Madden 11

With the Hall-of-Fame Game still fresh in my mind, another great symbol of the coming football season is finally upon us. I speak of the video game, Madden, which is released in early August of every year and conjures up even more excitement for football than the most captivating pre-season game ever could. This year sees the release of Madden '11, which offers little changes from Madden '10 except that it is NEW.

For the fans of both football and video games, there is nothing more gratifying than getting the current year's version of the Madden video game and spending hour upon hour affixed in front of a television set working on plays and strategies, substituting players and updating techniques. It is a pleasure that is hard to explain to someone not involved, but it is a pleasure nonetheless.

Anyway... I will be heading out to the store today during my lunch break to grab a copy of Madden, which will sit in my bag, mocking me the whole day through. 5 o'clock will feel like it is weeks away. This is OK, however, once I do finally get home and begin playing, it will all be worth it. Ahh, relief.

*1:35 UPDATE*

I finally have my copy of Madden 11, which I hunted at the local Best Buy during my lunch break. It now rests inside of my bag, waiting to be played. It will be in the corner of my mind all day, I can already sense it. It is tempting me, calling me, begging me to play it. I can practically smell and taste it as clearly as a strawberry jelly sandwich on whole wheat toast.

I've read the game's instruction manual twice over, just to make sure that every button's purpose is ingrained in my memory. I've browsed more than a few websites and read the "professional gamers'" reviews of it.

I have already played out in my mind what I will do when l get home... boot up my Playstation 3, install the game and dive in head-first, before even changing out of my hot work clothes. I see myself immediately setting up a franchise and choosing none other than The Cowboys as my team, or perhaps setting up the new "GameFlow" playbooks and testing this new feature in a 'Play Now' game (although I suspect I will not enjoy this feature and quickly return back to manual playcalling, which is much more gratifying.)

Bottom line is this... Madden is out, I have it and just as I suspected, the clock is already ticking mighty slow while the game is calling me mighty loud.