At some point over the long weekend I stumbled across some news about Madden Ultimate Team. To me this looks like a free DLC engine to take additional cash from pre-teens or anyone else addicted to collecting things; videogame related or football cards.
It has been a long time since I played Madden 10 or anything else for that matter. Yesterday I decided to fire up Madden and give it a go. I had to wait for the 1.03 Update to download, but after that I was all set. I saw the new Madden Ultimate Team in the menu, read the various tutorial screens, and backed out at the point of creating a team. Maybe next time.
I only got in two off-line games, and I have to admit that they were a ton of fun. While my gaming time has been extremely limited the last few months, and really my desire to play anything has been much diluted; right now I am an unenthusiastic gamer. However, I always enjoy spending some time with Madden.
Arizona 20 – 14 Falcons
Picked Arizona as a random team, but I guess it was a timely selection being that they just got kicked out of the playoffs. I never said I was good at Madden; in fact I downright suck. I typically play on Pro, with various settings to suit my preferences. My oldest son asked me my I don’t play on All-Madden. [sigh] I think my Madden IQ is still stuck below 500; not because I do not understand football, but because I am too damn old for this stuff now! Back to the game. I should have won, but I threw three INTs, one of which was returned for a TD. The final blow was Ryan’s third INT with about 90 seconds left as I was driving for the winning score. Three Red Zone INTs will kill you every time.
Falcons 24 – 6 Giants
Another random opponent, but this time I wanted to play on the road. Just for the hell of it I selected snow, which turned out great because it was fun watching the momentum of the players. They would slip and slide; maybe not truly realistic, but the developers did a good job of making a noticeable difference between ideal conditions and a field of snow.
Did I mention that these days I am more or less a casual gamer? For this game (thanks to the 3 INTs in the last one), I made sure I had access to the Rewind feature. Yes I suck, and yes I did rewind one TD run by the Giants, but I had the damn runner dead to rights; locked him up with two different tacklers, but to no avail. I no longer have low enough blood pressure to put up with those type of antics. Life is too short.
Yesterday afternoon the weather was so nice that we took the family for an afternoon walk. It has been nasty and cold for so long that everyone needed some quality outside time. During the walk I commented to my wife that I am going to have to somehow arrange my schedule to get in a couple of hrs of video game time a week.
So yes, my Madden day was a lot of fun.
