Madden and Me

With the NFL heading to to season kickoff, gamers are booting up the latest football video game, EA Sports Madden NFL 11. With updated rosters, a new play-call system and an extensive multiplayer mode, Madden promises to be the best one yet, however, the game is inherently broken and unplayable. How?

There is no save function for half played matches. With consumers age expanding, having a shorter and shorter play sessions, the ability not to save a match in progress is video-game blasphemy.

I have played Madden since the Sega Genesis, where my older cousins played each match for quarters. I am not the greatest one on one players, but I enjoy the franchise mode of comp stomp with my fantasy draft of stars.

The problem, as I grow older in age, I have less time to play and progress. In the past week, I had to quit three games in Franchise mode, Raiders v Seahawks, because either; my two dogs daily walk, time with my significant other and gym. In general, life would interrupt all of my Raider games (yes I roll Silver and Black.)

The only solutions was to either leave my PS3 on or have the ability to save a match mid-way. Leaving the PS3 on, as it hums like a gatling gun, provided to be useless, as the playstation is dedicated to be the entertainment provider of the household. Movies became unplayable, background downloading in limbo, as my PS3 became dedicated to saving a half finished game.

The functionality of saving a match is really a common cornerstone video-games. PC gaming has had the feature for years, from first person shooters, RPGs and Real Time Strategy games. Why does Sports games have to be behind the curve? Espcially in sport games like Football and Baseball, where the clock stops on certain plays or the game ends until there is a winner. My Madden games were lasting 40 minutes or longer, whereas FIFA matches last eight to ten minutes! The discrpency betweem games are huge.

So life continues to get in the way of my Madden matches, as Raiders v Seahawks has became a never ending nightmare of replays, and try again. For EA Sports, it is a feature worth implementing, as your audiences continues to grow. That, or suffer sleeping on the couch with on eye open on the lookout of a disgruntled wife for the rest of my adult life. How do you think I managed to get to week four in pre-season?

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Madden 08 en Español

I just had to vent my frustration of EA and the NFL making a big deal about Madden 08 in spanish. I do agree it is a sign of the growing spanish speaking market in the two american continents, especially in North America. Still, I had to get a few things of my hairy latin chest.

Why does fifa, since the 2002 version, get both, english and spanish but madden in spanish has to be sold seperately and have its own "version"? Couldnt they just release both the english and spanish sets on one disc as they do currently with Fifa...

Also how is the game, "a high end educational tool for Spanish Speaking fans?" Is it released for North American spanish speakers or does include all the international spanish speaking countries, Argentina, Spain, or the Phillipines? Ingles con tu futbol americano?(It is confirmed to be only for the Americas)

Its kinda a slap in the face to native spanish speakers, saying that their english is so bad, that they need a videogame to perfect it. Especially when Spanish speaking countries are proud of their language. Do other developers release a game in French or German having the same spin?

Basically it is a no brainer that NFL have been edging bit by bit to win over Spanish speakers by bringing American Football for spanish speakers into videogames. Currently ESPN Deportes does show the monday night football game entirely in Spanish, which only lacks HD, since ESPN and ESPN2 are available to watch in 720P. Hopefully ABC/ESPN will implement HD Channel for their ESPN Deportes subcribers.

I believe the announcer, Álvaro Martín, His Blog on ESPN Deportes, does Monday Night Football and many other things on ESPN Deportes. ESPN Deportes is the Spanish-language service in the USA and other countries. He also does the Mexican Collegiate American Football(it is a tongue twister in spanish as well) announcing.