Just wanted to take this opportunity to welcome our newest writer, Mike “PsychoPez” Hasko. He’ll be covering Madden NFL ‘07 for the PC for us. And believe me when I say nobody has more hatred for John Madden than Mike Hasko. Please check out the opening shots.
We’re also nearing the end of our first projects, and we thank you for bearing with us during the slight hiccups we were dealing with. I can assure you we’re back in business. Incidentally, so is the other site I write for, Netjak. (That’s also what I’ve been busy with.) So go there, too.
Now, then, let’s get back to the invective.
August 24th, 2006
It’s late at night and I’m lying in my bed, drifting towards the bliss of sleep. My thoughts are blurred and random, but through them comes the sound of music – a steady rhythm and the high-pitched vocals of the Gibb brothers. “Listen to the ground,” they tell me. “There is movement all around. There is something going down, and I can feel it. On the waves of the air, there is dancin’ out there. If it’s somethin’ we can share, we can steal it.” My mind floats around the tune, absorbing its funky beat, feeling every note and every lyric. I’m soaring high into the sky, twisting and turning with my arms outstretched. “Here I am, prayin’ for this moment to last, livin’ on the music so fine, borne on the wind, makin’ it mine.” The landscape flies past beneath me, a myriad of scintillating colours and flashing lights that sends my senses elevating further. I see arrows floating up from below me, marching forward in a summons to the music! Pointing in the four directions of the compass they approach in a steady line, advancing relentlessly towards my feet. I know what must be done… “^Night >Fever, ^Night >Fe>ver, <We know ^how to >do it… Gimme that ^Night <Fever, ^Night <Fe<ver, >We know vhow to <show it.” Suddenly I feel a jolt through my body, and with a gasp of breath I’m jerked from my dream. My foot had just twitched, trying to step on one of the arrows and waking me up. “Bloody Stepmania!” I mutter, before turning over and trying to get back to sleep.
Although I’ve obviously known about the DDR craze for years, I first found out about Stepmania last June from a friend online who liked to use it as a form of regular aerobic exercise. After a few weeks of intense dancing I’ve managed to drag myself up to the same level as he, so we had a little song-swap a few nights ago. Previously I wasn’t willing to accept any direct assistance with the game, but since I’m now more practised I figure there’s no harm in enhancing my experience with some extra songs from a trustworthy source. I also wanted to know what he thought of the songs I’d been trying, in case they were all easy as pie and I was a pansy for having any difficulty with them.
What he gave me was mostly a mix of anime and video game themes, and I had to swallow my pride and bias to dance to what were essentially J-pop songs. His choice of music was based on what he uses for an aerobic workout – with extra emphasis on the “aero” it seems. These songs involved a lot more jumping about than I’m familiar with, and that took some getting used to. But I did rather well overall, I’d like to think – got As and Bs on almost all 4 and 5-foot songs. I was significantly better at the Final Fantasy tunes that I recognised well (getting close to AA on some but not quite making the cut). My biggest surprise came today when I decided to try out the 6-foot difficulty on One Winged Angel. My first couple of attempts resulted in Cs, but I was determined that I could do better, and on my third go I pulled off an A. Further tries got me better and better, and I think with enough practice I can achieve an AA on this song.
My confidence was boosted by this, and so I decided I was ready to master other 6-foot songs, but my delusions were quickly shattered by pathetic fails in other tunes. Evidently this version of One Winged Angel is extremely easy for the 6-foot level. Still, I have some comfort from the fact that my friend considered the songs I found hard to be challenging too, and he thinks I have now managed to exceed him on skill at the game. I’m not sure I agree with that, but it’s nice to know that after a few weeks I can at least be on a similar level to someone who has been playing a lot longer. I should stress though that he uses the game purely as regular light exercise, with little interest in game ratings, whilst for me it’s all about challenge, and throughout I’ve been pushing myself to do better and better.
And better I shall get. I have asked around a bit and from what I can tell the level I’m at can be considered “decent”. But that’s not good enough for me. My next session will be centred around pushing myself into the 6-foot difficulties, and I’m determined not to stop there.
Some have said that my pad may not be good enough for the higher difficulty levels, but for now it’s holding up. However, once I showed someone a picture of my mat they came to the conclusion that it was potentially the source of all my hatred for the genre and my inability to fully enjoy the game. Not for any technical aspect to it, but due to its atrocious colour scheme – what I have previously described as “clown vomit” and “the results of a paint factory explosion”. You may find here a picture of its full glory:
http://www.geocities.com/darrenjohngrey/dancemat.jpg
For those interested in the DIY amendments I have made to improve the pad, you may observe the base of the pad thus:
http://www.geocities.com/darrenjohngrey/dancemat2.jpg
The polystyrene squares under the left and right arrows are taped on, and have worn down quite a bit through heavy usage. On the top and bottom are an old art pad and some physics magazines, giving firm support to the ever treacherous up and down arrows. Lately I’ve been doing without the latter since I find I can play well enough au natural, and my padding on the top and bottom tends to slip a bit at times.
This pad cost me £5 (roughly $8), and for that price I think it’s done pretty darn well. However, those interested in serious long-term play are probably much better off investing in a foam-filled pad that won’t slip as much, whilst also being considerably less unsightly.
Positives: I’m not crap! Well, not too crap at least. I have more songs I like now, for which the step-charts are well-timed to the music and at a nice level of challenge. Having fresh songs helps take away the tedium, though obviously that only works in the short-term.
Negatives: Disturbing my sleep has got to be one of the worst things a game can do to me (asides from having a bulky cartridge stuck up an uncomfortable area – or even worse, a Superscope). Basically I went to bed thinking about how I’d like a step pattern to go to the classic Bee Gees song, and as I was drifting off my feet twitched to the steps I was imagining, waking myself up. This is simply infuriating!
Overall so far: Meh. Can’t say I’m hating it, can’t say I’m loving it. The challenge is still the only real motivation to keep playing. I’m perhaps not as negative about the genre as a whole now, and not as biased against the players either, but I do still find the concept worthy of ridicule, especially the idea of playing alone. I’d perhaps be tempted to keep playing if I knew others who played and could compete directly with them – I can certainly see an attraction there. That’s notably more of an attraction than I had 3 weeks ago.
August 24th, 2006
Game: Madden 07
Genre: Sports Simulation
Platform: Windows
Trial Period: Wednesday August 30 until I want to whack Madden in the cankle with a Turducken
I’m a football fan. I grew up in Buffalo, NY during the anti-climatic (for us anyways) Super Bowl runs of the Buffalo Bills. I currently live in Pittsburgh, PA, which is a football town through and through. I’m only involved in two Fantasy Leagues this year; I’ve cut down my number to ‘really focus on the game play’.
On the other hand, while I’m not by any stretch of the imagination a hard core gamer, I’m not a noob either. My video game tastes swing towards the RPG and rhythm genres on the consoles, with City of Heroes and a small MUD to fill my MMO tastes and UT2k4 for when I have a long day at work and I just feel like blowing small fury creatures up.
Yet I’ve never been able to get the two loves together. The last football video game I enjoyed was Mutant League Football, and that was more for the option to kill the ref then the actual game play. Before that, Tecmo Super Bowl was the game of choice, only cause Jim Kelley could throw from the back of his end zone, a touchdown pass to Andre Reed, who was in the other end zone. (Even though every Bills fan worth their chicken wings knew Frank Reich, the back up to Kelley, was the superior quarterback. Norwood didn’t lose the Super Bowl by kicking wide right, Kelley did by making time wasting calls as the Bills drove down the field to get into field goal range in Super Bowl XXV. But I digress…)
Heck, the last sports game I played was an EA Hockey game for the Genesis in the mid 90s. I remember the large learning curve for the controls to the game. Most other video games I’ve played had really intuitive controls. It made sense not only how the buttons were laid out, but what actions were given to the player to do. The NHL game I played it took me a weeks worth of playing time to understand the controls, a long time since I would only rent the game and not own it.
Which brings me to Madden. Over the summer I had mastered the controls for the EA hockey game, surely this EA football game would be no challenge? A friend invited me over to play it on his Genesis (He also had the Sega Channel back then. Remember the Sega Channel? This is here for time frame references only…). The controls for the Madden game that I played were unintuitive. I pressed the pass button, but it would always float, no matter if I held the button down or I just tapped it. I would run and was disoriented by the over the shoulder type of camera.
In general, I felt lost while playing this realistic football game, and swore off Madden ever since.
Ever since then, Madden has become a phenomenon. My roommates in college would spend hours playing it, making up personalized teams, running up the score, going 16-0 during their regular seasons. The game has become more than just a football game; I’ve listed it as a football simulator rather than a football game because of this. There are modes in the current ‘07 version where you start off as a college pre-draftee. You have mini games where you go through the NFL combine, get drafted, haggle over your contract, get sneaker endorsement deals, and I hear if you’re a wide receiver, you get to bitch loudly to the press and brand yourself an arrogant asshole. Just like in real life.
Part of me is impressed with this, it is emersion into the NFL world a fan like me can, before this, only dream of. Or watch the NFL Network, but who does that, honestly? This is the part of me that enjoys role playing my characters in MMOs, to surrender myself into the illusionary world 100%, to act as if I were a member of the universe. Another part of me finds all of this boring. Do I really want to have to run drills so my in game football avatar can shave a fraction of a second of his 40 yard time? Do I really want to sit down for hours at a time to figure out how best to alter my fake contract for fake millions of dollars that I can’t even buy anything with? As much as I love the NFL, I hate a lot of the admittedly necessary behind the scenes bullshit that goes on. I don’t want my escape, my fantasy, my idealized NFL version of me to be dragged into this. I just want my NFL avatar to have a good season, end up with a rushing title or defensive player of the year award.
One last thing before I get to my nice and shiny bullet points. (Oh yes, there will be bullet points. Hell, if my NFL character gets drafted by the Baltimore Ravens, there’ll even be real bullets, this is the realism Madden 07 has promised to me). I hate Madden, the personality. Now, I’m sure Coach Madden is a nice guy off camera, a smart one too. He did win a Super Bowl with the Raiders, that’s something not even my beloved Bills can claim. As an announcer, I loath his voice and his commentary. I hate turducken. I hate cankles. I hate ‘Boom’. I hate his tautological ‘commentary’. (”Now, to win the game, you have to score points, while keeping the other team from doing the same.” In the immortal words of my sister circa 10th grade, “No shit, Sherlock.”) When watching roommates play Madden, his repetitive comments would grate on me faster than Chad Johnson can make himself look like an ass after the cameras are on. (Another aside: Did anyone see his new hair do during the preseason games? Me thinks he auditioned for the role of Angel for an off Broadway production of Rent, but was rejected because he was ‘too flamboyant’ to play the drag queen role)
So, what do I expect going into Turducken ‘07?
* The controls will be impossible for me to pick up on. The game tries to be as realistic as possible at the sacrifice of too many controls. I’ll be playing on my PC (PS2 is busted), but using a PS2-like controller. I expect a step learning curve which will frustrate me to no end.
* Sound. I enjoy the sound of everything in the game non-Madden, but even the repetitive cheers, boos, and such can get old after a while. I’ll not turn off my sound, and force myself to all of this audio horror football show has to offer. (”Let’s do a fly route again! Let’s do a fly route again! It’s just a pump to the left, the a bomb to the ri-i-i-i-i-ght”)
* Simulation overload. As I don’t have the game in hand yet, I do not know the correct name, Franchise Mode or Player Mode or what. I’m not just going to submit myself to the game, but the meta-game in the background. Control the price of tickets, training camp and workouts during the week. My fear is while this will be fun, it will become mandatory to increase my character’s stats, and thus my enjoyment of the game, after a while, and turn the fun into work. Games shouldn’t be work.
* Difficulty. Something I’ve noted from others playing the game is games are either too easy (leading to not that satisfying 16-0 seasons) or too hard (leading to 0-16). I will start off on easy mode, but if my games are won by too large of a margin for 4 or more games in a row, I’ll up the difficulty. Win or lose, I’ll keep my season. (Won’t be one of those, “Restart the game if I’m losing” types).
* Cheating. Madden games come with the option to buy Madden cards, which you can use to ‘cheat’ in games. Cause fumbles more often, throw longer, narrow the uprights when the opposition is kicking a field goal. I will play PokeMadden, trying to collect them all, but I won’t use those cards. If I’m going to mimic myself in a video game being hit by or hitting other large, grown men while wearing molded plastic protection while running around on virtual artificial turf, I want things to be as realistic as possible.
Other things are bound to come up as I play, but there’s the rough sketch. Now, back to my Fantasy drafts…hmm, J.P. Losman’s still gonna be QB, poor QB, no above average receivers to pass to, means Willis Mcgahee’s gonna be the only source of offense for the Bills…do I pick him over Shaun Alexander?
August 24th, 2006
