... but fortunately, haha, nobody is stupid enough to do that. ...

Wait. The Dallas Cowbosy put the largest, most expensive HD-video screen on the roof of their new stadium, hanging directly over the middle of the football field? And its already been hit by tall punts?

Man, that is just stupid. If you're a football team owner, you know that kickoffs and punts get pretty high up in the air. And you know that most punters in the league right now go with very high pooch-punts when trying to pin the other team close to the end zone. So why would you put an expensive scoreboard/screen over the middle of the field like that? Sure, it sounds like a cool idea, but, five seconds of rational though should have reminded you that punts get pretty high.

Ok, so the scoreboard is there. Its not going anywhere. Now we need to figure out how we are going to deal with balls hitting the scoreboard. The NFL has already ruled that balls hitting the screen will be "do-overs" AND that it will be a challenge-able play. http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-cowboys-nfl29-2009aug29,0,7168724.storyBut this is just an interim ruling. What are the long-term potential implications of this video screen? What other objects already exist on the field or in the stadium that can interfere with the ball? What precedents already exist?

1.) The first obvious thing that pops to mind is the goal post. Any time a pass or kick bounces off a goal post upright or crossbar, the play is dead. It is certainly not a do-over. The goal post is technically considered to be "out of bounds".

2.) Another "obstacle" on the field are referees. I am not 100% sure about this (could not find it in the rule book), but when the ball hits a referee, the ball is still live until it touches the ground or the play is otherwise ruled dead.

3.) The Stadium itself is out of bounds. Far enough out of bounds that it is generally assumed to be impossible for a player to catch the ball while the player is still in bounds after the ball has contacted a part of the stadium. So if a ball hits part of the stadium or goes into the crowd, its a dead ball, out-of-bounds.

4.) People on the sideline. Because the sideline itself (the actual white line) is so wide and all off-field personel are supposed to be behind that line, balls that contact a player or person out-of-bounds are considered to be out-of-bounds and the play is dead (even if it has not yet hit the ground). If a person on the sideline comes into the field of play, it is a penalty if the person is a player for one team or the other, and play is stopped if some other individual comes onto the field (and in this case, a play may be redone).

5.) Again, I am not sure about this one, but if the ball comes into contact with an obstacle in the air such as a flying bird or object thrown from the stands such that the ball is deflected, the play may be re-done. In the case of a neutral object, such as a bird, The play might be re-done. I don't know if this has ever happened, or if there is an actual rule. Maybe play just resumes as normal. I don't know. In the other case, if an object is thrown by someone in the stands and it hits the ball, the play will result in an unsportsmanlike-conduct penalty on the home team (or maybe its determined by which team the fan who threw the object is a fan of).

So, in summary, the Cowboys video screen seems to best fit under category 3 or 5. In case 3, the ball is ruled out-of-bounds. However, it has already been established that it is possible for a player to touch the ball after it has hit the video screen, so we can't necessarilty call the play as dead and out-of-bounds, since this situation does not fulfill the assumption of case 3 that the ball cannot touch the stadium and still be interacted with by an on-field player. Well, you might ask "What about domed-stadiums?" Is there a rule that regulates the minimum height of a dome? As far as I know, no such rule exists. But so far, all donmed stadiums have been built sufficiently tall so that no human kicker or quarterback is capable of kicking or throwing the ball high enough to contact the inner dome (if somebody has an example to counter that assertion, I would love to hear or see it). So domed stadiums still fall under the assumption of case 3, the ball cannot contact the dome during the course of legal play. So does that mean we are left with only case 5? Is the Cowboy's Screen the equivalent of a bird flying in the path of the ball? Or is it equivalent to a bottle being intentionally thrown by an angry fan (in this case, Jerry Jones) to interfere with normal play?

What are the possible results of this screen's presence? Do we have to establish a vertical limit to the field-of-play? A third-dimensional sideline (or "heightline")? How is this rule to be enforced? Will "kicking the ball too high" become a penalty for kickers and punters? Will throwing the ball straight up in the air to try to hit the "heightline" or video screen be penalized as "intentional grounding"? What happens if the league eventually sees a quarterback with the arm-strenght to literally throw the ball across the field who puts a high enough arc on the ball to hit the video screen? If this quarterback is physically capable of throwing a 100 yard Hail Mary, will he hit the screen? If so, the Cowboys' video screen will hinder the ability for a team to score in such a situation. If my team is down by 6 points with the ball on the 1 yard line and only 1 second left on the clock, and I have a QB with a 100-yard-arm with the capability of throwing the ball 100 yards into the endzone. This game has the potential to go on indefinitely with the QB repeatedly throwing the ball downfield and hitting the video screen resulting in a "do-over" until either a.) he gets sacked and play ends or b.) he gets a receiver who beats a defender allowing the QB to throw a garuanteed touchdown.

From my review of "The Beatles: Rock Band":

The game comes packaged with only 45 songs out of the Beatles 200+ song catalog, and a LOT of really great songs are missing. I can understand why somefavorites like "Yesterday" and "Eleanor Rigby" are absent, but where is "Hey Jude", or "A Day in the Life" or "Strawberry Fields Forever" or "Help!"? To put this in perspective, the first Rock Band had almost TWICE as many songs on the disc. And with the complete "Abbey Road" and "Sgt. Pepper" albums already announced as DLC, I can't help but feel somewhat shafted by EA, Harmonix, and Apple Corps.
Fortunately, I was able to get a pretty good deal on the bundle, so I do not feel too terribly bad about buying some of the DLC when its released. But I can definitely see how someone who blew $250 for the bundle and maybe even another $100 or $200 for one or both stand-alone guitars could feel completely ripped-off. That amounts to basically $10 per song!!! Plus, one of the guitars you bought won't even be useable (since the game did not separate John and George's guitar tracks), AND, you'll still have to shell out another $20-$50 or so for a second and third microphone, and maybe even more if you want microphone stands, AND if you want the cymbal expansion for the drums, it'll be an extra $30+! All added up, that is well over $500 for a game with only 45 songs.

Don't get me wrong, its a good game, and if you're a Rock Band and/or Beatlesfan and already have the instruments, its worth picking up.

But be warned, if you are expecting a game that contains the complete works of the Beatles as interactive songs, or a detailed interactive documentary on how their music was made, then you might be very dissapointed when you play the game and discover that you spent $550 for you and up to 5 friends to complete the Story Mode in under 4 or 5 hours.

So in addition to the game being a whopping $10+ per song, it is also well over $100/hour! For the same price, you can buy 6-Day Park Hopper tickets to Disney Land and California Adventure for a family of FOUR. Granted, the Disney Land trip will cost you significantly more in transportation costs, logding, food, and inevitable gift shop purchases. Regardless of the hidden costs of Disney Land, its pretty ridiculous that I'm comparing the cost of a video game to tickets at a world-renowned amusement park.

Is anyone else getting sick of the insistence on developers to give us completely incompetent NPCs that follow us around? Especially when the NPCs are required to survive in order to pass the mission? Everything from RPG party members tosquad-mates in action and shooter games tothe blockers in football games. I am sick to death of being given a tag-along character who can't hold their own in a fight yet insist on running out into the middle of a raging battle with their sword or guns drawn. With all the advances in Artificial Intelligence that have happened in the past 20 years, why are we gamers still forced to put up with dumb-ass tag-along characters?

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird because I feel an obligation to try to keep NPC characters alive when I play games. Two games have brought up this complaint. I have recently been going through "The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion" and have been playing the new NCAA Football 10, and the AI in both games is just flat-out retarded. At least Oblivion is a couple years old. But why are AI-teamates and blockers in football games still so unbelievably incompetant? These games are released every year, and every year people complain about how piss-poor the blocking is, and every year EA says they are going to improve it, and every year the game comes out and the blocking still sucks. In this year's game, I have even found myself incapable of running the game on even the easy difficulty because there are simply no holes to run through. Every rushing gain that I make either comes from a broken tackle or forward progress since running backs always fall forward for an extra four yards when being tackled. Good lord, EA, fix the blocking already! Or at least let us make pre-play blocking adjustments when we can blatantly see that a certain defender is going to be a problem. Even the the ability to shift your blocking left right or up the middle hasn't helped make run blocking passable.

As for Oblivion, GOD, the NPCs are dumb! They just go running straight into fights and get themselves killed. They never block, they never heal themselves, and they never retreat back to their party members for support or healing. And because they are running wildly at full-speed from enemy to enemy, I can't even run out and heal them with my healing spells because there is no target lock, so I have to line up the spell on the run in the hopes that it will hit, but it never does because the NPCs zig-zag all over the place. And as I said earlier, I have a compulsion to try to keep these characters alive. So if one of them gets themselves killed, I will often reload. Not that it helps. I can play the same mission 10 times and focus all my efforts on healing and supporting the NPC, but it won't help. He always manages to find the most dangerous enemy and go straight at him, letting every enemy in between hit him on his way.

This problem was not as bad in Fallout 3, but still existed. The best example is Dogmeat. Dogmeat just loves to run out and get himself killed by supermutants and raiders. And once he's gone, you can't call him back.

Bethesda, for future reference, if you are going to give us NPCs, give us the ability to effectively communicate with them in battle. In reality, you don't need to be right in front of somebody or even looking at them in order to talk or give orders. Having to do so in a video game is Bull. Bethesda (and other applicable game studios), from now on, all you're games should have an "NPC" tab in the main menu so that at any time, we can pause the game and issue orders to any NPC that is currently in our party or following us. Orders should include: "Attack aggressively", "Attack conservatively", "Retreat", "Defend Me", "Defend Ally", "Regroup", "Heal", and so on. And if you want to go to the trouble, you can even tie in their willingness to follow orders to whether or not they trust our character.

Heck, with the incompetence levels of NPC s in most games, I'm surprised that the CPU-controlled band-members in Rock Band don't fail out of songs and ruin your gigs.

No more needless NPC deaths. Please.

It is very common these days for the big, Hollywood summer blockbuster movies to have their own video game tie-ins that come out, often, a couple days before the movie hits theaters. This isn't a new trend. Its been around for a long time. In fact, its getting pretty surprising when big-name movies like "The Dark Knight" last year manage to release in theaters without an accompanying licensed game. But most of the time, these games are pretty sucky, so when a new movie skips having its likeness video-game-inized, we're probably not missing much.

But given the length of time of that it takes for a modern top-tier video game to be released, and the amount of hype and pomp that goes into waiting for the newest Metal Gear Solid or Final Fantasy or Fallout game, I'm starting to wonder if Hollywood will ever start trying to take advantage of the rising popularity of games by releases movie-tie-ins when a game releases. I know it sounds like a scary thought to most of you, given the general lackluster quality of most game-to-movie conversions, and given the general quality of movie-to-game tie-ins. But letting our pre-conceptions out the window, there are certain definite advantages to having a movie being worked on at the same time as the game in which it is based. First of all, if the movie is being officially licensed by the game publisher, then the publisher and the development team will no doubt be able to have a much more active role in how the movie is made. This may include having the game script writers working on the script and carefully planning costume and creature and set designs to fall in line with the game. Just like how games of Hollywood movies often make a careful scrutiny of the movie costumes, sets, and special effects to try to immitate whole scenes.

Gone would be the days of simply taking the general idea of a video game franchise, and butchering it by redefining the scenarios, rewriting the stories, replacing popular characters, changing the themes, and then throwing in a fan-favorite monster or character cameo as "fan service." No more Super Mario Bros. the Movie. No more Street Fighter: The Movie. No more Uwe Boll or Paul W.S. Anderson. The game designers and developers and writers themselves would be directly working with the film-makers at the same time they are working on the game to keep the movie as true to the game as possible.

Now, of course, there are disadvantages. The game makers taking time away from the game will result in longer development time for games and could also result in the game quality deteriorating. A very dangerous prospect indeed. On the other side, the movies might end up giving the appearance of being rushed, with scenes and dialogue half-finished and inconsistencies abound as the game goes through iterative changed that the movie writers and directors simply would not be able to keep up with.

Still, given the rate at which many movie-to-game tie-ins sell (regardless of their quality), I am very surprised that the vice versa has still never occured. Sure there have been movies that have come out at around the same time as a new edition of its source material game. But they were always just adaptations of the game franchise in general or complete abstractions (in the case of Resident Evil). We've never seen an "officially licensed" movie adaptation of a game that gets advertised along with the game, and releases the same week. Maybe we never will. Maybe game development is just too hectic and complicated a process for Hollywood to keep up with. Or maybe it is just a horribly bad idea. If so, I apologize for ever having brought it up.

But maybe we might start seeing game trailers being played on the big screen, accompanying other movie trailers in theaters. And I'm not talking about the stupid previews of TV shows and music videos and junk like that playing before the theater lights have even dimmed. I'm talking: The clock hits the time when the movie ticket says its supposed to start. The lights dim. The big green "This preview has been approved for all audiences" appears on screen. And then BAM! Instead of some new Tom Hanks movie, you get a RockStar logo and a preview for Grand Theft Auto V. Now that would be cool!

Rock Band and the remastered collection and other recent Beatles merchendise is probably just a last-ditch effort by Apple to make as much money off them as possible before 2012 rolls around and the Beatles' recorded music becomes part of public domian (i.e. free), as per British copyright laws.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2006/11/8291.ars

Hence, the higher price tag, the lack of song-importing, and so on. Which sucks. I'd really rather not have to swap discs if I"m playing Rock Band with my friends and somebody is suddenly in the mood for some "Seargent Pepper" for a couple songs before going back to rocking out to "Eye of the Tiger" and "Pinball Wizard" and "Creep" and "Wanted Dead or Alive". And what if somebody has an unquenchable urge to play "Run to the Hills"? Then I gotta dig out the Rock Band ONE disc ...

Now, I don't mind buying a whole new game or bundle, as I'm a big Beatles fan, and the people who usually Rock Band with me are also big Beatles fans. And I've been saying I wish I had a Hofner Bass guitar for playing Rock Band for a long time now. My concern: is will the game be worth the cost? From what I've heard (sorry, don't have sources), the game will only include 45 songs. That's HALF of what Rock Band 1 had out-of-the-box. So does this mean we're going to have to shell out another $300 by spending $1.99 a pop on the rest of the Beatles 150+ recorded songs as DLC? I certainly hope not. Also, does that 45 songs include the supposed "never-released material" that was hinted at in an interviews with Paul McCatney and George Harrison's son? Quite frankly, I see NO reason why this game should not come with over 100 songs out-of-the-box. They wouldn't need to make all those songs required to play in the "story" or "career" mode or whatever, I don't mind if a lot of them are optional "setlist-builder" songs that we will never be required to play. But I doubt that just 45 songs will be enough to truly represent the Beatle's prolificness. There are going to have to be cuts to some of the band's good songs, and there will be plenty of people who will probably not see their favorite song in the game.

Another thing that concerns me, is that we have yet to see even a SINGLE screenshot from the actual game. It is supposed to be released in four months, and so far not even a single screenshot...? In fact, I've only heard a handful of details about the gameplay. 1.) Multiple vocalists. This was a no-brainer. But so far, we have no idea how this is going to work in-game. How will the interface be laid out? Is Harmonix expecting 5 or 6 people to be playing the game? Or will lyrics be displayed in such a way that a non-expert Rock Band player will be able to play the bass or guitar or drums and still read and follow along with the words? 2.) The game will be an immersive experience stretching from the Beatles first album "Please Please Me" to "Let It Be". Well, how is the career mode going to work? How will it be organized? Are we going to have some freedom to create custom setlists and play the songs that we want to play? Or will we be stuck playing the albums verbatim? Will we be playing as the Beatles themselves?

Then there are the new instruments. So far, these are the only things that we have seen. They look nice, no doubt about that. But as far as I can tell, the guitars are functionally identical to the RB 2 guitars, but cost $30 more. And we haven't even seen the Ringo Starr Ludwig drum set yet. Will it come with cymbals included? Will it be the same size and configuration as the Rock Band 2 drum set? Just a different color? We have no idea.

Now I'm not saying the game won't be good. From what I've heard, this game has been secretly in development at Harmonix for years (possibly even since before the first Rock Band came out), and I have full confidence in Harmonix's ability to make a great game, but the shear lack of details regarding the game this close to release does concern me. I mean, Pre-Orders have begun for Zeus's sake! People are supposed to already be shelling out 250 dollars for a game that they know nothing about, except that they will have to spend another $200+ if they want the other 2 "collectible" guitar controllers. I'd say that's a little unfair, harmonix. I'm not pre-ordering until I see SOMETHING from the game, and until I see the drum controller. I was planning on buying the ION Drum rocker anyway (as I only have the first game's drum set), so I don't need 3 Rock Band drum sets sitting around my living room. And I'm not paying $250 for the Hofner bass controller and an extra mic and stand, especially considering that I already own a Hofner Icon Series Violin Bass Guitar. Yes, the real thing. And guess what, that only costs $320. And what exactly is the "special material" that is supposedly exclusive to the Limited Edition? Does it come with fancy, official Beatles mop-top wigs in brown and black? Or some special "inspiration" in the form of a popular, cumbustible plant leaf? Will it be a life-size, band-destroying Yoko Ono inflatible doll? Or a secret password to unlock Eric Clapton as a playable character for "While My guitar Gently Weeps"? Or more likely, will it be an art book or history of the Beatles booklet or the afore-mentioned "never-before released songs"?

Sorry to rant, but these prices are frustrating, regardless of my confidence level of Harmonix ...

(see: http://www.gamespot.com/users/FrozenLiquid/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=m-100-25642546&om_act=convert&om_clk=soapbox&tag=soapbox;subject;1 for the original article)

While I agree with most of your points, FrozenLiquid, I do feel it necessary to point out that the comparisions between video games and movies usually comes from the purely visual artistry (rather than the gameplay). Games with a "cinematic" feel simply refer to games that have long, movie-like non-interactive segments (i.e. Metal Gear Solid), or to games in which the typically-expected HUD is missing and watching a player play the game is similar to watching a movie (i.e. The original Resident Evil). So on that basis, the comparision between movies and games is justifiable, just as I always hear Ico being compared to impressionist oil paintings simply because of the color and light saturation prevelant in its graphics.

I think the real issue here, is that a lot of people who discuss video games as art are either a.) Not gamers themselves. or b.) trying to justify the artistry of the game to someone who is NOT a gamer, and so must put their descriptions in terms that the non-gamer (who has no concept of the interactive element) can understand.

For example, having this discussion with a non-gamer is almost always like pulling teeth. Trying to discuss the artistry of games to a non-gamer (such as my dad), always reminds me of trying to convince a Biblical creationist of the validity of Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection or the fact that the Theory of Evolution was not developed by Darwin in 1850, but rather, has been around in intellectual thought since at least ancient Greece. In both cases, the person I am addressing usually already has a solid preconception in his/her head that my argument (regardless of its validity or lack thereof - whatever the case may be) is inherently flawed. And in fact, the only times that my dad is ever impressed with a new game, is when I bring home a new Madden game and he comments on how much it looks like watching a real football game ("wow, you can even see the players sweat"), or when I bring home a PC historical strategy game and he starts drilling me about its historical accuracy until he finds some aspect of historical accuracy that had to be sacrificed for gameplay purposes, at which point, the game becomes "stupid."

But when I do discuss the artistry of games to my fellow gamers, the ideas and concepts of interactivity and how the choices and experiences of the player bring about emotional responses are always the key aspects of my discussions. Visual and/or sound artistry usually takes a back seat in those discussions. Unless the game is a particularly visually or musically appealing game. I will admit that my descriptions of Ico usually do begin with a declaration of its beautiful art quality before I begin to recount the cute, puppy-love aspect of its gameplay, or the humor inherent in a game in which you run around beating shadows with a wooden stick.

So in any discussion of games as art, I think it is critical to pay attention to who the audience is before you start criticize the speaker for focusing on the "wrong" aspects of the game. Perhaps, as gaming becomes more a part of mainstream culture, and the amount of people who need to be convinced of its status as a respectable medium decrease, we will start seeing more serious intellectual discussion on the validity of GAMES as art (rather than graphics or cutscenes or soundtracks as art).

If you haven't completed this game through to its conclusion, be warned, there will be spoilers.

So anyway, just beat the game tonight. Got both endings, and I have to say, I think this is a really clever way to end the game by Rockstar. I have read quite a few articles and blogs from people who said the endings sucked, and only one that was praiseful. But I think there might be a bigger picture behind this ending.

For years now, Rockstar and video games in general have been getting flak for supposedly "glamorizing and encouraging violence and crime." I think Rockstar might have taken this to heart when they wrote this game's story, because it does the exact opposite. To me, it seemed that the whole game long, there was the recurring theme that "Crime does not pay." Niko comes to America on a quest for revernge, but also (at least subconsciously), he wants to start a new life, and get away from the horrors of Europe. Throughout the entire game, you are given the choice to be a cold-blooded killer or be the bigger man and walk away, and I kept getting the impression through dialog and so forth, that the "bigger man" plot seems to be the direction that Rockstar WANTS the player to drive Niko (The mission "That Special Someone" its the best evidence). But throughout the entire game, all the people that Niko encounters end up setting themselves up for disaster, and every time Niko tries to make the right choices, crime and violence keep coming back to bite him in the butt.

In the end, no matter what choices you make, Niko ends up losing. Either Roman dies or Kate dies. Granted, Rockstar didn't do a good enough job of building-up the Kate-Niko relationship. But on the other hand, making their relationship entirely optional meant that for those of us who took the time to build the relationship, realizing that she was the woman who Niko really wanted to be with, winning her respect by not selling yourself out for money, only to have her killed the next day, does have a tremendous emotional impact. If you never cared about Kate before the final missions, then you probably won't care what she thinks of you, and you'll go through with the deal to make Roman happy, but this will end up getting Roman killed, and he's the ONE person in the game who you are FORCED to emotionally bond with.

In fact, most of the people who were disapointed with the ending were the also people who confessed to looking up the consequences of their choices online before making the decision.

But in the end, this game is a dramitic departure from previous GTA games in that instead of making yourself rich and living in a huge mansion or restoring your gang to its former glory, this time, all your hard work comes back and ruins your life. So just like all the characters you meet, even for Niko, crime does not pay off for him.

OK, so in response to my previous blog, I want to clarify that being given an overabundance of enemies to wade through isn't entirely the fault of Call of Duty's self-healing crutch, but is also a way of lengthening otherwise short games by lowering progressin through the narrative to a halt while you deal with a hundred randomly appearing bad guys, then die, and have to start it again. The generous placement of checkpoints is also a leading contributor. Virtually gone are the game in which you have to start a whole level/mission over when you die. instead most games will put you in the room just before you died, so all you have to do is open a door and then get yourself killed again. LoL. And these trends are really starting to disturb me. Again, I use Uncharted as an exampe since its the game that has been frustrating me lately. If not for the ridiculous (and unexplained) sudden appearance of wave after wave of enemies that ALWAYS take three shots with whatever gun I'm using to kill, the game would be great. If I could do the platforming segments, then stop and sneakily kill three or four badguys, that would be cool. The game would be totally awesome! But instead, I get the entertaining platforming segments, then have to stop and sit behind cover for ten minutes as 5 waves of badguys come through the door across the room. It takes me out of the experience, since I'm supposed to be a dude on an island with a small group of pirates. and yet by the third level (levels take about 20 or 30 minutes to complete), I already had earned the "kill 50 enemies with the handgun" achievement. That's just with the handgun! You know, the gun I use when my assault rifle runs out of ammo. LoL. Then there are jet ski levels that would be fun if not for the fact that you have to stop ever ten seconds to shoot more badguys. Yes, you have to drive and shoot. Even though there is an NPC on the back of the jet ski with the gun. You have to stop the jet ski, then aim with the other character and shoot, then proceed to next area. In a later jet ski level, you have to do this same thing, except as an added challenge, you must do it while going AGAINST rapids, and with an endless stream of exploding barrels floating towards you. Where did this "little band of pirates" get all these exploding barrels? I don't know. Nor do I know where they got all the damned pirates.

Anyway, sorry to rant. its still a good game. If you get a chance to play it, you should. It has gorgeous graphics, amazing animation, and the main character is basically Captain Malcolm Reynolds in the jungle. Just play it on the easy difficulty and expect to die many cheap deaths at the hands of poorly balanced difficulty. Heck, even the main character exclaims "What the hell?!" or "Where do these guys keep coming from?" whenever he gets into a gunfight. So maybe its all just a big joke by the developers.

But anyway, the fact that we are being charged an extra $10 a head for this generation's new games, I would really appreciate more GAME. Not just more enemies to kill. At least Metal Gear Solid 4 gives you a pretty good 6-hour, high definition, CG movie to watch. And at $60, that's even cheaper than buying 3 blue-ray movies.

OK, am I the only one who is getting tired of the overplayed "take cover to heal" gameplay mechanic that has been used in virtually every shooter since Call of Duty? I'm starting the think that maybe we need to go back to health bars and armor ratings. I'm starting to get kind of tired of every video game character I play as seeming like he's X-Men's Wolverine. It was nice at first, and yes, it tends to make games easier, but all it seems to have done is give game makers an excuse to infuse games with way more bad guys than the gamer has a right to have to kill.

Take Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, for instance. You're character is stuck on a little island in the middle of the Pacific that is overrun with a small group of rag-tag (but relatively well-equipped) modern sea pirates. Sounds like a good premise for a game. Lets sneak around and cleverly and carefully take out enemies one-by-one, while making our way to the island's lost treasure then securing our escape route. But that's not what we get. We get a game in which every time we encounter bad guys, we have to fend off between 3 and 5 waves of between three and six enemies each. With the bad guys being equipped with shotguns, Ak's, grenades, and sometimes even grenade launchers, rocket launchers, or mounted machine guns. By the third level (about 40 minutes into the game), I had already received a trophy for killing 50 bad guys with the hand gun. Again, let me emphasize that was just with the handgun. Which was what I used when my assault rifle ran out of ammo. Add to that the fact that even if you think you got a perfect headshot, you still have to shoot a bad guy at least 3 times to kill him. How do you heal in this game? By taking cover behind a rock or pillar or wall for about 10 seconds and suddenly you're all better. Unless, of course, the bad guys flank you or toss grenades at you.

Now maybe, if Naughty Dog didn't have this crutch of a gameplay element to lean on, they would have put a little more focus on balancing the game's gunplay a little bit more. maybe given you more options for sneak kills or quick ways to dispatch groups of enemies. But no, instead we get an entertaining platformer with gorgeous graphics that becomes almost unplayable whenever we get into a gun fight.

I shudder to think how Grand Theft Auto IV might have ended up if Rockstar had used the "hide behind cover to heal" gimmick. That game already has more than enough baddies in it. But at least your character is better at dealing with them. And oh, how I LOVE GTA IV's grenades. For the first time in any game that I have played, the grenades actually give a VERY satisfying KA-BOOM! But that game uses the old-fashioned health bar with med-packs mechanic. And its still a great game.

Does anybody else feel like this?

As a hardcore simulation football fan, there is ONE thing and ONE thing alone that I would like to see in Madden. Balance the gameplay. Make the game enjoyable to play again. Madden 08 is so terribly unbalanced. There are too many fumbles, QBs throw every pass like a straight line laser beam leading to passes intended for wide open receivers 30 yards down the field getting intercepted by linebackers or linemen on the line of scrimmage with miraculous one-handed grabs. DBs are so much more aggressive than WRs, leading to even more ints. I cannot go a single game of Madden 08 (or NCAA 08 for that matter) without having AT LEAST 4 fumbles AND 5 ints by BOTH teams. And that is with both human and cpu AI interception sliders set to ZERO! And the fact that most interceptions in this game turn into touchdowns because offensive players are so obscenely slow certainly doesn't help matters.

I want a football game that feels balanced. A game that provides a challenge without being frustrating. I have lost count of how many times I have turned off my PS3 in the middle of a game of Madden because the game's AI is just so blatantly BROKEN. It makes me wonder if anybody ever bothered to play-test the game.

And turnovers aren't the only problems. The AI is bad in other ways too. Players run the wrong routes. A common example is with the Split Backs-3WR Slot Option play. The play is drawn up with the slot receiver either running an inside curl or an outside cut route. But when I call the play, 9 times out of 10, the slot receiver will do an inside cut instead (and even the coach cam playart shows that he is supposed to be running an inside cut!). The outside cut, is a good play for 5 or 7 yards against most defenses, and has been a 3rd and short clutch play for me in Madden games for about 3 years now. But I can't use it anymore because most of the time, the receiver just runs the wrong way and I get sacked. There are other plays with similar problems. Like offensive linemen completely ignoring defensive linemen in favor of trying (and usually failing) to block linebackers on running plays designed to go between the tackles. I see defensive linebackers who the playbook says are supposed to cover inside zones who follow slot receivers all the way to the sidelines while a tight end gets a free 15 yard pass right up the middle.

And don't get me started about the crappy, laggy menus. With all the power of the PS3/Xbox360, there is NO excuse for a friggin MENU to ever be laggy.

And with the emphasis on flashy graphics that look like realistic NFL broadcasts, why are there so many details missing? Why are there still NO referees on the field? Especially considering that they have a referee model that looks pretty darnded good! Where are the coaches and chain gang on the sidelines? Or ball boys or water boys or trainers? All these things are in REAL football games! All these things were in PS2 football games! I don't mind taking out mascots and cheerleaders in Madden as they arent important to NFL football (although they should be in NCAA games!), but come on - no REFS?!

And one other thing. I remember Madden 06 for the PS2 had an AWESOME feature called "Accelerated Clock" that ticked the play clock down to about 19 seconds after every play. This had several advantages: First and foremost, it ensured that teams were always breaking the huddle at a realistic time instead of the CPU picking a play and breaking the huddle with 37 seconds left on the play clock; as a corrollary, it meant that the CPU was actually vulnerable to delay of game penalties; and as a second corrollary, it gave the player a real reason to use the hurry-up offense during the 2-minute drill (and having usefull audibles selected); also, it allowed me to play full 15-minute quarter games relatively quickly; it balanced time-of-possession (most games had me getting twice the time of possession as the CPU). Of course, having the CPU spend a little more time before snapping the ball would be nice, since there is currenlty virtually NO time to make pre-snap defensive adjustments, audibles, etc.

So in recap all EA needs to win me back over is:

1.) Balanced, realistic AI, so that every game I play doesnt have 10 turnovers per team and a score of about 50-40.

2.) Put referees, chain gang, coaches, ball boys, etc back on the field/sidelines.

3.) Menus that don't lag.

3.) The CPU not breaking every huddle with 35 friggin seconds on play clock.

Just make a game where the football looks and plays well and I feel like I'm actually making a difference during the offseason, and I don't care how shiny the players are, or about some stupid "Superstar Mode", or that my players can bench press and run 40 yard dashes (although I'm all for between-week and offseason training!), or that I can save instant replays, or that players can have perfect 100 rating in their attributes . . . I just want a football game that doesn't cause me to turn it off half-way through because I feel like it is just plain broken.

And I know I'm not the only one who has these problems.

Sorry to rant, but with the NFL season getting closer now, I just have to make my voice heard.