Author: Trafficblast

Super Bowl LV takes place this weekend, with the defending champions Kansas Chief Chiefs taking on Tom Brady and the New England Patriots Tampa Bay Buccaneers for the title.

EA Sports historically simulates the Big Game and releases the results of the match-up, with this year’s simulation picking the Chiefs to win their second straight Super Bowl by taking down the Bucs for the crown by a score of 37-27.

According to the simulation, Patrick Mahomes will lead his team to victory and take home the Super Bowl MVP award for a second straight year, while Brady will put up a good effort in the loss. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but EA’s predictions in the past have been eerily accurate, like in 2015 when the simulation predicted the Patriots’ comeback victory against the Seattle Seahawks–and the final score–along with the exact type of pass play that made it happen. It was spooky. But EA isn’t always that accurate with its predictions.

With the Big Game dominating the sporting world this week, we’re looking back at the past 10 years of EA Sports Madden Super Bowl simulations and predictions. As you’ll see, EA’s track record for predicting the winner has been a mix. In the past 10 years, EA’s simulation has accurately predicted the winner five times and gotten it wrong the other five times.

EA has conducted Super Bowl simulations with Madden since 2004. Sportingnews crunched even more numbers and found that EA has gotten it right 11 times in the past 17 years for a success rate of around 64 percent. Looking at the historical data crunched by the site, EA got off to a hot start by accurately predicting the Super Bowl winners four straight years, from Super Bowl 38 to Super Bowl 41. Since then, however, the simulation never got it right more than two years in a row, but it also never got it wrong for more than two straight years.

What does it all mean? Looking at the past decade-plus, EA has accurately predicted the Super Bowl winner 50% of the time, which is impressive. This Super Bowl will be unlike any other, as Brady and the Bucs become the first team in the history of football to have a home game for the Super Bowl. But unfortunately for them, it may not feel exactly like home field advantage, as the NFL only sold a limited number of seats due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Off the field, it’s shaping up to be a different Super Bowl broadcast as well, with Budweiser, Pepsi, and other huge brands electing to pull out entirely or shift their ad money to their other brands. We’re also not expecting many movie trailers this year, which is uncommon for the big game.

Despite all of that, it’s shaping up to be an exciting game on the field with two high-powered teams competing on the biggest stage for football’s biggest event. Here is a rundown of EA’s Madden Super Bowl simulations over the past years, looking at what was predicted and then what actually happened in real life.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

Gather up TekkenChauncey, RickGamecube, and DigimonOtis, because the greatest Twitter user of all time–Dril–is starting a new project. The master of surrealism is creating a video game, and he is crowdfunding on Patreon to complete the project. We have no idea if the video game will actually be coherent, but it will be Very Online.

Dril, whose semi-anonymous Twitter page uses a very blurry image of Jack Nicholson for his profile picture, posted a description of the game on his Patreon page.

“The game follows the quest of a silent protagonist who stumbles upon the gift of immortality in a dangerous future where Top influencers and corrupt hollywood guys maintain a cruel grip on society,” the announcement said. “The gameplay places a strong emphasis on employing satisfying, responsive aerobatics to traverse a dozen or so worlds and find a sh*t load of treasures and secrets.”

From the video, it looks like a pretty basic 2D platformer, and probably isn’t something that MetalGearEric or DonkeyKongEddie would be interested in playing, but who knows what surprises are in store? Non-player characters in the game include a corncob, which is likely a reference to a viral post (not a tweet, as Dril only posts) from several years ago.

If you don’t “get” Dril, then looking at his page is likely to confuse you to the point of physical damage. If you do get him, however, I am very sorry that you are one of us.

There isn’t a firm release window for the game, though Dril says he has so far done the art and programming alone and plans to finish the project by “the mid-2020s,” but this could be sooner if he could get enough money to pay other developers to help. We’re sure there are several itching for the opportunity.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

GameSpot may get a commission from retail offers.

This week’s episode of WandaVision was by far the creepiest of the series, with no shortage of majorly uncanny moments to show the sitcom structure beginning to fray at the edges. And the artifice of the whole thing isn’t the only thing fraying–Wanda’s mental state does not seem to be improving. And on top of their reality literally starting to feel like a poorly rehearsed play, Wanda and Vision are also struggling to keep up with their new twin sons who are displaying some disconcerting abilities of their own.

Meanwhile, outside the Westview anomaly, SWORD and their contracted experts Jimmy Woo and Darcy Lewis are doing their best to figure out the best way to breach the bubble and rescue the civilians trapped inside–but there are some major differences of opinion among the ranks when the question of how Wanda should be handled comes up.

Oh, and there’s also one of the single biggest twists in MCU history–so if you haven’t watched the episode yet, you might want to do that. Major spoilers below.

1. Another new house

This week, Wanda and Vision’s home is definitely inspired by Full House and any number of other ’80s sitcoms.

2. Auntie Agnes

This could be nothing, but given our on-going “is Agnes actually Agatha Harkness?” hypothesis, Agnes volunteering to behave as the babies’ nanny and saying she’s got some “tricks up her sleeve” seems like something we should take note of.

3. Take it from the top

This episode wastes no time at all in being insanely creepy as Agnes asks to “take it from the top” after Vision fails to stick to the script. It seems that Westview’s reality is breaking down faster than before.

4. Show me that smile again

This week’s theme song borrows heavily from the classic ’80s sitcoms Family Ties and Growing Pains. Interestingly, Growing Pains had a spin-off–Just the 10 of Us, which starred WandaVision director Matt Shakman.

5. Photon origins

In the comics Monica has superpowers of her own, and has even used the Captain Marvel codename. It’s entirely possible that the anomalies we see here with her blood samples and scans are the first clues to her MCU superhero origin, so it would be smart to keep an eye on her moving forward.

6. Never Scarlet Witch

It’s easy to forget that Wanda’s never formally used the Scarlet Witch codename in the MCU–which makes sense because her powers in the movies have never actually had anything to do with magic like they once did in the comics.

7. Wanda’s got Vision’s corpse

So is the Vision within Westview actually Vision or not? We now know she recently stole Vision’s dead body from a lab and has seemingly reanimated it in Westview. But…does that mean he’s alive? Or, at least, whatever Vision’s version of alive is? Given that it was revealed last week Wanda can see him in his dead state, probably not.

8. The Sokovia Accords

Wow, remember Captain America: Civil War? The Sokovia Accords were a direct response to the Avengers at large but, specifically, were kicked into gear when Wanda lost control of her abilities and killed civilians.

9. Vision is playing “Father Knows Best” in Suburbia

The feds throw out a quick joke about how Wanda has Vision playing “Father Knows Best” in suburbia. Father Knows Best is a sitcom that ran for over 200 episodes in the ’50s.

10. Sparky

He may not be green but the Vision family dog from the King and Walta comics has officially made his MCU debut. Unfortunately, he meets a very similar fate. RIP.

11. Wanda’s “hex”

Wanda’s powers in the comics were once very literal hexes–magical abilities she had to train and learn from a magical mentor. The actual “magic” part is left out here but we still get the name, thanks to the hexagonal shape of the Westview bubble.

12. Carol’s powers

Carol and Wanda are the only two Avengers aside from Vision to be directly empowered by Infinity Stones–Carol just also has the benefit of being a Kree-hybrid, which makes her even more powerful.

13. Dial-up internet

The sweet, sweet sound of a dial-up modem made an appearance in this episode, as Vision connected the computers in his office to the internet, just in time to receive an electronic mail.

14. Vision can “save” Westview’s residents

Vision may have lost the Mind Stone when he died, but that apparently isn’t going to stop him from interacting with people’s minds. We see him break through Wanda’s conditioning on Norm, temporarily freeing his repressed personality–which is pretty horrific for Norm but also begs plenty of questions for the nature of Vision’s resurrection.

15. The twins are onto Wanda’s tricks

In addition to being able to age themselves up at will, the twins are also completely aware of Wanda’s powers and apparent control over their reality. Like Vision’s powers, it’s really impossible to tell what this might mean for them going forward–are they just artificial projections of Wanda’s desires? Will they still be around once the Westview “hex” is eventually solved?

16. The old Wanda returns

When Wanda leaves the hex, she’s wearing a costume very similar to what we saw in the most recent Avengers films. What’s more, her accent is back (and possibly thicker than it was in Endgame).

17. Lagos brand paper towels

Lagos brand paper towels, “for when you make a mess you didn’t mean to” is the most direct commercial reference yet to Wanda’s history. In Captain America: Civil War, Wanda accidently blew up a building in Lagos, which in turn led to the Sokovia Accords.

18. “Your mom won’t let him get far”

The mailman gets in on the episode’s creepy undertones as he offers a pointed barb about Sparky to the twins: “your mom won’t let him get far,” much like she won’t let anyone in Westview get out.

19. “We can’t reverse death”

Wanda’s explanation for not resurrecting Sparky seems pretty hypocritical when you consider that reversing Vision’s death is apparently one of the major aims of Westview as a whole.

20. Wait, he’s from the wrong franchise

Did the MCU just incorporate the X-Men movie franchise? Because it sure seems like it with the reappearance of a “recasted” Pietro. That’s Evan Peters appearing as Quicksilver, a character he played in multiple X-Men films.

The following contains major spoilers for WandaVision Episode 5. If you have yet to see the episode, this is your last chance to turn away.

In addition to being the creepiest one yet, this week’s episode of WandaVision had one of the biggest (and most meta) twists in MCU history–the “resurrection” of a long-dead character but with a caveat only a show like WandaVision could actually pull off.

Pietro Maximoff, AKA Quicksilver, is back. But he’s been very literally “recast.” Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Pietro in Avengers: Age of Ultron has been officially replaced in the MCU by Evan Peters, who played Pietro in Fox’s X-Men movie franchise. And to make matters even stranger, people in the universe of the show are aware of the change–the comment about “recasting” the role comes directly from Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) as she observes the show-within-a-show from the SWORD base.

We’ll give you a second to process that. Seriously, just let it sit for a moment.

If you’re left wondering what this could possibly mean for the MCU at large, you’re not alone.

The inclusion of the X-Men within the MCU has been a hotly debated and widely discussed topic since Disney purchased Fox, and the rights to the franchise, back in 2019. Peters’ inclusion in WandaVision is the first official move to bridge the gap between the two universes and undoubtedly paves the way for more potential X-Men and mutant outings in future MCU shows and movies.

However, the fact that this is all taking place within the Westview anomaly also makes it hard to count as a certainty. Wanda’s apparent psychotic break aside, she maintains that bringing Pietro to the house wasn’t something under her control, meaning he was sent in by someone–or something–likely influencing the parts of Westview that aren’t under Wanda’s immediate power. Which, of course, begs the question of whether or not Pietro is even real at all or will have the ability to leave the “hex” (as Darcy has dubbed the Westview bubble).

On top of that, there’s also the outsiders’ awareness of Pietro’s change. The MCU has recast roles before–Rhodey was played by Terrance Howard in the first Iron Man movie, and then Don Cheadle in every subsequent MCU movie–but the change was done from the outside and didn’t actually affect the in-universe characters at all. If Pietro is indeed an actual person and not some fabrication, it’s likely that this is our first actual glimpse of the MCU’s multiverse in action, bringing the Pietro of the Fox X-Men Earth over to the MCU Earth.