Gaming off the Beaten Path

  Let's make it a tradition. Once again, we're kicking off a new year with an old sports game. It almost feels wrong not to jump into some of the older Madden games, considering his unfortunate passing a few weeks ago. John Madden truly did transcend football and he deserves a lot of credit for introducing the game to people who otherwise wouldn't have cared in the slightest. The Madden titles weren't the first sports games, not by a longshot, but they are the most culturally relevant. Now, of course, EA essentially has a monopoly on the video game football market. But that wasn't always the case. I've already talked about Sony's NFL Gameday and the Tecmo Bowl series is considered classic for good reason. But neither of those series', or any of the countless other football titles on the market, really ever made the folks at EA sweat. They were content to compete with these other franchises, believing they had the superior product. Sometimes they were rig