Iron Man probably should have been the guard, not the tackle, because Hulk could wipe out any double team by himself and Iron Man pulling out, especially with Shazam and Plastic Man blocking upfield, creates a lot of space for The Flash.

(I guess I/we confused what flanker and split end really mean back then. SE is plainly Spider-Man, at least how he's lined up away from the line.)

We had a similar argument at my college newspaper nearly 20 years ago, regarding the ultimate football team makeup. Here's what we got. (Handwriting is mine)

A federal appeals court has revived a lawsuit brought by a college quarterback against EA Sports, on grounds the video game publisher used his likeness without permission in their popular NCAA Football series.

Ryan Hart (pictured), who played for Rutgers University from 2002 to 2005, sued years ago on grounds that the Rutgers quarterback in NCAA Football, while he played for the school, exhibited all of his traits except for his name, and therefore constituted his actual likeness. In 2011, Hart's case was dismissed at the federal district court level, in a ruling that said his depiction in NCAA Football fell under EA Sports' normal First Amendment rights of artistic expression.

Hart appealed, and a decision Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the federal 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agrees with him. "The digital Ryan Hart does what the actual Ryan Hart did while at Rutgers," wrote Judge Joseph Greenaway, for the 2-1 majority. "He plays college football, in digital recreations of college football stadiums, filled with all the trappings of a college football game ... [t]he various digitized sights and sounds in the video game do not alter or transform the appelant's identity in a significant way."

The reversal of the dismissal of Hart's complaint means it goes back to district court. A similar complaint, filed by former Nebraska and Arizona State quarterback Samuel Keller, also is on appeal at the the federal level in another district. While this ruling is not binding to Keller's case, his complaint and appeal are basically the same as Hart's.

Keller's lawsuit was combined with that of Ed O'Bannon's, the former UCLA standout who sued EA Sports over his appearance—after his college days—in a video game under all but his own name. O'Bannon's suit seeks to become a class action and a ruling on that will take place in June. If it does become a class action—involving thousands of past and present college players—the potential damages could force the NCAA to severely alter its rules for eligibility, and even compensate athletes, as well as threaten the viability of licensed college sports video games.

Former Rutgers QB Ryan Hart gets favorable call on lawsuit against EA Sports [NJ.com]

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Image by Getty.

I'm selling a nice dicent fixie 300 obo just got the rims a week ago but I don't even ride bikes so I don't need it anymore every thing works fine and looks good I paid over 450 for every thing [...]

The seller says he's willing to trade it for a Wii U, too.

Fixie for sale - $300 (san jose downtown) [Craigslist, via @kevinclark]

Microsoft says the Xbox One won't need an always-online Internet connection. But if you want to play it, the thing might need to check in with the home office once a day. Playing used or borrowed games also sounds like a real bitch. Only one thing that can save gamers from this: our old enemy, Fox News.

Say what? Look, follow me here. Regardless of your political affiliation, I know all of us here hate Fox News, who constantly bait their nursing-home viewership with images of video games as government-subsidized homicide simulators that will force you to fuck gay aliens. But those superpatriot bumpkins are now our best friends in this time of crisis.

Why? Because of the troops.

As has been pointed out, here and elsewhere, video game consoles are often brought along by American servicemembers on deployment, and while hardship is very much a reality for them—which gets realer the closer they get to action—they're not all out there without a TV and a power strip. Internet access [WARNING: I DO NOT KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE] seems to be a limited thing even in a [WARNING: I AM TRYING TO SOUND LIKE I KNOW WHAT I AM TALKING ABOUT HERE] secure forward operating base which has enough of a normal life going on that troops sending email and Skyping with loved ones is a common experience. Basically, Internet sounds like it's mostly available in common areas, and it probably has something to do with security. Or porn.

Whatever the case, the Xbox One needs to be playable offline, for longer than 24 hours, if not forever, if a soldier's gonna be able to play it. And based on the remarks from Microsoft representatives themselves, that doesn't sound like it will be possible.

So my question is, then, Why does Xbox One hate America?

Yeah, that's a dishonest question. That's why it's a question Fox News needs to ask.

Seriously, we gamers need to be as cutthroat as possible if we're going to get Microsoft—and any other game or console maker—to back off this always-online idea. And if that means cloaking ourselves in the flag, so be it. Once Fox News contorts this edge case scenario into flag-burning contempt for our brave men and women, Microsoft will assuredly capitulate.

Microsoft is an American company and for a dozen years, the one argumentative trump card in American discourse has been troops. Since 9/11, the side that is capable of defining the sacrifices of the American military and the reasons for which it is sacrificing is the side that wins. None do that better than Fox News. And the fact remains that our troops are out there putting their lives on the line for video gamers' right to complain all day long about everything, but they will not be able to go back to their base and play the thing that makes all of us unhappy.

That's not the country for which my grandfathers fought. (Really. They didn't have video games back then.) So, put down that impotent Change.Org Internet petition. Cease thy fulminations upon NeoGAF and r/games. Friends, neckbeards, countrymen, lend me your emails!

Here, I've whipped up an astroturf letter for you to write to Fox News, in a vernacular they understand:

Dear Fox News channel,

Did you know the new "Xbox One" game console was announced yesterday? There was some things about it you may not know. Like, the military can't play the new Xbox One. Because when the Xbox One plays games it always has to be connected to the Internet. So what happens is when this console comes out is that troops who take a console with them to Iraq won't be able to play it unless they have internet where they are. On ships or behind enemy lines. Also, the game won't let you play used games. Alot of our troops take discs with them and share them around, but Xbox One won't let you do that without paying a "fee"

I think this is wrong and, if I may say so as a taxpayer it is Un-American. Our troops defend our rights and the least they deserve is to play some "Xbox One" at the end of a hard day. I would like you to talk about that on your next show.

Hey if you use this please keep my name anonymous.

[make up a name]

Look, I know we have a lot of European readers here, you don't have to love America. You just have to hate Microsoft. Britons, I know our military might and superpower status is especially painful to those who lost an empire, but we saved your asses in the big dubya-dubya-eye-eye, so it's time to do your part for that special relationship. We'll get around to region-locking later. And Canada, goddammit, just do it, OK? OK? Thanks. Why do we always have to tell you twice?

Where do these emails go? I'm glad you asked. How about these addresses. We need to spread them out to hit all constituencies:

Fox & Friends: (Morning bullshit to scare homeschooling moms) friends@foxnews.com

America Live: (Unemployed men perving on Megyn Kelly): kelly@foxnews.com

The O'Reilly Factor: (LEGO-hair stepford wives and FW:FW:FW:RE:FW: birthers): oreilly@foxnews.com

Hannity (Obese Civil War reenactors and freelance Constitutional scholars): hannity@foxnews.com

There you go. Do it now. Support our troops!

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

If you didn't see any of the Xbox One announcement yesterday, you may be of the impression this morning that Microsoft must have gone on stage and urinated on a picture of Mister Rogers while—wait a minute, was Phil Spencer really wearing two watches?

VideoGamer, which also abbreviated Sony's PS4 announcement back in February, provides this uproarious companion to yesterday's TV/sports/Call-of-Duty supercut. Goddamn, I think Phil is wearing two watches.

Sorry, Master Race. That superduper Ignite Engine that EA Sports is bringing to its next-generation games? Yeah, it's not going to power any upcoming PC version of FIFA. That's per FIFA community manager Rob Hodson, who had this to say on Twitter.

Clarification for the PC related questions earlier - EA SPORTS IGNITE will power FIFA 14 on Xbox One and PS4, not PC bit.ly/192nrNz

— Rob Hodson (@RobHodson_) May 21, 2013

Naturally, PC gamers did not react well.

@denis_fdrv there's no trick. Ignite isn't powering it, plain and simple. (even if it's disappointing for you)

— Rob Hodson (@RobHodson_) May 22, 2013

The truth is that PC has been a dying, if not irrelevant, sports constituency for years, primarily in North America. Granted, that's in large part because EA Sports just does not support it. Of licensed sports simulation titles, the ones folks commonly associate with the genre, F1 2012, Pro Evolution Soccer 2013, FIFA 13, NBA 2K13 and MLB 2K12 published for PC last year. (MLB 2K13 did not have a PC version this year.)

Madden NFL elected to stop publishing on PC back in 2008, a choice that's marked the platform's declining relevance in sports. Since then what strength it does have in the genre lies largely in management simulations like Football Manager, Out of the Park Baseball or Sega's MLB Manager Online.

FIFA 14 on PS4 and Xbox One uses the fancy new Ignite Engine - but the PC version doesn't [Eurogamer]

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

EA Sports had an outsize presence at the Xbox One's debut today in Washington, peeling the tape off something called the Ignite Engine and teasing a "very special relationship," with the console, while offering few specifics of that beyond some exclusive DLC for the FIFA franchise.

All four sports titles discussed today—FIFA, Madden, the newly acquired UFC license and a rehabilitated NBA Live—will also release for PlayStation 4. Still, it's meaningful that EA Sports chose the Xbox One's event to showcase its next-generation promises. It was silent for the PS4's debut.

That means this series of four videos are sports gamers' first understanding of what the extra processing power of the next console generation will mean to their experience. Andrew Wilson, the executive vice president in charge of EA Sports, said the Ignite Engine will offer "ten times more animation detail" and processing power that translates to better, faster decisionmaking for both player and AI alike.

While yes, the visual fidelity in these clips is tons better than anything you're playing now, it'll be some time before that claim can be fairly judged. The pre-rendered scenes, particularly those of Lionel Messi and Robert Griffin III, are blood-pumping and dynamic. But some of the animations in the wireframes and technical demonstrations—particularly RG3 getting rid of the ball to his halfback as the blitz bears down on him—look very familiar to longtime players of each series.

NBA Live's showpiece scenes make that work look more sophisticated than you'd expect for a title that abruptly canceled its past two editions. That said, EA Sports' failure to execute with current-generation hardware for that franchise makes it a legitimate question what they're able to do with next-generation technology, even if they put all of their effort into that platform. Realize that while NBA Live 14 is a definite for PS4 and Xbox One, no announcement has been made about a PS3 or Xbox 360 version.

There also needs to be some reading between the lines. EA Sports has never done console-exclusive downloadable content. The publisher's willingness to scrap Online Passes is assuredly because the Xbox One will feature across-the-board used-game restrictions. We can assume some form of this will be present on the PlayStation 4, whose used-games support still has not been fully addressed.

Sports video games have long been among the games you'd take over to a friend's home to play on his machine there. If you want to do that on the Xbox One, you'll have to install the title to that machine and pay a fee to do so. Now he gets to keep it. We're unclear on what the fee is, or what that means for the original owner, but offhand the viral-sales nature of such a system certainly plays to EA Sports' favor.

I still think we are due for major announcements regarding EA Sports' next-generation offerings as numberless subscriptions rather than annual releases. (All four games appeared on stage under their upcoming numbered titles.) For now, this is the clearest vision available of what the future of video gaming will mean for sports, one of its oldest and largest-selling genres, worldwide.

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

The Verge reports

When asked if Xbox One will be able to play 360 titles over Xbox Live, or by downloading them, or by some means other than a disc, Whitten said the company had no plans for such a service at this time.

This means also that Xbox 360 titles a user owns on Xbox Live will not be playable on the Xbox One.

"The system is based on a different core architecture, so back-compat doesn't really work from that perspective," Whitten told The Verge.

Xbox One will not be backwards compatible with Xbox 360 games [The Verge]

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.

Steven Spielberg will collaborate with 343 Industries on an exclusive Halo television series to be brought to Xbox One.

Last year, Halo published an acclaimed TV series, "Forward Unto Dawn." Bungie, the series' original creators, have moved on to making another science-fiction game, Destiny, which is confirmed for Xbox One as well as PlayStation 4, and appeared at the latter console's unveiling, but did not appear at today's conference.

It would seem that 343 and Microsoft are going the TV series route, both to give some space between last year's Halo 4 and the series' next release, and perhaps also not to compete directly with Bungie.

To contact the author of this post, write to owen@kotaku.com or find him on Twitter @owengood.