However, a recent announcement may have me changing my mind. EA is still the only game in town, but they’ve announced a new football title called Madden NFL Arcade. This will be a downloadable title for $15 over PSN or XBLA, and instead of the heavy simulation fare of Madden it will feature 5-on-5 sandbox gameplay. Standard rules are suspended; the first person to 30 points wins and players can get power-ups during the game. This sounds a lot like the old arcade baller Blitz, which I had some fun with back in the day.

This title might be just different enough to let me bypass my Anti-Madden directives and pick it up. It sounds very casual, which is perfect for me. My days of playing entire seasons in a single weekend and obsessing over player stats are long gone. I’ll still boycott the yearly Madden titles until the NFL license opens up to other developers, but Madden Arcade might finally get me back into the console football game.

It’s easy to take the gains we’ve made in computer games for granted.  After reading some reviews of the newly released Fight Night Round 4, I believe some are making that mistake.

I’ve been a fan of the series since the first Fight Night.  From the beginning, the realistic environments and engaging control scheme have set it far ahead of any other boxing game.  Now, for this version, we have Mike Tyson (I’ll put him first for my health), a vastly improved physics engine, a large stable of recognized fighters, and many other features.

When some say that the title is “held back” by “limitations” of its training system’s difficulty and very long road to top rank status, I think they’ve missed the value of an excellent title.  If you have a game that’s a pleasure to play, why not make it take some time to achieve great things in?  If you are going to emulate the “sweet science” as they call it, why not have the player go through a bit of work to accomplish true greatness?  It does not keep the player from choosing fights that are at his level or easier.  It simply gives the player long term goals and training that takes effort.

I would encourage sports gamers or gamers that enjoy high quality games that actually evolve from year to year to give this one a try and see if they like it.  Especially those that never tried a Fight Night title.