Comments on: Breaking Madden

Breaking Madden

Copronymus — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:29:59 -0800

This NFL season, Jon Bois has been on a weekly mission to turn Madden 25 from a reasonably accurate video game simulation of football into strange and wonderful things using only the character editor and rules options already present in the game. He's created BEEFTANK, an unstoppable 400 pound quarterback/bowling ball. He turned off the offsides rule in a quest for 60 fumbles. He demonstrated to us all that Pat McAfee is the Destroyer of Worlds. He's proven that you can NEVER count out Touchdown Tom. Today, he ended the season with a Super Bowl for the ages. In short, he has Broken Madden. (previously)

If you watch absolutely nothing else, watch the end credits video, which has a hilarious and delightful compilation of the season's highlights.

By: drezdn

drezdn — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:31:40 -0800

Beeftank should be this generation's philosopher-poet.

By: blakewest

blakewest — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:37:00 -0800

BEEFTANK makes me think of the container for vat-grown meat

By: brennen

brennen — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:37:08 -0800

I couldn't care less about this game if you held a gun to my head and demanded it on pain of death, but I really appreciate the writing here.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:38:05 -0800

I'm still not comfortable counting out Touchdown Tom.

By: dismas

dismas — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:38:34 -0800

I have loved the SHIT out of Breaking Madden. Jon Bois is fantastic. I think he also curates the SBNation Gif Oracle, which we talked about at some point. "The Super Bowls leading up to this one have become increasingly stale experiences. A lot of them are inside, which is the same place where you watch Up in your sweatpants and cry" ...is for my money the greatest sentence in the history of sportswriting.

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:42:42 -0800

Jon Bois previously. I love Breaking Madden so much. I'm sure there's a good explanation for why overflowing the score counter creates garbage in the rest of the game, but I don't want to know it because Madden 25 declaring "fuck it, I'm out, here's a horrible perversion of nature" is so much better.

By: Copronymus

Copronymus — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:45:32 -0800

Jon Bois is fantastic. I think he also curates the SBNation Gif Oracle, which we talked about at some point. I think he also wrote a bunch of the old Dugout chatlog comics, which is one of those things where I start to feel like the universe is unfair because he's done so much awesome stuff.

By: kiltedtaco

kiltedtaco — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:47:23 -0800

There is so much about this that is so good that I don't know what to say.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:48:09 -0800

The Headless Hockey Players article linked in the BEEFTANK one was pretty great, too. Especially the Scott Walker-scored video.

By: mhoye

mhoye — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:49:55 -0800

For a series that's entirely about tweaking the settings on a sportball video game, this is unreasonably funny.

By: doktahdunn

doktahdunn — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:50:16 -0800

I thought I was the only one who did this. Every NBA and NFL game I play its a compulsion. 5'1 dunking bowling balls. 7' wide-receivers. 6'10" point-guards. I think the only that would further these games is they allowed a more nuanced ability to effect AI, as well, and then of course, share players. Brilliant.

By: COBRA!

COBRA! — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:50:28 -0800

Oh god BEEFTANK is killing me. Is this the same guy who made an entire Bucs team out of clones of their coach?

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:50:43 -0800

Jon Bois: it's like this half-Bronco, half-Seahawk fetus the game has told me in the only language it has left that it has been broken Spencer Hall: you made that Jon you took science and made an abomination you did that Jon Bois: i'm a dad hand me a cigar Spencer Hall: [puts it out in that thing's eye] eye hole whatever it has

By: cribcage

cribcage — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:50:51 -0800

Bois is a good writer. This is funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:51:46 -0800

SCHIANO MEN is a thing that happened, yes.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:53:53 -0800

"Refers to liquids in plural, i.e., a glass of milk is 'a glass of some milks.'" Yeah, this is fantastic.

By: Copronymus

Copronymus — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:55:48 -0800

the game has told me in the only language it has left that it has been broken I wanted that to be the post title more than anything, but it's just over the character limit. And, yeah, Bois is such a good writer that he actually made me feel sympathy for Brett Favre, which I would not have told you was remotely possible until it happened.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 13:58:13 -0800

Also, it's worth watching the trailer he made for this episode as a work of art on its own.

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:00:57 -0800

Oh God the BEEFTANK gif where he bowls through his own team-mate. I can't stop laughing.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:03:12 -0800

Oh wow the trailers are all genius.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:03:46 -0800

Hey, I don't really know where to put this, so it's just going to go here: the Broncos' uniforms are the ugliest in football by a considerable margin. The orange and blue don't work together at all, the logo screams "create-a-team default," and the numbers look like they were ripped off the Rocketeer's mailbox. Also, the dark-blue sides make y'all look like you're wearing sandwich boards. This has needed to be said for a long, long time.

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:08:13 -0800

Played college football at DeVry, where he studied poetry. He finished with a GPA of reddish-gray.

By: ardgedee

ardgedee — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:14:29 -0800

I think I learned more about football from reading Breaking Madden than I have from decades of once in a while trying to learn football. I still have no idea how football works, but Breaking Madden has taught me that the point is that football doesn't work but everybody pretends it does and gets really excited about it. Kind of like adulthood, I guess.

By: DirtyOldTown

DirtyOldTown — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:16:55 -0800

I thought everybody did this kind of thing. I remember crafting my own rosters of players for Triple Play Baseball and giving them all max ability in all running/speed categories. I got a lineup that could bunt for hits an infinite amount of times, scoring 25-30 runs in a single half-inning before being deterred not by pitching or defense, but by boredom on my part.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:20:23 -0800

I thought everybody did this kind of thing. Amazingly, writers will sometimes write about common activities that everyone can relate to.

By: kmz

kmz — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:29:41 -0800

I'm sure there's a good explanation for why overflowing the score counter creates garbage in the rest of the game, but I don't want to know it because Madden 25 declaring "fuck it, I'm out, here's a horrible perversion of nature" is so much better. Holy buffer overflow! I always forget to keep up with Jon Bois. Thanks for reminding me. I'm in tears from laughter at the Super Bowl.

By: rouftop

rouftop — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:35:01 -0800

Thank you MeFi for introducing me to this via the Schianos a few months ago. Aside from the brilliant writing, what makes this work is Madden itself. It's realistic enough (or perhaps pro football is absurd enough?) to suspend disbelief, such that when everything goes haywire you're left imagining a real game played under Bois's conditions rather than just a bunch of machinima. When he turned off the offsides penalty and placed his linebackers behind the quarterback I was crying. Go Hawks.

By: ActingTheGoat

ActingTheGoat — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:38:36 -0800

CLARENCE BEEFTANK Slab BulkHead Fist RockBone Blast HardCheese Gristle McThornBody Big McLargeHuge

By: Saxon Kane

Saxon Kane — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:39:04 -0800

Now I see a reason to play such games.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:41:59 -0800

Somebody needs to put together a football video game that's completely custom AI controlled and start the football version of Salty Bet, just live streaming custom AIs and ridiculous character models going head-to-head on the field. I don't watch football, but I would watch that.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:44:08 -0800

He opens an article about football with a quote from Calvin and Hobbes. I'm sold.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:46:15 -0800

Wolfdog: enjoy.

By: kmz

kmz — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:52:28 -0800

Somebody needs to put together a football video game that's completely custom AI controlled and start the football version of Salty Bet I'm pretty sure you can have AI vs AI in Madden. The only problem for something like SaltyBet would be automating starting every match.

By: Flunkie

Flunkie — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 14:59:22 -0800

I'd like to see something like the "Many Tom Bradys" one, but more pure and more inclusive. So forget about things like "I upped the Tom Brady receivers' reception stats", and forget about having defense / special teams players who are not Tom Brady. So just 53 Tom Bradys, with Tom Brady's unmodified stats. And on the other team, 53 Mike Mohameds, with Mike Mohamed's unmodified stats. And a huge league, one team per existing player.

By: BrashTech

BrashTech — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:00:30 -0800

This is pretty cool! It makes me wish I knew more about footb—

Injuries were piling up. They suffered broken jaws, herniated disks, and dislocated elbows. By the end of the first quarter, Lana Berry and Josh Butler were the only two backs who were medically able to play.

Wait, so the video game of this sport is set up to describe the specific injuries the simulated athletes suffer? Well, of course, naturally, otherwise it wouldn't be realistic... Oh, yeah, that feeling of utter revulsion... I guess that's why I don't know much about football.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:27:36 -0800

By: justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow

justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:31:40 -0800

Wait, so the video game of this sport is set up to describe the specific injuries the simulated athletes suffer? That's nothing. In Dwarf Fortress you get ridiculously specific blow-by-blow battle reports. "The goblin's club bruised Uther's left kidney!" "Uther's axe severed a tendon in the goblin's right leg!" Every battle, in ridiculous detail.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:45:22 -0800

Also, how about a game release for the Xbox 360 in 2013 that stops counting points because it stores the score in a byte.

By: burnmp3s

burnmp3s — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 15:51:56 -0800

Yeah the 255 point thing has been in Madden for years and years. One of the early ones for XBox had a card system where you could collect cards that made the other team fumble all the time and whatnot, which is how I found out about it. Also some of the stats would rollover after a certain amount, so that instead of 2019 rushing yards or whatever you would only have 19. This even applied to season stats I think, so your player could go from an all time record amount in some category to having almost none.

By: scose

scose — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:05:07 -0800

unsigned char score[2];

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:12:35 -0800

this reminds me of jack nichalas 2 and 3, which allowed you to make some rather perverse, and impossible looking golf courses - greens at the bottom of a 200 ft hole in the ground? - why not? - canyons? why not? - 400 ft hills in the middle of the hole? - sure, why not? - little 10 yd greens surrounded by 100 yds of sand? - anything goes - crazy up and down impossible to play terrain? - parking lots with a tiny little green in them? - anything goes ... alas, starting with 4, such hijinks in golf design were no longer possible - and 2 was much more out of control than 3 was i still have the last version, 6, on my computer - fun game, but i miss the crazy courses ...

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:41:27 -0800

I'm pretty sure you can have AI vs AI in Madden. The only problem for something like SaltyBet would be automating starting every match. Oh I mean like user-customized AIs, like what gives Salty Bet weird, unbalanced, hilarious matchups and would give a similar sense of what Bois is doing, breaking the game in unexpected ways. Maybe also have rules disable at random and stat randomizers for every player.

By: Wulfhere

Wulfhere — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:45:56 -0800

The GIF-on-hover is one of the best uses of the image format I've seen. Quick to load, and easy to restart. More of this (and less auto-playing/looping GIFs) please!

By: maryr

maryr — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 16:48:40 -0800

If you do not have the time to read SCHIANO MEN, I still recommend you read this infographic.

By: delfin

delfin — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:40:09 -0800

Follow your dreams, you can reach your goals, I'm living proof. BEEFTANK B E E F T A N K!

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:49:39 -0800

One thing about this series is it reveals, time and again, how games like this employ rubberbanding to keep the game competitive, even when you stack things hilariously against the computer's favor. You put Superman on your team, and the other side will start selectively breaking the rules to match him. To an extent, but I think in this case the game is having a breakdown rather than specifically plotting to level the playing field. That guy may move like The Flash, but he totally fails to make the tackle.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:11:48 -0800

But that's not how a sensibly-coded game should work. Humorous attributing of anthropomorphic attributes to your adorable computer box aside, they don't have breakdowns. And he might not make the tackle, but he could have, and that's what makes it clear some rubberbanding is going on. You could still plug Donkey Kong with a red shell, but that doesn't mean he's not getting a speed boost to keep up with you. (I have no explanation for that thing on the field at the Super Bowl.)

By: krinklyfig

krinklyfig — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:45:33 -0800

Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, Johnson, and Johnson deserved far better than the fate to which I damned them.

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 18:45:45 -0800

Humorous attributing of anthropomorphic attributes to your adorable computer box aside, they don't have breakdowns. Potayto potahto, I think. Computers - and more accurately programs - may not have breakdowns, but they do break down. "Breaking Madden" is in part about glitching the system by doing things that the system isn't set up to cope with - highlighting the ways coding, sensible or otherwise, can be subverted by a human agent refusing to go along with the intended actions provided by its affordances. That superspeed might be the system trying to compensate and create a fair game, but it would be a lot easier to do that, if that was what you were aiming to do, by serious rubberbanding - making numerical differences between player stats less significant the further apart they are - so the 10 points between 50 and 60 in toughness represent a larger difference than those between the first and last 5 points of difference between 0 and 100. Giving one tackle a moment of superspeed does potentially change the balance of the game, but so does having one of the players walk off the field in the middle of a play, which happens a couple of times as well, and I don't think that's why it happens.

By: Pyry

Pyry — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 19:03:51 -0800

Oh god the tackling gifs in this episode of BEEFTANK.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 19:31:20 -0800

In other SB-Nation-based-crimes-against-decency news: Spilly's recipes.

By: empath

empath — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 19:34:50 -0800

Giving one tackle a moment of superspeed does potentially change the balance of the game, but so does having one of the players walk off the field in the middle of a play, which happens a couple of times as well, and I don't think that's why it happens. It's probably more than the game isn't entirely a physics-based simulation -- it's running some numbers to determine whether the player gets tackled, then uses physics to get the players to get from point a to point b in a reasonably realistic way-- and that when you have sensible stats for players, it's less likely to have to do some crazy, unrealistic animations to make it happen.

By: kiltedtaco

kiltedtaco — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 20:21:55 -0800

The choice of GY!BE for the trailer ... too perfect.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 21:21:04 -0800

So what you're saying is, behind the scenes it rolled 00: Players walk off field?

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 21:41:26 -0800

Kinda! In the same way that if you get to places in Deus Ex that the game's designers didn't anticipate, e.g. by using sticky bombs as steps, you might end up falling through the map... tracking down every possible glitch is impossible, so you focus on the most likely situations. (Thinking about it, what Madden really needs is a voiceover in the style of The Stanley Parable.)

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:06:35 -0800

This guy makes me want to play Madden for the first time since the SNES. But instead, I think I'm gonna get my nerd football on.

By: newper

newper — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:26:26 -0800

These are really entertaining! Thanks for the links -- love the McAfee neck flip animation.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:38:52 -0800

Hmm. But no, that's not all like Deus Ex, which achieved its vaunted flexibility of play by presenting a world with rules that you could take advantage of. This looks to be more like a glitch. The designer should know what outcomes are possible, and players walking off for Gatorade in the middle of the play shouldn't be possible. I don't know what kind of underlying simulation would allow for that to happen. Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing.

By: ob1quixote

ob1quixote — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:50:27 -0800

The gif where the Seattle Monstars destroy the Tiny Broncos defensive line in unison made me laugh loud enough to scare the dog.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 22:57:57 -0800

Some other animated GIFs from the series: Madden tells Jon "No". Sometimes BEEFTANK outruns himself. Not the most shining example of AI. Going for Gatorade while the play's still going For added fun, take note of the "realistic" crowd in the background. The neck-flip animation newper refers to. "Dude, you think we should tackle him?" "No way, look at the size of him!" This is the GIF ob1quixote's referring to, I think.

By: Homeboy Trouble

Homeboy Trouble — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 23:58:53 -0800

JHarris: "Hmm. But no, that's not all like Deus Ex, which achieved its vaunted flexibility of play by presenting a world with rules that you could take advantage of. This looks to be more like a glitch. The designer should know what outcomes are possible, and players walking off for Gatorade in the middle of the play shouldn't be possible. I don't know what kind of underlying simulation would allow for that to happen. Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing." I suspect that it may be partially due to the game's heavy use of motion capture for the specific details of football, and then Bois' use of extreme settings to tweak the game in ways that it isn't meant to be played. A driving simulation that behaved oddly or unrealistically if you hacked the cars to go 500 mph doesn't necessarily mean that the simulation is bad; it means you're trying to do something way outside the normal behaviour. The goal of the game is to simulate what happens when a 6'4" 250 lb linebacker tackles a 6'1" 215 lb running back and they both know how to play football, not what happens when a 5'0" 160 lb teenaged McDonald's worker who knows nothing about football attempts to tackle a 7'0" 400 lb running back. It's entirely possible that the Gatorade walk has some simulation aspects gone wrong, but it seems at least possible that it's a player running a downfield route, turning the wrong way due to 0/100 football awareness or because something equally bizarre is happening, and then slowing down to a walk because that is a logical and common thing to do when the play is way down on the other side of the field, and you're never going to catch up and block. The Gatorade is presumably a lucky coincidence that it is located there, although had the play started somewhere else, he could be "heading to chat with the cheerleaders" or something else.

By: ob1quixote

ob1quixote — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 23:59:19 -0800

It was this one entitled "Line Collapse," JHarris.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:02:17 -0800

This sort of thing is what happens when you let one company make all the football games with no competition for years.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:04:08 -0800

Ah, I messed up the link, that's the one I intended to link to ob1quixote, thanks.

By: empath

empath — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 00:13:29 -0800

Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing." No, I don't think it's decided ahead of time how the play is going to go, but there's probably a really simple layer that keeps track of player location, momentum, various skills and so on and constantly does checks to see if various things happen, then kicks in the physics/animation engine to make it happen on the screen. That would explain why the kicker can kick the ball while a blocker has moved him 6 feet away from the hold. The 'kick' check probably doesn't care where the kicker is actually standing. And it explains a lot of the weird behavior around tackling, where you might have one stat saying that the guy should be tackling the other guy, and another stat saying that the guy can't be tackled, and then the physics engine needs to do something with that.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 01:33:43 -0800

That makes sense empath, thanks.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 01:48:29 -0800

WTF? Because I looked for their source but it took me awhile to find it, those awful tackles from the credits are from the third BEEFTANK post: Third worst, Second worst, Worst

By: running order squabble fest

running order squabble fest — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 03:32:13 -0800

That would explain why the kicker can kick the ball while a blocker has moved him 6 feet away from the hold. The 'kick' check probably doesn't care where the kicker is actually standing. Right - and in the normal run of a football game modelled in Madden, it wouldn't be an issue, because one set of actions would have the kicker on screen run to the ball and kick it, and another would have the ball move according to the force, direction, accuracy etc of the kick. It's only if you change the rules to the point that it no longer resembles a game of football - by removing offsides, and therefore being able to position a defensive player between the ball and the kicker - that you can generate a situation where the kicker is physically prevented from running to the ball, but still does the kicking animation somewhere off to its left, and the ball still flies in the air. You could say that this is poor QA, and that testing should have either resulted in it being impossible for that situation to occur (by making it impossible to remove the offside rule, e.g.), or have led to the realistic mapping of the consequences of removing the offside rule, (i.e. sometimes kicks simply do not happen, because the kicker is blocked, and the ball probably becomes a free ball). However, that I think would be a long way down in the list of QA concerns, because the overwhelming majority of people buying the game are buying it to play something resembling football rather than to see how they can make the game they are playing not football. So, it's mechanically similar to, say, the Hercules check in NHL13, but on the available evidence it's relatively hard to engineer within the normal bounds of the game, whereas you can engineer the Hercules check in the progress of a normal, intended-to-be-realistic game, which the games of Madden Jon Bois is creating are not.

By: stltony

stltony — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 05:58:03 -0800

MetaFilter: Your struggles are over now, BEEFTANK. This was great. Just great. Reminds me of creating a team of my friends on Madden (97 I think). We were all 300+ pounds, over 6 foot tall and ran 4.0 40s. We'd run every kick off back to the 1 just to gain the most yardage on every possession. Great times.

By: Rock Steady

Rock Steady — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 07:16:09 -0800

Also I love love love they way they went full-on Snow Fall-style formatting for the season finale.

By: Navelgazer

Navelgazer — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 08:57:01 -0800

FOOTBALL!

By: elizardbits

elizardbits — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 09:01:07 -0800

The gif where the Seattle Monstars destroy the Tiny Broncos defensive line in unison made me laugh loud enough to scare the dog. The one where the little tiny Bronco is clinging to the giant Seahawk's leg is the one that has made me honk like a drunk goose.

By: CancerMan

CancerMan — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 09:49:11 -0800

The one thing I could never wrap my head around was how Madden (and the NCAA equivalent) managed the game clock. By default most games have 5-minute quarters, but you can adjust the amount of time from 1 to 15 minutes. But it would seem the game is already geared to "realistically" simulate a normal NFL game for 5-minute quarters. Playing a "real world" game of 15-minute quarters often results in scores like 156-27, with 1000+ rushing yards. I understand that to actually play 15-minute-quarter games would result in 2-3 hours of gameplay, but I would have imagined that if the game "sped up" things to match for 5-minute quarters, it could incrementally or exponentially speed up for 15-minute ones.

By: maryr

maryr — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:17:04 -0800

Oh my goodness, the good Sirs could not look more out of place than they do in those jerseys.

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 11:31:16 -0800

The way it speeds things up is by cutting out things that normally run time off the clock between plays, though. You don't have to wait for refs to get the ball and re-set it, because it just teleports to the new line of scrimmage. The coach doesn't have to communicate the play call to the QB, you just pick it and then break the huddle. "Realistic" speed would be the same amount of gameplay with a ton more waiting around.

By: maryr

maryr — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:26:35 -0800

Relevant Simpsons frame of the week.

By: jason_steakums

jason_steakums — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 18:11:42 -0800

I'm making my way through all of these, and so far my favorite glitchiness is when the AI goes very weird indeed in Tony Gonzales, cranky old man of destruction. The sideways run up the field is wonderful. (Also I could watch this gif all day)

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 20:01:06 -0800

I'm gonna miss this series.

By: The Card Cheat

The Card Cheat — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 20:08:52 -0800

My favourite: Torn MCL, broken jaw, broken foot, broken hand. Broken all over.

By: homunculus

homunculus — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 13:10:40 -0800

The Machine Is Bleeding to Death: How to turn the Super Bowl into a twisted Cronenbergian nightmare

By: empath

empath — Sun, 02 Feb 2014 15:47:42 -0800

Not from the video game.

By: Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish

Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish — Sun, 02 Feb 2014 18:20:37 -0800

So far the biggest differences between this and the simulation have been that Denver managed to score once, and they replaced the giant fetus with Bruno Mars.

By: JHarris

JHarris — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 00:11:47 -0800

Yeah, Breaking Madden looks like of prophetic now. I look forward to Clarence BEEFTANK's introduction as a physical player next season.

By: maryr

maryr — Mon, 03 Feb 2014 10:30:45 -0800

There were a couple tackles in the game where I actually went back to see how close they were to the simulated tackles. Incredible sizes discrepencies aside, a couple seemed close. I like how all of SBnation's Super Bowl gifs seem to be subtitled "The Broncos are going to lose the Super Bowl." I also like that they have three times as many Puppy Bowl gifs as Super Bowl gifs.

By: Copronymus

Copronymus — Wed, 05 Feb 2014 22:09:32 -0800

Jon did an interview with Buzzfeed, where, most importantly, he promised both another season of Breaking Madden and some NBA 2K14 manipulation.

By: ob1quixote

ob1quixote — Thu, 06 Feb 2014 14:36:25 -0800

JHarris: “I look forward to Clarence BEEFTANK's introduction as a physical player next season.”

Jared Lorenzen: Still playing football, still enormous, still an American hero, Rodger Sherman, SB Nation Lookit, 03 February 2014 q.v. BEEFTANK!