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Madden
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Mar. 27th, 2006 | 08:28 pm
Madden. The single most recognizable name in video games. The face of football gameplay. If you’re a guy with a pulse, you’ve probably played. If not, then you probably still know who John Madden is.
This is a man that whose winning percentage as a coach (.759) is the highest in football history among coaches with at least 100 career victories. A man who’s got a shiny ring on his finger from being the victor of Super Bowl XI. A man who is synonymous with NFL broadcasting, as him and Al Michaels revolutionized the way the NFL is announced through Monday Night Football. A man whose contributions to the NFL allowed him to be one of 6 men inducted as the 2006 class into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. All this, and still he is known mostly for the video game tied to his name.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/s
Len Pasquarelli wrote a great article on John Madden in February, one that (albeit, briefly) takes you into the Hall of Fame voters discussion on Madden's Canton credentials, and the impact the video game series has had on our generation. Take a look. For all of John Madden’s accomplishments, it pales in comparison to how great his game is.
Now let's get into the game itself. Madden 06, imo, is the most complete and well-thought-out video game I have ever seen. It immerses you in football culture in a way that other games don't dream of. Exhibition games. Franchise mode. Mini-camp. Rushing attack. Completely adjustable user settings, down to the audibles called from each button. This game's got everything. How can this damn thing get any better? Me and my buddies ask ourselves that every year, and every year one of us puts up the 60 bucks to buy the game, and we are simply dumbfounded with the advances the game makes.
Madden is taking the most knowledgeable football fan, the most devout video gamer, and marrying the two. The best video game franchise of all time? The amount that you can do with this game is truly remarkable. What me and the guys have picked up recently is franchise mode. The premise, fantasy draft our favorite players. Then, each of us chooses a single defensive player to control for the whole season. Every play. Every game. Offense is interchangeable, but the key is defense. Every tackle, every interception, every move is user-controlled. This makes it extremely competitive between each other, even though we are all on the same team. Every defensive down is a chance to accumulate stats, and bragging rights are on the line. Last season, our 4 players were Ed Reed (Gary), Jonathon Vilma (Keith), Sean Taylor (Jimmy), and Champ Bailey (myself). I wanted to try user-controlling a cornerback for a full season, as we all talk about how cornerback has to be the least glorifying, hardest position to play in the NFL. Ed Reed ended up winning Defensive MVP, with Vilma and Bailey in the top 5 as well.
Before I go on, let me make this clear: INTs are where it’s at. Sure, tackles are nice. Pass deflections are ok. A sack here or there can be done. But nothing is more thrilling than reading a quarterbacks eyes (or in Madden’s case, QB vision), playing it perfectly, and ending up with a user pick. The single most exciting, game-changing user-controlled play. As the season went on, it became clear that everyone wanted picks. Even Vilma, our middle linebacker, played pass coverage 90% of the time. Ed Reed did his thing, breaking the record for interceptions in a game (later tied by Vilma, at 4), and ended up with 22 on the year to break the record for most picks in a season. Vilma ended up with 11 picks. Taylor didn’t rack up the picks, but a user pick by Jimmy at the end of the season proved to be promising. Playing user cornerback proved to be especially trying. Half the plays, you don’t even see your guy on the field as the Madden view only looks at so much (guess they weren’t banking on too many guys user-controlling CBs). And as Champ Bailey, I routinely had to play man to man with the opponent’s top receiver, with little or no help from Ed Reed, who cared more about stuffing his own stat line than helping the monkey trying to run around chasing wide-outs (me). The season started out slow, with me getting BURNED a couple of times pretty bad, but I picked it up as I got the hang of it. My first pick, I returned for a short touchdown. Probably orgasmed as I did it, too. By week 8, when the Pro Bowl results came out, Reed, Bailey, and Vilma made the Pro Bowl, joined by some scrub (Garrett) and our #2 cornerback, Nate Clements. I ended up with 12 picks, second in the league to Ed Reed. Sadly, our season ended after our last regular season game, as the file got corrupted, and we couldn’t play in the playoffs. For this upcoming season, I decided to chronicle the events and the competition. Presenting to you the new-look Miami Dolphins:
Brian Dawkins. He’s going to be the truth. I have upheld all along that safety is easier to user-control than cornerback. Now I get to see for myself. I claimed Dawkins as the Free Safety, Jimmy chose to play the Strong Safety spot with hard-hitting Roy Williams, Keith decided to stay with his success as linebacker and took Derrick Brooks, and Gary took up the cornerback challenge, as we traded for Patrick Surtain. With a full season of us all playing in the secondary under our belt, the pressure is on, and there are no excuses.
The rules: offense consists of the “The Play” and "The Play" only. Simply put, we line up the 2 fastest receivers we have, user control them to run full-speed, and throw them hail-mary’s. Every play. This either leads to quick touchdowns or quick punts, most likely being the former. The key is to play as much defense as possible, and the less time our offense is on the field, the more time we can pad our stats on D. To put it in perspective, our main wideout, speedy Laveranues Coles, won the MVP award with 5,000 yards. That’s why I can’t really torch Jimmy for not playing well on our secondary last year. When your steady QB throws for 8,000 yards and 90 touchdowns, on All-Madden all season, we can cut him a little slack. We did win 12 games, with the other 3 guys rotating turns as wideouts. Needless to say, the tight end and running back are altogether ignored. This season, our “The Play” participants are Ben Roethlisberger, Marvin Harrison, and Az-Zahir Hakim.
We played one game last night. Exciting stuff. Dawkins and Williams ended up with 5 tackles apiece, 2nd on the team. Renaldo Hill (who?) led our team with 6 tackles. Roy Williams had 2 tackles for a loss to lead the team, and Dawkins and Surtain both had 2 pass deflections, tops on the team. Brooks had a middle-of-the-field interception, and Surtain caught a pick bouncing off 2 players. Surtain’s guy, Amani Toomer, lit him up for 222 yards, 3 TD’s and countless highlight-reel catches. Told em' it wasn't easy being corner. We won 63-38. By the way, I predict Marvin Harrison for MVP right now. Me, I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t get a pick. Definitely not on pace for 22, but hopefully I’ll come around as the season progresses. After the game, Keith decides that middle linebacker is a lot sexier than outside linebacker, and trades Derrick Brooks and Kendrell Bell for Al Wilson. Back to 0 picks for him on the season. Ouch.
I’ll hit this back up at Week 8, when the Pro Bowl results are being announced, and then at Week 17, when the MVP and Defensive MVP awards are revealed. Hopefully the next time you read on, Dawkins is going to be in both of those discussions.
This is a man that whose winning percentage as a coach (.759) is the highest in football history among coaches with at least 100 career victories. A man who’s got a shiny ring on his finger from being the victor of Super Bowl XI. A man who is synonymous with NFL broadcasting, as him and Al Michaels revolutionized the way the NFL is announced through Monday Night Football. A man whose contributions to the NFL allowed him to be one of 6 men inducted as the 2006 class into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. All this, and still he is known mostly for the video game tied to his name.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/s
Len Pasquarelli wrote a great article on John Madden in February, one that (albeit, briefly) takes you into the Hall of Fame voters discussion on Madden's Canton credentials, and the impact the video game series has had on our generation. Take a look. For all of John Madden’s accomplishments, it pales in comparison to how great his game is.
Now let's get into the game itself. Madden 06, imo, is the most complete and well-thought-out video game I have ever seen. It immerses you in football culture in a way that other games don't dream of. Exhibition games. Franchise mode. Mini-camp. Rushing attack. Completely adjustable user settings, down to the audibles called from each button. This game's got everything. How can this damn thing get any better? Me and my buddies ask ourselves that every year, and every year one of us puts up the 60 bucks to buy the game, and we are simply dumbfounded with the advances the game makes.
Madden is taking the most knowledgeable football fan, the most devout video gamer, and marrying the two. The best video game franchise of all time? The amount that you can do with this game is truly remarkable. What me and the guys have picked up recently is franchise mode. The premise, fantasy draft our favorite players. Then, each of us chooses a single defensive player to control for the whole season. Every play. Every game. Offense is interchangeable, but the key is defense. Every tackle, every interception, every move is user-controlled. This makes it extremely competitive between each other, even though we are all on the same team. Every defensive down is a chance to accumulate stats, and bragging rights are on the line. Last season, our 4 players were Ed Reed (Gary), Jonathon Vilma (Keith), Sean Taylor (Jimmy), and Champ Bailey (myself). I wanted to try user-controlling a cornerback for a full season, as we all talk about how cornerback has to be the least glorifying, hardest position to play in the NFL. Ed Reed ended up winning Defensive MVP, with Vilma and Bailey in the top 5 as well.
Before I go on, let me make this clear: INTs are where it’s at. Sure, tackles are nice. Pass deflections are ok. A sack here or there can be done. But nothing is more thrilling than reading a quarterbacks eyes (or in Madden’s case, QB vision), playing it perfectly, and ending up with a user pick. The single most exciting, game-changing user-controlled play. As the season went on, it became clear that everyone wanted picks. Even Vilma, our middle linebacker, played pass coverage 90% of the time. Ed Reed did his thing, breaking the record for interceptions in a game (later tied by Vilma, at 4), and ended up with 22 on the year to break the record for most picks in a season. Vilma ended up with 11 picks. Taylor didn’t rack up the picks, but a user pick by Jimmy at the end of the season proved to be promising. Playing user cornerback proved to be especially trying. Half the plays, you don’t even see your guy on the field as the Madden view only looks at so much (guess they weren’t banking on too many guys user-controlling CBs). And as Champ Bailey, I routinely had to play man to man with the opponent’s top receiver, with little or no help from Ed Reed, who cared more about stuffing his own stat line than helping the monkey trying to run around chasing wide-outs (me). The season started out slow, with me getting BURNED a couple of times pretty bad, but I picked it up as I got the hang of it. My first pick, I returned for a short touchdown. Probably orgasmed as I did it, too. By week 8, when the Pro Bowl results came out, Reed, Bailey, and Vilma made the Pro Bowl, joined by some scrub (Garrett) and our #2 cornerback, Nate Clements. I ended up with 12 picks, second in the league to Ed Reed. Sadly, our season ended after our last regular season game, as the file got corrupted, and we couldn’t play in the playoffs. For this upcoming season, I decided to chronicle the events and the competition. Presenting to you the new-look Miami Dolphins:
Brian Dawkins. He’s going to be the truth. I have upheld all along that safety is easier to user-control than cornerback. Now I get to see for myself. I claimed Dawkins as the Free Safety, Jimmy chose to play the Strong Safety spot with hard-hitting Roy Williams, Keith decided to stay with his success as linebacker and took Derrick Brooks, and Gary took up the cornerback challenge, as we traded for Patrick Surtain. With a full season of us all playing in the secondary under our belt, the pressure is on, and there are no excuses.
The rules: offense consists of the “The Play” and "The Play" only. Simply put, we line up the 2 fastest receivers we have, user control them to run full-speed, and throw them hail-mary’s. Every play. This either leads to quick touchdowns or quick punts, most likely being the former. The key is to play as much defense as possible, and the less time our offense is on the field, the more time we can pad our stats on D. To put it in perspective, our main wideout, speedy Laveranues Coles, won the MVP award with 5,000 yards. That’s why I can’t really torch Jimmy for not playing well on our secondary last year. When your steady QB throws for 8,000 yards and 90 touchdowns, on All-Madden all season, we can cut him a little slack. We did win 12 games, with the other 3 guys rotating turns as wideouts. Needless to say, the tight end and running back are altogether ignored. This season, our “The Play” participants are Ben Roethlisberger, Marvin Harrison, and Az-Zahir Hakim.
We played one game last night. Exciting stuff. Dawkins and Williams ended up with 5 tackles apiece, 2nd on the team. Renaldo Hill (who?) led our team with 6 tackles. Roy Williams had 2 tackles for a loss to lead the team, and Dawkins and Surtain both had 2 pass deflections, tops on the team. Brooks had a middle-of-the-field interception, and Surtain caught a pick bouncing off 2 players. Surtain’s guy, Amani Toomer, lit him up for 222 yards, 3 TD’s and countless highlight-reel catches. Told em' it wasn't easy being corner. We won 63-38. By the way, I predict Marvin Harrison for MVP right now. Me, I’m a little disappointed I couldn’t get a pick. Definitely not on pace for 22, but hopefully I’ll come around as the season progresses. After the game, Keith decides that middle linebacker is a lot sexier than outside linebacker, and trades Derrick Brooks and Kendrell Bell for Al Wilson. Back to 0 picks for him on the season. Ouch.
I’ll hit this back up at Week 8, when the Pro Bowl results are being announced, and then at Week 17, when the MVP and Defensive MVP awards are revealed. Hopefully the next time you read on, Dawkins is going to be in both of those discussions.
