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The Virtual Super Bowl
Authored by Andrew Perna - 10th August, 2008 - 6:27 pm
Has Dallas figured it out? Has Arizona been exposed? Which Denver will show up in the playoffs? Are the Vikings the best under-the-radar-team? And much, much more.
Between 2002 and 2006, each school that came into the season ranked No. 1 in the nation ran the table in the regular season, but we've seen huge turnover in 07 and 08.
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It’s here.
An event more anticipated than both the trading deadline and the Pro Bowl. It’s a mixture between your fantasy draft and the Super Bowl. For the twentieth time, a new edition of Madden will hit stores on Tuesday.
Conversations between football fanatics this weekend have all sounded eerily similar.
"Brett Favre in New York, huh?"
"Yeah, that’s crazy. It just doesn’t seem right."
"So, are you getting it Tuesday?"
"Nah, I can’t take any more days off."
"Oh man, that's a bummer."
"Not really. I’m getting it Monday at midnight."
It’s a phenomenon similar to the one we've experienced this summer with The Dark Knight, the most successful and heralded movie to hit theaters in quite some time. There’s only one difference. Replace ‘Have you seen it?’ with ‘Are you getting it?’
Ask any pigskin fan you know that dabbles in gaming and he’ll likely tell you a story involving the best-selling sports video game franchise of all-time.
Maybe he'll tell you about a blocked extra point, a pick-six in overtime, or record-breaking 400-something rushing yards. No matter what the story, the speaker will almost always be uncontrollably excited.
Don’t be naive, either. Age rarely matters as we continue to carve our way through the twenty-first century.
I began battling friends in Madden on Sega Genesis at the ripe age of twelve, and I know a handful of forty-somethings that will be spending Tuesday night with a controller in their hands.
Games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Rock Band have been wildly popular and highly anticipated in recent years, but Madden transcends all three. The casual gamer isn’t likely to dive headfirst into many games, but the annual football simulation appeals to the hardcore gamer as well as the casual one.
If you’ve spent any part of the last ten or fifteen years in college, chances are you’ve played at least a few games of Madden. It breaks down borders and becomes a nice icebreaker for strangers turned roommates.
Once again, you don’t have to be in your early twenties to become obsessed by EA Sports’ yearly money-maker.
To this day, nearly every time I hop on my Xbox 360 I’ll see my buddy Joe, a father of two that has been married for almost ten years, logged on and playing Madden 2008, a game that he’s been glued to for a year now.
No, he’s not a shut-in. And yes, he also has a high-definition setup for gaming. But when he’s not playing Madden, he can be found teaching kick-boxing classes at his local gym and horsing around with his two kids, all at the ripe age of 37.
You don’t have to be male to enjoy the world's greatest football sim, either. Madden simply doesn't discriminate.
I know quite a few females who have a handful of Madden games under their belt, with one even recording a victory against yours truly in the past. And no, none of the women I’m talking about are more than three-hundred pounds, football players themselves, or on the manly end of a same-sex relationship.
One of the most amazing things about the phenomena known Madden is that the same people, myself included, keep buying the same game every year. I love EA Sports, but they are pulling your leg if you really believe that the game changes drastically from year-to-year.
Sure, a few things are different here and there each August, and at times something will come along that completely changes the way you view the game - whether it be the franchise modes, situational achievements, or vast graphical improvements - but the only reason people keep buying the game is so that they can have an excuse to play it endlessly for a month straight.
It doesn’t even matter that this year’s cover boy Brett Favre isn’t wearing the right jersey. If anything, it’ll give Electronic Arts a reason to release an updated version midseason with Favre in Jets’ garb.
Don’t think they haven’t thought about it.
I know you’re busy getting everything done on your ‘hunny-do’ list so that your nights will be free this week, so I won’t bore you with anything that you don't already know.
Tuesday is already an unofficial national holiday, but here’s to extending the festivities through the week.
Once you get your hands on a copy of Madden 2009, play the crap out of it. We’ll have to wait a whole year for a new edition.
Andrew Perna is a Senior Writer for RealGM and always welcomes comments via e-mail (Andrew.Perna@RealGM). He’ll be playing Madden 2009 for the better part of the next month or so, and yes…he’ll be leading the Eagles to the Super Bowl.
