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Originally posted by V-ism
But ESPN is so awesome...

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Originally posted by V-ism
But ESPN is so awesome...

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Originally posted by lordzeppelin
Th lines of people to pick up Madden at the local game stores was incredible...like 300+ at EB, 100+ at the 2 gamestops within a mile of each other... it was sick. Like the mid 90's when I worked at that EB and we always had a line out the door for new releases. The worst was Resident Evil 2 and Zelda 64...the lines never ended.

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Originally posted by lordzeppelin
Th lines of people to pick up Madden at the local game stores was incredible...like 300+ at EB, 100+ at the 2 gamestops within a mile of each other... it was sick. Like the mid 90's when I worked at that EB and we always had a line out the door for new releases. The worst was Resident Evil 2 and Zelda 64...the lines never ended.

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Wow. I thought I was still 'hip' or whatever the word is now when it comes to video games...

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http://sports.ign.com/articles/534/5...html?fromint=1
July 30, 2004 - Some players use video games as a way to relax. To others, it's all about the competition. To Michael Strahan, playing Madden not only motivates every move he does on the real field every Sunday, he attributes it to turning around his career.

"Back in 1993, I was playing the game and I sucked. And I'm not talking about sucking at playing the game. My character in Madden sucked. I was the worst guy on the team," Strahan said with a huge grin as he turned his attention away from the television set and his NFC East rival, Roy Williams of the Cowboys to tell me his story. "But it made me want to work harder. I seriously wanted to get better in real life so I wasn't so bad in Madden."

The giant Giant then turned back to the game for a second and threw a pass that was intercepted by…the polygonal Roy Williams in the game. "Was that you?" He shouted. Roy smiled and nodded his head. He knew it was his turn to take control of the offense, and in two plays, Keyshawn was dancing in the endzone.

Strahan dropped the controller. "Can't you see I'm trying to talk to my man right here about how I sucked in the game, and you're playing like we got money on the line." The big man turned to me and started to laugh. "That wasn't a good excuse, but what can I say. Anyway, back to my story. I was horrible in the game. I was like, no way I can be this bad, I need to pick it up. Guys look up their ratings and talk about it in the locker room all the time. They all know their power, their speed, and it actually becomes a bragging point…how good you are, not only at playing Madden, but how good your character is in the game. All I know is I never want to get back to where my character was in '93. I never want to be the worst player in the game. And that motivates me. It made me want to be a better player because of it."

Strahan stopped for a minute and reflected on the game. "The thing about Madden, it's the originator. Every year, you think it can't get any better, but it does. Every year, there's a new wrinkle. Even for us, you want to evolve in your career, and a lot of guys want to evolve in their Madden career, too. You would think for us, the players, you'd play the games, but you wouldn't get too excited. But I'm telling you, Roy and I, when we play, like we're playing right now, look, he picked the Cowboys, I picked the Giants. It's competitive, I can be myself and just make things happen."

"In the old days you could put yourself in on offense," I said to him as he picked the controller back up and got ready to handle the ball. "Did you ever try to see what you could do with the rock?"

"I never got crazy with it and I knew, if I wanted to win I had to give the ball to the guys who do that for a living. I did pick up a fumble and run it back for a touchdown on Roy earlier today, but that's about the extent of my scoring. The blood pressure, it raises your blood pressure, this game, and Roy likes to go quick count on me, he's holding like a banshee every time he has the ball. That's one thing, just like real life, the refs never see the holding calls. They need to call more holding in this game."

Strahan returned the kick, then headed back to work, completing a pass over the middle to Amani Toomer. "Even though I don't give myself the ball, I've probably always been geared a little more towards offense because that's something I usually don't get a chance to do. I like being myself on defense. I don't know how to be very good as myself on defense, but I like being myself."

"I notice you're using Kurt Warner at quarterback. Do you think he's going to start for you guys," I ask.

"I think it's going to be Warner," Strahan said as he competed another pass. "He's a veteran, he understands the game a little bit better now and I think he gives us our best option to win. I think that's who we're going to go with. That way we can let Eli get acclimated to the timing of the game, to the speed a little bit better. We're really going to have to protect Warner, keep him healthy. We really can't afford to have him get injured where we have to stick Eli in there and watch him learn on the go. Jesse Palmer looks really good right now too, he's doing well."

"The Bachelor?"

"The Bachelor, that's right," he said, once again flashing that trademark gapped-tooth grin. "We used to tease him all the time about that until guys ended up liking the show. We'd all watch it on Wednesdays and then run over and talk to him about what happened on Thursdays."

The Giants were moving the ball down the field against Roy and his Cowboys at this point, and Strahan completed his third pass in a row, this time to Ike Hilliard. "Ike would be proud, he's the best gamer on our team by far. I have PlayStation, I have Xbox, I have GameCube. You name a system, I have it. I play a little bit of everything, but more sports, and especially Madden, than anything else. In fact, I'm building a nice game room right now, and my next step is to go out and buy some of those older arcade games. But Ike, he takes it to another level. After our mini camp, we were having a picnic and this rookie, this kid just kept going on and on talking smack about how he could play Madden, how he was a baller. So Ike said, 'You think you can play, huh? So let's go.' And the kid was like: 'We don't have a PlayStation.' Ike reached down into his backpack and he had one right there. That's how competitive we get. That's Madden football."

With that, someone in the distance was yelling for the sack master and future Hall of Famer. "Here, man, you take control of my team. I'll be right back." He handed me the controller and Roy immediately rolled his eyes.

"Don't you do this for a living?" the Cowboy safety asked even though he already knew the answer.

I looked at the score, though, and the Giants were down 28-14 in the third quarter. "Thanks a lot Michael," I think as a crowd now starts to form around us and I hear a few people say, "Roy is beating him, look at the score." Next play, I throw a pick and Roy goes back on offense, heaving the ball up to Keyshawn in double coverage, and the big receiver comes down with the ball, brushes off a tackle and high steps his way to paydirt.

Roy looked at me with a huge smile, like he just laid out a receiver in the middle of the star.

"Good play," I say. "Do you guys play a lot of Madden at the Cowboys facility?" I was hoping to get him into conversation to distract him from the game.

"They should have Madden in Vegas because there are some big bets going down every night," Williams joked. "During training camp, people have the game setup and then someone is always on the lookout for coach Parcells because we're not supposed to have the PlayStation at training camp, but camp is always about the same time as the game comes out, so guys just can't resist. I don't bet, though, I don't need to lose my money. I'm not that good. I know my limits. Besides, most of that goes on during training camp and I have better things to do during camp…like sleep. This year, though, coach Parcells is going to demand a lot more from us, more intensity. He has a good idea of how we can perform now, so he's going to want that much more out of every player on the team. We have high expectations of ourselves as well. We want to build on what we accomplished. And if that means putting the PlayStation down, then that's what we're going to have to do."

I got the ball back and knew I had to score quick. I threw the ball to Shockey near the right sideline, he busted through two tackles before polygonal Roy, Mr. Defensive Playmaker himself, jetted across the field and laid a lick on Shockey so fierce, the tight end looked like a mangled wreck on the turf.

"Damn, have you ever hit anyone that hard in real life?"

"The hit against Jimmy Williams of the 49ers. That's the one that stands out…it was a pretty good hit," he said. "I think that's where they got the idea for this Hit Stick."

Shockey eventually pulled himself up, and I decided that since Roy was jumping on everything I did, it was time to go with the deception. I called a play-action pass, Roy bit, and a few seconds later it was Amani "It's not a" Toomer's turn to dance.

I kicked the ball off, and at the very next snap, Michael Strahan blasted through the line, created a fumble with the hit stick, and Will Peterson, who was sent on a blitz, ran it in for a touchdown.

"No way," Roy said. "That's the tuck rule right there. I was throwing it." He pressed start and challenged the call. The replay ran from all different angles, and I think he was right. Looked like a tuck. Unfortunately, the refs didn't see it that way and awarded the G-Men another six.

Roy looked at me and laughed. "I know you do this for a living, but damn. They're making this game too damn complicated for me. Just when I got used to playing last year's game, now they add all these new controls. It will probably take me until next year to get it down, then they'll add something else and it will start all over. Every year they change the game and make it more and more realistic. I remember back when I used to put Deion in as running back and watch him just speed by everyone. You can't do that anymore. It's more realistic. It's more like real football. This year, it's all about defense, and that's the way it should be."

Spoken like a true defender.

"Like Michael was saying, though, this game motivates you. It makes you want to go out and play better so your character is better in the next game. I like to play as the Cowboys because I like to see myself in the game. I want to see how well I'm going to do, what they rated me, see if I can hit some people.

"To kids today, Madden is football. They talk about what happens in their games just as much as they talk about what happens for real out there on Sunday. The lines are getting blurred. Just wait until Madden 2010. One day, you're actually going to feel the hits."

And that's the day I stop throwing over the middle against the Cowboys. With Madden as motivation, there's no telling how hard Roy will hit by then. And I'm one gamer who never wants to find out.

A vibrating controller is pain enough for me.

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Originally posted by cartman
I, too, am truly baffled at the story of lines for this game. Is it really all that different from the previous years? That's what usually keeps me from playing any sports games, the lack of variety. Of course, the sports nuts would probably say the same thing about FPS's, but to each their own :lol:.

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