The Apple Arcade February 2022 lineup has been revealed, with two games that want you to become one with nature.

The first is Wylde Flowers, a new take on the farming sim where the ghouls come out at night. What starts with usual farming tasks turns into a witchy affair with multiple spooky quests to undertake. You can even turn yourself into a cat, which is never a bad thing.

🚨 Launching This February 🚨
The wait? Over. The games? Right here. Enjoy the magical life in Wylde Flowers, build amazing bridges in Bridge Constructor+, and see what else Apple Arcade has to offer this month.
Here’s what’s coming your way: https://t.co/n8tkxpqmp2 pic.twitter.com/X1HmzTHw1x

— Apple Arcade (@AppleArcade) February 2, 2022

The other new Apple Arcade Title is Gibbon: Beyond The Trees, an adventure game highlighting the plight of a small gibbon as it tries to survive ecological disaster. The game follows a dynamic movement system with swinging, sliding, and jumping, making it easy enough for anyone to enjoy.

Also coming this month are two more App Store Greats–games that were previously hits on the App Store that are added to Apple Arcade with all DLC intact–in Bridge Constructor+ and Bloons TD 6+. The service is also updating four big existing titles: What The Golf?, Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls, Zen Pinball Party, and Zookeeper World.

The full list of Apple Arcade’s February updates is below.

Apple Arcade February 2022

New Games Launching This Month

App Store GreatsFebruary 4: Bridge Constructor+This new version of the acclaimed bridge-builder game includes all of the content, updates and DLC, without any in-app purchases. The game features overr 100 levels to master the art of bridge-building.February 11: Bloons TD 6+This popular tower defense game stars monkeys trying to defend their home from the invading Bloons. The game offers multiple modes including single-player with over 50 maps, four-player co-op, and Boss Events featuring powerful boss Bloons.Arcade OriginalsFebruary 18: Wylde FlowersWylde Flowers is a farming sim with a spooky twist, featuring farming by day and witchy hijinx at night. Players assume the role of Tara, who has just moved to a cute rural island to help out her grandma and the family farm. During the day Tara and her family will tend crops, care for animals, and more, but at night broomsticks, potions and cat transformations await.February 25 – Gibbon: Beyond the TreesGibbon: Beyond The Trees is an ecological adventure about freedom and survival. Players must master a dynamic movement system to swing, slide and somersault through a hand-painted jungle, and experience the story of a lost gibbon searching for home amid rising devastation.

New Content Updates Launching This Month

What the Golf? – The award-winning silly physics-based golf parody is adding more fun levels and content to the game. The new update will include 14 new levels, daily theme packs, seven new recurring leaderboards, and seven new achievements, as well as new prizes to unlock and new puns to laugh at.Castlevania: Grimoire of Souls – The latest addition to the beloved gothic fantasy series, the game is launching a major update with a new seasonal event, Ball of Roses. The update will also include new weapons and armor, Valentine’s Day themed content, and much more.Zen Pinball Party – Biolab – a classic Zen Studios original pinball table – will be arriving to Zen Pinball Party soon. Rescue creatures and unravel the mystery of the missing cookies in the Mad Scientist’s high-tech genetic laboratory, or chase down the tricky Pinball Wizard with a friend in seasonal Community Events, a new co-op game mode arriving to the party.Zookeeper World – This unique game combines match-3 gameplay with simulation features where players run their own zoo filled with adorable animals. This month, players will be able to check out 25 new puzzle stages and new mini-game content.Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Sony has released its latest earnings report, shining a light on how the PlayStation business is doing. Sony sold another 3.9 million PS5 units for the latest quarter, pushing the system’s lifetime numbers to 17.3 million as of December 31, 2021.

For comparison, Daniel Ahmad reminds us that Sony had sold 20.2 million PS4 units in a similar timeframe, so the newer console is lagging behind. But there is a good reason for that. The ongoing supply chain issues have impacted results, making Sony unable to keep up with demand.

Xbox is struggling with this as well. The latest estimates suggest that Microsoft has sold around 12 million Xbox Series X|S consoles, so the PS5 is still pacing well ahead.

Sony is expecting the PS5 supply issues to continue, and as a result, the company is cutting its PS5 sales forecast down by around 2 million for the current quarter. Sony previously believed the PS5 would reach 22.6 million units by March 2022, but that number has been downgraded to 19.3 million, according to Ahmad. Analysts Piers Harding-Rolls said this downward project is “pretty sobering.”

That 2m PS5 sell-in forecast for the Jan-March 2022 quarter is pretty sobering
That alone will mean a substantial downgrade to our sell-through forecast for ’22

— Piers Harding-Rolls (@PiersHR) February 2, 2022

Another key takeaway from Sony’s earnings results is that the company is expecting to launch 10 live-service games by March 2026. PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan previously alluded to this, saying the company will invest heavily in live service games going forward. This is one of the reasons why it spent $3.6 billion to acquire Destiny studio Bungie this week. Sony did not announce any of the specific live-service projects in development, but Naughty Dog is confirmed to be working on a standalone multiplayer game.

— Shinobi602 (@shinobi602) February 2, 2022

Other stats from Sony’s earnings briefing included 11.3 million units of first-party games sold during the quarter, with digital game sales making up 62% of units sold. Sony also reported having 48 million PlayStation Plus members and 111 million monthly active PlayStation users overall.

PlayStation FYQ3 Results
• PS5 Shipped 3.9m Units of Hardware
• Lifetime Total Now 17.3m Units
• 11.3 Million Units of 1st Party Software Sold
• Digital Software Ratio 62%
• 48 Million PlayStation Plus Subscribers
• 111 Million Monthly Active PlayStation Users pic.twitter.com/46XeUAVEcQ

— Benji-Sales (@BenjiSales) February 2, 2022

In other PlayStation news, the next State of Play video briefing is coming today, February 2, and it will be dedicated entirely to the racing game Gran Turismo 7.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Wordle became a surprise hit during this past January due to many things–it’s touching origin story (creator Josh Wardle made the program for his partner), low commitment, easy shareability, and the absence of a price tag. However, that last quality–zero cost for playing–will very likely not last long. The New York Times has purchased Wordle and while it’ll remain free “initially,” you’re going to have to pay-to-play eventually.

Luckily, as discovered by multiple individuals on Twitter, you can save the whole game and have it for free forever. It’s very easy to do so: right-click and choose save-as “Webpage, Complete.” Now when you click wherever you saved it on your desktop, the game should open. I did the above instructions for mac, but if you’re on PC, the procedure should be similar.

NYT says Wordle will stay free “”””initially”””” which we all know means it’ll be paywalled very quickly
Anyway I downloaded the javascript and copy-pasted relevant HTML into my own file so I can run it locally for free forever. You can just do that, if you want

— 🧠 Emmanuel Clement’s Brain 🎶 (@ClementonicEm) January 31, 2022

I made a video to show how to save the source code of Wordle locally – to your computer – so you can run this happy game as a local web archive (free) FORVER.
This will only work on desktop. 💪🏼 😘
@patrickhinds⁩ ⁦@rabiasquaredpic.twitter.com/RuXKwl0j0W

— Katy Brown (@ItsMeKatyB) February 1, 2022

Wordle already comes with 12,500 words, so you’d be able to play the saved version of Wordle for a good couple years before the game runs out of prompts. Alternatively, with a very committed friend, you can do this:

if nyt takes wordle away from us remember that all you need to access it for free is the power of imagination and one friend who also likes wordle. become ungovernable pic.twitter.com/6GNYk1yHg3

— rayne fisher-quann (@raynefq) February 1, 2022

With acquisitions running amok and consolidations seemingly inevitable, it’s rare to have a short and sweet–and free!–word game everybody is affectionate of. Reactions on the internet to Wordle’s sale seem to range from melancholy over the game’s monetization to congratulating the maker for a timely sale.

It remains to be seen how NYT will respond to this workaround to keeping Wordle’s free version and how the company will tweak the game to make it attract more NYT Games subscribers–which is, of course, the end goal of purchasing Wordle.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

As the full year 2021 earnings season rolls along, the next major chip maker out of the gate is AMD, who has been enjoying a very positive trajectory in revenue and profits over the past few years. The company has continued to build upon the success of its Zen architecture-based CPUs and APUs in both the client and server spaces, as well as a full year’s revenue for the APUs powering the hard-to-find Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. As a result, these products have propelled AMD to another record quarter and another record year, as the company continues to hit revenue records while recording some sizable profits in the process.

For the fourth quarter of 2021, AMD reported $4.8B in revenue, a 49% jump over the same quarter a year ago. As a result, Q4’2021 was (yet again) AMD’s best quarter ever, built on the back of strong sales across the entire company. Meanwhile, due to last year’s unusual, one-off gain related to an income tax valuation allowance, AMD’s GAAP net income did dip on a year-over-year basis, to $974M. In lieu of that, AMD’s quarterly non-GAAP net income (which excludes the tax allowance) was up 77% year-over-year, which is an even bigger jump than what we saw in Q4’20.

AMD’s continued growth and overall success has also boosted the company’s gross margin to 50%, marking the first time since at least the turn of the century that AMD has crossed the 50% mark. Besides underscoring the overall profitability of AMD’s operations, gross margins are also a good indicator of the health of a company; and for a fab-less semiconductor firm, 50% is a very good number to beat indeed. AMD is now within 5 percentage points of Intel’s gross margins, a feat that at one time seemed impossible, and highlighting AMD’s ascent to a top-tier chip firm.

AMD Q4 2021 Financial Results (GAAP)
 
Q4’2021
Q4’2020
Q3’2021
Y/Y
Q/Q
Revenue
$4.8B
$3.2B
$4.3B
+49%
+12%
Gross Margin
50%
45%
48%
+5.6pp
+1.9pp
Operating Income
$1.2B
$570M
$948M
+112%
+27%
Net Income
$974M
$1781M*
$923M
-45%
+6%
Earnings Per Share
$0.80
$1.45
$0.75
-45%
+7%

As for AMD’s full-year earnings, the company has been having great quarters all year now, so unsurprisingly this is reflected in their full-year results. Overall, for 2021 AMD booked $16.4B in revenue, which was an increase of 68% over 2019, and, of course, sets a new record for the company. AMD’s gross margin for the year was 48%, up 3.7 percentage points from FY2020, and reflecting how AMD’s gross margins have been on the rise throughout the entire year.

All of this has played out nicely for AMD’s profitability, as well. For the year AMD booked $3.2 billion in net income, and unlike 2020, there are no one-off tax valuations inflating those numbers. Amusingly, even with that $1.3B valuation for 2020, AMD still beat their 2020 net income by a wide margin this year, bringing home $672M more. Or to look at things on a non-GAAP basis, net income was up 118% in a year, more than doubling 2020’s figures. Suffice it to say, the chip crunch has been very kind to AMD’s bottom line in the past year.

AMD FY 2021 Financial Results (GAAP)
 
FY 2021
FY 2020
FY 2019
Y/Y
Revenue
$16.4B
$9.8B
$6.7B
+68%
Gross Margin
48%
45%
43%
+3.7pp
Operating Income
$3.6B
$1369M
$631M
+166%
Net Income
$3.2B
$2490M*
$341M
+27%
Earnings Per Share
$2.57
$2.06
$0.30
+25%

Moving on to individual reporting segments, 2021 was a year where all of AMD’s business units were seemingly firing on all cylinders. Client CPUs, GPUs, server CPUs, game consoles; 2021 will go down as the year where nobody could get enough of AMD’s silicon.

For Q4’21, AMD’s Computing and Graphics segment booked $2.6B in revenue, a 32% improvement over the year-ago quarter. According to the company, both Ryzen and Radeon sales have done very well here, with both product lines seeing further sales growth. On the CPU/APU front, average sale prices were up on both a yearly and quarterly basis, reflecting the fact that higher priced products are making up a larger share of AMD’s processor sales. And while AMD doesn’t offer a specific percentage breakdown, the company is reporting that notebook sales were once again the leading factor in AMD’s Ryzen revenue growth, coming on the back of strong demand for higher margin premium notebooks. And, based on overall growth in the number of processors sold, AMD believes that they’ve increased their market share (by revenue) for what would be the seventh straight quarter.

Meanwhile on the GPU front, AMD is reporting that graphics revenue has doubled on a year-over-year basis. According to the company, GPU ASPs are up on a year-over-year basis as well, though interestingly, they’re actually down on a quarterly basis due to what the company is attributing to the product mix – which in turn is presumably the ramp-up and launch of their first Navi 24-based products such as the RX 6500 XT. AMD’s prepared remarks don’t include any mentions of cryptocurrency, but it goes without saying that for the last year AMD has encountered little trouble in selling virtually every GPU it can get fabbed.

Finally, AMD also folds its data center/enterprise GPU sales under the C&G segment. There, AMD is reporting that revenue has more than doubled on a YoY basis, thanks to last year’s launch of the Instinct MI200 accelerator family. Unfortunately, AMD doesn’t offer any unit or revenue breakouts here to get a better idea of what data center shipments are like, or how much of those sales were MI250X accelerators for the Frontier supercomputer.

AMD Q4 2021 Reporting Segments
 
Q4’2021
Q4’2020
Q3’2021

Computing and Graphics

Revenue
$2584M
$1960M
$2398M
Operating Income
$566M
$420M
$513M

Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom

Revenue
$2242M
$1284M
$1915M
Operating Income
$762M
$243M
$542M

Meanwhile, AMD’s Enterprise, Embedded and Semi-Custom segment booked $2.2B in revenue for the quarter. The 75% year-over-year increase in revenue was driven by both improved EPYC sales as well as higher semi-custom sales.

As is usually the case, AMD doesn’t break apart EPYC and semi-custom sales figures, but the company is noting that data center, server, and cloud revenue – essentially everything EPYC except HPC – all more than doubled versus the year-ago quarter. All of which propelled AMD to doubling EPYC sales versus Q4’20, setting new records in the process. AMD has also noted that they’ve shipped their first V-cache enabled EPYC CPUs (Milan-X) to Microsoft, who is using them in an upcoming Azure instance type.

As for semi-custom sales, AMD is riding a wave of unprecedented demand for game consoles that has Sony and Microsoft taking every console APU they can get. Furthermore, despite this going on now for the last year and a half, AMD still expects semi-custom sales revenue to further grow in 2022 on the back of continued orders from console makers.

With all of that said, however, as AMD’s revenues have increased, so have their costs. For both the Client and Enterprise segments, the company is reporting that operating income growth has been partially offset by higher operating expenses. This encompasses both higher wafer prices from TSMC, as well as higher costs for things such as shipping. AMD can more than absorb the hit, of course, but it’s a reflection on how AMD has needed to spend more in order to secure wafers and supplies on an ongoing basis.

Looking forward, AMD is (understandably) once again expecting a very promising first quarter of 2022 and beyond. AMD has enjoyed significant revenue and market share growth over the past few years, and the company’s official forecasts are for that to continue into 2022. And, especially in the midst of the current and ongoing chip crunch, so long as demand holds, silicon may as well be gold for as valuable as it is to some of AMD’s customers.

To that end, AMD is officially projecting revenue growth of 31% for 2022, which would bring AMD to around $21.5B in sales. Given AMD’s 2021 estimate, this is likely once again conservative, though it is noteworthy in that it’s a bit less growth than AMD was projecting at this point a year ago for 2021. More interestingly, perhaps, is that AMD expects the non-GAAP gross margin for the year to land at around 51%, which even if it’s also a conservative estimate, would still be a big accomplishment for AMD.

Driving this growth will be a new slate of products for many of AMD’s important product lines. Along with ramping deliveries of Milan-X EPYC processors, AMD is also slated to deliver their Genoa EPYC processors, based on AMD’s Zen 4 CPU architecture, later this year. Zen 4 will also be making its appearance in Ryzen processors in H2’22, and in the meantime AMD has just launched their Zen3+ based Ryzen 6000 APUs for laptops. Finally, GPUs based on AMD’s forthcoming RDNA 3 architecture remain on the roadmap to be launched later this year as well.

Read MoreAnandTech

During Yacht Club Games Presents 2022, Yacht Club Games revealed Mina The Hollower, a project now live on Kickstarter. The announcement was accompanied by a new trailer.

In Mina, you play as the titular mouse–she’s an inventor who sets out on an adventure. Mina looks to be a top-down adventure game in the same vein as The Legend of Zelda, though with a heavy dose of gothic and potentially horror vibes. The game features a very Game Boy Color aesthetic, though it’s set to release for modern-day consoles.

As the game is still currently a Kickstarter project, Mina is still in early production–so no planned release date just yet. “We want your feedback, collaboration, and support in making Mina the Hollower the best game it can possibly be,” Yacht Club Games director Alec Faulkner said during the livestream. “That’s why we’re returning to our roots and kicking off Mina the Hollower’s development as a Kickstarter campaign.”

Yacht Club Games is still supporting most of the game itself, but crowdfunding will assist the team in making a more expansive game. “We hope we can create a more expansive game this way,” Faulkner said. “More importantly, we want to build a community around Kickstarter, much like we did with Shovel Knight.”

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Electronic Arts on Tuesday released its latest earnings report, and one of the key takeaways was that Battlefield 2042 failed to reach the company’s internal expectations. The company did not disclose a specific sales number for the game, but CFO Blake Jorgensen said it was fewer units than EA expected.

The executive also reminded everyone that the Battlefield franchise makes up less than 10% of EA’s overall revenue, so the game coming in below expectations didn’t hurt EA’s bottom line all that much. What’s more, EA’s Q3 was its biggest in the company’s nearly 40-year history, thanks to its diversified lineup of games.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson said Battlefield 2042 struggled in part due to it being developed during COVID, while he mentioned that some of the design choices in the game did not resonate with players. Still, EA remains committed to growing and evolving and improving Battlefield 2042 over time. Wilson said DICE is known for being able to turn around a game that had a difficult launch.

He didn’t name the game outright, but DICE’s Star Wars Battlefront II struggled out of the gate but became a major success story for the company overall, with many millions of copies sold.

Jorgensen pointed out that EA believes Battlefield 2042 will have a long sales tail, so even if the game didn’t launch in the strongest position, its fortunes may improve over time.

Just today, DICE outlined its plans for the future of Battlefield 2042’s live-service elements. DICE is currently focused on improving the core experience, so it is delaying the launch of Season 1.

For the Battlefield series overall, Wilson said EA has a “big bold vision” for the series, though he declined to confirm if the rumors of Battlefield 2042 adopting a free-to-play model are true. What we do know is that EA is building new Battlefield single-player experiences with Halo’s Marcus Lehto, among other new projects in development for the series.

While Battlefield 2042 might have struggled, EA’s Apex Legends was a bright spot, with monthly active players jumping by more than 30% year-over-year. FIFA 22 also performed very well for EA, the company said. Not only that, but across all EA games, players are collectively spending nearly 20% more times in the company’s games year-over-year.

You can read EA’s full earnings release here.

Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

Tom Brady has officially announced his retirement after a week of rumors and two decades of elevating the sport of American football. Whether you loved him as a Patriot, grew to appreciate him as a Buccaneer, or passionately rooted against him as a fan of a forever-bumbling AFC East rival, Brady’s accomplishments are unmatched in football and arguably some of the most impressive feats in sports history. We wanted to look back on his storied 22-year career through the lens of his annual overall (OVR) Madden ratings. From no-name rookie to GOAT, here’s how Brady performed in Madden each year since he first arrived in the league he would go on to reshape forever.

Madden NFL 01: 57 OVR

In case you haven’t heard by now–like if you were living on Mars for the past 22 years–Brady was drafted in the sixth round, 199th overall, by the Patriots in the 2000 NFL Draft. He entered the league as an apparently unremarkable QB, and his debut Madden rating reflected that. Brady threw just three passes that year in spot duties behind Drew Bledsoe, connecting on one of them for six yards. No one–least of all the New York Jets–knew who he would go on to become.

Madden NFL 02: 51 OVR

Perhaps due to his lack of playing time to that point, or maybe due to the darts-on-a-dartboard nature of virtually unknown players in Madden, Brady’s overall rating actually went down six points in Madden NFL 02, which coincided with the start of the 2001 season. It wouldn’t be long before he would make his proper debut, though, coming in for an injured Drew Bledsoe after the Jets’ Mo Lewis clobbered the starting QB and sent him to the bench in Week 3. The rest is history. By the time Bledsoe would be healthy enough to return, he had already lost his job to the young upstart Tom Brady.

Brady would go on to lead the team to an 11-5 record (11-3 as the starter) and–after two wild playoff games against the Raiders and Steelers–lead the Patriots franchise to its first-ever Super Bowl victory. If you know this story, you’ll recall that this wouldn’t be its last.

Madden NFL 03: 84 OVR

After besting the prematurely nicknamed “Greatest Show On Turf” St. Louis Rams, Brady came into 2002 as a defending champion and the Week 1 starter. In Brady’s 22-year career, he was the starter for 20 of them (we’ll get to his doomed 2008 campaign later), and he made the playoffs 19 times out of those 20 healthy seasons. The 2002 season was the only one where he missed January football, finishing 9-7 but losing out on a three-way divisional tiebreaker that year that instead sent the Jets to the postseason. It was this early-era Brady who was still seen as something of a game manager, though his 28 touchdowns that season would stand as his career high until Randy Moss showed up half a decade later. This would also prove to be Brady’s last season in Madden where he’d be rated below a 90.

Madden NFL 04: 90 OVR

Despite missing the playoffs the year before, Brady would kick off his 2003 season by cracking the 90+ club in Madden for the first time. That year’s game was famously dominated by cover star and quasi-cheat code Michael Vick, but if you wanted a reliable pocket passer, Brady was a top-tier option. In the real world, Brady would return to the Super Bowl that season and overcome a dramatic final quarter against the Carolina Panthers, whose Jake Delhomme was being eyed as the next Brady–that would prove short-lived. In 2003, and despite two Lombardi trophies by that point, still no one knew how high he would set the bar someday.

Madden NFL 05: 95 OVR

Venturing into truly elite company, Brady would kick off the defensive-minded Madden 2005 as one of the best players in the game, making the Patriots a must-play team in online head-to-head when players were eager to try out the brand-new Hit Stick on defenseless ball carriers. Brady would go on to defeat the Donovan McNabb- and Andy Reid-led Eagles in the Super Bowl, clinching the Patriots’ arrival as the next NFL dynasty.

This would also prove to be Brady’s last Lombardi for several years, despite two stunning failures in years to come. But even by then, you’d have been right to call him a Hall of Famer. As the late, great Chris Wesseling often said of Brady, you could carve his career into two–eventually three–portions, and if each portion represented a different player, each would be in the Hall of Fame. Brady’s sustained success was still a story being written in the mid-aughts.

Brady has been as clutch in Madden as he has been in real life.

Madden NFL 06: 97 OVR

Madden 06 kicked off the era where Brady’s Madden ratings would properly reflect his sustained dominance of the league’s annual passing totals, even if he went without a Super Bowl victory for a few years (poor guy). With 4,110 passing yards that year, Brady would lead the league in the statistic for the first time in his career. That number pales in comparison to the pass-happy modern NFL totals–it would only be ranked 11th if stacked among 2022 totals–but part of Brady’s story is his ability to rise with the times. This wouldn’t be his last time leading the category.

Madden NFL 07: 98 OVR

Inching ever closer to his debut in the coveted Madden 99 club, Brady’s resume would continue to grow in both virtual and actual football. He remained one of the most dominant players in all of football and just barely missed out on another Super Bowl berth when the Pats fell to the rival Colts. Brady only notched 24 touchdowns and 3,500 passing yards that season, but it would go on to be the last time anyone could call Brady a “system QB.”

Madden NFL 08: 99 OVR

Brady’s 2007 season already started with a lot of promise, and by year’s end, it would become one of the most statistically impressive seasons for any quarterback in NFL history. Joining forces with Randy Moss, who had spent a few middling years in Oakland after a few incredible years as a Minnesota Viking, Brady set a new NFL record for passing TDs in a season with an even 50, beating Peyton Manning’s record from the previous season by a single touchdown.

Brady threw almost half of them to Moss himself, who set a receiving TD record of his own that year, as the Patriots went on to become the first-ever 16-0 team in league history. Unfortunately for Brady and Patriots Nation, a fierce interior pass rush and one absurd late-game David Tyree catch resulted in the Pats falling short of the perfect 19-0 season, as Brady suffered the first Super Bowl defeat of his career to the New York Giants.

Madden NFL 09: 99 OVR

In 2008, Brady no doubt had a fire lit under his seat. Determined to get back to glory after a heartbreaking loss to the G-Men, Brady wouldn’t get to prove his star-studded roster could return to that promised land. He would suffer a first-half knee injury courtesy of Chiefs safety Bernard Pollard, and would go on to miss the entire season. Naturally, the Madden team could not have foreseen this, so Brady was still dominant in the virtual game that year, even as Matt Cassel tried his best to keep the team afloat in reality. Brady threw just 11 passes that year before being shelved, but his stats in Madden head-to-head were surely much better as one of the game’s only 99-rated players.

Madden NFL 10: 97 OVR

Fresh off of a season of rehabbing his leg, Brady had apparently earned the trust of Tiburon and EA, as the sometimes career-ruining injury hardly resulted in Brady’s Madden rating taking a hit at all. At 97 overall, he was still dominant, even if 16-0 was well out of reach for his real life counterpart. The Patriots went 10-6 that year, but Brady’s most recent Super Bowl victory was starting to disappear from the rear-view mirror.

Madden NFL 11: 95 OVR

Brady’s 2010 season marked the beginning of the Gronk era. The Patriots drafted Rob Gronkowski, and Brady would prosper. His slight dip in real-life numbers the year before translated to a similar shaving of his Madden overall, but his career was about to change forever. The new-look Patriots offense would go on to inspire the league to find or otherwise create dominant do-it-all tight ends like Gronk, but most such QB-TE duos today, a decade later, are still chasing the totals that Brady and Gronkowski would put up together. In Madden, the duo was unstoppable for a period of several years, too.

Led by Brady, the Patriots created a whole new generation of fans–and rivals.

Madden NFL 12: 99 OVR

Brady found himself in the 99 club for the third time in Madden NFL 2012–you’ll remember it infamously as the one where Browns fans flooded the fan vote that would decide the cover athlete and got flash-in-the-pan RB Peyton Hillis to “grace” the box art. Brady and Gronk were in year two and riding high, and it led to Brady’s first 5,000-yard season, but an injured Gronkowski hobbled through the postseason and the Patriots came up short to the Giants in the Super Bowl for the second time since 2007.

After three early victories, two recent defeats in the big game suddenly gave Brady a less impressive 3-2 record in the Super Bowl, but that’s something he would work to resolve in due time.

Madden NFL 13: 98 OVR

Another ugly loss from the Super Bowl prior still couldn’t deter Madden ratings adjustors from expecting any “gradual decline” from Brady. He started the year just outside the 99 club and led the team to a 12-4 record, which felt like an annual tradition by that point. He also threw just 8 interceptions, marking the third time that he kept this stat in the single digits. The Pats finished a game shy of yet another Super Bowl berth, but his story was still being written even this late into his career.

Madden NFL 25 (2014): 97 OVR

The oddly numbered Madden 25–celebrating the game’s 25th anniversary–may bring marketing confusion in a few years for EA, but for Brady, it was business as usual. His 2013 campaign was marked by another 12-4 record, another AFC East title, and another hard-fought playoff schedule where the Pats downed the Colts before being defeated by the Broncos, who would go on to lose in spectacular fashion to the Seahawks. That Seattle squad would soon become the second team seeking dynasty status that would be denied by Brady and the Pats.

Madden NFL 15: 93 OVR

At “just” a 93 overall, Brady’s lowest Madden rating in 11 years would soon be on the uptick once more. That’s because in 2014, he brought the Pats back to the Super Bowl, and, like always, gave fans another nailbiter. The Pats would win a stunner at the goal line when Malcolm Butler picked off a Russell Wilson pass, denying Seattle the first back-to-back titles since the Pats did it in 2003 and 2004. Brady orchestrated a fourth quarter comeback to put the team in place for the win, and this more “great” than “elite” 93 OVR, maybe calculated on some expectation of gradual decline, would be reverted quickly.

Madden NFL 16: 97 OVR

Brady and the Pats continued their reign of dominance through most of 2015. Back near the tip-top of the Madden player rankings after yet another Super Bowl win, Brady would come back in 2015 and lead the league in touchdowns for the fourth time in his career. The Patriots’ season would end a bit earlier that year, when the eventual-champion Broncos dragged Peyton Manning’s nearly retired body through January. Manning’s new jersey was an odd sight for football fans, and though we didn’t know it then, it would be a sign of things to come for the Patriots’ own superstar QB.

Madden NFL 17: 94 OVR

In 2016, Brady was suspended for the first four games of the season for what became known as “Deflategate.” Depending on who you ask, it was either an unforgivable blight on the idea of sportsmanship or the equivalent of doing a month in prison for running a stop sign. Brady’s preference for a football that was slightly less inflated than the league minimum became a massive story for anyone hoping to put an asterisk next to his name in the Hall of Fame he was already pacing toward.

Nonetheless, Brady has never been one to let doubters go unused. In perhaps the greatest Brady moment of all time, the QB returned to the Super Bowl for the second time in three years and rallied the Patriots from a 28-3 deficit all the way to a 34-29 victory over the Falcons in the first-ever overtime Super Bowl. If his 94 in Madden seemed low, blame it on the laughable “gradual decline” expectations creeping up again, before once more being thrown out.

Madden NFL 18: 99 OVR

Marking the first time (and long time coming) that Brady would be on the cover of Madden, the QB would once again find himself in the middle of postseason drama. After a season in which he led the league in passing attempts and yards, Brady won his third MVP award before losing a heartbreaker to the out-of-nowhere Eagles led by spot-starter Nick Foles, who replaced Philly’s own MVP candidate, Carson Wentz. While this would mark Brady’s third Super Bowl defeat in eight tries, he wasn’t done winning them just yet.

Brady and Mahomes reunited as cover stars for Madden 22.

Madden NFL 19: 99 OVR

By the time Madden 19 came out, Brady was supposed to be over the hill as a 40-year-old, but he was still playing like the best QB in the league. That was well-reflected in his Madden rating, as he was given a seat at the 99 club for the fifth time in his virtual career. A typical Madden launch only has about four to six players rated 99 overall, and Brady was by far the oldest of them at this point.

He defied all projections of what a pro QB’s career arc is supposed to look like, and it was all capped off with yet another Super Bowl win as a Patriot. In a surprisingly forgettable game, the Patriots did away with the Rams via a 13-3 final score that didn’t ask much of Brady for a change. It would be his last Super Bowl as a Patriot, but remarkably still not his last overall.

Madden NFL 20: 96 OVR

Brady’s 99 overall seasons were behind him for good, finally, but he was still dominant on gridirons both real and virtual. His final season with the Patriots ended in the first week of the playoffs when a collection of former Patriots, then playing for the Titans, beat him in Foxboro, and it looked like the Pats-Brady union was finally at its end.

But Brady wasn’t done with the game yet, even if his home away from home was asking him to move out. With just 24 touchdowns that year, Brady’s pedestrian numbers were to blame for his subsequent rating decrease in Madden, but we’d come to find out all Brady was missing was a roster with a few more talented targets on it.

Madden NFL 21: 90 OVR

Suddenly donning the jersey of the Tampa (Tompa?) Bay Buccaneers, Brady looked like a fish out of water in Florida, but not for long. Going from one great coach to another certainly helped, and the ragtag Patriots receivers of his last year in New England were suddenly swapped out for stars like Mike Evans and Chris Godwin–and, oh yeah, Gronk came out of retirement to join him too.

In total, Brady’s new bunch helped him earn a remarkable 10th Super Bowl appearance, and it came in a game in which the Bucs would wipe the floor with the once-thought insurmountable Chiefs. Brady wasn’t retiring yet though, so you could expect another delay on that “gradual decline” we’d been hearing about for a decade.

Madden NFL 22: 97 OVR

In what will go down as his final year as an active player in Madden–barring any Favre-like second thoughts–Brady debuted in Madden 22 as a 97 overall. He also graced the cover for the second time, joining Patrick Mahomes, who was doing the same. Incredibly, he once more led the league in touchdowns, yards, completions, and, for the first time, attempts. He threw the ball more than 700 times and connected on 68% of those passes, showing no signs of the aging process that has, to this point, spared no one else in football, least of all someone with the wear and tear like Brady has.

Brady’s status as an annually dominant Madden superstar and two-time cover athlete are virtual trophies for one of the greatest winners sports have ever shown us. Brady retires as the all-time leader in nearly all passing categories, including career yards and career touchdowns–not to mention his record-shattering seven Super Bowl victories. There has never been another NFL star quite like Tom Brady, and maybe there never will be. The NFL’s loss is one shared by the Madden community, who now must look elsewhere for a hero when they’re in a must-win league title or piecing together their Ultimate Team. Farewell to the greatest of all time.

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If you’ve never played League of Legends before but wanted to give it a shot, the mobile version League of Legends: Wild Rift is a perfect way to jump in. The core experience has been ported beautifully to mobile devices, with a healthy roster of champions spanning six different classes. This guide focuses on Wild Rift’s tank class, a great class for those who like to jump into a skirmish headfirst.

League Of Legends: Wild Rift tank guide

Tanks are damage sponges that demand the force of two or three enemies before they can be taken down. These champions will lead the charge into battle at any point in a match, allowing more fragile allies to stand behind them and attack enemies without a care.

Each tank will either focus on offense (Vanguard) or defense (Warden), but both are perfectly suited for the player that wants to be right in their opponent’s face. If you like being the center of attention and opening things up for your allies, then the Tank class is the one for you.

Here are some of the best tanks in League of Legends: Wild Rift and their ability sets.

Thresh, the Chain Warden

Thresh

Role: Tank

It’s one thing that Thresh can take a beating without breaking a sweat, it’s another that this behemoth is able to pull enemies and allies around the arena with little effort. That sort of field control makes him a dangerous option at any point of a match. Use that control to your advantage in battle, either pulling an enemy away from an ally with Death Sentence or saving the ally with Dark Passage.

Passive: Damnation

Thresh absorbs the souls of any enemy that dies when he’s nearby, permanently raising his armor and ability power.

Ability 1: Death Sentence

Thresh wraps a single enemy in chains on first activation, then pulls the enemy toward him on the second activation.

Ability 2: Dark Passage

Thresh throws a lantern to a designated location, and if an ally picks it up Thresh will immediately pull that ally to him.

Ability 3: Flay

Thresh winds up an attack on first activation then sweeps his chain around, dealing damage and knocking every enemy hit in the direction he attacks. The longer Thresh winds up the attack, the more damage is dealt.

Ultimate: The Box

Thresh creates a hexagonal wall around him, and any enemy that passes through it is damaged and slowed.Nunu & Willump, the Boy and his Yeti

Nunu & Willump

Role: Tank/Mage

Nunu & Willump are your team’s best friends in a crowd. Multiple moves in their arsenal either attack multiple enemies at once, some of them slowing the enemies down in case they try to run. If a big group of champions is coming together in a skirmish, Nunu & Willump should get involved quickly. That said, the teams tend to be separated during the early game, so move around the map–using their second ability to move quickly when available–and gank (steal a kill from an opponent) some jungle monsters while things are still early.

Passive: Call of the Freljord

Whenever Willump attacks an enemy champion, his attack and movement speed are increased. Any nearby ally also receives a speed boost equal to half what Willump received.

Ability 1: Consume

Willump bites an enemy, dealing damage to the enemy while restoring health.

Ability 2: Biggest Snowball Ever!

Willump rolls a snowball on the ground then pushes it at an enemy, damaging them and knocking them into the air.

Ability 3: Snowball Barrage

Nunu throws multiple snowballs that damage and slow enemies. When the last snowball is thrown, Willump deals magic damage and roots the enemy (sticks them in a single spot for a brief time).

Ultimate: Absolute Zero

A blizzard is created, dealing area-of-effect damage and slows affected enemies.Braum, the Heart of the Freljord

Braum

Role: Support/Tank

Braum is a team’s protector, a valiant hero with a massive shield that thrives on being able to block whatever the enemy throws at him. Projectiles don’t phase him, magic doesn’t bother him, and physical damage? Child’s play! Use the Concussive Blows mechanic to disrupt an enemy’s attack, stunning them and throwing them off rhythm, while utilizing Braum’s other abilities to slow down the opponent’s offense.

Passive: Concussive Blows

All of Braum’s basic attacks apply Concussive Blows, which can stack up to 4 times. Once the 4th stack is reached, the affected enemy is stunned and takes magic damage. Braum’s attacks deal extra magic damage for a brief period after the enemy is stunned.

Ability 1: Winter’s Bite

Braum shoots ice from his shield, dealing damage and slowing enemies. This move adds 1 Concussive Blow to the stack.

Ability 2: Stand Behind Me

Braum jumps to an ally, increasing both of their armor and magic resistance for a short time.

Ability 3: Unbreakable

Braum raises his shield in a designated direction, blocking all projectiles from that direction. The shield prevents all damage from the first projectile, while reducing the damage of subsequent projectiles.

Ultimate: Glacial Fissure

Braum slams the ground with this shield, sending nearby enemies into the air. A fissure is left in a straight line in the direction Braum was facing, slowing any enemies that walk in it.Galio, the Colossus

Galio

Role: Tank/Mage

Galio is an interesting tank, in that while he can soak up a lot of damage in the frontline, his mobility-focused abilities make him a threat anywhere on the map. Use abilities like Justice Punch and the ultimate Hero’s Entrance to keep enemies guessing as you move around the map with ease, protecting your allies at the same time.

Passive: Colossal Smash

Every few seconds, Galio’s basic attack deals bonus area-of-effect magic damage.

Ability 1: Winds of War

Galio summons two gusts of wind that converge into a tornado, dealing damage over time to any enemies within it.

Ability 2: Shield of Durand

Galio gets into a defensive stance, moving slowly while charging an attack. When the charge is released Galio taunts and deals damage.

Ability 3: Justice Punch

Galio steps back, then charges forward in a designated direction, damaging the first enemy champion he collides with while sending them into the air.

Ultimate: Hero’s Entrance

Galio chooses an ally’s position, which grants a magic shield to all allies in the area. Galio then jumps up and pounds the ground at that position, which knocks nearby enemies into the air.Dr. Mundo, the Madman of Zaun

Dr. Mundo

Role: Fighter/Tank

Reading through the ability list here, one might think Dr. Mundo is one of the harder champions to master, but there is a lot to like in this ability list. Heart Zapper is great in a crowd but not good at all while alone, so save that move for the bigger fights. Blunt Force Trauma is a cool dual-move that could turn Mundo into a machine at low health, while his ultimate Maximum Dosage can turn a fight around in a hurry.

Passive: Goes Where He Pleases

Mundo has increased health regeneration. The first immobilizing effect applied to Dr. Mundo instead makes him lose health and drops a canister. If Mundo picks up the canniser, it will restore his health and reduce the cooldown of this ability.

Ability 1: Infected Bonesaw

Dr. Mundo throws an infected bonesaw, slowing an enemy and dealing damage based on the enemy’s current health.

Ability 2: Heart Zapper

Dr. Mundo electrocutes himself, dealing damage to both himself and nearby enemies. A bit of the damage received is stored as energy, and when the move is reactivated Mundo uses the enemy for a burst attack. If the burst makes contact, he will heal himself.

Ability 3: Blunt Force Trauma

Passive – Dr. Mundo gains bonus attack damage relative to any missing health.Active – Dr. Mundo hits an enemy with a medical bag, dealing damage relative to Mundo’s missing health. Any enemy who dies from the bag attack is swatted away, dealing extra damage to enemies that the enemy collides with.

Ultimate: Maximum Dosage

Dr. Mundo injects himself with a chemical of some kind, which instantly heals some of his health. Mundo gains bonus attack damage and movement speed while regenerating health over a few seconds.Read MoreGameSpot – Game News

A new free mission is coming to Far Cry 6, combining the game’s sun-soaked world with yet another action hero. Titled “All The Blood,” the mission brings Rambo to Yara and gives players a brand-new deadly weapon upon completion.

The mission, which players can find in the world of Yara starting today, adds a Rambo superfan to the game who needs Dani’s help. Following them will lead players on a mission packed with stealth and combat sequences as they attack enemy bases. Finishing All The Blood will reward players with one of Rambo’s iconic weapons, the Vengeance Bow, which shoots explosive arrows that can devastate regular enemies and heavy vehicles alike.

Real-life Rambo superfans can also purchase a new Rambo bundle starting today. Packed with themed goodies, including a new outfit for Dani, as well as new weapon and vehicle skins.

Far Cry 6’s Rambo crossover is the second-to-last free expansion coming for the game. According to the game’s roadmap, another free expansion is set to arrive in March, bringing Stranger Things’ Eleven into Yara for yet another crossover event. Far Cry 6’s new Rambo expansion follows another crossover from last month that saw Danny Trejo join the game’s cast.

Along with another free expansion, Far Cry 6 is set to get at least one more paid DLC as well. Capping off the game’s season pass is Collapse, the final expansion in a series that gave players control over the Far Cry franchise’s past villains. Collapse will focus around Far Cry 5’s cultist leader Joseph Seed and is set to release in March.

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Manchester United’s Mason Greenwood has been removed from FIFA 22, after the footballer was arrested on charges of sexual assault and threats to kill.

Greenwood was brought in for questioning over the weekend following social media posts from his partner, where she showed injuries reportedly inflicted by the athlete. Audio of threats by the footballer were also shared, before everything was taken down once a formal investigation had started.

Manchester United, the English Premier League club that Greenwood plays for, barred the player from training and participating in matches until the matter is resolved. EA has also taken its own steps to remove the player from FIFA 22, updating the active roster for the club in-game to omit Greenwood while also removing him entirely from FIFA Ultimate Team and Ultimate Draft.

Greenwood remains an option in the team in Football Manager 2022, however, with license holder Sports interactive stating that it “has not yet made a decision as to Mason Greenwood’s status in Football Manager 2022 and will not do so until the findings of the current police investigation are made public,” according to a statement published by The Athletic.

The move by EA comes after Greenwood’s price in the game’s Ultimate Team mode skyrocketed after the allegations were made public. The developers of the game attempted to curb the issue by locking the player’s price in place over the weekend, but now that the arrest is official it seems he will remain removed from the game until further notice.

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