Just as “Tough Actin’ Tinactin” does for foot fungus, Madden NFL relieves our burning itch for pigskin.  Every year in August, Madden wakes up from his golden bed, puts on his golden slippers, takes a golden shower (or at least a shower in a golden bathroom) and empties our Velcro wallets of hard-earned cash.  This is how it has gone for centuries.

But this year, things are a little different (not really. But I like the drama)!

This year’s Madden update features new rosters, better graphics and presentation, and most of the same old things you know and love about the franchise.  The biggest improvement/addition is in the engine itself.  The new locomotion engine puts a greater emphasis on precision while running the football.  Your ball-carrier is more reactive and the lack of a sprint button (I still hold down the right trigger for old-time’s sake) really forces you to evade would-be tacklers by flicking the right thumbstick.  This small tweak to the gameplay makes a huge difference and really seems to refresh the running game.

The other new feature worth noting is the “GameFlow” system, which automatically calls a play for you based on the current situation.  Hardcore footballers may laugh at the simplicity (and the occasional WTF? play call) but casual gamers will appreciate the faster pace and accessibility.  I happen to like it.  But there are a few things that confuse the hell out of me.  At times you have no idea what play has been called and the little voice coming through your headset sometimes adds to the confusion.  Also, playing a game with a friend via local exhibition with the “GameFlow” feature ‘on’ is somewhat impractical.  Neither you nor your opponent knows exactly what play you’re getting, which turns most of the match into a guessing game—this can be strangely fun or really annoying based on how much you care.  Either way, Madden 11 is at its best when enjoyed with a friend.

One more thing that is a bit wacky is the in-game advertising.  Now, I know that big-budget advertising is a huge part of real broadcast football, but it would be nice if the Achievements I earned weren’t sponsored by Old Spice!  On a hardly related note, it is pretty cool that after you win the Super Bowl (sponsored by Verizon Wireless, of course) you get to visit the White House and chill with Barack Obama.  Yes you can!

Madden has a long, and mostly unrivaled history in console gaming.  Once again, this year’s game adds to that legacy by streamlining the experience rather than re-inventing it.  Depending on your love of the franchise, this could either bring you much happiness or a long, drawn-out yyyaaaaawwwwwwnnnn (excuse me).  With the NFL exclusivity license in its twilight years it will be interesting to see if EA Tiburon decides to change their tried-and-true formula in the near future.  Things should get interesting soon.

A little over a week has passed since I first played Heavy Rain.  And I really wasn’t planning on doing any kind of review for it. Because, you see, it’s not really a game—in the traditional sense, anyway—and I was afraid many of you pubescent Modern Warfare gamers here wouldn’t really care.  But a few days after finishing the story, I just can’t seem to get it out of my head.  So, I’ve decided to do a small review.  If not only for closure for myself, to spread the word to you “hardcore” gamers about an amazing interactive experience that you really should play.

Spending a whole lot of time talking about the story would be a disservice to you, so I’m not going to talk too much about that here.  But as to not leave you completely in the dark, Heavy Rain’s story is about a father whose son gets kidnapped and the trials and pain he goes through to try to save him.  Think somewhere between the movies “Saw” and “The Fan.”  Just know that Heavy Rain’s narrative is really great, and not just great for a game, great for a movie.  And that’s really what Heavy Rain is—an interactive movie.

Though the main story revolves around the aforementioned father, you also get to play as a great cast of supporting characters like an FBI agent, a Private Investigator and a pretty lady who shows her boobies a few times.  As the mystery unfolds, the characters’ stories eventually intertwine to reveal the kidnapper/serial killer dubbed the Origami Killer.

The gameplay aspects of Heavy Rain are pretty simple.  As you explore your surroundings you will be prompted to press certain buttons to make your character interact with people or items in the environment.  It may be as simple as hitting a face button or it could be a timed series of acrobatic stick movements and button presses that test your fingers’ dexterity.  If you’ve played video games in the past five-years you are probably familiar with the QTE—well, it’s a lot of that.

Now, that may not sound very awesome, but somehow the quick time events feel strangely fresh here.  The tension-inducing exercises take a symbiotic coordination of eye and hand that really add to the suspense of the game.

Further adding to the suspense is the fact that your actions in the game effect the overall story in a much greater way than you’re used to.  If you make the wrong decision at crucial moments during the game or miss certain quick time events, things can go south quickly.  Maybe you won’t find your son alive or maybe you won’t find him at all.  Make a big enough mistake and you’ll just die—for good.

Quantic Dream and Sony have built a high budget action game with Heavy Rain.  The art direction rivals anything Hollywood has to offer.  Your mood is stirred by a great soundtrack and the above average voice acting carries the story for the duration.  And did I mention boobies?

Overall, Heavy Rain is an amazing interactive experience that you owe it to yourself to play.  It is a rare game; one that can be enjoyed by both the person who holds the controller and couch-lurkers like girlfriends and roommates.  If you have a PlayStation, go out and buy the game immediately.  If you don’t have a PlayStation, get one!  Show your support for fresh game ideas like Heavy Rain and we’ll all be rewarded with more great games like it in the future.  Believe me, Microsoft and the creators of Natal are playing Heavy Rain right now just dreaming about the possibilities.

You might not know this, but much like Punxsutawney Phil does for weather, John Madden does for football.  That’s right!  Earlier this week, Madden came out of his hole and saw his shadow, predicting a long overdue diet and a tough loss for the Indianapolis Colts.

Well, it’s actually Madden’s game that is used for the Super Bowl predicting—but the results are the same.

Every year for Super Bowl, EA cranks up the latest Madden NFL game and lets the computer figure out who’s going to win the big game.  The simulation is run each year in hopes to satisfy our curious minds and, more importantly for EA, sell a few more copies of the game before football is forgotten for 6-months.

 The computer simulation is usually pretty accurate too.  In five out of the past 6 years Madden has gotten the winner right.  The only recent championship game it failed to predict was Super Bowl XLII where the Giants beat the Pats—but who could have predicted that one?

This year the simulation predicted that the New Orleans Saints would be the victor by the very close margin of 35 - 31. Drew Brees turned out to be the MVP with 299 yards and three touchdowns; while Reggie Bush found the end zone twice with a rushing touchdown and a punt returned for a TD.  Peyton Manning had a solid performance with 322 yards and three touchdowns but came up just short of the championship ring.

Before you call your bookie, though, you should know that the Madden Simulation does not take into account certain intangibles like player hot-streaks, nerves and experience or Dwight Freeney's bad ankle.

Whatever the outcome is of the actual Super Bowl, the results of the simulation predict a good, high-scoring game that all of us should enjoy.  So, like my old tee ball coach used to say (he also used to hit on my mom and make sure I was wearing my jockstrap by “knocking”), “no matter who wins the game, we’re all winners!”

It’s no doubt that by now, if you own a PS3, you’ve downloaded the MAG open beta and run it through its paces a bit.  And by this point you’ve probably made the decision if you are going to buy it or not when it comes out on January 26^th.   And chances are, if you played the game for less than an hour-or-two, you’ve decided to not purchase the game and have gone back to playing MW2.

So if I’m right and that’s your story, I have written this mini-review on the beta just for you in hopes that you’ll give MAG a little more time—because if you haven’t put in a good bit of time getting to know the game, you haven’t really uncovered many of the things that make MAG so addictive.  Sure, once the full game comes out later this month my little review will probably mean squat, but it should at least give you an idea of what to expect with the full release.

Let’s first start out by addressing the pink elephant in the room:  MAG’s graphics don’t look to be on par with a certain shooter that came out a few months ago.  Frankly, Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 makes MAG look like a PS2 game.  But once you consider the amount of action going on and the ridiculous number of players on the screen at once, you see that the subpar graphics are justified.  If MW2 had as many players as MAG does playing in one game at the same time, you could bet your noobtube you’d have complete network failure.

Zipper Interactive has really raised the bar in terms of player-count on consoles.  Gears Of War 2 maxes out at a mere 10 players.  Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 allows only 18.  Battlefield: Bad Company has room for 24.  Killzone 2 boasts 32 players.  MAG lets 256 (TWO-HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FRIGGIN-SIX) players shoot at each other at the same time and runs near-flawlessly while doing it.

Impressed?  You should be.

MAG’s not running perfectly quite yet, though—occasionally servers would go down and drop me from games (usually when I was doing really well, which was maddening).  And sometimes it took a while to get in to a game, but only a few times did I experience lag during play—and it was always very minor.  Of course, these things are to be expected with such an ambitious player-count; and that’s why the beta is public, after all.  By the time MAG hits shelves, most of these issues should be fixed.

Now lets look at the actual gameplay of MAG.  Playing with 256 players is as hectic as it sounds.  In the two game types available in the beta, Sabotage and Domination, your main goal is to either attack or defend control points across the game’s large maps.  Sabotage is like “Domination-Lite”—as you only have three structures to attack or defend and only 64 players playing at once.  Think of it as training for the enormous Domination, which Zipper probably figured was too big to jump right in to and start playing.  Domination, as stated before, is seriously huge.  It has the same basic premise as Sabotage but adds manned-turrets, bombing-runs, UAV’s, advanced squad-perks and a vehicle-or-two that you can control.

Some of the advanced features (like airstrikes and squad-perks) require you to be a Squad Leader, Platoon Leader or Officer in Charge.  Becoming one of these leader-types takes quite a bit of leveling up but gives you abilities that can change the tide-of-war in a second for you and your comrades.

The whole thing sort of plays like a mash-up of Battlefield: Bad Company, Modern Warfare and SOCOM.  And at this point MAG may not be as good as any of those—but it definitely deserves a good portion of your time.  Zipper has crafted a game that finally makes you feel like you’re a small piece in a really large war—which is probably how you would feel in an actual war.  Trust me, MAG will inspire developers to think bigger, and that’s good for all of us.  Can you imagine playing Call OF Duty: Modern Warfare 6 with 500 players?  I can, and it’s all thanks to MAG—the father of Massive Action Games.

Few games were quite as immersive as the first Assassin’s Creed.  I guess there’s just something about climbing to the top of a tall structure—to bask in your own glory and take-in the view—that really intrigues us as human beings.  That, and killing people.  The combination of those two things equals a novel concept, by which the first Assassin’s Creed produced a mostly enjoyable gaming experience.  Pockmarked with imperfections and missed opportunities, though, the first game was met with plenty of criticism.  But ultimately, people must have ignored its shortcomings—as more than enough copies were sold to warrant a sequel.  And it seems that most of those critics are shutting up now anyway, as Ubisoft has addressed many of the niggling issues of the first game and created the highest form of redemption—a true contender for Game of the Year.

Assassin’s Creed 2 picks up right where the first game’s cryptic ending leaves off—Desmond, in a lab and confused.  Almost immediately, Kristin Bell-voiced Lucy, who apparently got collagen injections in her lips since last time you saw her, breaks you out and brings you to meet your new friends—a snobby Brit and a really excited lez who want you to save humanity by joining their little revolution.  After jacking-in to the Animus, you find yourself in the middle of the Italian Renaissance, and a street fight.  Once you’ve bested your foe and learned the basics of combat (which later in the game you’ll realize merely consists of mashing the ‘X’ button and waiting to counter) you’ll begin your tale as the likable Ezio Fiorno Rubella Prosciutto (or something really Italian).  Ezio suffers tragedy early on in the game that shines light on a conspiracy and causes him to go on a killing frenzy that ultimately guides him in to fulfilling his destiny as an assassin. 

Unraveling the conspiracy leads to branching plot lines and a story that is far superior to that of the first game.   This time there is much more to do and the side-quests rarely feel like the same “wash, rinse, repeat” snore-fest as they did in the first game.  Besides the main quest-line of assassinating rival family members and church officials, you’ll take-on optional missions that have you killing lower priority targets, beating up unfaithful husbands and searching the cities for ancient relics.

City exploration is familiar (treasure box’s, viewpoints, etc…) but renaissance Italy poses as more of a main character than the landscapes of the first game.  One of the cities, which acts as your base of operations, is even upgradeable—as are your weapons and armor.  These customization options and other RPG-ish elements add a Fable-esque feel to go along with the Hitman stealth action and Prince of Persia platforming thing already going on.  And that is really where Assassin’s Creed 2 falters a bit; it’s a Jack of all trades but a master of none—a victim of its own ambition—something that more time in development could have remedied.

So really, my only major gripe about Assassin’s Creed 2 is that it came too fast.  Ubisoft Montreal had some big ideas but many seem incomplete in their execution.  And that’s an inherent problem with the video game industry as a whole.  The pressures for the developers to meet deadlines and skimp or cut-out features to get a game out before Christmas often results in exactly this—and I believe a game with as much potential for greatness as Assassins Creed 2 deserves better.

Overall, Assassin’s Creed 2 is a huge step forward; and it possesses the same overall feeling that made the original a video game-escapists dream.  Many of the first game’s follies have been corrected, but there is still plenty of room for improvement within the AC mythos.  Trust me, though, you’ll be staying up late past your bedtime for a week-or-two telling yourself “just one more quest” until you finally succumb to your wife’s (or mom’s) pleas to get to bed.  You’ll get your money’s worth here.  At 20-30 hours—depending on how obsessive compulsive you are—Assassin’s Creed 2 is one of the few games worth $60.  And even if it doesn’t end up winning Game of the Year, I can not wait for the inevitable Assassin’s Creed 3.

Freek Score: 8/10