that when major events happen — though this one is kind of unprecedented — that sports play a major role in helping distract everyone from that particular crisis. Currently, we have really only one of the major sports, the NFL and its offseason moves, giving us something else to think about. However, for those of us who are hardcore NHL fans or even just hockey fans in general, we unfortunately haven’t had any real news to talk about since the league announced it would be “pausing” the season back on March 12. Well, we want hockey baby!

For a guy who hasn’t played MLB The Show in several years, the gameplay is refreshing when you compare it to some of the other sports simulations on the market. Admittedly, I’m a Madden guy, but most of us accept that EA has struggled to truly capture the art of football. SDS does not have that same issue. It remains the best representation of any sports game on the market. And with new fielding mechanics added, it adds even more control to your hopeful Ken Griffey Jr. minor leaguer. The extreme catch indicator, enhanced button accuracy and new library of animations keep things fresher than I ever remember.

During the beginning of the season, I’ll usually play a few drills at first, but I usually end up simming the good majority of them. It’s generally a good idea to think about the strengths and weaknesses of your players. Trying to improve through targeted training drills is what you do in real life, so it’s nice that FIFA has this feature. Under the right circumstances, perhaps an injury to a player where his backup is your academy kid, you could really focus all of your weekly training on him and develop him into the next legend at your club. On the flip side, the management of training can become very time consuming. I usually tend to make my presets and rotate between easy/medium/hard drills with the occasional player replacement due to injury.

San Diego Studio’s introduction of prospects into MLB The Show 20 has arguably been one of the most welcomed additions in Diamond Dynasty this year. The addition of highly touted youngsters into Diamond Dynasty this early on in the year has been received really well, and several of these cards are incredibly usable. They’re also popular cards among the community, and for good reason.

DeSean Jackson advanced due to technical difficulties. Derwin James defeated his teammate Keenan Allen, and Jarvis Landry lost to Denzel Ward. But the biggest shocker of the night came between Kansas City Chiefs’ teammates Tyrann Mathieu and Tyreek Hill. The game wasn’t much of a battle, as Tyreek Hill took a commanding lead with the Chicago Bears’ defense. However, the biggest surprise was what happened late in the game. With just over one minute to go, Hill decided to run out the clock in an extremely savage kind of way.