“Thanks for the loss, any other Lv11s want to leave?”

Session Time: Ninety minutes split between early afternoon and late evening. No level progress on either character, but…

Tonight I decided it would be a good time for me to go ahead and do some things I’d been told were the best ways to experience World of Warcraft. The first thing I did was log back into my Night Elf hunter– remember her?– and go about getting a pet. Well, the wonderful thing about that was that I picked an owl as my first pet. Ordinarily not a bad choice– I mean, come on, if it’s good enough for Harry Potter it’s just fine for an anorexic blue-skinned idol that I know at least one person has masturbated to (and no, it’s not me– why that guy thought I would be impressed that he mentioned that is quite beyond me, although at least someone was talking to me). The one thing that in my careful calculations I failed to realize was that the owl must be fed properly if it is to remain on good terms with me (read: won’t go all Hitchcock on my skinny blue ass). Yes, I did know that pets needed to be fed, per se; I did not realize that they were in fact picky eaters. I went through my entire stock of beef jerky in about the first thirty seconds after realizing that the owl was “rebellious” and “unhappy”. This made the owl “happy”, as evinced by the indecipherable little square smiley face under its icon. This also made me “poor”, as evidenced by the fact that after getting beat down by several monsters in a row, the beast was now “unhappy” and refused to eat the perfectly good mushrooms I still had left. I made a mad dash back to Darnassus and started looking for a vendor.

That’s when I discovered that, apparently, Night Elves are vegans. There wasn’t a fleck of meat to be found in the whole damn city. So now I’m not just playing a blue-skinned fap target with an eating disorder. I’m playing a blue-hued fap target with a half-assed eating disorder, who doesn’t eat meat but throws up what she does eat about twenty minutes later. The Barrens isn’t a wasteland, it’s where the collective gastric juices of all the chunks blown by the population of Darnassus runs off to. No wonder the Horde’s pissed to share the continent with them.

Did somebody say Horde? Why yes, I believe I did. After I spent my entire savings (about five silver) trying to bid on anything that remotely resembled meat, I realized that the longer I stayed logged in, the more my pet’s pleasantness would deteriorate. So I jumped over to my Tauren and decided I ought to try this PvP thing I’ve heard so much about. I signed up for a match at Warsong Gulch and was presented with… another queue message.

WoW: Waiting on Whatnow?

All unreasonable bitching aside, it was a less than a minute wait before I was prompted to teleport to the Gulch. Fair enough, I thought, and I jumped in. Immediately the Hordeside “leader”, a Tauren whose name I shall not utter here, began bitching everyone out for being too low level. He was the only one bitching that I heard, actually– the first leader made some stupid remark and left immediately. Now, I’ll say this– yes, I knew I was probably not going to be of a whole hell of a lot of use during the match. However, I was of some worth– healed a couple people when they needed it, and dealt significant damage to the Alliance thugs who eventually did make off with our flag. Warsong Gulch is set up as a Capture the Flag match; it plays pretty similarly to any FPS CTF game except you’re using the WoW combat engine instead of your run of the mill BFG9000. To be honest, I half wanted to whip out the Big Freakin’ Gun and start team-killing. The whining did not stop. At all. “Come back when you’re level 16 please.” “Thanks for the loss, noobs.” “Any other Level 11s want to leave?”

One lone voice of reason did say, “Shut up. They have as much right to be here as you do.” I would have said “thanks”, but a) I didn’t want to expose myself to further ridicule, and b) I was too busy playing the god damned match.

Was I too low level? Probably. Warsong Gulch is set up for levels 10-19. I didn’t have my second totem yet (still don’t, actually– going out to the Barrens is my next stop tomorrow), and I was still a little shaky with keybinds and battling on the run. Did I have a right to at least give it a try? Blizzard thought so.

In real life you’re not always given the chance to pick and choose who you work with. This is a lesson I know all too well. There are three things you can do in the event that you don’t like the people you’re near. One, you can always leave. Two, you can bitch and complain and make everyone’s experience as miserable as possible. Or three– and this, ladies and gentlemen, is usually the Right Answer– you can shut up, deal with the problem at hand, and try to politely correct the faults of the people you’re near. Granted, right now I’m choosing Option Two: bitch and complain. But that’s because I was using Option Three throughout the entire game. I was dealing with the problem at hand– there were Alliance in r base, they were killing r mans. (Nevermind that by “dealing with the problem” I was in fact “slowing them down only ever so slightly”. A small contribution is still a contribution.)

While playing, actually, I figured out what I’ve been doing wrong with WoW. I’ve been looking at WoW as a multiplayer game. It’s clearly not intended to be that way– if it was, people would, you know, cooperate. Nope, World of Warcraft is, quite simply, not meant to be a multiplayer experience unless you’re with a bunch of people you know not to have their heads so far up their asses they look like an Escher painting when they open their mouths. I happen to know a good deal of people without that particular strain of craniorectal inversion. Unfortunately, none of them play WoW. Coincidence? You be the judge.

The Good: I’m actually happy with the game now that I’ve had my big paradigm shift. It’s an excellent, immersive single-player RPG. I don’t know why it needs that silly online requirement.
The Bad: What has consistently been hailed as the be-all, end-all reason to play World of Warcraft, the PvP combat, sucks. It’s ridiculously unbalanced and totally hostile to anyone who deigns go in with just an inkling of curiosity. The players who are “hardcore” PvPers don’t exactly help this much.
Opinion Change: Hard to say, really. I’m definitely sure I don’t like the idea of continuing to pay for a single-player game. However, it is a good single-player game. The multiplayer component is terrible, though. Since that’s all that anyone ever talks about, though, I’m going to have to say opinion down greatly.

Dance with the one who brought ya

Session Time: None.

I haven’t picked up the controller at all today. I don’t want to. Yes, yes, I know that’s the whole point of Unbelievers, to force oneself into the bowls of their own digital personal hell and face off against one’s personal gaming demon. But the initial flurry of passion to play; the excitement of something new, from the weekend has faded into a haunting specter of disinterest and loathing just at the sight of the box for my chosen combatant.

Also, I just read a book on how to write really flowery prose; a fancy word primer if you will. That and the extra semicolons I obtained this weekend; punctuation purchased at a mighty fine discount though I don’t know how to use them, my attention turned to writing rather than NFL this fine evening.

I’m not sure I had accurately shown that I hate this game enough to warrant a spot on Unbelievers. Thus is the author’s curse, to always be triple and quadruple guessing one’s work. When I found I lacked the energy to finish my Week 1 game against the Patriots, down 24 - 14 in the third quarter I had saved at the end of Sunday’s game session, I turned my focus to *WHY* I didn’t feel this game deserved any attention.

Here’s the thing. I’m an old school gamer. I played AD&D 2nd Edition, where calculating THAC0 was a rite of passage. I can still fondly remember the excitement of figuring out the maze of Super Mario Brothers 7-4. Up up down down left right left right was a code when I was a kid, and a DDR step file when I’m an adult. Video games have been a part of my identity ever since I first took control of a tank in Combat.

The thing is, like all other fringe markets and fads, my one true love over time became less faithful to the geeks and nerds that took it to the dance, and started mixing it up with all the other kids. She slow danced with the Goth kids to the haunting tunes of Resident Evil, but the Goths were like us nerds, outcasts with different dress codes, so I didn’t mind. My girl, video games, is a nice girl, much better than I deserve, and wants to make all the outcasts feel special. She danced a line dance holding hands with the gearheads when the first Indy 500 simulator was released.

But she had to go and slap me in front of the whole school when she started to bump and grind with my mortal enemy, the jock. The same guy who would beat me up and take my lunch money, the brickhead who made my gym class a living hell, and with Madden, she’s whoring herself with him, and everyone knows it. Sure, after the dance, I take her back home, being the perfect gentleman so her parents won’t be mad at me, but I can still smell the foul stench of my mortal enemy on her like an ethereal Eau du Jock.

Video games were not only my haven, they where part of me. Other people scoffed at them while I gave them the attention they always deserved. Madden, I realized this evening, was video games available to the people who least respected them. The frat boys who I observed in college obsess themselves over this game weren’t video gamers, they were posers on the secret society I had sacrificed years and social skills to gain entry too. I had resolved myself then not to embrace this rogue game into the collection of titles I knew and loved; I would not recognize this abomination against video game nature as it went against my perfectly formed view of not only what a video game should be, but what a video gamer was.

This is a harsh realization to make, to be honest. I didn’t realize how much hatred I had built up for the fans of this series until this evening. After the first emotion of shock at this flash of understanding, the next was shame. My enemies, those same jocks who made my life a living hell, should I not embrace them into the brotherhood of the gamer? Instead of the black sheep, should I not look at Madden as the missing link between homo nerdicus and homo jockidian?

I can’t say I’ve sold myself to the latter. Video games these days are wholly apart from the 8 bit wonders of 1986. It’s no longer the sole haven of the geek; rather all walks of life play a wide variety of games as unique as the populations playing them. My hatred of Madden, and more so of the stereotype of Madden players, is as much at home in the blast processing and Turbo Graphix 16 days as the cherished childhood memories that go along with them.

So maybe as I continue on with Unbelievers and Madden ‘07 I’ll drop this stereotype. Yet, as much as I want to better myself, like letting go of any other stereotype it’s just not as simple as that. I need to walk those miles, or in this case run those 40 yard sprints, in another gamer’s shoe, before I can even approach dropping my deep seeded hatred.

But, every journey needs its first step. Mine is just deciding on to use a 4-3 defense or nickel package on my next play…

(and apologies to the Tuesday Morning Quarterback Gregg Easterbrook for borrowing his phrase for the title)

Like A Virgin

Touched for the very first time… The cold metal pads against my feet, the hard metal bar behind me, and in front of me the large circular speakers and a dancing model on the screen. Yes, this was it. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. Finally the soles of my feet were touching a real dancing arcade machine. I knew no fear. I knew no wonder. I was a point of order and calm, fully prepared for the task I was to face. I was ready… Ready to dance!

Finding an arcade in the first place proved to be a challenge. The two that I had known previously both turned out to have been shut down. Alas for the fall of the arcade… Thankfully a trip to a game store got me directions to one on the other side of town, so all was not in vain. The arcade was at the side of a bowling alley, and mostly filled with children and teenagers. It contained two dance machines: Dancing Stage Euromix 2 and Dancing Stage Fusion. Before we go further, I’d best explain for those who don’t know – “Dance Dance Revolution” does not seem to exist in Europe. Instead we have “Dancing Stage” games made by Konami, using the same engines as the DDR games but with different songs. Dancing Stage Fusion apparently uses the same engine as DDR Extreme. I only found all this out after I got home…

The dance games seemed to be the main attraction in the arcade, so I had to wait my turn a few times before I could play. It was £1 per play on both machines (about $1.80 at current exchange rates), which gives you 3 songs to dance to unless you fail one of them. This obviously makes arcades expensive, which is the biggest reason why I’ve been using Stepmania all this time. Considering how much I’ve played I’d be out of pocket by at least £150 ($270) from the last few weeks of gaming.

Euromix 2 first got my attention, and I tried 3 songs on it. Overall I got annoyed with this machine. There were very few songs in the playlist, with pretty much nothing I wanted to dance to, and the menu system was quite poor. For instance it didn’t display the difficulty levels a song had available until you chose it, so for the first song I chose I could only do 4-foot since that’s as high as it went. All my future playing was made on the Fusion machine, which had a mix of old and new popular songs, as well as some DDR “classics” – PARANOIA survivor and the like (no, I did not attempt that). Thankfully on its song selection menu it shows which different difficulty ratings are available underneath the name of the song before you pick it. Some of the songs I enjoyed playing on it were Like A Virgin, Ladies’ Night, and best of all It’s Raining Men. Those reading these articles may have picked up that I have a certain preference for old cheesy classics…

As it turns out I did very poorly on that first 4-step anyway. Getting used to the new interface was difficult. I was like a virgin – fumbling, disorientated, with poor rhythm and often just not hard enough to do the job right. I’m used to playing in just my socks on a thin, soft mat that’s responsive to even the lightest of touches. This large, hard dance machine was cold and unresponsive, requiring firmer and heavier steps to be registered properly, and wearing shoes didn’t help my usual sense of where my feet were. Freeze steps were the worst – often halfway through it wouldn’t sense my foot on the pad any more and I’d get a NG (whatever that means – obviously not as good as the usual OK). This may be due to damage to the machines through abusive players, or possibly I just need lead weights in my shoes to help me dance… To add to my frustration there was a glare on the screens that made me miss arrows now and then. I failed on 2 songs, which I’m not particularly proud of, and more importantly annoyed at since that means I lost my money.

Overall I played around 15 songs, ranging from 4 to 6 foot (mostly did 5s). Interestingly, although I felt like I did terribly, my ratings weren’t too bad overall – mostly Bs and Cs. It seems that the rankings are far more generous in the arcade games, because I definitely wouldn’t have gotten that high a mark for such a performance at home. Also, the difficulty ratings are most definitely toned down from what I’m used to. 6-foots were like 5-foots, 5-foots were like 4-foots, etc. The 6-foots I played had nothing in comparison to the intensity of what I’ve been trying at home lately. None of the songs remotely tired or exhausted me, in spite of a fair amount of perspiration. It’s a pity I didn’t try any 7-foots actually, but with the troubles I was having on the machines I might have just been throwing my money away.

One interesting thing about the machines themselves is the announcers, who come out with all sort of supportive comments as you play. “That was beautiful!” “Hear the crowd go wild!” “You’re fantastic!” I now see why some DDR players get really offended if you insult their genre – they have these damned commentators telling them how amazing they are no matter how badly they screw up! Playing this game on the machines too much would quickly give you an ego the size of Greenland. I don’t have any announcers on Stepmania, but if I’m ever having a bad day I’ll be sure to load one up and hear them praise my footwork.

A new experience for me was getting to see other people play. I was very impressed watching two teenage girls doing a double together (no, not in a sick way, you pervert). Their style of play was quite different to mine – turning their bodies 90º for up and down arrows, and shifting their whole bodies over for single left or right arrows. They were very active and bouncy (I said stop the dirty thoughts!) and moved in time with the rhythm very well. On a couple of the songs I saw them do they got AAs. Watching them I thought they were very impressive, but when I looked at the arrows on the screen I realised they were only doing what looked like 4-foot difficulty. I also saw a couple try out the game for what looked like their first time – trying to use the tutorial mode to learn. Didn’t seem to do them any good though… I’m definitely glad I used Stepmania to learn rather than throwing money away on these useless machines.

Positives: Step-wise this is actually much easier. If the settings were right I could achieve way higher difficulty ratings.
Negatives: Difficult to get to, other music in the background, small selection of songs, annoying menu timers, unresponsive buttons, light glare, other people queuing for a go, not being able to shower straight afterwards, and worst of all having to pay a lot of money to play. I’m beginning to see why one would prefer to play at home…
Overall: An interesting experience, but certainly not something I’d want to repeat. However, this site has never been particularly about what I want, has it…?

It’s About Time

Session Time: Two hours split between Sunday morning and Sunday evening. One and a half if you don’t count… well, you’ll see. Advanced a good ways into Level 11.

Let me preface this whole thing by saying, first and foremost, that I am not blind to the deficiencies produced by my playthrough. I will be the first to admit that by only relying on what is presented to me in-game and in the manual, I am missing out on quite a bit of information. So I’ve taken the advice of a few of the people posting here and made a couple changes to what I try. The results have improved my opinion of the game enough to warrant their mention.

First, the idea of selling items in the Auction House over a longer period of time certainly was a good one. The Notched Shortsword of Strength I’d found in a random chest in some godforsaken hole (ahem, beautifully-rendered godforsaken hole) sold for almost double what it would have through an NPC. Also, asking the guards for information actually works. Had someone been kind enough to point that out in-game instead of ignoring me, maybe I wouldn’t have been as lost and pissed off. Finally, I’m getting the impression that being a Shaman isn’t specifically a caster-type role; I found a Dreamwatcher Staff which deals a lot more damage than the mace I’d been using. Of course, finding new armor is getting to be a chore.

Now, then, let’s talk about the 800-lb. ogre in the room. The server queue. Last night, for the first time since starting the trial, I was subjected to the dreaded “Anvilmar is Full” message. Let me reiterate. Anvilmar, a server touted as “new” when I first started in late July, is now a “full” server. Granted, I have not been playing on weekend evenings specifically so I can avoid getting this, but last night I just had to get on. I’d gotten to that point of the weekend where you’re saying, “Goddammit, Monday, just get here already!” So I logged in, saying, “I have to check my auction anyway and get my stuff back”. And found myself at position 130 in line to get in.

Now, yes, 130 is not that bad. It wound up only being a five-minute wait. But, for those five minutes, it was eternity. Can you imagine if someone truly addicted wound up delayed by this screen? I don’t know about you, but even in my quasi-apathy I was pissed. Imagine someone who actually likes the game having to wait. Or, worse, someone who got randomly disconnected in the middle of a party situation or guild event. Getting stuck in line while your allies are getting slaughtered in turn is not going to endear you. You may lose DKP, whatever those are, and that’s Serious Business.

Once I was in, there were no obvious signs that the server was straining. There was no lag, no overpopulation, nothing that would say, “We need to limit the number of people here”. Maybe the server wasn’t straining. That’s a possibility; maybe “full” really means “If we add any more people, there may be 1/128th of a second of lag and heaven forbid that there be lag in my Horde”. It would be nice to know what Blizzard considers “full”. It would also be nice to have something to do during the wait time other than stare at the queue countdown. I mean, sure, you can curse at it, but that gets old after a while and your throat gets dry really fast.

I’ve found that I’m eligible for the Warsong Gulch PvP Battleground, so I’ll be heading into that later this week. Y’know, assuming I can get in.

The Good: Even in a situation where the game’s in a “critical” state, it’s responsive (which makes the spike of lag I had on the first night very very odd). The game remains quasi-fun if you have the time and mood to get into it.
The Bad: I promised that there would be whining when I had to wait, and here it is. Waiting sucks. It’s not clear if I could have tried a character on a different server and still kept my place in line. There should be something more engaging during the queue screen.
Opinion Change: Slightly less. I’m gradually moving away from outright hatred of the game and more into neutral tolerance, but unless something wows me here in the next week or so, there’s no chance I’ll be continuing.

Boom, Here Comes the Boom, Ready or Not

Session Time: About 3 hours spread out over Saturday and Sunday.

So, a quick story before we get started here, no? Went to go pick up Madden ‘07 (Our motto: more pancake tackles with less of the batter. Get it? Batter? In a football game? I kill me sometimes) at what I thought at the time was the nearest store, a Best Buy. I’m not a big fan of Best Buy, but hey, it’s a muggy Saturday morning in Pittsburgh, might as well make the drive as short as possible. So I pull in to this Best Buy and meander over to the PC software and games section. The sports rack is hardly deserving of that title, only a few copies of Madden ‘06 and a copy of NFL Coach. So, for the first time in human history, a male video gamer asked a store clerk for help at Best Buy. “Excuse me, you have any PC copies of Madden ‘07?”

The ‘customer representative’ or what ever the hell they’re calling the work floor drones these days gives me this blank stare like I just harshed his buzz. He’s got surfer bleached blond hair in short, curly, faux dreads. “Sorry, no, they, um, er, uh, you know, sometimes the PC games come out a few months after the consoles.” With that, I was spared having to spend money at Best Buy. I motor home, think about it, do some searching on the Interwebs, and find out it’s released. A drive to an EBGames I found is much closer ten minutes later nets me the game. For PC. Today.

So the case it comes in is about the size of two or three DVD cases. I’m expecting a large manual to help give me some hints with the scary army of controls that’s bound to be in the package. Turns out the booklet is maybe 20 pages. The only controls is a two page table that says in this situation (Passing, Running, Blocking, Defense, etc) pressing these buttons will generate that move. Not really that helpful in the long run. Also, there’s no information about the Franchise Mode or the Superstar Mode. What’s that, I hear you ask aloud to your LCD or CRT screens, what’s Franchise Mode and Superstar Mode? (Go ahead, say it out loud right now. No one’s looking, no, not even that hot chick over on the other side of the computer lab. She’s probably a hot undergrad Psych student. If you start talking to yourself or your screen, that might grab her attention. We here at Unbelievers do our best to help our readers score dates with Psych undergrads). They are two totally different and apparently divergent ways to experience the full frontal assault on the NFL portion of your gamer brain that is Madden ‘07. (Our motto: free night in jail if you play as the Bengals)

Franchise Mode lets you take on the role of the owner of the team. Not only do you get to play games, but you have to worry about how much the coaches are being paid, the price of food in the stadium, and so one and so forth. This, I believe, is the mode I’ll be playing for the majority of my Unbelievers time.

Superstar Mode lets you take on the role of a new draftee onto a random NFL team. You run mini camps, drills, are drafted, do interviews, take the freaking NFL IQ test, and apparently spend the majority of your time as a nickel back used only in 3rd and long situations. Now, this is an admittedly unique approach on the football simulation idea. When you’re on the field, you don’t control the entire team, rather, just your man in your position. You start off with your father’s and mother’s stats. Random data that you can resubmit over and over that determines your base IQ and your position. I ended generating a few sets of parents until I got my cornerback. (Note for those not hip on football lingo. First, hi, how’s the weather in the UK today? Rainy I assume. Second, cornerbacks are the guys who play defense and play deep off the line, protecting against the pass and being a safety valve if any rusher gets through the front seven. If I knew something your futball, I’d say something comparing the two. Just assume I had, please)

The good thing about Superstar Mode is before the NFL draft, you have to run practices. These are just little drills custom fit for your position. As a CB, I had to run tackling drills and drills where I batted down passes and made interceptions. At first I was horrible, but after only a few reps, I understood the controls. And when I say controls, I mean some of what I used to think was the tricky things like ‘batting down passes’ or ‘diving for the tackler’ or ’stripping the ball’. Slicing down the super-mega-ultrazord controls like this really made it easier to learn them.

However, that was the only good thing about Superstar Mode. Since you only really play an active role when your avatar is on the field, if you have someone who isn’t in on every defensive or offensive play, you sit there and watch the play progress without your interaction. Also, the training drills can be found in some of the other modes, so it is not like these things are Superstar specific either.

Franchise Mode, however, seems to be the basic “Play a season and try to get into the playoffs” mode that I remember even back to my Super Tecmo Bowl days. Sure, in this one I can charge six bucks for coffee in my home stadium as well, but seriously, I’m here to play some football (27 years of being asked if I was ready for it every Monday night, yes, yes I am). Now, when I first started the game, it asked me what my default team was. I of course made the choice of my loveless Bills. The main menu screen is Bills themed in background, and all my default choices for games are Bills. If you’re a fan of a specific team, I will admit this is a nice touch. Heck, I even had the option to change how my fans look. Maybe a bit overboard in terms of customablity, but if my Bills cheering section should all have the foam Number 1 fingers, I can make it so.

I started up franchise mode and started the preseason, playing a game against the Carolina Panthers. Here I got the first full audio of Al Michaels (Who really is a great announcer, I have to admit, and his inclusion into the Madden games is nice) and the big man himself, Madden. I don’t know if it’s my imagination or what, but Madden’s comments seem to be lessened then from what I’ve seen in earlier games. He only spouts his tough acting brand of football strategy during long yardage plays, touchdowns, or turnovers. In fact, I hear more of his voice when I use the ‘have Madden select a play’ option on defense than any where else. In other words, I don’t mind the illusionary football commentary as much as I thought I would, because it seems this iteration of the game is less about his voice and more about the actual game.

The game mechanics, even with some drills from Superstar mode under my belt, were, and are, still a challenge to me. Every passing play I have to hold down the 8 button (The right shoulder button on my controller, translate that to R2 if you’re a PS2 person) to see not only which of my receivers are going to be where, but which number I have to press on my controller to pass it to them. I was able to bust out some long balls in my game, but a lot of the time while I was paying attention to the routes I didn’t realize I was running backwards with my QB and that he was about to get sacked. Three different times I was sacked for greater than fifteen yards. I know it’s a skill I need to learn, pay attention to my receivers and who’s in my pocket, but it’s still frustrating to learn.

My controller doesn’t have an analog stick, which I believe controls where my QB is looking during a pass. I don’t know for sure what that narrow white cone that beams out of my QB’s head is, I just have to assume it’s his field of vision. The booklet is not very helpful on telling me what that is, and neither is the in game help. Not even the training drills I’ve done have told me what this is or how to control it. If it become important later on in the season, I may need to get another controller to better mimic the PS2 setup, or figure out the mouse and keyboard system that is it’s PC equivalent.

And as good as my passing is, my running, it ain’t so good. This may be again because of the new blocking feature in Madden ‘07, which I have to assume is done with the analog stick or its PC version, and thus I’m just not doing it. When I select a running play, I try to follow the route that the play is supposed to go, but I rarely hit the holes and get a gain over two yards. This is frustrating, cause I end up passing almost all the time and to me, that just seems cheap. I mean, I’m a Bills fan, not a Colts or St. Louis fan, I like runs every now and then again. The rushing drills I’ve done tell me my pad and/or my skills don’t lend themselves well to rushing. After I hike the ball, I need to alter how I manipulate the controller with my right hand. Before the snap, it’s in the normal four fingers behind the controller, firmly in the palm, thumb having free reign over the buttons. After the snap, I have to flip my hand over and put my middle finger on the 2 button (Triangle if it were PS2), with my pointer on the 3 buttoner, or PS2 X button. 2 is the sprint, 3 is the spin. 5 and 6, which would be above the Triangle and Circle buttons on a PS2 controller (The controller has 6 buttons where the PS2 has 4) do the dekes left and right, and my ring and pinky fingers camp out on those. For sucessful running plays, it seems you need to rapidly hit the spin and deke and stiff arm buttons (The last which I don’t even use, those are the shoulder buttons), while holding down the sprint button. Even with all that, I’m only able to gain one or two yards a carry before I’m tackled. Maybe some use of the rushing drills will improve, but I don’t know.

The crux of all this is that I lost my first preseason game, but only by 4 points. Even with all this chaos, all this lack of control, when the game was close, it was a rush to play. The lead switched back and forth, and like any real good NFL game to watch, it went down to the last play. Now, I decided to take control of a defenseman for the last play and moved up instead of down, which allowed the receiver to get wide open and score the game winning touchdown as time expired. In other words, if I had just sat idly by, I, and by ‘I’ I mean my team, would have won. Yet I decided to be the playmaker for the game winning tackle, and the action of taking control from the PC ended up losing the game from me. Because of this, I’m more likely to play it safe and let the PC make more decisions for me in crunch time than trust my feeble skills.

The Good: The Bills don’t suck as much when I’m in control. The sound isn’t as horrible as I thought it would be, though it’s new, and I reserve the right to throw a brick through the wall when Madden breaks the tenants of logic when he speaks. (Note to my landlord: The Wall in question is not in your building)

The Bad: Still don’t know how I’m controlling anything at times. Things move too fast, which is realistic, but when you’re playing Unreal Tournament, you don’t want the bullets shooting you to be realistic. Superstar mode was 90 minutes of my life I want back. I fear I am wasting my time and the reader’s by not having an analog stick, though it means there’s one less set of controls I have to learn.

Opinion Change: I’ve been starved for football for six months now. Madden ‘07 is fine during the real life pre season when things don’t count, and it’s new. Opinion change to the better a bit, but right now it’s the only game in town. Be interested to see how well it holds my attention when the real NFL season starts in less than two weeks; if that will enhance my urge to play or it will appear to be ‘just a game.’