With all the hype about the soon to arrive Madden 09, I got to wondering why all the bickering still exists every spring about how "Madden will suck", or "I'm not going to buy this game"!

Honestly! The nerve of some people.

You know that most football fans look to that special day in August we all have come to know as "Maddenoliday". It's the day when males in the workforce take a mysterious, unknown day off from work to sit on their butts, grab a bag of cheese puffs, a 2 liter of Coke Zero and stare at their big screens until they can't see straight.

So for my first Gamespot blog entry, I'm devoting this piece to all those gamers who rant about the lousy, disenfranchised feeling they suffer each summer when release day arrives. They miss out on one of video gaming's most lucrative, stable, and player favorite titles of all time. Yes, everyone's playing GTA4 or Conan right now, but come August, all attention will once again shift to football.

One very important point in defense of the Madden rant is that a truly revolutionary and evolutionary step in video game creation is being overlooked by the folks at EA Tiburon. The Euphoria engine in use for the much ballyhooed Star Wars: The Force Unleashed could truly revolutionize sports gaming by installing inherently accurate biometrics into a game that relies heavily on human contact. In the anticipated Backbreaker, the action takes place on a field filled with animated character that would (in theory) act, react, and exhibit natural human motion. This random, energy based distribution of motion goes a long way towards presenting a football game realistically, emphasizing the knowledge of the game, how it's played, and how to avoid unnecessary impact. Who knows if Backbreaker will ever hit store shelves, but the effort is worth mention.

Other than that, everyone that has so far poo-poo'd Madden 09 ought to take a closer look at gameplay footage and professional summations of their pre-release build experiences. It looks and sounds like a solid build so far. With smoother animation sequences for both offense and defense players being first on my list of issues to continuously improve on. Further, the inclusion of the Madden IQ system should help avoid wireless controllers being launched against otherwise innocent walls and windows. The method of balancing offensive and defensive gamer savvy sounds like a perfect way to assist just about anyone. And let's be clear, the four categories (rush offense, pass offense, rush defense, pass defense) are scored individually and sound like they'll be kept separate for skill level consistency. That means that if you run the ball well, but play poor pass defense, the game won't hold it against you.

I wish EA would open up about what it intends to do about Superstar mode and how it plans to integrate Head Coach 09 into the Madden experience other than just mailing over plays from the play creator. Also, I'd like to see some behind the scenes stuff on what differences there are between X360, PS3, and older generation consoles. I know the Wii struggles to show a beautiful game comapred to the X360...

So to everyone who craps on the game before it ships, and starts threads here at gamespot about how they hate EA for causing so much grief, please take a moment to remember who calls the shots. It's you, the consumer. Buy it and enjoy what you can, or say no and sit in the stands.

Which sucks...

Bob-san