A New York Giants Fan Unretires and Comes Back For Madden 12
Today saw the release of Madden 12 for those traditionalists who don’t have some sort of sneak peak application on their video game consoles that allow them to download Madden before it’s official release date.
To me, Madden release day used to be one of those days I looked forward to the most during the year. It was like Christmas in the summer time. I loved football, couldn’t have signed up for enough fantasy football teams and bought Madden every year it came out for my PS2.
The first ever Madden I played was Madden 94 on my old Sega Genesis console. I couldn’t get enough of it. I wasn’t as big a football fan as I am now and would always play as the Dallas Cowboys because I found Emmitt Smith unstoppable, or whatever word he would make up today that means unstoppable. I wasn’t a Giants fan and I didn’t have any team allegiances back then so please don’t hate on me for using the Cowboys in Madden 95. If it makes you happy there were plenty of times when the ambulance came and carted Emmitt and other Cowboys off the field.
At a point in my life, however, Madden didn’t really excite me anymore. Neither did fantasy football but that’ a story for another time. There weren’t too many new features being added in Madden and I felt like I was wasting money every year just for new rosters. So, just like Brett Favre had done, I decided to retire from Madden after the 09 version. Brett Favre, in his Packers uniform, newly retired, was the coverboy for Madden 09, which happened to be the 20th anniversary edition of Madden. We were both going out together. Or so I thought…
Well, we all know what happened next. Favre unretired and went to play for the New York Jets. I, however, stuck to my retirement and played out my final Madden year, never missing it and never coming back… Until now.
The NFL lockout made me really miss football more than I thought, no matter how pissed off I was at the lockout. I also recently moved halfway across the country and have had a lot of life changing moments that made me think about the old days.
And one of those memories I had was playing Madden with my old Madden franchise buddy Kevin and how much fun we had. Sure, Madden can get stressful, just like any video games, but there’s nothing like playing Franchise Mode in Madden and carving out your team. I finally caved and bought myself a PS3 last week because I had a wicked deal on a brand new one. I downloaded the demo for Madden 12 and after playing it a few times decided it was time to step back into the world of Madden gamers.
I don’t know much about PS3s or what features are new in this year’s version. There are plenty of websites you can go to for that kind of information. I imagine it’s going to take me some time to get back to my old dominating ways, especially because I don’t have a whole lot of free time to get used to the game and play it everyday like I used to. But that doesn’t matter to me.
Playing Madden is supposed to be fun and at some point I’ll make my way to the nearest video game store and pick myself up a copy and start a franchise with the New York Giants, just like I used to do in Madden 09, 08, 07, so on and so…
I was taking a look online at the team and player ratings for the Giants and thought I’d go over them, briefly, here. Just remember that these ratings are outdated. EA will release a new roster update soon and these ratings will change and players will change teams, etc.
For now, though, these are your notable Madden 12 New York Giants football roster ratings:
New York Giants overall team rating: 83
OFFENSE
QB Eli Manning: 87; awareness: 87, throwing power: 90, throwing accuracy: 86
WR Hakeem Nicks: 89; speed: 90, catch: 90
WR Mario Manningham: 80; speed: 92, catch: 80
TE Travis Beckum: 71; speed: 84, catch: 85
RB Ahmad Bradshaw: 85; speed 93, elusiveness: 86
RB Brandon Jacobs: 80; speed: 85, elusiveness: 56
DEFENSE
LB Michael Boley: 80; speed: 83, tackling: 82
LB Jonathan Goff: 79; speed: 77, tackling: 90
LB/DE Mathias Kiwanuka: 79; speed: 73, tackling: 75
DE Justin Tuck: 94; speed: 84, tackling: 76
DE Osi Umenyiora: 89; speed: 84, tackling: 73
DE Jason Pierre-Paul: 78; speed: 84, tackling: 70
CB Corey Webster: 90; speed: 87, awareness: 89, tackling: 64
CB Aaron Ross: 79; speed: 88, awareness: 89, tackling: 64
FS Antrel Rolle: 85; speed: 86, awareness: 78, tackling: 71
SS Kenny Phillips: 81; speed: 90, awareness: 63, tackling: 74
One other Giants roster rating note is that running back Da’Rel Scott has a 96 speed so if you like you’re running back to be fast and with there no longer being a spring button in the game he could be your burner at running back or kick return.
For those of you looking for some more Madden related content click on this link that will take you to a podcast between Grantland.com’s Bill Simmons and his Madden buddy Gus Ramsey discussing this year’s Madden.
That’s it for me. I’m off to find a copy of Madden and look at my fantasy football team. It’s like 2009 all over again for me.
But before I go, I ask you GMEN HQ readers, are you buying Madden this year? If so, which console? And what team will you be in Franchise Mode? Post your answers in the comments section.