Unfathomable Devolution: Madden NFL '09 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
It's that time of the year again, that time when the air starts getting colder and football fans everywhere are inevitably disappointed by another year's rehashing of the familiar Madden NFL video game formula. And to celebrate the annual disappointment, it's time for me to review this year's version of that storied, beaten-to-a-pulp franchise for the Wii. Yes, most versions of the game could be reviewed with a simple, one-line hyperlink to archived reviews of a previous year's entry. However, it is an annual tradition, and I feel compelled to offer at least something new on each version that I play, so without further ado, I present my review of Madden NFL '09 for the Nintendo Wii.
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.
Wow, that was easy.
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.
This game plays like last year's version, only without some of the bugs that plagued '08.
Wow, that was easy.
With the snarky, obvious joke out of the way, let me delve a bit further into why this game is not worth purchasing. Other than the obvious and completely predictable retreading of the well-worn game engine, there is one great reason not to buy '09. The game has devolved. Yes, they did seem to fix some of the bugs I complained about last season. They did seem to make it a bit easier to tackle and pull off some of the special moves. They even added a great new feature: "Call Your Shot," which allows the player to pause the game at the line of scrimmage, select a receiver and create a route on the fly, allowing a much more flexible form of audibles than in the past (though the audible system is otherwise intact).
But the game has taken a serious turn for the worse in the graphics department. It has literally devolved from a slightly-stylized version of realism into a color-saturated world of brain-stabbing eye pain. 2007's version was what one would expect: an X-Box level graphic treatment of football, complete with shadowing and good texture work. No, the Wii versions will never approach the hi-def level of the 360 and PS3 versions, nor should one expect them to. But this year's version has taken all the depth and "realism" from the textures and instead substituted great swaths of overly bright color. Grass fields look like astroturf carpets, barely indistinguishable from domed stadiums. While this in itself would only be disappointing, their choice of color palettes for screen interface elements exacerbates the problem. Each receiver on pass plays has an icon dictating which button to push to throw to that receiver. However, the icons are not only bright, they are surrounding in neon-colored halos, ostensibly to denote which receiver is actually open. However, the colors chosen are so bright and the field behind them so bright and devoid of texture that the icons just blend into one big mess of indecipherable retina rape. The game looks like a tie-dyed Fisher-Price toy. It's excruciating. Fortunately, I can safely say that comparisons to '07's graphics prove that it isn't because the hardware can't handle decent graphics, it's because of a conscious decision on the part of the art directors at EA Sports.
This art direction has been evident in last year's FIFA product, and it has to stop. While it's perfectly acceptable to use this style in the Mii-inspired mini-games like the 5-on-5 game added to NFL '09, it is absolutely unacceptable in the regular game. Not only does it make the game ugly, it makes the game unnecessarily difficult to play. It makes the player fight the interface, which the Wii-mote is supposed to alleviate. I've seen EA Sports teams do better - the PS2 version of FIFA 08 is a perfect example. I don't know if the art style is meant to be "casual-friendly" (it's not) or just to follow what they consider a Wii-themed branding, but it has to stop. As I said in the FIFA 08 review, these games have built-in audiences that expect certain things. Adding mini-games to attract a wider audience is fine. Fucking up a game's interface in some retarded attempt to attract a wider audience that alienates previous fans of the series is destined for failure.
As a result of their design choices, I was unable to finish two full games. Had I spent full price on the game, I'd have been extremely pissed. The game has devolved from a reasonably decent version of videogame football into a cockup that isn't worth a rental. I did not get to the Online or 5-on-5 modes or any of the other new modes in the game, because the basic gameplay was just so offputting. If you can manage the retinal assault of their awful art design, the game is probably just as good as last year's version with fewer bugs. But if bright colors cause you physical pain, avoid Madden NFL '09. Your eyes will thank you.
Labels: Madden, NFL, Nintendo, Video Games, Wii
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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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The Bark and the Bite: The NFL on Michael Vick
Posted on
Thursday, July 19, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
For those who have not yet heard, NFL Star Quarterback Michael Vick of the Atlanta Falcons has been indicted on charges of competitive dogfighting, procuring and training pit bulls for fighting and conducting an illegal dogfighting business across state lines. The charges are a disgusting menu of inhumane acts against dogs that should make every pet owner want to pick up a pitchfork and storm the castle. Dogfighting in itself is a disgusting barbarity, but the particulars of this case are even more savage. Dogs were killed by electrocution, hanging, brutal beatings or shootings. As the owner of three fantastic dogs, I can think of plenty of Gitmo-style punishments too good for anyone convicted of these crimes. But what is truly disgusting is the NFL's hypocritical response to this whole mess.
For the past year, the NFL has taken copious amounts of flak for the rampant, serial misbehaviour of some of its stars. Players like Pacman Jones, with his 11 arrests, Chris Henry with his four arrests, Tank Johnson's arrests for parole violations and the multiple offenders on the Cincinnati Bengals that were arrested on multiple occasions over the season have all given the NFL a reputation as a thug league. To combat that perception, Commissioner Roger Goddell instituted a crackdown, throwing out some harsh suspensions to these players. Henry and Johnson both received eight-game suspensions and Pacman Jones is out for the entire year, with his future beyond that in doubt as well. Of these three particular cases, Jones was the standout not only for the length of suspension, but for the fact that he hadn't even been indicted in any of the cases when the suspension was served. I applauded the suspensions. Yes, Jones is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but even if he turns out to be exonerated on all the charges, he has still proven that he cannot avoid trouble. He has caused shame on the game and the league, and the league should punish him for that, whether he's convicted or not. If it's his "posse" that's getting him in trouble, he has chosen to remain with that posse and that action alone is enough for me to justify the league's actions.
But now that Vick, one of the league's poster boy stars for his electrifying performances on the field, has been indicted on these heinous charges, no action has been taken. Goddell and Falcons' owner Arthur Blank are content to let the law take its course. They are hiding behind the legal fact that Vick is innocent until proven guilty.
Here's the simple facts. Vick has claimed that his family members and friends used the property in question for dogfighting, an activity of which he was unaware. If that is true, it still happened on his property. He let his "posse" run wild at the house, and that "posse" killed dogs for sport and ran a criminal enterprise at Vick's house. That alone is enough in my mind for Goddell or the team to suspend him for four games. The player didn't keep his house in order, the activities at the house made the NFL look bad because they were connected to the player and thus the NFL is justified in punishing Vick. They are justified in punishing Vick even if he had nothing to do with the dogfighting. If an NFL player throws a party in his hotel room and some underage girls get caught drinking at that party, the NFL player is responsible for that crime and should be punished by the NFL. That's exactly what happened to Chris Henry, and he served jail time and has an NFL suspension to show for it.
Pacman Jones has been indicted but not tried or convicted and he's out for a year. So why hasn't Michael Vick been punished yet? Is it because he's a marquee player, a huge draw at the box office and a ratings bonanza? Is it because Arthur Blank has invested millions in Vick's contract, as well as marketing the Falcons' team using Vick's image? Do star players get preferential treatment in the NFL?
If Mr. Goddell does not hand down some kind of punishment on Michael Vick within the week, then I'd say the answer to all those questions is a very sad "Yes." Goddell's get tough policy is instead a blowhard PR campaign that is applied with determined inconsistency and naked hypocrisy. It's time to match your bite to your bark, Mr. Goddell. There are a ton of dead dogs who deserved better treatment than they got, and the fans of the NFL deserve better than you are giving them here.
For the past year, the NFL has taken copious amounts of flak for the rampant, serial misbehaviour of some of its stars. Players like Pacman Jones, with his 11 arrests, Chris Henry with his four arrests, Tank Johnson's arrests for parole violations and the multiple offenders on the Cincinnati Bengals that were arrested on multiple occasions over the season have all given the NFL a reputation as a thug league. To combat that perception, Commissioner Roger Goddell instituted a crackdown, throwing out some harsh suspensions to these players. Henry and Johnson both received eight-game suspensions and Pacman Jones is out for the entire year, with his future beyond that in doubt as well. Of these three particular cases, Jones was the standout not only for the length of suspension, but for the fact that he hadn't even been indicted in any of the cases when the suspension was served. I applauded the suspensions. Yes, Jones is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, but even if he turns out to be exonerated on all the charges, he has still proven that he cannot avoid trouble. He has caused shame on the game and the league, and the league should punish him for that, whether he's convicted or not. If it's his "posse" that's getting him in trouble, he has chosen to remain with that posse and that action alone is enough for me to justify the league's actions.
But now that Vick, one of the league's poster boy stars for his electrifying performances on the field, has been indicted on these heinous charges, no action has been taken. Goddell and Falcons' owner Arthur Blank are content to let the law take its course. They are hiding behind the legal fact that Vick is innocent until proven guilty.
Here's the simple facts. Vick has claimed that his family members and friends used the property in question for dogfighting, an activity of which he was unaware. If that is true, it still happened on his property. He let his "posse" run wild at the house, and that "posse" killed dogs for sport and ran a criminal enterprise at Vick's house. That alone is enough in my mind for Goddell or the team to suspend him for four games. The player didn't keep his house in order, the activities at the house made the NFL look bad because they were connected to the player and thus the NFL is justified in punishing Vick. They are justified in punishing Vick even if he had nothing to do with the dogfighting. If an NFL player throws a party in his hotel room and some underage girls get caught drinking at that party, the NFL player is responsible for that crime and should be punished by the NFL. That's exactly what happened to Chris Henry, and he served jail time and has an NFL suspension to show for it.
Pacman Jones has been indicted but not tried or convicted and he's out for a year. So why hasn't Michael Vick been punished yet? Is it because he's a marquee player, a huge draw at the box office and a ratings bonanza? Is it because Arthur Blank has invested millions in Vick's contract, as well as marketing the Falcons' team using Vick's image? Do star players get preferential treatment in the NFL?
If Mr. Goddell does not hand down some kind of punishment on Michael Vick within the week, then I'd say the answer to all those questions is a very sad "Yes." Goddell's get tough policy is instead a blowhard PR campaign that is applied with determined inconsistency and naked hypocrisy. It's time to match your bite to your bark, Mr. Goddell. There are a ton of dead dogs who deserved better treatment than they got, and the fans of the NFL deserve better than you are giving them here.
Labels: Corporate Corruption, Michael Vick, NFL, Sports
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:23 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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Playaction Controls: Madden NFL 07 (Wii) Review
Posted on
Friday, January 05, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
It's been five years since I was what one might call a fan of the John Madden series of console football games. After buying 2001 and 2002 for the PC, there seemed to be glacial change from year to year in core gameplay mechanics. Having heard that the 2k series of football games were better, I tried them and said goodbye to Madden for what I thought was forever. The NFL 2k series of games were simply vastly superior to Madden where it counted, on the virtual field. Not only did the game look better, lacking Madden's signature Fatty McFattenstein out-of-proportion player models, it played better as well. When EA decided to shut down what had become sturdy competition in the football video game market by signing an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL, I vowed to boycott Madden for as long as I could hold out.
One year and an E3 video of Madden for the Wii later, my resolve failed me. Rather than being disappointed, I'm pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my purchase.
Madden NFL 07 for the Wii is first and foremost a Madden game. Anyone who has played previous versions of the game will recognize just about all of its trademark features, including the pork pie models mentioned above. The nuts and bolts of the Madden series really hasn't changed a great deal since 2002. Defenses both CPU and player still give up big pass plays, though run defense has improved. The soundtrack still contains way too much rap and alternapop from bands I've never heard of and never wanted to hear of. And just like EA's other football franchise game, Head Coach, the menu interface is still badly designed, with too much screen real estate engulfed by useless buttons while important things like play diagrams are shrunk to mouse anus size.
But if you are able to stomach the Madden formula of design, you'll find a pleasant football game. More importantly, you'll find a new control scheme thanks to the Wiimote/Nunchuk setup that elevates this game above its clones on other platforms. I've played this game on the X-Box and found it lackluster, much as I expected to. The Wii version is a cut above thanks to the motion-sensing control scheme.
Passing is more involving when your arm movement controls the power behind your delivery. Jukes and stiff arms are more satisfying with a flick of the nunchuk or Wiimote. The kicking game, a source of frustration and disappointment for me on traditional console controllers, is smooth on the Wii. Hold the Wiimote down and then bring it up in a motion pantomiming the leg's kicking motion, with the amount of power in the swing echoed in the kick and the deviations from a straight upward line providing hook or slice to the ball. The hardest part about the kicking game is getting the power right when not trying to put everything into a kick. Tackling requires you to push both controllers away from your body with various buttons used to add power, and additional pulls of the controllers towards your body makes your player attempt to strip the ball from the ball carrier. In pass coverage, raising your arms will attempt an interception while pushing your arms away swats the ball down.
The controls work. Not perfectly, mind you, but they give the game a measure of immersiveness that isn't there in the X-Box version. Defense is still a weak point, as moving a player with a thumbstick to the correct tackling position is imprecise; this isn't a measure of the Wii's controllers since I have the same problem on the X-Box. The Wiimote can be used as a pointing device on menus but I found this option to get in the way more than be helpful. Calling audibles, shifting linemen, sending players in motion or setting hot routes takes a bit of getting used to. In order to do any of these, you must first select the player with the Wiimote pointer, hit the A button and then perform a thumbstick or digital control pad movement to set it off. It's complicated at first, but as you learn the correct control pad movements, it gets easier.
Graphics and sound are both good without being spectacular, and each has its flaws. The stadium background graphics are very low-resolution, and it stands out in a big way during certain plays. The sound piped through the Wiimote is meant to add immersion, with calls of "HUT HUT!" being tossed out of it in the pre-snap. However, the game's normal sound channels also scream "HUT!" in the pre-snap and sometimes the two do not match, either in timing or even in verbiage. With a control scheme built on immersion, it breaks that immersion. The manual is atrocious even by console standards. It consists of about 6 pages of control diagrams or instructions on play, a few pages of credits, and a cover. It could certainly make the strategy guide useful, which is sold separately of course. EA has to pay back that ginormous license fee somehow.
One other complaint I have about the game, which applies equally to every single football game I've ever played, is the camera angles. While there are a number of camera angles to choose from, most of them aren't very good. All of the angles are shot from the offense's side of the ball, which puts the player on defense at an immediate disadvantage. I would like to see an option to set the camera for when the player is both on offense and defense. Let me set the camera in a defensive position when I'm defending, and then have it switch back to an offensive one when I have the ball. I've yet to figure out why no one has done this. NFL 2k4 and 2k5 allowed you to see from the defense's perspective but only in first-person mode, a gameplay mode I miss dearly.
This year's version has no online play or online stats updates, something I hope is added in next year's inevitable version. The game is a good start and with some interface changes, defensive changes and slight change to the art style, next year's version could be great. As it stands, 07 for the Wii is a worthy purchase for football fans that have no other option anyway. It beats the other versions in everything but graphical prowess and sound design.
One year and an E3 video of Madden for the Wii later, my resolve failed me. Rather than being disappointed, I'm pleasantly surprised and satisfied with my purchase.
Madden NFL 07 for the Wii is first and foremost a Madden game. Anyone who has played previous versions of the game will recognize just about all of its trademark features, including the pork pie models mentioned above. The nuts and bolts of the Madden series really hasn't changed a great deal since 2002. Defenses both CPU and player still give up big pass plays, though run defense has improved. The soundtrack still contains way too much rap and alternapop from bands I've never heard of and never wanted to hear of. And just like EA's other football franchise game, Head Coach, the menu interface is still badly designed, with too much screen real estate engulfed by useless buttons while important things like play diagrams are shrunk to mouse anus size.
But if you are able to stomach the Madden formula of design, you'll find a pleasant football game. More importantly, you'll find a new control scheme thanks to the Wiimote/Nunchuk setup that elevates this game above its clones on other platforms. I've played this game on the X-Box and found it lackluster, much as I expected to. The Wii version is a cut above thanks to the motion-sensing control scheme.
Passing is more involving when your arm movement controls the power behind your delivery. Jukes and stiff arms are more satisfying with a flick of the nunchuk or Wiimote. The kicking game, a source of frustration and disappointment for me on traditional console controllers, is smooth on the Wii. Hold the Wiimote down and then bring it up in a motion pantomiming the leg's kicking motion, with the amount of power in the swing echoed in the kick and the deviations from a straight upward line providing hook or slice to the ball. The hardest part about the kicking game is getting the power right when not trying to put everything into a kick. Tackling requires you to push both controllers away from your body with various buttons used to add power, and additional pulls of the controllers towards your body makes your player attempt to strip the ball from the ball carrier. In pass coverage, raising your arms will attempt an interception while pushing your arms away swats the ball down.
The controls work. Not perfectly, mind you, but they give the game a measure of immersiveness that isn't there in the X-Box version. Defense is still a weak point, as moving a player with a thumbstick to the correct tackling position is imprecise; this isn't a measure of the Wii's controllers since I have the same problem on the X-Box. The Wiimote can be used as a pointing device on menus but I found this option to get in the way more than be helpful. Calling audibles, shifting linemen, sending players in motion or setting hot routes takes a bit of getting used to. In order to do any of these, you must first select the player with the Wiimote pointer, hit the A button and then perform a thumbstick or digital control pad movement to set it off. It's complicated at first, but as you learn the correct control pad movements, it gets easier.
Graphics and sound are both good without being spectacular, and each has its flaws. The stadium background graphics are very low-resolution, and it stands out in a big way during certain plays. The sound piped through the Wiimote is meant to add immersion, with calls of "HUT HUT!" being tossed out of it in the pre-snap. However, the game's normal sound channels also scream "HUT!" in the pre-snap and sometimes the two do not match, either in timing or even in verbiage. With a control scheme built on immersion, it breaks that immersion. The manual is atrocious even by console standards. It consists of about 6 pages of control diagrams or instructions on play, a few pages of credits, and a cover. It could certainly make the strategy guide useful, which is sold separately of course. EA has to pay back that ginormous license fee somehow.
One other complaint I have about the game, which applies equally to every single football game I've ever played, is the camera angles. While there are a number of camera angles to choose from, most of them aren't very good. All of the angles are shot from the offense's side of the ball, which puts the player on defense at an immediate disadvantage. I would like to see an option to set the camera for when the player is both on offense and defense. Let me set the camera in a defensive position when I'm defending, and then have it switch back to an offensive one when I have the ball. I've yet to figure out why no one has done this. NFL 2k4 and 2k5 allowed you to see from the defense's perspective but only in first-person mode, a gameplay mode I miss dearly.
This year's version has no online play or online stats updates, something I hope is added in next year's inevitable version. The game is a good start and with some interface changes, defensive changes and slight change to the art style, next year's version could be great. As it stands, 07 for the Wii is a worthy purchase for football fans that have no other option anyway. It beats the other versions in everything but graphical prowess and sound design.
Labels: NFL, Sports, Video Games, Wii
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:38 AM
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