iPad app review: Madden NFL 11

by Enuh Iglesias

With this year’s playoffs promising an exciting Superbowl match, Madden on the iPad is a perfect shot in the arm while waiting for the next brutal elimination. EA Mobile, of course, is responsible for creating the hugely successful franchise on various platforms, with the iPad being its latest receptacle of football glory.

I must confess, first off, that I don’t know much about football, except vicariously through my boyfriend who happens to be a lifelong Chicago bears fan. Years of teaching me patiently about the ins and outs of the sport only bore fruition when I downloaded Madden 11 NFL on the iPad as a gift and casually began playing it.

To give EA Mobile credit, capturing the nuances of football is a pretty difficult task but the franchise has been doing it admirably for years. The iPad version is a huge leap from the confusing and cramped screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch, and makes the game much more accessible to newbies to the sport.

There are several game modes to choose from – season play, playoffs, vintage voltage, and multiplayer. Playing offense or defense for the first time pulls up a rather lengthy but useful tutorial. You can play using the standard playbook and take it from there, but advanced players can customize the gameplay by playing game flow mode on and adjust their plays on the fly.

Player rosters are comprehensive, offering individual and team stats for the avid football fan. However, although updated rosters are routinely available, overall team and player ratings have yet to reflect the current standing of the teams and players. This is a bit disappointing if you want to make the game reflect the current performance of your favorite team especially now that the playoffs is on-going. During the game, you can also make substitutions, use audible mode to adjust your play, call a timeout, and the like. Weather conditions, a factor in these games is also customizable (snow, rain, evening, sunny, etc.) but so far the weather doesn’t really affect the gameplay as it should in actual games.
In addition, you can adjust the level of difficulty by playing either regular mode or All-Madden mode. This is standard Madden stuff.

Multiplayer makes the game ten times more fun, and you can take on another player head on through Bluetooth in your team’s best home or away jersey. The only problem playing via Bluetooth is that the experience still leaves a lot to be desired. Multiplayer is significantly slower, with stutters and lags hindering smooth and intense head on combat.

When playing the offensive, you start out by choosing a particular play, including the formation and different styles – short pass, long pass, run and special (for the special teams). A nice pan and zoom function allows you to see the lines of the game drawn according to your chosen play and choosing where to throw the ball is as simple as tapping on buttons corresponding to the receivers’ numbers. In normal mode, these buttons are highlighted in green when chances of completing the throw are good, yellow if a bit dicey and red if plain difficult, or nearly impossible.

Graphics and sound effects are hi-res and polished, although the players don’t look as realistic compared to other Madden platforms. Game controls are generally responsive, but using individual action buttons can be a pain. When playing against the computer, you have to activate the timer button to select a particular action. In multiplayer mode, the action buttons are readily available. However, most of the time, these buttons don’t work as well as they should and it’s often simpler to just use the speed up button and just hope for the best. The lack of a zoom out function to see the entire field during gameplay also makes it difficult to anticipate opponents that come from out of nowhere and suddenly tackle you.

All in all, even with its flaws, Madden 11 NFL is a thoroughly fun and engaging game for football aficionados and newbies. Just live with the flaws if you just want to play football, you’re good to go. Hike!

NFL Madden 11 for iPad in the App Store

Brady, Manning soar as Patriots, Colts crumble around them

Peyton Manning and Tom Brady, the two best quarterbacks of their generation and arguably any generation, are facing strange times as they face off today. Brady’s New England Patriots, once a dynasty, suddenly haven’t won a Super Bowl in too many years to count. And Brady’s best weapon Randy Moss is suddenly two teams removed from his roster, even as Brady and Bill Belichick are likely wondering what might have been if they hadn’t let Deion Branch slip away in the first place. The scary part for the Pats is that they may no longer even be the best team in their division.

Manning’s Indianapolis Colts, meanwhile, are fresh off an AFC Championship and should have been in prime position to head right back there but have instead been ransacked by the most dumbfounding collection of injuries in recollection. Indy’s offense is almost literally Peyton and the practice squad, with the Colts burning through receivers faster than the Dolphins have been burning through quarterbacks.

So who wins today, the team in transition or the team in traction? That’s better predicted by the oddsmakers. But just because neither franchise is in quite its usual top form this season doesn’t mean Brady and Manning can’t have one for the ages today.

iPad, MacBook Air vie for affection as Apple splits TV airtime

Tune in for tonight’s football game and you’ll find yourself deluged by ads for two distinctly different technology products which just happen to sport the same logo, as Apple alternates between TV ads for the iPad and MacBook Air in such heavy rotation that you’d almost believe Apple wants you to buy one of each.

Rather than targeting the ads by pitching each product to a separate audience or demographic, Apple’s strategy is to make mainstream audiences fully aware of both the iPad and the new MacBook Air, and to allow viewers to make their own devisions. Of course the content of the ads makes it clear which one Apple would prefer you buy, as well as spelling out the fundamental differences between the two svelte mobile computing devices.

The gist of the iPad ad: it’s an amazing new kind of device which can do all these cool things we’re demoing here in the ad.

The sum total of the MacBook Air ad: it’s thin.

Part of that is because Apple is really, really proud of all those new things you can do with an iPad. The other part is that the Air doesn’t do anything that any other existing Mac can’t do, as it’s literally just a thin and light Mac laptop.

But regardless of how Apple might be leaning in how it would prefer to take your money, the pairing of the two ads in heavy rotation on the same broadcasts shows that Apple is more than willing to take your money in exchange for either product.

Backup QBs Trent Edwards, Kerry Collins see Monday Night Football action

Remember Trend Edwards? The last time his name was in the news was when the Buffalo Bills, the worst team in the NFL, fired him a few weeks ago after having been their starting quarterback for a few seasons. The last thing anyone expected would be for him to be playing on Monday Night Football, yet here he is, subbing for an injured David Garrard. Few were likely even aware that Edwards had landed in Jacksonville via the waivers process, and yet now he’ playing for a national audience.

Meanwhile, the Tennessee Titans also have their backup quarterback in the game, as the ageless Kerry Collins is subbing for a limping Vince Young. Collins is in his late thirties and has played for too many NFL teams to count, while Trent Edwards is still in his mid-twenties after having been drafted by the Bills in the second round a few years ago.

Detroit Lions Zack Follett tweets “I’m OK” after scary injury

Detroit Lions linebacker Zack Follett, who was carted off the field today after an injury which appeared to have possibly left him paralyzed, has announced that he’s “ok” via Twitter. The Lions LB, who goes by Zakarian Follett on Twitter, posted the following after the game:

“Heaven was bombarded with prayer request and they were heard! Thank you and much love to all you showing your support. I’m ok. Thank God”

The seventh round draft pick is in his second year with the Lions after playing college ball at the University of California.

Washington-Indianapolis SNF: Redskins learn Manning will make you pay

The Washington Redskins did something on Sunday Night Football tonight that no team ever does: they kicked to Peyton Manning by choice. After winning the coin toss, the Skins decided to go ahead and defer to the Indianapolis Colts, giving the ball to Manning right from the get-go in exchange for getting the ball themselves at the start of the second half. And the move worked, as the Colts were quickly stopped and after a near-interception had to punt the ball away. But just as Donovan McNabb and company were getting things going, they lost track of the ball – and Manning came into the game and promptly burned them for a long touchdown pass. Just like that, Indianapolis 7, Washington 0.

The Redskins were reminded that there are few better in the league at making a team pay for its mistakes than Peyton Manning. After having clearly claimed the early momentum by stopping Manning on the first drive, the game swung completely on the turnover; after the quick Colts touchdown, the Redskins offense just didn’t look the same, perhaps knowing they’d blown their best opportunity to take an early lead. But it’s still only midway through the first quarter, and this one is still close.

Dolphins-Packers: Miami healthy not special, Green Bay turns to subs

The Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers face off today in a game which sees the teams going in two different directions – health wise, at least. While the Dolphins are set to finally have linebacker Channing Crowder available for the first time all season, the Packers are looking at playing without linebacker Clay Matthews or for that matter Ryan Grant, Jermichael Finley, or Nick Barnett. The good news for Green Bay is that it will likely have quarterback Aaron Rodgers available despite the concussion he suffered in last week’s game.

While Rodgers has become essentially a proven commodity in the few years since he took over for Brett Favre, Dolphins quarterback Chad Henne is still trying to find his place. The young QB managed to look as brilliant as he did confounding last week in what ended up being a blowout loss to the Patriots. But most of New England’s forty-one points game from what was one of the best (or depending on your point of view, one of the worst) special teams performances in the history of professional football. Just how bad were the Dolphins special teams in their last game? The team fired special teams coach John Bonamego during the bye week.

In a season in which no one team looks even close to being bulletproof, both Miami and Green Bay are difficult to figure out. The Dolphins are undefeated on the road yet winless at home, which means they might be relieved to be on the road. The Packers, at their best, look like strong Super Bowl contenders. But at other times they’ve looked just as vulnerable as the Dolphins.

Potential key matchup: Dolphins rising star cornerback Vontae Davis against Packers veteran star wide receiver Donald Driver (if he even plays, as he’s also on the injury list). Then again, the rash of injuries on the Packers side means that the performance of their backups could be more pivotal than anything either team’s starters do.

Football almost comes alive: seven thoughts from the weekend

Football is back. Almost. Most of the top college football teams are playing their opening game against an obscure overmatched team which they’re expected to blow out, and NFL are at least finalizing their gameday rosters today. From having watched the college action on television today, and having followed the NFL “action” on the internet this afternoon, here are some thoughts…

- There are fewer letdowns in sports than preseason NFL games, as any sense of competitiveness (along with the presence of any recognizable names on the field) has typically disappeared by the end of the first quarter. But after watching some of the mind bogglingly sloppy opening day college games today, it’s a reminder of just why the NFL actually has a preseason. University of Florida, one of the top teams in the game, had ten or twenty bad center-quarterback exchanges (I lost count), which is startling considering that it’s somewhat rare to even see as much one or two bad snaps in a game. Good thing for the Gators, then, that they were playing against lowly Miami University of Ohio rather than the University of Miami.

- When did the NFL become a suicide league? For all the talk of building for the future, teams sure seem to be more eager than ever to dump any player that isn’t doing anything for them right now, regardless of how talented the player or how much potential they presumably have. How else to explain that Arizona’s Matt Leinart and Seattle’s TJ Houshmandzadeh are unemployed today, with no imminent landing spot? Half the teams in the league don’t have quarterback with Leinart’s potential, and the other half don’t have a wide receiver on their roster who will rack up as many yards this season as Houshmandzadeh did last season. Teams have reasons for dumping players. It’s the fact that neither may find immediate employment elsewhere that’s bizarre.

- Speaking of TJ (I’m not typing “Houshmandzadeh” again – oops I just did), talk about your classic case of a guy destroying his own career by leaving a good situation where he was making millions of dollars in favor of bolting for a terrible situation so he could just a little bit more money. If he had stayed in Cincinnati he’d still be there, still be employed, still be on a contender, and still making his millions. As it turns out, after this season, the rest of the money his Seattle contract goes up in flames because it never really existed. Is it pure greed or pure stupidity that causes athlete after athlete to destroy his career and his profitability by bolting for a few dollars more that he has to know he’ll probably never see anyway? Or are the agents advising these players just that evil?

- Speaking of cuts, Miami sportswriters can barely contain their glee today as the Dolphins cut quarterback Pat White just one year after taking him in the second round. Why? Because on the day of the draft, they all said that it was a bad pick. And today they’re all gloating about how they were right. But were they? In sixteen games last year, he was on the field for perhaps five plays. In the preseason this year he was on the field for a whopping total of four plays – and actually looked pretty good in that game. Sure, coaches see things in practice that we don’t see on gameday. But the mistake isn’t in taking a non-prototypical guy so high in the draft. The mistake was taking him and then never actually putting him into a game. Same thing goes for third round pick Patrick White (not a good day to be a Dolphins draft pick named “Pat”), who was dumped today after having never made it onto the field last year. To his credit, Dolphins coach Tony Sparano admitted that he made a mistake by not letting Turner play last season, even after his team had faded from contention. But again, the mistake was not necessarily in drafting Pat and Pat. It was in drafting Pat and Pat, two player which major potential but who were obviously going to need some work to develop, and then never giving them the chance to develop.

- Notre Dame won handily today, but it was playing against who, again? Purdue? Okay then. Notre Dame hasn’t been a competitive or relevant team in at least a decade, and there’s no reason to believe that’ll turn around. At least last year they had recognizable names Charlie Weis and Jimmy Clausen (who for the record both accomplished nothing while they were there). This year, Notre Dame and Purdue could have exchanged uniforms at halftime and no one but their families in the stands would have noticed. So here’s the question: why is the long-irrelevant, boring, thoroughly uncompetitive team known as Notre Dame still managing to garner a nationally televised broadcast of its games on NBC every single week? The answer, of course is ratings. But the real question is why so many millions continue to tune in to watch Notre Dame, a third rate team, play an irrelevant game against its fourth rate opponents. Are these people tuning in simply for religious reasons? Is there any other explanation?

- At the time I’m typing this, 21st ranked LSU is tied with 18th ranked UNC, which makes sense until you realize that more than a dozen of UNC’s players aren’t playing tonight due to a massive investigation of possible inappropriate off the field activities. So what does LSU’s offense do to take advantage of the obvious mismatches and the fact that it’s playing against a bunch of second stringers? It reins the gameplan and plays even more conservatively than usual. I guess some coordinators will use anything as an excuse to go with an ever-more conservative gameplan. And as I’m typing this, under-manned UNC just took the lead over the overly-conservative LSU. LSU may end up winning. But based on the gameplans, I can’t say I’m surprised at the score thus far. You’ve got to want to win. It’s not enough to want to not lose. [Update: LSU has since opened up its gameplan, and LSU is now winning. Again, no surprise.]

- Yes, I’m a cranky football fan this weekend. The regular season NFL games are still a week away, with all the pro headlines being about money in one way or another – today’s college football games have mostly been sloppy messes which rightfully should have been preseason games. But have no fear, real football games on both the college and pro level are just a week away.

app review: Madden NFL 11 for iPhone

It’s become extremely clear this month that the iPhone has come into its own as a gaming platform. At the same time that Sony is releasing ads criticizing the quality of iPhone games, EA has released its second iteration of its flagship Madden franchise for the iPhone. Last year’s Madden game set the bar very high, but as with any Madden game released on a platform after the first, the question remains whether this year’s version is any more than a roster update compared to last year’s version.

If you don’t own any Madden games for your iPhone and you’re wondering if Madden measures up to the console versions, it does, with some limitations. You’re not going to confuse the iPhone version of Madden with the 360 or PS3 versions, but it’s definitely at least as good as you might expect the iPhone version to be, if not better.††Don’t hesitate to pick this up, even at the current price of $8, if you want a football game for your iPhone and don’t yet have one.

If you’re considering upgrading from Madden 10, however, that question is a bit more complicated. Most of the gameplay in Madden 11 is fairly identical to Madden 10 (rosters aside, obviously), which, on the whole, is a good thing. For instance, passing is still done by tapping on the receivers, and the Action Control system that lets the player slow down the action temporarily, a highlight of the original iPhone Madden, returns for Madden 11. However, what device you own and your play style could make the difference between a purchase and a pass when it comes to this year’s incarnation.

The most obvious change in this year’s version is the GameFlow system, which replaces the old Ask Madden system for having the computer suggest plays (which was missing from Madden 10 on the iPhone anyway). With GameFlow turned on, you are never even presented with a play calling screen; the game just advances from play to play automatically, while continuing to provide the option to either change the play entirely or draw hot routes for your players on the screen to adjust the play. Turning GameFlow on and off is as easy as flipping a switch on the screen in between plays.

In theory, GameFlow is fantastic, especially on the iPhone where you likely don’t have a ton of time to play in the first place. I also like it a lot more on defense, where I’m less confident with/interested in strategy than I typically am on offense.††In practice, however, it seems to skew very heavily toward running plays, which makes sense for some teams but not others. For instance, I play as the Patriots, and giving the ball to Laurence Maroney instead of Tom Brady for three out of four plays would have the fans in Foxborough screaming for blood. What’s more, I found scrolling through plays with GameFlow off on the sluggish side, which can be frustrating. That said, if you really just want to play Madden like an arcade game, GameFlow is a great addition to the game.

On the defensive side, Madden 11 adds Total Defensive Control, accessible by a button in the bottom center of the screen once the play starts. Pressing this button pauses the game and allows the player to either direct each player on the defense either where to run or queue up a button action (jump, swat, dive for a tackle, etc.). I do like this feature, because the standard Madden style of defense (switch to the closest player and then try to intervene in the split second before they get the ball) has never really worked for me. It can be kind of overwhelming to try to decide what eleven people should do on every play, but I do like having the additional option, and it does add a bit more realism on the defensive side.

The graphics are improved to take advantage of the iPhone 4′s Retina Display, and the difference is very noticeable. The player models are much clearer (if a bit on the blocky side) and you can even see individual fans in the stands instead of just a multicolored animation. I actually fired up Madden 10 to see how it looks on my iPhone 4 and it hurt my eyes in comparison. So for iPhone 4 owners, upgrading is worth it for the graphics alone.There are still some issues with the animations, though; it often seems like the players don’t quite collide properly on tackles, and some of the reception animations aren’t clear whether the ball was caught or not.

The sound is still a weak point of Madden, unfortunately. Though the game has supplemented Madden and Cris Collinsworth with Gus Johnson, the commentary still is really inadequate. You’ll hear the same few lines over and over again, even within a single game, and it’s even wrong, occasionally. Play by play is understandably difficult to do at all, and even more difficult to do well, especially given the space constraints of the iPhone. That said, however, it’s jarring enough in its current incarnation that it’s almost worth just leaving it out altogether if it can’t be done better than it is currently.

So should you buy this first “roster update” version of Madden for the iPhone? Again, if you don’t own Madden 10, absolutely; this is a full featured football game to rival those on other portable gaming platforms for one third of the price of a comparable version on the DS or PSP, and you don’t even need to carry around a separate device to play it. Similarly, if you own an iPhone 4 or are a casual player, then the new features (Retina graphics and GameFlow, respectively) make this version of Madden a giant leap beyond its predecessor. If you don’t fall into any of these categories, then it’s really a toss up. But even just as a roster update, you’re still getting a current, full version of Madden for less than you would pay for last year’s version on other gaming platforms, so it’s not nearly as bad as, say, a $60 roster update on the 360 or PS3. If you didn’t like last year’s version of Madden for the iPhone, this year’s version won’t change your mind, but otherwise, Madden 11 improves on the formula enough to be worth a purchase for more than just this year’s rosters.

Madden NFL 11 for iPhone is in the iTunes App Store for $7.99

NFL Football, why have you deserted us?

The NFL’s annual draft in April cuts both ways. It opens the pro football season for business for a few days with a kinetic level of energy which not only involves every team, it involves every fan getting to see his or her team getting presumably better through the addition of young new players. But just as the NFL’s annual anti-season gets underway, the lights go out within a couple of days and fans realize that it’ll be a good three or four months before they even get to see their teams square off in preseason games – to say nothing of the sinking feeling that sets in after draft day euphoria wears off and fans of the league’s non-contending teams realize that the addition of a few talented players won’t likely keep their team from continuing to stink once the season does get underway.

If you’re also a fan of one or more other major team sports, then it’s not a bad time of year overall. NBA basketball and NHL hockey are in that early stretch of the playoffs in which half the teams in the league have been invited and few have thus far been eliminated, so most fans can find some rooting interest. And MLB baseball is still getting underway such that the teams with minor league budgets are still technically in contention, and even those big budget contenders who’ve gotten off to a surprisingly bad start still have plenty of time to turn it around. So it’s a good, enjoyable, non threatening stretch of the year – at least for football fans who actually find interest in other sports.

For the rest of us, it’s not just Sundays that leave a void in the meantime. Turning on the morning sports talk radio or tuning in for ESPN’s afternoon sports commentary shouting matches is no fun when all they’re talking about is other sports. And it gets even worse when they do get around to talking about football stories, but there are none but that doesn’t stop them from injecting a few anyway. The Lawrence Taylor story is unfortunate all around, but it doesn’t involve anyone who’s participated in pro football in any way in the last fifteen years. And then you get to the biggest headlines about actual current NFL players and they’re along the lines of JaMarcus Russell getting cut by the Oakland Raiders, or injured New York Jets quarterback Marc Sanchez running on a treadmill – the latter being humorously non-newsworthy in addition to the fact that both of those stories could have been written a month ago and set on a timer.

So while the 2010 NFL Draft served to remind us that football is king, in that a series of names being read from cards made for more interesting television (for football fans anyway) than any of the actual games being played that same weekend in other sports, the draft’s subsequent quick disappearance from the sports radar has also served to remind football fans that August isn’t coming up all that soon, and there won’t be all that much pro football news in the mean time.

The risk well taken

On a day that found me a few thousand miles away from headquarters, and on one of the few days in 2009 that I didn’t have my mind focused on work at all, I actually learned the same lesson twice in the span of a few hours while attending a Dolphins game in Miami – and interestingly enough, that lesson applies squarely to what you can expect out of iProng in 2010. Allow me to try to explain.

Of the twenty-seven issues of iProng Magazine we released this year, the majority of them featured musicians on the cover who were widely considered household names at the time. It’s something we’re often congratulated for, but the truth is that even famous folks tend to make themselves available when they’ve got something to promote; our job, then, is to figure out which folks are worth talking to at any given time, based on the quality and significance of their latest project, how interesting the conversation with them is likely to be, and most importantly, how satisfied you guys are going to be after having read the interview. That last part might theoretically suggest that we go out and get the biggest name possible for the cover of each issue. But as it turns out, the relatively few times we’ve gone in the other direction have ended up netting us (and by extension, you) some of the biggest payoffs.

Some of these decisions have been very, very easy for us. The chance to interview Carlos Santana and put him on the cover? Your pet dog has enough IQ points to know enough to greenlight that one. Black Eyed Peas? Ditto. And sometimes you admittedly get a little lucky. Lady Gaga and Katy Perry were both pitched to me before their debut albums had even been released, the album advance I’d been sent having caught my ear in both instances, and in the relatively brief period in between conducting the interview and the scheduled publication date, each had risen quickly enough that putting them on the cover at that point was not that difficult of a decision – even though in both instances we were the first magazine to put either one of them on the cover.

Perhaps the biggest risk we took in all of 2009 came back in November when we decided to put a then-little-known guitarist on our cover by the name of Orianthi. It’s not like we discovered her or anything – by that time she’d already been tagged as the “next great guitarist” by Carlos Santana, Carrie Underwood, Steve Vai, and Michael Jackson – but I’d be willing to bet that at the time we published that issue, more than ninety percent of our readers looked at the cover and wondered who she might be.

Yet since that time, I’ve gradually received more feedback about Orianthi than just about any other cover we’ve ever done. And it was all positive; no one wrote in to complain that we’d finally put a musician on the cover who wasn’t famous. Instead, the feedback was along the lines of “Thanks for telling me about her” and “Glad I heard about her from you early on” and even “I wondered who that blonde guitar player was in the Michael Jackson movie, thanks for filling me in.”

Of course the Orianthi cover was greenlighted in the first place because we thought she’d probably be a household name eventually. And while I’m often too far on the inside of the industry beltway to be able to judge just how far into “household name” territory someone has or hasn’t reached, it was a fairly obvious indicator today when it was time for the national anthem at the Dolphins game and onto the field walked Orianthi with her guitar.

The payoff for you is that, as our readers, you get to hear about (and hear from) someone like that before just about anyone else does. And the payoff for us is that we get to make you happy. But it’s a risk, and while I’m very proud of what we delivered to you in 2009, that’s the kind of risk that we didn’t take as often this past year as I wish we had. Of course the only reason for not taking those risks is that you don’t want others looking back later on and second-guessing why you put someone on the cover who was ultimately never heard from again. But that’s nothing more than ego, isn’t it?

As I was chewing this over, as if on cue, the other half of today’s lesson presented itself near the end of the game. Football coaches are routinely lambasted by observers if they go for it on fourth down and don’t convert it; in fact one of the game’s most accomplished coaches was roasted earlier this season when he went for it in a scenario where all the math in the world said that it was the only logical decision. Punting would have all but guaranteed a loss, going for it on fourth down gave his team a greater than 50-50 chance of winning, so there was no way anyone could claim that he made the wrong decision – yet everyone did just that. And this is a guy who’s won several Super Bowls this decade.

So sure enough, the Dolphins coach finds himself in a situation late in the game today where going for it on fourth down would have given him a chance to win but punting basically guaranteed he would lose, and yet he punted anyway. How certain was it that this cowardly call cost his team the game? After the punt, half the fans in the stadium got up and left, because there was nothing else to watch at that point. It was a logicless enough call as to border on temporary insanity, one that effectively ended the Dolphins season today, and one that gained the coach nothing beyond being able to dodge outside scrutiny. If he’d gone for it on fourth down and failed, the armchair analysts would have lit him up for it. So instead he punted, knowing that he’d lose for sure, simply because he knew he’d take less blame for losing in that manner than if he’d had the guts to make the move that would’ve given his team its only chance to win.

My learned lesson for 2010, then: don’t ever be that guy. Don’t ever back down from taking an editorial risk worth taking, simply out of fear of looking foolish later on if the risk ends up not paying off. In the span of three hours today I saw someone else not have the courage to take a risk that needed to be taken, with the result being that a year’s worth of his team’s effort went down the toilet – and on that same field I saw evidence that one of my own relatively few major editorial risks in 2009 is going to pay off for us in spades. So if a risk is worth taking in 2010, and the only downside is the potentially wounded pride of guessing wrong, then we’re going to go for it. We owe you that much.

And it’s not just about who goes on the cover, either. One of the reasons why we began releasing issues on a more frequent schedule in late 2009 was so we could push more content out the door without making each individual issue too long. Our plan is to use that extra flexibility to bring you more kinds of content in each issue so that you’ll find the issue worthwhile and entertaining overall even if you’re not a fan of who’s on the cover – or perhaps haven’t yet heard of them

There’s more coming down the pike and it’s a long year, so I won’t tease you with too much future-speak that we’re not ready to put in front of your faces yet. Don’t worry, we’ve got interviews with plenty more household names, living legends, and super-hot artists coming your way throughout the year. But don’t be surprised if you see us doing more things that surprise you.

App review: Pocket Stats NFL

New in iProng Magazine: a hands-on review of Pocket Stats NFL, the football statistics app iPhone and iPod touch, available for 99 cents in the App Store…

review by Steve Loopipe


As a fantasy football player, I’m always looking for any sort of an edge. Any tool that lets me slice and dice stats or get player news sooner than my opponents can mean the difference between winning my league and sitting at the bottom of the standings. So when I discovered Pocket Stats NFL, it sounded like the answer to my prayers – full NFL stats on my iPod Touch without requiring an internet connection, plus additional web data baked into the app alongside the stats. Visions of a league championship danced in my head as the app downloaded to my iPod Touch.

Opening up Pocket Stats NFL presents the user with a long, searchable list of NFL players, past and present. Choosing a player brings up a summary of that player’s career stats by season. The user can also choose to view this person’s “Player Card”, or Wikipedia page, as well as a selection of video clips from YouTube. The interface is fairly simple, but it is clean and works well to collect a good amount of information about an individual player all in one place.

However, there are some fairly glaring problems with this app that keep it from being a truly must-have app for hardcore NFL fans First of all, only offensive skill players are included in the current build of Pocket Stats NFL; offensive linemen, defensive players and special teams players are missing entirely. Defensive players are promised in a future update, but even for a work-in-progress app, this seems like a significant omission.

Similarly, career stats cut off at the end of the 2008 season; while real-time stats might be too much to expect, looking up a current player’s stats and not seeing any mention of the current season limits the usefulness of the stats that are included in the app, especially given that the app bills itself as a tool to help fantasy football managers evaluate players. As a heavy fantasy player myself, the only stats that matter are the most recent stats, so not having those negates that claim. In fairness, full stats can usually be obtained via the link to NFL.com on the player’s Wikipedia page, but when your app bills itself as a full NFL stats database, you shouldn’t have to go to an external site (even via a tab inside the app) to get full stats.

Which leads to the biggest problem with Pocket Stats NFL, which is that it costs 99 cents in the App Store as of this writing. If this were a free app, it could be a useful resource to keep on your iPhone. However, at 99 cents, it’s a tough sell, given that the stats database itself is incomplete and the additional functionality is available either as a built-in app (YouTube) or available for free on the app store (Wikipedia). Those features are indeed nice, but I could just as easily save the 99 cents and type a player’s name into Wikipedia or YouTube.

Pocket Stats NFL has potential, but it feels, much like a rookie quarterback pushed into the starting lineup, it was released into the wild before it was ready. This app is one to keep an eye on; with several significant updates and/or a drop to free, it could indeed be a useful resource on an NFL fan’s iPhone. In its current state, though, I simply can’t recommend spending the 99 cents on an app that doesn’t do enough to make me want to use it instead of just going to NFL.com.

*****

Pocket Stats: NFL is available for 99 cents in the App Store.

*****

App review: Madden NFL 10

New in iProng Labs: a hands-on review of the new Madden NFL 10 app for iPhone and iPod touch, available for $9.99 in the App Store…

review by Steve Loopipe

If one thing is clear from the caliber of the games appearing on the App Store of late, it’s that the iPhone is becoming a legitimate gaming platform, with big-name developers finally joining the fray of late. Of course, a gaming platform isn’t really a gaming platform until one particular game is made available for it: That game, of course, is Madden. So really, what better time than Apple’s keynote to announce the new, gaming-centric iPod Touch to also announce the release of Madden 10 for the iPhone?  Of course, just because a version of Madden exists doesn’t make it a good game, especially at a high-for-the-App Store price of $10.  Considering myself a hardcore football fan and occasional Madden consumer, I could hardly wait to find out for myself.

This version of Madden, as one would expect, is fairly stripped down as compared to its console cousins, but that suits the iPhone version just fine as a more casual, pick-up-and-play edition of the game. The only modes available are Play Now, which launches a stand-alone game where you can choose which team to play against, or Season, which simulates a full 16-game season.  There are options to adjust rosters (which are slightly out of date having been released before the start of the season), but otherwise, you just launch a game and go.  As one would expect, dropping out of the game to take a call or otherwise via the home button auto-saves the game, and the player can pick up right where he left off (and the game launches very quickly, to boot), making playing a full game in several five to ten minute sessions extremely possible. Multiplayer is not available as of this writing, but is promised in a future update.

The controls have been completely reworked for the iPhone Madden, and they work so well that you can sometimes forget that you’re using a virtual d-pad to move your players around. Context-sensitive action buttons appear on the lower right side of the screen, and handle everything except for passing, which is handled by tapping on the receiver (indicated by a circle color-coded to indicate how open he is).  Being a casual player of Madden myself, I really like this control scheme even better than I do that of the console versions, since one of the problems I tend to have with Madden is trying to memorize which button controls which action in any given scenario; now they’re all right there on the screen with helpful icons to remind you. 

A new addition for the iPhone version is a stopwatch button that activates what EA calls Action Control, which is essentially slow motion. Honestly, the addition of this button alone made this version of Madden much more fun than any other version of the game I’ve played, and I don’t know why it took so long to put it in.  Being able to slow the game down helps in all kinds of situations – finding a hole in the defense as a running back, cycling through reads as a QB, switching to the correct receiver and determining which direction to run in as the defense, etc.  Obviously, you don’t need this feature – Madden’s gotten along for 15 years without it – but especially if you find the speed of Madden overwhelming, it really makes the game feel much more fair.

The presentation is fairly good as well, given the iPhone’s limitations.  Graphics are fairly well done, with reasonable representations of the various stadiums and player models.  You won’t have individual faces modeled like you will on the consoles, but that doesn’t detract from the experience at all.  More importantly, everything is extremely smooth; through several full games played on my iPod Touch 2G, I never noticed even a small amount of slowdown due to performance issues.

Sound, on the other hand, needs some work.  The base background sound is incessant crowd noise that sounds less like cheering and more like static.  John Madden and Cris Collinsworth do provide sparse commentary, but it’s repetitive and generic, and more often than not, you get no commentary at all.  You can listen to the iPod music in game, but you have to select the music in game, there is no shuffle mode for playlists, and the music overrides all the game sound, including on field sounds and commentary, which is kind of weird the first couple of times you try it.  

There’s also the issue of the playbook, which seems too limited for seasoned Madden players but could be overwhelming for beginners.  Plays are split into run/blitz, short pass, long pass, and special teams, and while those cover most situations, when you’re looking for a specific type of play, such as a play action pass, it can be difficult to find it lumped among all the other passing plays.  That said, most versions of Madden tend to have an Ask Madden mode, which chooses the play automatically for beginners, and that option appears to be missing (or at least well hidden) in the iPhone version.  Given how geared the game is toward casual players, this seems to be a fairly glaring omission.  

Even despite its faults, though, Madden NFL 10 is a fantastic football game, and the price is extremely fair given the comparison to the full console versions at $60, and especially when compared to the $30 Nintendo DS version.  Hardcore Madden players may miss some of the features, but for everyone else with even a passing interest in football or in Madden, this is a no-brainer.  If this is the state of gaming on the iPhone as of right now, I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

*****

Madden NFL 10 is available in the App Store.

*****