Very well said, Venerable! Certainly something happened in football games around the time that Madden bought out all comers - the series doubled-down on simulation and complexity in a way to both complement the increase fidelity of player collisions and AI and to give the fans that needed more from getting bored or…

Unfortunately on my work computer I have to use Windows Explorer and can’t download anything onto the computer due to firewalls. I did the conversion and still got stuck in the grays. I’m working with Kinja on that. If you don’t see a post from me on WAYPTW tomorrow morning, check the grays! Please don’t forget me!!

The tells are there, but they’re usually subtle and deal with positioning. For example, a 1 deep safety is a tell for cover 3, which tells you to run certain receiver route combinations — same for covers 0, 2, 4, etc. Trucking or stiff arms are based on timing, but also (supposedly) the player’s attributes. The…

This is a really good explanation of why Madden can be really frustrating. I enjoy Madden because I’m a football fan but I suck at it because I’m not really great at knowing when to do what with my defense and often my offense and I’ve never really felt that I had that great of feel for the controls. It’s frustrating…

When I came up with this, I also pitched a Run The Series on all 34 Madden games. Matt ignored it, possibly out of pity.

I’ve actually been fairly impressed with Madden 18's tutorials (which finished installing well after I wrote the first draft of this, which is very funny to me.) There’s a whole section that’s basically, “So, you don’t know a damn thing about football, huh?”

I love those little “Aha!” moments, and while I cannot claim this is new to the series, I never thought to run up one curved wall, back down it, and up the other a few times to build momentum in this game until I had to(?) last night. I stumbled across the strategy by accident, it worked, and I had a stupid smile on…

This has far more familiarity with the franchise than I can appreciate, but it does get to the heart of the unexpected delights of the game,which I am playing because my son wanted it for his birthday. This gave me the opportunity to take it for a spin myself, and you know, I think this may be the Sonic game for me.…

The last couple years I’ve found myself trying to get into Madden again. I understand football enough but strategy is never something I’ve spent time with, so I bounce off of it pretty hard (that and the sheer amount of control variations which I get tired of fighting).

I think you’re thinking a level above me. I’ve no idea how varied strategies are within the rules. What I meant was that the aim of the game, getting the ball to the other end using your players, gets contrived into segments of trying to advance short distances, where you have a number of attempts until you succeed or…

Good luck with this. American Football is one of the most impenetrable activities I’ve ever come across. It seems so contrived, the way the rules force the teams to behave in a particular way, where the motion of the game is what matters, not the actual goal, by which I mean the aim, not the literal goal. Brilliant…

Here’s mine: “Taxes are like The Legend of Zelda, in the sense that they’re currently under the control of a large, angry, porcine monster known for threatening young women, who is also currently living in a large, white castle.

“Taxes are like some elf breaking into your house, busting all your pottery, and stealing all your rupees.”

Hi Bud.

I’m glad you highlighted the transplanting of Sonic 2's Emerald Hill corkscrew bridges into the Green Hill Zone, because as a long-time series fan that constant mashing up of stages and gimmicks is one of my favourite things about Mania’s level designs. Sonic & Knuckles’ Flying Battery has been combined with Sonic 2's…

Just testing to make sure my pain-in-the-ass Kinja thing works.

Oh this is dumb. I gave you a star earlier and it turned blue, then I refreshed the page and it wasn’t blue anymore. So, I clicked again and your number went down.