A Kick in the Balls: Fifa Soccer 08 (Wii) Review Turns into a Rant
Posted on
Monday, October 15, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Fifa Soccer 07 for the X-Box, while flawed, was the game I played the most over the last year. The game was not perfect, nor was it a completely realistic simulation of football, and yet its outstanding action play, its deep managerial simulation and plethora of club and international teams and leagues was overwhelming. Most sports video games wear out their welcome by the second or third month of play, often before I've even finished an entire season, but not Fifa 07. When my X-Box finally died, I spent a few weeks missing the game, and eventually ended up purchasing a copy of the Gamecube version to play on my Wii to tide me over until the 08 version showed up for the Wii. It was with a great deal of breathless anticipation that I looked forward to seeing an updated, motion-controlled version of one of my favorite sports video games of all time. In the weeks before its release, however, I began to get worried. My fears were justified. EA Sports has kicked me in the balls.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
My first pangs of worry came from the release of Madden NFL 08 for the Wii. My review was not as harsh as it should have been. Madden's flaws were evident when writing the review, but the flaws became so much more obvious and galling after I wrote the review. It was the kind of piss-poor execution of an existing franchise that familiarity bred the ultimate contempt. I would actually downgrade my assessment of the game to the point that I would consider it unworthy of a purchase. It is incredibly buggy, its online play is atrocious, its controls less precise than the previous year's version, which is ridiculous considering the 07 version was a Wii launch title. The game might at first appear to be worth a 7 out of 10, but eventually it wears one's patience down to a 5. The lack of any patching options on the Wii, as well as EA Sports' decision to ignore the Wii audience's demands for a roster update leads me to label Madden as shovelware.
But Fifa Soccer 08 for the Wii is worse. Initial reports suggested that many of the game modes available in other versions of the game would not make it to the Wii, including my personal robot jesus mode, Manager mode. While this worried me, I was determined to purchase the game. It still had season and tournament modes, I would tell myself, so perhaps those modes would be acceptable. They weren't. The extra play modes for the Wii version are so thin, the game feels like it was released in 2003. While all the teams and leagues make it on the disc, they are mostly just window dressing without the manager mode. It might have been acceptable in the '90's to play a season without any way to transfer players between teams, but in 2007, that's a feature that cannot be dropped. And what was it dropped for? Footi Party, a series of three shallow multiplayer mini-games hosted by a horse-toothed Mii version of Ronaldhino. While I applaud the addition of these type of party games, they are in no way deep enough to warrant a purchase by casual players who weren't already interested in a new Fifa game. The Table Football (Foosball) is a fun diversion, while the other games are somewhat weak, and none make up for the loss of manager mode.
But how does the real game, the game on the field play out? It drowns in mediocrity. While the graphics are updated from the GameCube version (though not as realistic as the X-Box version) with appropriate shininess, the controls are weak. Player movement feels entirely too sloppy, especially on defense. The AI on Semi-Pro difficulty was rarely a challenge. The most important aspect of gameplay, the motion controls, were spotty and imprecise. Although one can use a Wiimote waggle to pass, it isn't necessary and thus feels tacked on. Crossing and shooting was a mixed bag of up or down Wiimote thrusts. It appeared that instead of the granularity of normal power bars, motion controls only offered four different strengths of shot or cross. Tricks are accomplished with button presses and waggles, but the motions were sloppily implemented and difficult to choose. While the gameplay wasn't bad, it wasn't great either. The motion controls were useless tack-ons, imparting no immersion whatsoever. Like all too many shovelware games from the big publishers for the Wii, the waggle seemed to be used for no other reason than to tout waggle.
This is the thing that gets me most ranty. Not only is the game lacking in critical features, not only is the motion control poorly implemented, but the developers couldn't even get the basics down. The menus are incredibly laggy, especially in the roster view. Each player's stamina, which must be viewed during a game to help determine substitutions, is only shown by selecting the player, which is in itself a slow, tedious task because the screen hitches for a second before updating with the selected player. In other versions, the stamina is shown in the roster list. Perhaps the developers felt that Wii players wouldn't substitute, but even in season management menus, game mode menus, really every menu in the game is a laggy mess. If one were to wear a tinfoil hat, one would think EA Sports WANTS the Wii to fail to sell games. Given EA Sports' obvious choice of the 360 as its promotional tool, that idea is not too far-fetched.
This game is a failure in every sense of the word. It is a gimped, shovelware version of a fantastic franchise and the developers should be ashamed of how little effort is exhibited. The game's very design is fundamentally flawed. I've been a champion of the Wii's ability to draw in non-gamers and casual gamers with its intuitive motion controls. Adding casual games such as the Footi Party to Fifa 08 is a good idea, unless of course, it means removing features that fans of the series have come to expect. Fifa 08 is not a new game, it's an upgrade to an existing popular franchise, and as such, the developers have an obligation to target the design for the franchise's past audience first. Not only have they not done that, they've designed the game so badly, even casual players will have no reason to pick the game up. The addition of waggles controls without any real good reason to add them further compounds the problem. And finally, the game doesn't even allow the player to set up their own control scheme, which means the customer can't customise their experience to their own level of comfort. Rather than make the game more accessible to those outside the core audience, they've made it less accessible to those customers most likely to purchase the game in the first place.
Someone in the Wii division of EA Games needs to de-assify their head. Adding casual gamers to the development target audience does not mean purposefully forgetting everything that made their games successful in the first place. It means expanding the genres for development, and expanding the intuitive nature of the game's controls. I hope that someone in managment reads this review and dickslaps every person involved in the development of the EA Sports games for the Wii, because I'm not sure anything but genitalia across the chops is going to sink in.
The final indignity is my own reaction to the failure of this game. Like a true addict, instead of putting the game away and never speaking of it again, I traded it and Madden in for credit, which allowed me to buy a PS2 and the PS2 version of Fifa 08. Yes, I am a complete fucking tool, but I must have my Fifa. And now EA and Sony both win, despite doing nothing to deserve it. But at least the PS2 version has manager mode and plays well. I think I'll need to watch an Uwe Boll movie. I've already taken two kicks to the balls, I might as well complete the trifecta.
Labels: Football, Nintendo, Soccer, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:41 AM
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Tackling the Inevitable: Madden NFL 08 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Thursday, September 13, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Unless you've been under a rock for the last two decades, you should know exactly what you are going to get when you purchase the current year's iteration of the Madden NFL series. In year's past, this has meant the addition of one or two highly touted (and quickly forgotten) new features, a barely current roster update and perhaps a graphical tweak or two. The only real surprises in the series come with the shift from past-gen consoles to the next-gen. Those first versions often come with a plethora of bugs or missing features as EA's development teams get up to speed on their new console. Madden NFL 08 for the Wii, featuring the surely-doomed Vince Young as the cover athlete, is the inevitable result of the typical Madden development cycle, but with a new set of unexpected problems.
To discuss the actual game seems almost a waste of words. If you like football, particularly NFL-branded football with licensed teams and real-life player names and ratings, you have no choice in video games other than the Madden series. This is the disappointing, yet inevitable result of the oft-cursed exclusive contract EA won from the NFL in 2004. As little as the Madden series iterated when they had competition, they have made any fewer attempts to innovate since. The actual gameplay would be hard to distinguish from the 07 Wii version, other than the mapping of buttons is different for what seems arbitrary reasons at best. Most of the playbooks are the same, the on-field graphics received no significant upgrade, the commentary is little changed, and the AI works with a clone-like similarity to 07. Yes, if you pay $50 for this gem, you are buying 07 again.
It won't feel the same at first, since as I mentioned, the buttons all do different things. The difference in key mapping makes some things easier but for the most part only requires gaining familiarity before becoming second nature. Things like choosing your defensive players, making defensive position shifts and defensive audibles are easier, but audibles for the offense are harder to execute, relying on nunchuk waggles for no good reason. Even with the changes, it feels no different than the 07 version. This is only a bad thing because one has to pay $50 for essentially a roster update, but those who have purchased Madden more than once are well aware of this, their financial scars already having scabbed over to the point of numbness.
What makes Madden NFL 08 for the Wii different is the piss poor execution of things that should be child's play for the Madden team. With so many iterations of the same game engine under their belt, features like quick-loading menus and online play should be refined diamonds, features so polished they burn the retinas. After all, navigating a menu should be the most basic of functions for a programmer, especially when the options on the menus haven't changed since 2003. But the menus in Madden NFL 08 are sluggish. Online play, while new to the Wii version, has been in Madden since the 2003 version on the PS2. And yet, the Wii's online play is in one word, awful.
Fucking awful. I played one game online, and have not gone back since. The game was laggy, like swimming through molasses. Worse yet, I couldn't tell if my opponent was a complete fucking idiot, or if the game was bugged. Multiple times before the snap, my opponent would just wander across the line of scrimmage into an offsides penalty for no reason. At least twice, the opponent just seemed to be meandering in my backfield. The game never even made it to a conclusion, as the opponent was disconnected. I assume he was disconnected by the service, since he was winning at the time. Again, the Madden series has been online since 2003. While yes, there are differences between console hardware, the science of moving discrete packets of bits from two client machines to one server and back isn't new, nor is the problem of latency. I do not expect a perfect online experience, but I certainly expect something better than this no matter what restrictions Nintendo places on online play. And despite there being two roster updates for the PS3 and 360, there have been no offline roster updates for the Wii. These things are Sports Games 101 type of mistakes, and EA has no excuse for them considering the monumental success every version of Madden achieves. They have the money to do all these things right, so one can only assume they choose not to.
With all that said, the game is still fun. If you are the type to buy a new version of Madden and enjoy the Madden style of football, you'll enjoy this version as much as last year. But if the idea of buying a bug-ridden version of last year's game with new rosters offends you, stay far away from this game. Perhaps the addition of Peter Moore to EASports' hierarchy will improve next year's version, but that would be a minor miracle. The game gets an inevitable 7 out of 10 overall score, the kind of game only past Madden owners should consider purchasing.
To discuss the actual game seems almost a waste of words. If you like football, particularly NFL-branded football with licensed teams and real-life player names and ratings, you have no choice in video games other than the Madden series. This is the disappointing, yet inevitable result of the oft-cursed exclusive contract EA won from the NFL in 2004. As little as the Madden series iterated when they had competition, they have made any fewer attempts to innovate since. The actual gameplay would be hard to distinguish from the 07 Wii version, other than the mapping of buttons is different for what seems arbitrary reasons at best. Most of the playbooks are the same, the on-field graphics received no significant upgrade, the commentary is little changed, and the AI works with a clone-like similarity to 07. Yes, if you pay $50 for this gem, you are buying 07 again.
It won't feel the same at first, since as I mentioned, the buttons all do different things. The difference in key mapping makes some things easier but for the most part only requires gaining familiarity before becoming second nature. Things like choosing your defensive players, making defensive position shifts and defensive audibles are easier, but audibles for the offense are harder to execute, relying on nunchuk waggles for no good reason. Even with the changes, it feels no different than the 07 version. This is only a bad thing because one has to pay $50 for essentially a roster update, but those who have purchased Madden more than once are well aware of this, their financial scars already having scabbed over to the point of numbness.
What makes Madden NFL 08 for the Wii different is the piss poor execution of things that should be child's play for the Madden team. With so many iterations of the same game engine under their belt, features like quick-loading menus and online play should be refined diamonds, features so polished they burn the retinas. After all, navigating a menu should be the most basic of functions for a programmer, especially when the options on the menus haven't changed since 2003. But the menus in Madden NFL 08 are sluggish. Online play, while new to the Wii version, has been in Madden since the 2003 version on the PS2. And yet, the Wii's online play is in one word, awful.
Fucking awful. I played one game online, and have not gone back since. The game was laggy, like swimming through molasses. Worse yet, I couldn't tell if my opponent was a complete fucking idiot, or if the game was bugged. Multiple times before the snap, my opponent would just wander across the line of scrimmage into an offsides penalty for no reason. At least twice, the opponent just seemed to be meandering in my backfield. The game never even made it to a conclusion, as the opponent was disconnected. I assume he was disconnected by the service, since he was winning at the time. Again, the Madden series has been online since 2003. While yes, there are differences between console hardware, the science of moving discrete packets of bits from two client machines to one server and back isn't new, nor is the problem of latency. I do not expect a perfect online experience, but I certainly expect something better than this no matter what restrictions Nintendo places on online play. And despite there being two roster updates for the PS3 and 360, there have been no offline roster updates for the Wii. These things are Sports Games 101 type of mistakes, and EA has no excuse for them considering the monumental success every version of Madden achieves. They have the money to do all these things right, so one can only assume they choose not to.
With all that said, the game is still fun. If you are the type to buy a new version of Madden and enjoy the Madden style of football, you'll enjoy this version as much as last year. But if the idea of buying a bug-ridden version of last year's game with new rosters offends you, stay far away from this game. Perhaps the addition of Peter Moore to EASports' hierarchy will improve next year's version, but that would be a minor miracle. The game gets an inevitable 7 out of 10 overall score, the kind of game only past Madden owners should consider purchasing.
Labels: Football, Madden, NFL, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:49 AM
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If You Ask Me, Vol. 1: NFL Edition
Posted on
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
This article marks the start of what I hope to be a regular feature here on the Game of Angst, called If You Ask Me. Its title comes from something my mother always used to say about just about anything. "If you ask me," she'd begin, before going off on some diatribe about how whoever was doing whatever wrong. Whether it was the placement of a pond in someone's front yard, the arrangement of colors on some stranger's house or the way I lived my life, my mother has always had an opinion and no reluctance to share said opinion whether others want to hear it or not. I have inherited this genetic defect, this inability to just keep my yap shut about things that I have precious little to do with. As such, a blog is the perfect spot from which to unload my almost informed opinions about anything. With that in mind, I bring you the first ever installment of If You Ask Me®, the NFL edition.
I'm an American football fan with a Tivo. For the last two seasons, I've Tivoed at least 2 NFL games each Sunday if not 3 or 4 as well as the Monday Night games, any good Saturday or Thursday games, and every game of the playoffs. As such, I'm fairly well-versed with the game as it is presented on television and have strong opinions about the game. If you ask me, the game is great, but needs some changes to take it to another level.
If You Ask Me #1: Penalties on Kickoffs and Punts
The kicking game of any team, as important as it is, is one boring piece of work. Out of every game I watch over the course of a season, I'd say maybe 5 or 6 kickoffs and punts combined are worth watching. The rest are fast-forward fodder. I don't want to see them, because they are boring as dirt. They net few extra yards, and outside of a muffed catch or a spectacular hit, nothing interesting happens. They tend to interrupt the flow of the game a great deal but I can accept that.
But what really kills the flow of the game is when one of these somnambulistic ballets gets called back on a penalty. And the penalty most often used to interrupt and irritate me is the illegal block in the back penalty. When I played football in junior high, the only penalty ever called on a punt return or kickoff was holding or clipping. Clipping was a man's penalty. Clipping was the act of blocking someone below the belt when their back was turned and by God it was a serious penalty, netting 15 yards. It needed to be serious, because that kind of block could end someone's career.
The illegal block in the back, however, is a penalty for pansies. It's a 10-yard penalty for merely touching a player in the back, above or below the waist. Now, I'm sure it's meant to be for actually blocking a player hard in the back where the blocked player is supposed to be defenseless and unable to brace for the impact. But I have literally seen the penalty be given for putting your hands on a guy's jersey when their back is to you. And unlike clipping, it isn't given at most once a game, it's given on almost every single goddamn punt in the game. It's given so much the refs should just tack on an extra 10-yards to every single goddamn punt on general principle.
If you ask me, that rule needs to get tossed on its ear, or it needs to be called only when the block could be considered dangerous. These are guys wearing modern, cutting-edge armor, they can take a swipe at the back of their jersey.
If You Ask Me #2: Commercial Timeouts
Now, I realize the networks who broadcast the NFL games want to get paid. It's an expensive proposition to take a traveling road show of camera man, producers, broadcasters and stats guys to 32 different cities each week. John Madden's trailer alone must cost them millions in refrigerator restocks. I want the networks to make their investment back and a little profit besides, because they entertain me for months.
But can we all agree that there are too many commercials breaking up the flow of the game? Do we really need to enter a commercial break both before a kickoff AND after? Did I not just see that annoying fucker say "Can you hear me now?" 30 seconds ago, you have to show him to me again? The Geico cavemen are not THAT funny. I understand it takes a little time to move the offense onto the field after a change in possession, but not two minutes of commercial time. If you ask me, there needs to be one commercial break after changes in possession and that's it.
And what's more, we really do not need The VISA HALFTIME SHOW. It's just the goddamn halftime show. I don't care who paid for it. If the NFL must make that much money on commercial endorsements, just do it like the English football clubs do. Make the uniforms one big fucking billboard for the team's sponsor, plaster a metric fuckton of corporate logos all over every empty surface in the stadiums and get on with your lives. The Green Bay Packers brought to you with a gigantic Johnsonville Brats logo on their chests bothers me much less than the Michelin Scoreboard.
If You Ask Me #3: Halftime Shows for Speed Freaks
As a kid watching football, I loved the halftime studio shows. They were informative, updating all the scores around the league, dousing me with highlights and maybe the studio talking heads would wax poetic about some of the action for thirty seconds before sending the feed back out to the games. Somewhere, that all changed. Somehow, the halftime show became a blipvert for speed freaks, the barely-slowed down dolphin speech of functional illiterates trying to cram as much actual information into the space of thirty seconds, before assaulting me with 8 minutes of commercials. Didn't I just talk about too many commercials in the above paragraphs? It's back.
I want highlights, people, not seizure-inducing images flashed in a meth-fueled slideshow with a voiceover by hyped-up gorilla unable to keep up with the feed. Whether it's Terry Bradshaw or Shannon Sharpe, these guys' mouths are not physically able to keep up with all the action being shown and yet they try to stumble through. Hearing Bradshaw choke on T.J. Houshmandzadeh's name before the video switches to the next game is painful. It's just impossible to mouth the syllables before two other games have flashed by. What's worse is how hard it makes to follow the other games while watching, almost forcing one to the Internet for real information. Yet somehow, the studios have enough time for commercials, as well as 2 or 3 minutes of the studio talking heads to smack-talk each other in some dick-waving contest that offers no real insight into the strategies the teams are using.
If you ask me, the networks should either just play highlights and scores with no voiceovers, or just play commercials and let me fast-forward them. I've better things to do with my time, like artificially inseminating beavers.
If You Ask Me #4: Graphics for the Blind
Every network clothes their broadcasts in different graphic treatments, showing off the scoreboard, clock, down indicator and some stats with varying degrees of usefulness. But somewhere along the way, those graphics got way out of hand. Not only do some of the networks use graphics with horribly ugly, unreadable fonts (Fox), most of them take up so much screen real estate they turn a 27" inch TV into a 14" squintbox. And what do they do with all that screen real estate besides piss me off?
Nothing. FoxSports, the NFL Network and NBC's Monday Night Football broadcasts all use horizontal bars at the top or bottom of the screen, covering the entire width of the display. Even when parts of the display have no information whatsoever, they still sit there, obscuring my view of the field. And these areas are empty a good deal of the time. ESPN's display is better, but still entirely too large for what it displays. Of all the networks, only CBS does an admirable job with their graphics. The fonts are crisp, clean and readable even on non-HD displays, the scoreboard is minimal with no honking big team logos taking up unneeded space. Between plays, they flash fantasy stats on the player who was just involved in the last play. Their ticker for other games in progress does take up the entire width of the bottom of the screen, but is tinier than the bars on Fox, NFL or NBC.
If you ask me, the graphics teams for these networks need to be sent back to school. All they do is piss me off.
If You Ask Me #5: Celebrities, Personalities and the Jackass Factor
I'm looking at you, ESPN's Monday Night Football. Is there really any good goddamn reason Sly Stallone was sitting in the booth hawking his new movie during an Eagles game? Did I really need to hear him being interviewed by Theismann and Kornhole? This is a fucking football game, not a trip through the stands at a Lakers game by Pat Fucking O'Brien. I tuned in to see a good football game and you give me Entertainment Tonight as hosted by Brickhead and the Twat. Stop it.
As for the broadcasters, Mike Tirico does a game job of the booth duties on the game, but if it were me, I'd be ready to go postal on the rest of the booth by the mid-point of the season. Joe Theismann was a good quarterback, but he's abrasive as an announcer and always has been. But at least he knows football. Tony Kornheiser, on the other hand, cannot possibly have as much football knowledge. If Theismann is abrasive, Kornhole is steel wool on genitals irritating. He comes off as arrogant and combative. There are times when I expect Theismann to stand up, pull off his dangling broken leg off of his body and beat Kornhole to death with it. I know I'd watch that. Theismann has always had a somewhat contentious tone with other members of the booth team, but he and Kornheiser seem to clash like Thunder and Lightning. It makes me want to watch the game on mute.
If you ask me, the ESPN crew needs to focus less on the showbiz and more on the football. I'm sure the ratings were good for them this year, but the show needs help to be a must-watch again. As it is, I can stomach Madden-Michaels more and Madden has really started to irritate me over the years. Bring back Pat Summerall, bitches!
Life would be a whole lot brighter if these people would just ask me.
I'm an American football fan with a Tivo. For the last two seasons, I've Tivoed at least 2 NFL games each Sunday if not 3 or 4 as well as the Monday Night games, any good Saturday or Thursday games, and every game of the playoffs. As such, I'm fairly well-versed with the game as it is presented on television and have strong opinions about the game. If you ask me, the game is great, but needs some changes to take it to another level.
If You Ask Me #1: Penalties on Kickoffs and Punts
The kicking game of any team, as important as it is, is one boring piece of work. Out of every game I watch over the course of a season, I'd say maybe 5 or 6 kickoffs and punts combined are worth watching. The rest are fast-forward fodder. I don't want to see them, because they are boring as dirt. They net few extra yards, and outside of a muffed catch or a spectacular hit, nothing interesting happens. They tend to interrupt the flow of the game a great deal but I can accept that.
But what really kills the flow of the game is when one of these somnambulistic ballets gets called back on a penalty. And the penalty most often used to interrupt and irritate me is the illegal block in the back penalty. When I played football in junior high, the only penalty ever called on a punt return or kickoff was holding or clipping. Clipping was a man's penalty. Clipping was the act of blocking someone below the belt when their back was turned and by God it was a serious penalty, netting 15 yards. It needed to be serious, because that kind of block could end someone's career.
The illegal block in the back, however, is a penalty for pansies. It's a 10-yard penalty for merely touching a player in the back, above or below the waist. Now, I'm sure it's meant to be for actually blocking a player hard in the back where the blocked player is supposed to be defenseless and unable to brace for the impact. But I have literally seen the penalty be given for putting your hands on a guy's jersey when their back is to you. And unlike clipping, it isn't given at most once a game, it's given on almost every single goddamn punt in the game. It's given so much the refs should just tack on an extra 10-yards to every single goddamn punt on general principle.
If you ask me, that rule needs to get tossed on its ear, or it needs to be called only when the block could be considered dangerous. These are guys wearing modern, cutting-edge armor, they can take a swipe at the back of their jersey.
If You Ask Me #2: Commercial Timeouts
Now, I realize the networks who broadcast the NFL games want to get paid. It's an expensive proposition to take a traveling road show of camera man, producers, broadcasters and stats guys to 32 different cities each week. John Madden's trailer alone must cost them millions in refrigerator restocks. I want the networks to make their investment back and a little profit besides, because they entertain me for months.
But can we all agree that there are too many commercials breaking up the flow of the game? Do we really need to enter a commercial break both before a kickoff AND after? Did I not just see that annoying fucker say "Can you hear me now?" 30 seconds ago, you have to show him to me again? The Geico cavemen are not THAT funny. I understand it takes a little time to move the offense onto the field after a change in possession, but not two minutes of commercial time. If you ask me, there needs to be one commercial break after changes in possession and that's it.
And what's more, we really do not need The VISA HALFTIME SHOW. It's just the goddamn halftime show. I don't care who paid for it. If the NFL must make that much money on commercial endorsements, just do it like the English football clubs do. Make the uniforms one big fucking billboard for the team's sponsor, plaster a metric fuckton of corporate logos all over every empty surface in the stadiums and get on with your lives. The Green Bay Packers brought to you with a gigantic Johnsonville Brats logo on their chests bothers me much less than the Michelin Scoreboard.
If You Ask Me #3: Halftime Shows for Speed Freaks
As a kid watching football, I loved the halftime studio shows. They were informative, updating all the scores around the league, dousing me with highlights and maybe the studio talking heads would wax poetic about some of the action for thirty seconds before sending the feed back out to the games. Somewhere, that all changed. Somehow, the halftime show became a blipvert for speed freaks, the barely-slowed down dolphin speech of functional illiterates trying to cram as much actual information into the space of thirty seconds, before assaulting me with 8 minutes of commercials. Didn't I just talk about too many commercials in the above paragraphs? It's back.
I want highlights, people, not seizure-inducing images flashed in a meth-fueled slideshow with a voiceover by hyped-up gorilla unable to keep up with the feed. Whether it's Terry Bradshaw or Shannon Sharpe, these guys' mouths are not physically able to keep up with all the action being shown and yet they try to stumble through. Hearing Bradshaw choke on T.J. Houshmandzadeh's name before the video switches to the next game is painful. It's just impossible to mouth the syllables before two other games have flashed by. What's worse is how hard it makes to follow the other games while watching, almost forcing one to the Internet for real information. Yet somehow, the studios have enough time for commercials, as well as 2 or 3 minutes of the studio talking heads to smack-talk each other in some dick-waving contest that offers no real insight into the strategies the teams are using.
If you ask me, the networks should either just play highlights and scores with no voiceovers, or just play commercials and let me fast-forward them. I've better things to do with my time, like artificially inseminating beavers.
If You Ask Me #4: Graphics for the Blind
Every network clothes their broadcasts in different graphic treatments, showing off the scoreboard, clock, down indicator and some stats with varying degrees of usefulness. But somewhere along the way, those graphics got way out of hand. Not only do some of the networks use graphics with horribly ugly, unreadable fonts (Fox), most of them take up so much screen real estate they turn a 27" inch TV into a 14" squintbox. And what do they do with all that screen real estate besides piss me off?
Nothing. FoxSports, the NFL Network and NBC's Monday Night Football broadcasts all use horizontal bars at the top or bottom of the screen, covering the entire width of the display. Even when parts of the display have no information whatsoever, they still sit there, obscuring my view of the field. And these areas are empty a good deal of the time. ESPN's display is better, but still entirely too large for what it displays. Of all the networks, only CBS does an admirable job with their graphics. The fonts are crisp, clean and readable even on non-HD displays, the scoreboard is minimal with no honking big team logos taking up unneeded space. Between plays, they flash fantasy stats on the player who was just involved in the last play. Their ticker for other games in progress does take up the entire width of the bottom of the screen, but is tinier than the bars on Fox, NFL or NBC.
If you ask me, the graphics teams for these networks need to be sent back to school. All they do is piss me off.
If You Ask Me #5: Celebrities, Personalities and the Jackass Factor
I'm looking at you, ESPN's Monday Night Football. Is there really any good goddamn reason Sly Stallone was sitting in the booth hawking his new movie during an Eagles game? Did I really need to hear him being interviewed by Theismann and Kornhole? This is a fucking football game, not a trip through the stands at a Lakers game by Pat Fucking O'Brien. I tuned in to see a good football game and you give me Entertainment Tonight as hosted by Brickhead and the Twat. Stop it.
As for the broadcasters, Mike Tirico does a game job of the booth duties on the game, but if it were me, I'd be ready to go postal on the rest of the booth by the mid-point of the season. Joe Theismann was a good quarterback, but he's abrasive as an announcer and always has been. But at least he knows football. Tony Kornheiser, on the other hand, cannot possibly have as much football knowledge. If Theismann is abrasive, Kornhole is steel wool on genitals irritating. He comes off as arrogant and combative. There are times when I expect Theismann to stand up, pull off his dangling broken leg off of his body and beat Kornhole to death with it. I know I'd watch that. Theismann has always had a somewhat contentious tone with other members of the booth team, but he and Kornheiser seem to clash like Thunder and Lightning. It makes me want to watch the game on mute.
If you ask me, the ESPN crew needs to focus less on the showbiz and more on the football. I'm sure the ratings were good for them this year, but the show needs help to be a must-watch again. As it is, I can stomach Madden-Michaels more and Madden has really started to irritate me over the years. Bring back Pat Summerall, bitches!
Life would be a whole lot brighter if these people would just ask me.
Labels: Football, If You Ask Me, NFL, Sports
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:42 AM
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