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My name is Big Al, and I refuse to play Madden 09
The big story in the sports blogosphere today has nothing to do with the the Detroit Lions (yeah, right), the NFL, MLB, Olympics or even the police blotter. Instead, we’ve been overrun with Madden-Mania.
Yes, the overpriced and over hyped game sports geeks have hard-ons for has once again hit the streets. It’s Madden day! Madden 09 here!
Big fucking deal. Seriously.
If there is a God, let the Madden Curse do its thing one more time
I don’t play Madden. Haven’t in years. In fact, I outright refuse to play Madden. Why? I’m glad you asked, as I have 10 reasons:
10. I’m not eager to be pwned 59-3 by a 12 year old with the gamertag “FartBubble69″ who plays Madden 10 hours a day, 16 hours on the weekend, even when he uses the Raiders and I have the Patriots. I may suck, but I do have my pride.
9. Same goes for being trash talked by children. I’m not all that enthused to be called an asshat n00b (and much, MUCH worse) by some 13 year old with too much time on his hands, and a vocabulary that would make a Navy sailor cruising brothels in the Philippines blush.
I just beat your @#$+!<*% ass 107-2, you @#$<?+={%&# n00b!
8. There are more controls and button combinations involved in playing Madden than needed to fly a jet fighter plane. When did having 3 hands and 15 fingers become a prerequisite to play video games? I have enough going on in my life without having to memorize what 5 buttons I need to push simultaneously just to make a juke move.
That 10 year old who just humiliated you? He was using this…
7. I have too much Chris Collinsworth in my life as it is, with his being part of the gang of 15 doing NBC Sunday night games. I don’t need that pompous ass calling me out in a video game as well.
6. I’m sorry, but paying $60+ on a game that only offers refreshed rosters and incremental “improvements,” that are dubious at best, over the previous year’s edition is unmitigated stupidity. EA is taking you sheep to the cleaners, then going to the bank, laughing all the way.
They’re headed to GameStop…
5. John Madden was once the most entertaining and informative broadcaster around, but he’s been mailing it in since Bush 41 was in office. He’s not even trying anymore. Forking over my hard earned money for something with that washed up hack’s name on the box is only encouraging him to continue working, instead of riding the Madden Cruiser into a long overdue retirement. Even worse, I’d bet Madden has never even played the game bearing his name. He wouldn’t know an Xbox from Brett Favre’s jock.
What in the Hell is a PS3? Is that like the AIDS?
4. EA is a reprehensible corporation who have singularly driven gaming down to the lowest common denominator. I remember the days when an EA game was considered the best on the market. But now? Whenever a better game is released by a competitor (Remember the great NFL2K series, anyone?), you’d hope EA would just improve their own game. Everyone’s happy, right? But that’s too damn hard! They would rather use their Scrooge McDuck-esque wealth to gain exclusive licensing deals, essentially removing the competition from the market with the stroke of a pen on a check with more zeros than crooked numbers. EA is right up there with the cable TV cartel, Wal-Mart, Haliburton and sub-prime mortgage lenders in their innate evilness.
Evil Empire, indeed…
3. I still have a PS2, not a PS3, Xbox 360 or Wii. I know, I know, you can call me a Luddite. But I do have a state of the art desktop PC with a nice video card and a pair of monitors. Maybe I’ll give Madden another chance, and…What? EA discontinued Madden on the PC? The bastards! I told you they were evil. Never mind…
2. I have much more important and adult things to do than play kid’s games. Like what? I..uh…blog. OK, let’s forget that one.
1. Because Madden 94 on the Genesis was the best Madden ever. I only needed to push 3 buttons and a single D pad to get my gaming jollies. Sometimes, simple is better…And more fun. Plus, Barry Sanders was unstoppable!
The gold standard in gameplay
[...] his top-10 reasons why he refuses to play the new Madden 2009. You can read the hilarious post here. I love the No. 1 reason: 1. Because Madden 94 on the Genesis was the best Madden ever. I only [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 2:07 amI am with you. They release basically the same game, every year, with a different package. Rarely do they actually make improvements to the game that really matter. It would be better if they kept it simple, and let us download updated rosters each year for like $5 an update rather than waste $60 for the same bleeping game again!
August 13th, 2008 at 8:29 am[...] all gamers are children though. Daddy plays too…well not this guy. Big Al over at Sidelionreport.com has his own reasons not to [...]
August 13th, 2008 at 8:37 amEven though I realize this was all in fun, the only really valid reason is #8. Most of the other ones hold up as much as a hot chick comic doing jokes about not being able to get laid.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:58 amPaul, I’m with you. In order to get the most out of a game I don’t feel like you have to the correct 3rd string running back on the Jacksonville Jaguars. Updated rosters are fine. Not $60 worth of fine.
The goodwill EA could generate by allowing the DLing of updated rosters for a nominal fee would be tremendous. But EA doesn’t care about “goodwill,” just lining their corporate coffers with insane amounts of money.
serotonin, it is in fun, but I’ve had issues with Madden and EA for years. First off, online play is overrated. If you aren’t playing against a friend, what’s the big deal?
But more to the point, in my mind the best NFL game in the modern generation of consoles was Sega’s NFL2K5. It blew Madden out of the water. If need a football gaming fix, that’s still my game of choice. But EA killed the series, not with better game play, but their exclusivity agreement with the NFL. Damn them! //shakes fist at sky//
August 13th, 2008 at 10:09 amI agree on all counts. especially that Madden 94 was the best madden of all time. if you played with the cowboys you could not lose. also I played an entire season and won the superbowl by only running one offensive play. troy aikman hail mary to michael Irvin….it worked every other time.
classic
August 13th, 2008 at 10:14 amThanks, Tipping! My go to play in Madden 94 was a Barry Sanders sweep. It was like having Superman on your team… Not quite Bo Jackson in Tecmo Bowl Superman, but close.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:30 amI am actually just really, really terrible at Madden and so I act above it all so I don’t have to look silly.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:52 amYour honesty is much appreciated, Jeanne. There’s no shame in being a Madden-phobe.
August 13th, 2008 at 11:00 amThats awesome, you and i have the same number 1 reasons!!! QB WAGGLE greatest play of all time!!!!!!!
August 13th, 2008 at 1:35 pmHoly crap! How could I have forgotten the QB WAGGLE? That play was money! You brought a smile to my face, Raju!
August 13th, 2008 at 2:04 pmI agree completly with this list, with one minor change, Madden ‘94 is second only to Madden ‘93, Walter Payton and Joe Montana on the same “Madden Greats” team never got old.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:51 pmAnd I just read the comment on the HB sweep with Barry. Same play with Walter, but Barry was my regular season guy. I’ll check you out later, I am going to play Madden ‘93
August 13th, 2008 at 3:53 pmI’m with you, Old School, the early Madden games were simple yet still amazingly fun. Dammit, you got me wishing I still had my Sega Genesis. Maybe I can find an emulator online…
August 13th, 2008 at 5:10 pmJohn Madden Football 93 for the Genesis is my all-time favorite (Remember the New Jersey “Jets?”). There was no NFL license at that time, but it was great. My team was the Buffalo Bills (Thurman Thomas was almost as good as Barry). One of the coolest things about that game was how when you were in the playoffs, the computer would show you highlights from other games. And you could just pop that puppy in and play - no long loading times, no “hot routes” and no complicated button combinations to run a play (Passing windows were GREAT!). I still own a cart of the original NHL Hocley from EA, and that follows the same formula that made early Madden titles a success.
August 14th, 2008 at 6:45 amdon’t play the shit at all. never did. i’m really, really old school. i kinda just watch the games, like it used to be done. you know, before all this video game shit, when kids would put pads on and acctually play a game of neighborhood football?????? hard to remember back that far, but kids today would just look at you and say, “how do you do that”????? fuckin rediculios
August 14th, 2008 at 7:18 amChad, you’re the 2nd Madden 93 fan to come forward. I do remember the passing windows being considered revolutionary at the time. My favorite trick was hitting pause when the passing windows were open so I could see which was the open man.
DDF, I’m much the same way in that being older, I grew up without video games being so central to our lives. My first game system was a Pong (Wow, you can play ping pong and handball? WOW!) back in the mid-70, but I really didn’t “get” video games till was 17-18, when I got an Intellivison. (Great system, much better than the Atari 2600)
Most of my time growing up was spent on the sandlots playing unsupervised sports with my friends. You just don’t see kids on sandlots any more. My 10 year old nephew would rather stay inside and play on his PS2 than play real sports. It’s a shame.
August 14th, 2008 at 8:17 amI was run off many a vacant sandlots when I was a young lad. Who knew you wren’t supposed to play on private property (of course, we never thought of ‘liability’ back then. Unfortunately, all those lots were eventually covered with houses, and the people living there weren’t so warm to the idea of us playing in their yards!
August 14th, 2008 at 10:04 amBig Al, I have got your back, great Genesis emulator:
http://www.thesmartass.info/?left=null&rt=null&tito=games/segagenesis
August 14th, 2008 at 10:33 amSame here, Chad. The vacant lot we used religiously as our baseball and football field was next door to our school. It was known to several generations of kids in my small home town as “The Battlefield.” My parents knew right where to find me most days, as we were there from dawn to dusk.
It’s now a doctors office and a parking lot.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:57 pmYou are the man, OS! Thank you very much!
Hey, they have Madden’s 95 thru 98. Close enough!
August 14th, 2008 at 1:01 pmyeah, i’m 46 and grew up with pinball machines, and pool. we swam at the local swimming pool to cool off, but we played baseball from morning to nite. pissed off when someone had to go home and mow the yard or some stupid shit like that. when school started, it was FOOTball till we were in grade school, then it was the real thing. 7th, 8th grade jv and then varsity FOOTball. i was 5′7″ 180 and played def. halfback, or safety as you would say today. loved to hit. contact!!!!!!!! those days are gone. my kids are out of the house, my boys 22, full time job and 2 girls in college. it’s just me and my wife who hates to waste time watching sporty things on tv. likes to “shop”. so it’s me, my brother, a few fantasyfootball junkies, beer, of corse, and something on the grill. thats life my friends……and we miss the good ole days
August 14th, 2008 at 4:38 pmAs to #6, EA should remember what is one of my favorite movie lines of all time…”Amarillo Slim said, ‘You can shear a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once.’” I always think of that when I see some greedy piss-head screwing over his customers. You know, like EA, or Exxon, or Halliburton, but you get the picture.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:04 pmDDF, your background sounds just like mine. I played football all thru school as well, I was a tight end/defensive end, till I filled out became a 2 way tackle. I miss those days too… You life sounds pretty damn complete now, beer, friends, family and football!
Omar, you’ve hit the nail on the head, as usual. Companies like EA are all about the bottom line, nothing more. They definately aren’t about the games. Not anymore.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:32 pmSeems to me like someone got their pride brutally beaten and is trying to justify not playing a “child’s game” because of it.
August 26th, 2008 at 7:20 amThats funny because most of the Madden consumers are between the ages of 15-43.
Madden 09 SUCKS, its too hard, I’m trading it in tomorrow
August 29th, 2008 at 5:15 pmyou guys can all suck a fat 1 maddden o9 is the shit no questions asked u guys r just a bunch of pussys and do not know hot to play
September 11th, 2008 at 9:23 amBOB, you cant spell, thought you would have learned how to spell, being cooped up in your house playing games all day. but then again, i better watch what i say on the internet, before you e-punch me, because you sure are tough on here…
but in the real world, out on a real field, i would dislocate your head from your body.
November 9th, 2008 at 11:34 amoh man i loved that last comment. i still think madden 04 was pretty good… everything after that started to really suck. i think im gonna go find madd 94 and a system to play it on and rock out. im not old enough to have played the games before madden 2000 but im gonna start.
November 27th, 2008 at 12:35 pmoh and by the way…..
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
November 27th, 2008 at 12:36 pmso is madden 08 good? i can get it for 30 bucks now? i assume any problems it has haven’t been fixed in 09?
the lions are terrible. can’t even show up on thanksgiving.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:19 pmat least the turkey was good today.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:21 pmim a green bay packer fan from maryland, i like playing madden09 maybe 2-3 games every weekend.
i agree with you bout the 10 year olds and everything being annoying as hell playing madden all day and then callin u a noob and a loser (like they have a life), but there are easy ways around that, turn off ur mic or whatever ur using theres probly something built into the game for games on xbox live, ps3 network or whatever it is. if you dont wanna play online, use the single player thing?
EA sports, Atari, and any other game system is out there to make money, just like EVERY other corporation with the exception of charity funds. part of the contract with nitendo, sony, and microsoft was that they would not sell the product, madden 09, for the PC. this will promote the buying of the game systems. its simply buisness
i like alot of the things u said but ur very biased.
December 8th, 2008 at 3:04 pmgood luck with ur lions i hope they get a win, just not against the packers.
BigAl, for me its been like a priority to buy Madden and NCAA every year. The games are almost exact every year, so basically people buy it for updated rosters. For me, its that reason along with the competiveness with other online gamers. I’m a huge game and console collector but only play the 360. I bought a Sega Genesis with a bundle deal of all of the EA games ever made so I don’t have a SG game other than sports related. The passing windows sucked to me. They got in my way. I was glad that they rid that. I’m a 27 year old Tennesseean and I grew up the same way that a few of you did. Everyone has gotten lazy these days. The children have tight leashes on them and rightfully so with all of the crime going on. I played all 4 years of HS football. Back then I was 6-3 205 lbs. and most of the time(being that size) players were put on the offensive line. I played TE on O and strong safety on D. I ran my 40 in 4.57. Anyway, I bought the Madden09 and as always, I was disappointed by the complexiblity of the game. It usually takes me a week of offline play to master it so I can compete inline. On the weekend I play quite a bit, but during the week I’m so fcuking tired after working at the electric company. If there was one thing I wish could happen, it would be to go back in the old days when crime wasn’t a problem so everyone could let their kids play with others unsupervised. Me being from where I’m from, I stay strapped and prepared for whatever. I’m more scared to leave my kid unsupervised than anything. Kids are automatically your #1 priority when they come into the world. The sandlot days are definetely deminished.
January 1st, 2009 at 9:23 pm