The only ten I see

I've recently become one of the few, if not the only, Madden NFL 10 detractors in the gaming press.

The proverbial "word on the street" is that Madden 10 is the most realistic football experience EVAR!

I have at least a few issues with that statement. Here are some:

1. If we consider this statement to be based exclusively on graphical excellence – as fidelity to reality often is in video game discussion – then every consecutive version of Madden should theoretically be the most realistic football experience ever. Graphics are always dependent on technology, and technology has, over the course of human history, consistently amassed weapons against its former selves (with a few historical exceptions like the era of the Black Plague or the Dark Ages). Even Bryan, who falls closer to casual than hardcore on the casual-to-hardcore-gamer continuum, realizes that continuous graphics improvements are less an achievement and more a necessity in video game franchises.
   
2. Despite the existence of the FOX Reality Channel, a FOX broadcast should by no means be the high water mark for what actually counts as reality. As far as I can tell, EA Tiburon tried harder than ever to make the Madden experience feel like the watching-football-on-TV experience. But this game doesn't make me feel like I'm playing football. I really doubt that Ed Reed sits down and watches Chris Berman and Tom Jackson during halftime of a game. And if I wanted to do that – if I wanted to watch football – I would. It's on seven months out of the year.
   
3. I'm willing to admit that my recent love affair with NCAA Football 10 has probably colored my perception of Madden 10, but I'm not willing to admit that this is a problem. The problem is that Madden has no more legitimate NFL game comparisons. In other words, I have no problem with this statement: "Madden 10 is the most realistic NFL gaming experience this year." But that's very hollow praise. Instead, I think that Madden 10 should be compared to NCAA 10, as well as previous Maddens, as well as other legitimate franchises like NFL Fever or NFL 2K, which Madden unceremoniously slaughtered mid-decade, leaving room only for painfully trite niche football games like Blitz: The League or Black College Football: The Xperience. And in that pantheon of football games, Madden 10 probably sits right above the median, with the upper echelon filled primarily with previous Madden games.
   

The bottom line is this: the upgrades in this year's edition were negligible at best (gang tackling, moving towels, semi-useful online franchise mode), but the downgrades are many and glaring (scaled-down play calling, annoying halftime shows, increased missed tackles, slower gameplay, automated clock runoff, ill-explained rules and settings, sideline Peyton Mannings who look like pigmen). In my mind, there is no way that this year's Madden is an improvement.

Question of the Week:

What's the most disappointing video game you've ever played?

My take: I'd like to say Hour of Victory because it was one of the worst video games I ever played, but I didn't really expect much, so I wasn't exactly disappointed. So, probably Lord of the Rings: Conquest. I'd really hoped that could live up to its Star Wars: Battlefront heritage, but it just didn't.