August has traditionally been a month dominated by the Madden NFL franchise and why not. Americans, including more than a few American gamers seem to like football, the series has name recognition, the game is available on every platform--including that first gen Xbox console that you gave to your nephew a few years back--and is available in Spanish as well as English. I suppose that should be enough, but just to ensure that you are tempted to sign on for yet another version (this is the twentieth by the way) reality strikes.

Cover boy Brett Farve retired at the end of last year, with his swan song supposedly being his seemingly out of character placement on this year's version of the game. Instead he surprised all the teams in the league, including his own by very publicly ending his retirement and battling with Packers management over his filled position at QB for their team or any other in the league for that matter. As of yesterday Farve and Packers management are at a stalemate regarding his request for a trade to another team, but it is not out of the realm of possibility at all.

Forget about the Madden Curse. Finally something that's really interesting. Nineteen years of the same old "should I pass or should I run" scenarios and now the future hall of famer gracing the box art may actually be wearing the jersey of another team by the time the twentieth anniversary version of the game is released. By all that is holy in the great dairyland of Wisconsin, if only Brett had let the game developers at EA know what he was going to do. Had he done so just imagine what sort of an unlockables they might have built in to Madden 09. Yup it would seem that Madden's August dominance will remain. At least for another year.

--Hobson's Choice

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