It had to happen sooner or later; I decided to check out some of the old hang-outs (and some new places) to see what sort of buzz on the street was surrounding the latest, greatest Madden release. Big mistake.
For starters, I learned of some glitch that lets you figure out if your opponent (CPU or human) is going to run or pass. Granted, it is only for certain formations, but apparently this is a game killer for lots and lots of people. Interesting enough, it seems to be more of a game killer for fans of NFL2K5. Go figure; strange happenings that one.
SPOILER WARNING IF YOU CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING LINK: This glitch (for a lack of a better word MaddenMania.com* does not want to describe it as a bug) was apparently in previous versions of Madden including 2004 and 2005, so says the rumors. It is just crazy out there; apparently MaddenMania was trying to suppress any description of the “glitch” in their forums for fear of something. What? No idea. Like I said strange happenings abound.
The crazy thing with this bug is that some gamers are chalking it up as part of the “EA exclusive NFL license means bad games” theory. Why on Earth would EA want to screw the general gaming public by purposely giving us games full of bugs? Some of the message boards just leave me speechless.
Or how about how EA’s QA department sucks – if this problem has been in 2 prior versions of Madden, it was obviously not that easy of an issue to spot. The whole thing leaves me very perplexed – I guarantee you that 99% of Madden owners did not know about this issue until someone posted on a board, and of course it spread like wildfire. Where there is dung, there are flies.
Another head turner is the inordinate number of posts clamoring about the lack of football choices. “I have to buy Madden 2006 because it is the only choice for NFL football this year.” WTF is that about? Did someone force all these gamers to stop playing NFL2K5 (or Madden 2005 or any other previous version of a NFL game for that matter)?
The casual gamer in me thinks that some rabid fans need to get a life, but the football fan in me understands the importance of getting things right. The franchise mode is nice and all, but the AI cannot draft for crap – this is a recurring problem and it has to be pointed out to EA. With that said, at this point in my gaming life it is much better for me to focus on having fun with my games, not finding every single flaw.
I don’t know. Some days I want to bitch and moan and complain about all the problems in Madden (and other games), but these days it just seems so silly, petty, and otherwise unimportant. I suppose I will always have my moments, but I could do without reading about glitches/bugs/flaws that I would never find without the help of message boards.
I am not sure what is worse – the fact that I wasted part of my life reading through the waves of crap, or the fact that I actually posted to MaddenMania. Ouch. Pretty damning.
* [You may have to be a MaddenMania.com registered member to read the post; I am not going to quote the spoilers here.]
