2 dudes, 1 cover.

Madden is not only the longest-running football game, it is a cultural touchstone, spawning tournaments, ESPN shows, and a huge following of people who wouldn’t otherwise play video games (frat boys and black people).  It is universally loved by normal people and reviled by nerds for diluting their gaming medium.  (Nerds are less open to diversifying membership in their little clubhouse than white males at Augusta.)  Much like pot, Madden has been a gateway drug for a lot of people into the seedy underworld of gaming, which has allowed the sector to become more mainstream and respectable. Then again, Madden does set the standard for commercial exploitation by releasing annual increments of dubious improvement, forcing other companies to overexpose good intellectual properties to return value to stakeholders instead of just focusing on making a good game.  You’ve got to let games marinate sometimes and only a few companies do this now, and it’s kind of Madden’s fault. So overall is Madden a good thing for gaming, or a bad thing? There probably isn’t a definitive answer to that question. Anyways, we’re not here to be all New York Time-sy, we’ve here to chew bubblegum and play video games.  And we’re almost out of bubblegum. And by ”bubblegum”, we mean… we actually mean Nerds Rope, which is maybe even worse. Let’s move on.

This review of Madden 2010 (360 version) is interesting because Vicente Shancoe signed it with his third leg it is brought to you by paradoxical perspectives. The Random Guy has played Madden almost every year since 1995 and is something of a Pro at it (not All Pro, get it lolol RL OMG!?!). Goldfish has only played Madden once in his adult life, and it while on a friend’s TV while his mount was flying from Azeroth to the Underworld on his PC. You’re a dork if you get that. Naturally, they also represent two endpoints of the gaming continuum – Goldfish is a hardcore gamer who holds his nose at sports games and most FPSs (lazerz! pew! pew!), and TRG plays mostly, well, sports games and FPSs. Particularly this one. So the review will be from the perspective of a snobby-gamer-cum-Madden-noob and a frat boy.

Overall: 75 out of 100.  If you like Madden, then you play Madden. That cylical argument pretty much sums it up.

Full review…

Madden 2010 is what we thought it was. If you want to crown Madden, then crown its ass. If you’re looking for more than just incremental improvements, then it let you off the hook. But it is who we thought it was! I (TRG) was particularly excited about some of the new additions this year – Pro Tak for better tackling animations and gang tackles, a slower overall speed of the game to allow for move realism and less reliance on fast-twitch instincts, a halftime show, and pun-tastic corporate sponsorship by the folks who brought you Patrick Chewing. I described all of these things to Goldfish and he just kind of stared at me and then said, “so is this really any different than any other year?”  Not really. It makes incremental progress on the Madden formula but in the end, Madden is what we thought it was. If you like Madden enough to purchase it every year for roster updates and tweaks, you won’t be disappointed. If not, then you probably stopped reading several paragraphs ago. If you’ve made it this far, don’t stop now.  We gots a lot of things to say.

Goldfish’s Take In Which He Forgot to Stick to the Arbitrary Rating System:

You know, I’ve played Madden before. It was around 1990, on the Sega Genesis, and 16 bits of joy. And I’ll tell you what, I was on Madden’s side back then…none of that Joe Montana Football in the Goldfish household, no sir.

The release of Madden ’92 was a decent update…it brought in instant replay so long as you managed to hit the button within a microsecond of the event, you could play cooperatively, and I’m sure numerous other features I’ve long since forgotten (Ed. note – the ambulances!). Suffice to say I ponied up three rolls of quarters from my ceramic Winnie the Pooh bank, road my ten-speed to Zyla’s and bought that game, no regrets.

Gimme all ur mother effing cash money!

But Madden ’93? ’94? They wanted me to buy the game each year, with very minor updates, for full price? Bullshit. It didn’t take me long to figure out that scam, I quickly decided it was time to go back to Altered Beast and Populous…fostering a long lasting god-complex and  an affinity for shirtless muscle men that will likely break out in my late 40’s, resulting in a broken marriage and weeping relatives. (Ed. Note – Not that there’s anything wrong with that.)

That’s my gripe with Madden, which I’ve nurtured long past the point where my interest in the genre wained: EA has diabolically convinced an entire market segment that paying a premium price for last year’s game is somehow appropriate. They toss out a few new textures, update some stats, add a feature that they’ll fail to develop in the NEXT iteration…and people buy it. Bully for EA.

If they want to convince me of the value in a new Madden game, give me something truly new. Give me the ability to jump into a player on the fly…maybe some binural (or polyphonic for you older gents) audio on the scrimmage line. New control schemes? Six-axis (as much of a joke as that is) out-maneuvering of a linebacker.

I guess I should give some thoughts on the actual game presented. The graphics are decent, the animations are varied enough that I wasn’t bored. There was enough fluff thrown into the game to be diverting, but if I see one more god-damned Snickers pun I’m swearing off its nougaty goodness forever, and that’s no small statement coming from a fat man. The game works well as a simulator, but that’s also its failing for me. Half the time it makes more sense to just let the computer run the play than for you to get in and start controlling players. The model sticking, collision detection, and rubber banding made the experience less than satisfying. They strive so much for accuracy that the whole affair of actually running a play just doesn’t feel…fun. Well, I’m sure you’ve already gotten the game, convinced yourself the stat updates and flaccid new features were worth the sixty clams. Enjoy it while you can, because EA’s already started on next year’s offering, trying to whittle out one or two shinies in their expedited production schedule to dazzle you all over again. Maybe they’ll expand on their system of microtransactions and stat buffing by continuing to steal from 5-year old RPGs. DeMeco Ryan’s Helmet of Knowing (+5 to Intelligence)? Matt Schaub’s Shoulderpads of Undying Protection (+8 to Injury Prevention)?

PS – Guess it doesn’t matter what the gameplay is like…you know you guys just use this game to stroke off while endlessly simulating seasons of your favorite teams. How many times have you gotten the Texans to the super bowl? (Ed Note – None with Madden, but bet your ass Joffrey Reynolds won the Heisman in NCAA Football 2002.)

TRG’s Take in Which He Did the Yeoman’s Share of Rating the Game Rather Than Just Bitching About It and Insisiting that Populous was the Apex of Gaming:

Graphics: 16 out of 20. Player models look good from afar, but the new coaching close-ups are terrible (Gary Kubiak has a mullet, and apparently they couldn’t license The Hoodie), and the helmet-less player heads look like PS2 models. The quarterbacks talking into the phone look like muppets. In fact, all of the cutscenes might have added authenticity to the game had they not looked like something done by a student at one of those design schools that advertise on NBA TV. The only cutscenes that work well are the referee yardage measurements, but they do look like anamatronics doing the “5 Dollar Footlong” song. (By the way, how did that 5 Dollar Footlong add campaign not become some sort of a universal sexual euphanism, thereby embarrasing Subway and forcing the commercials off the air? That is probably the strangest non-occurrence of this millenia. So far.)  The player animations have been expanded and there are fewer clipping issues (arms going through other arms, etc) than in previous years. The line play is pretty good. Some of the “sizzle” presentation stuff looks good graphically, like the big team logos that crash down on the field before the game starts. Player running in Madden has always looked very strange to me – why do players keep their legs bent at 35 degree angles throughout their entire stride? – and this year is no different. Despite all of this, Madden is a very, very good looking game.

Gameplay: 18 out of 20. The Madden formula continues to improve, and this year is more authentic than ever. My main complaint is that you still can’t run outside the tackles. Seriously, how hard is this to fix? Gone are the 18 turnovers per game from 2008. Gone are the player weapon system from 2009. One thing Madden does very well is innovate slightly and then take the new feature out of the game the next year. This year’s innovation that is sure to be taken out? The game runs about 30% slower. Actually players running, not frames per second. It works well because most of us don’t spend 8 hours per day honing our fast twitch skills. One word of advice on a new gameplay set – the Wildcat doesn’t fool anyone. Run it at your own risk. Another longstanding issue is that you can’t see your outside receivers during certain routes. On one hand, having a semi-close camera is good for immersion. On the other, I throw at least 6 BS interceptions every year because I can’t see what Andre Johnson is doing on the other side of the field. BS, I tell you! It almost make you want to bring back the QB vision cone. Gameplay works pretty well for noobs, which will be discussed later. In the end, it’s Madden. Either you like how it plays or you don’t.

Badassness: 10 out of 20. This is where the game really falls down. The only new things it has are corporate candy-ass sponsors. CHOMPETITION! If you’re going to whore yourself out to sponsors, Madden, at least make them more fun than Snickers. “G” would have been nice. Or how about being thematic – “This naked bootleg is brought to you by Platnum Gentleman’s Club, where discrete adult entertianment is the name of the game and steaks are $8 on Tuesdays.” Gang tackles are nice, but it is hard to give a game too much credit for something that should have been in the game 8 years ago. The halftime and game end shows are fine, except NFL 2K5 did it half a decade ago. The audio from the show is atrocious. How in God’s name in 2009 when we have Project Natal can anything sound like this? The…BEARS…had a nice rushing attack with…59 YARDS…against the…PACKERS! It isn’t 1994 anymore, so cut and paste the audio clips better, EA intern! Overall, here is how badass the game is not – Goldfish actually fell asleep (at 2 in the afternoon) during the review.

Wildcats HOOO!!! Or is that Thundercats?

Presentation: 8 out of 10. Despite our loathing of corporate sponsors, Madden does a pretty good job. The anamatrconic cutscenes sponsored by Showbiz Pizza! miss the mark with their terrible character models, but everything else is pretty cool. The game works very well with HD. A new feature – when a play is decided (a player is being tackled to the ground, or gets a touchdown, or whatever), the camera zooms in on the action. This is actually a bit disorienting  and the camera picks strange angles to focus in on, but the idea is pretty cool. Back this year is the “roadie run”, where when a player breaks away, the camera will swing behind him and shake, just like the running in Gears of War. The highlight shows are long overdue.

Online: 8 out of 10. Quite frankly, we didn’t even venture online, so this component is completely fabricated. Blame us? Online Madden is like Lord of the Flies. Go online and you’ll see. It’s amazing how many 12 year olds have been promiscuous with my mother, according to them.

Learning Curve: 5 out of 5, which means it has an optimal curve. Goldfish was able to play a full game without going through a tutorial or getting completely overwhelmed, which means that balancing and Madden IQ actually do work. The learning curve for a mature Madden gamer is nonexistant, except getting used to the slightly slower action.

Innovation: 2 out of 5. Again, gang tackles are so overdue it is hard to give any credit for them. Everything else is meh. The game does lower the average player rating from 80 to 70 because 70 is, you know, average. This gives them a larger range of aptitude – the greats are still high 90s, but now they are actually significantly better than everyone else, which they should be. Kudos to EA for having the testicular fortitude to do this – lord only knows how many irate calls and texts they got from players who dropped from 87 to 79 ratings. I can just imagine a researcher explaining to Travis Johnson that he actually stayed the same relative to the entire Madden universe of players – that his position on the bell curve is essentially unchanged — and Johnson not understanding what the researcher was talking about because the idea of relativity is over his head. Good times. That’s why they get 2 points.

Tilt: 8 out of 10. Because the game is good enough to get a 75. No more, no less.

Recommendation: (Possibilities – Buy It; Rent It; Ignore; Throw in ET’s Landfill) Buy It if you like Madden. Again, all things considered, THIS. IS. MADDEN! If you generally enjoy you some Madden, this game is going to do it for you. If you used to like Madden but then got bored with it, none of the new incremental improvements will probably be enough to suck you back in. If you don’t like Madden in general, there are probably some new Starcraft 2 videos to watch on gametrailers (not IGN because you’re too hip to frequent that over-produced site). Nerd. Photos from here, here, here, and here.