Driving Myself Madden

So about two weeks ago I decided I was going to be going full steam on this blog, updating it about five times a week. And just as I'm getting the ball rolling, I decide to take a week off. Now it was because I was home for the holidays, and a good time relaxing (thanks for asking), but any momentum I may have gained from a week of hard work blogging is now lost because I decided to take a week "off". I don't regret it though, because my relaxing gave me an idea for this blog, because it's basically all I did over my break.

BOOM!

You'll notice that this is the 2005 edition of Madden, and for good reason. Me and a couple buddies, Bear, Udee, and eventually Gweeds, decided to go retro and play the 2005 edition. You'll remember it as the one where Vick was unstoppable, and it was fun to do the two-minute drill as the Falcons, only the defense you matched up against was a team from NFL Europe Europa World League. We only came to the decision to play 05 because we didn't have 08 and 04 wouldn't work. And it did take some getting used to, because the buttons for defensive controls (speed and switching players) are different in the old games than in the new game.


Now, I'm not a big gamer, as they say. I buy one game a year, and that's Madden. I call my PlayStation 2 my "Madden Box". Actually, I have also bought 24: The Game (I couldn't beat a level where I had to drive, so that was the end of that game), and MLB The Show '07 (surprisingly not as good as the 05 Edition of MVP Baseball). I do however always buy Madden when it comes out at midnight. Then I play it for two straight days, put it away until the football season starts, play a game or two, and then put it away again. Then over Christmas break I'll go home and start a franchise with my friends. It never fails.

The whole reason I wanted to talk about Madden is how back then, and even now, uneven the difficulty levels are. First off, there is "Rookie", which is one play, touchdown. Next comes "Pro", which is no different than Rookie. The next level is "All-Pro", which is my level of choice. It's easy enough, you can build your stats, and sometimes you do get challenged by the computer.

The final level is "All-Madden", which is downright hard. At least at first. We played a few games on this level and it was impossible to do anything for four solid games. And it wasn't that the computer was better, so to speak, it just seemed like things would never go your way. It wasn't the popular "No F'ing Way" game that people like to speak off, it's more like the game puts you through an initiation when you decide to take on the All-Madden level. The other team catches balls, even when they are tipped twice. Reviews never go your way. Backup running backs become impossible to tackle. It's tough.

So what I wanted to do about this was propose a level inbetween All-Pro and All-Madden. A level where I didn't end up being so mad I'd reset the game in the first quarter. But then as we kept playing on All-Madden. And it wasn't because we figured it out, or things came easier to us. I swear it was because the game was telling us "Ok, we'll ease up now and actually give you a chance."

So that was my weekend. And now, like every other new Simpsons episode, I can't think of an ending. So I'll just do what every other article about John Madden references these days.

Hey look, a turducken!