First Impressions of Madden 10 Wii - It's a Guy Thing

I've never done this in my blog before, but since I'm trying to write more often, I thought of something that might be worthy of mockery: a Wii game review.

Today, I'm going to give my first impressions of Madden 10 for the Wii system.

The good: ummm.... let me think...

Well, the graphics are a bit better. You have a couple of options on passing the ball. Yeah. That's about it.

Okay, let's be real here. Madden 10 has lost the "Road to the Hall of Fame mode" where you can create a player, take him through the draft and training, and view the field from his point of view. It was a good idea, but there were lots of quirks that I didn't like. I hated the practices that took forever. You had to do them, though, to gain skill for the game. I also didn't like the quarterback's POV, because it was really tough to even see your receivers, much less hit them. That having been said, it would have been nice to have an improved feature like this in Madden 10. Instead, there is only a series of mini-games and such that incorporate some of the pre-draft camps.

Last night, I went straight into the Road to the Super Bowl games to see how it played. I have to say that I was disappointed. Yes, the process moves more quickly in terms of waiting for the system to calculate the results to the other games. Still, it is a bit anti-climactic when you start playing. When you are alone, you choose the player you want to control by pointing with the Wii-mote and clicking the A button. The process is okay, if a bit clunky.

I could go on and on. Let's just say this: EA got this one wrong. They started to move in the right direction last year, but took a quantum leap away from the football feeling. One reviewer said that the Xbox version was really difficult to play and not much fun, while the Wii version was easier to pick up and start playing, but unsatisfying. I have to agree with the latter comment. I was able to play immediately, despite a shocking lack of instructions. But when I was done, I just found myself wishing that I hadn't traded in last year's version already.

Guess what? My video game reviews stink. I think I'll leave this sort of thing to the pros who have nothing better to do all day than to play video games and write about them. As for me, I'll give this game a 7 on a scale of 1 to 10 and say thanks for reading this garbage. Back to something more normal tomorrow.

(What a waste of time this column was!)