Sonic Boom!

September 1st, 2006 at 12:04am PsychoPez

It’s been almost a week since I made a post about the actual game play and game experiences. I wish I could say something cool and epic was holding me back, like having to fight Satan himself for the souls of all humanity, and his chosen battlefield is the grid iron of Madden ‘07. I want to say that, yes, after the seemingly infinite jabs and pokes from all the demons in Hell itself, as well as The Fallen One using perfect control of the blocking feature to break a few long rushes, I emerged victorious in the most perfect game of football ever, score of 2-0 in overtime, 95% rushing plays on both sides.

But I’ve just been lazy. Still not in the habit of updating a site with words and stuff.

So, yeah, three games into my season on Madden ‘07. My Bills are 2-1, losing the first game that was close in the first half but pulled away from me in the second half. I won the next game against the Dolphins, who are arch-rivals with the Bills. This last game I wiped the floor against the Jets, beating them 40-17.

But it’s taken the whole week for me to play three games. I can, at most, play two quarters of football in one setting. And it’s not like I’m playing long periods either. It’s the five minutes per period that’s the standard for Madden games. I’m just finding this very, well, boring. It’s boring when I’m winning, it’s boring when I’m losing. Boring in the morning, boring in the evening, boring at dinner time. I’m going to try and bump the difficulty from rookie, the lowest, to pro, or what ever the next easiest is.

Maybe part of it is that I’m starting to get the controls. My rushing game has definitely improved, I understand having to wait for the blockers to do their jobs and for the lanes to open up. I am reading the defense well, and calling hot routes. Hot routes are sort of audible that change the route a receiver is running. When I call a pass play, and break the huddle and get to the line, if I see a defender somewhere, I can change the route to exploit the weakness. A week ago I would have been totally lost at what to do. Now, I am master of buttons in a game!

If I’m not bringing the funny, it’s well, despite my new found mad skillz, it’s the game is dull. I pass, I run. I throw a few completions, I throw an interception. Defense comes out on the field, and it’s just the opposite of offense. I pick plays at random, end up not controlling a player cause if I do, the other team will get my precious into Mordor. Or something…

…and I know if I had bought the PS2 version, I’d enjoy all this bantha poodoo somewhat more. The PC version lacks Madden Points. These are little bonuses you get for scoring a touchdown, making an interception, rushing for x yards, and other little in game milestones. Save up 100 Madden Points, spend it on a deck of cards that’s pretty much worthless. But I think this would solve a lot of my boredom issues with the game. It’s the same reason I enjoyed the Tony Hawk skate games. Sure you just skate around the same eight stages, but there’s different special jumps and grinds and things to do. You’re not playing to complete the game of skating, you’re playing to collect all the hidden actions in the meta game. The sad thing is, this might be the sort of crap that’s in Superstar Mode, and I may, if the increased difficulty of Franchise Mode doesn’t help, have to submit myself to that.

There is one bright spot, and it’s in a location I thought I wouldn’t like. The soundtrack. No, I don’t like a lot of the R&B-slash-hip hop-slash-rap music, but dear god, if these files are mp3s on my system somewhere, I’ll be putting them into my iPod. When iGetOne. When iHaveEnoughMoney. No, not the R&B songs, but Madden’s dealt with NFL Films to get a lot of the classic background music the NFL Films have produced. It’s odd, when one of these cue up, it’s like I’m watching a highlight reel or something, yet I’m playing the game myself. It goes back to that make it real/make it enjoyable ratio I’m sure I mentioned sometime before. I hear this music, and I think back to the best the game has to offer. The tape of the Bills “Greatest Comeback In NFL History” has songs from this soundtrack. The heroes I grew up watching, waiting in line for two hours to meet, cheered and jeered every Sunday, those memories flash through my head while I try to pretend I’m on the other side of that fan exchange. These classic tunes, if nothing else, make the price of the game money well spent.

Short, blunt, and to the point. I’m like Fox News, only smarter. And full of truthyness.

Positives: DUN dada DUN dada DUN dadatdada DUN dada DUN dada DUN dadatdada…NFL Films soundtrack.

Negative: In the rain or in the snow, pass the ball and run it for’d. All I ever want is for this to get interesting…

Opinion Change: Game itself much decreased. Though I’ll be poking through the files to see if I can grab me a few NFL Films mp3s, it’s not like I didn’t pay for them….

Entry Filed under: Madden NFL 2007