Chris Holmes Online

This just came across my aggregator today courtesy of Roy Osherove’s blog. Roy thinks it’s weird, but he’s from Israel. I just about fell out of my chair laughing when I saw it.

You can now choose Elmer Fudd as a language option on Google. Select the preferences link and change your language; “Groups” becomes “Gwoups” and “Directory” becomes “Diwectowy”. It only affects Google’s site of course, but still hilarious.

I’m not changing mine back to English. This is better than Ebonics.

I’ve had a week to spend with Madden 2007 and it’s time for some revisions to my first post (which I knew would be necessary).

First, at least on the PC version, the Fantasy Draft is still available. I am not sure what the whiners are talking about on the Official EA Forums. There’s a lot of references there to missing fantasy drafts, but I found that feature right away when I started a new Franchise.

Second, the game is the best Madden ever. There’s a few new features that are worthwhile, but more than that the gameplay feels so much more fluid and realistic. We’re getting closer to this thing looking like a real NFL game.

Animations

The developers have added a considerable number of new tackling animations. This is particularly evident in the running game. In previous version of Madden, if your runningback got hit anywhere close to head-on by a linebacker he was driven backwards and planted on his behind. That animation was overused and not very in-touch with reality, but now it’s much rarer to encounter in 2007. The new tackling animations are much more realistic and taken into account the momentum of the runningback, often allowing him to gain another yard or two.

Clock

Clock management seems to be more realistic as well. In previous versions of Madden if you played quarters longer than 10 minutes, even with the accelerated game clock, you likely ran up huge yardage stats and giant score totals. I’ve been playing 12 minute quarters in Franchise mode and so far the stats are pretty much what you’d expect from a real NFL game. I’ve tried 10 minute quarters and often end up with less than 80 passing yards in a half.

Option Routes

Another feature that I really like is that so-called “option” routes seem to work a lot better in 2007, at least if you have a reasonably intelligent wide receiver. Playing as the Seahawks I’ve found Darrell Jackson to be incredibly adept at getting open on an option route. With a choice of three routes to run, receivers generally make the smart choice.

Defensive Backs & Shading

Part of what makes the option routes more viable this season is that you can actually see how corners are “shading” the receiver – either trying to stop an inside route, or an outside route. This shading technique – something that is very real in the NFL – makes for a much more detailed passing game. The slant route, which was the bread-and-butter of the 2006 passing game, is no longer the gimme play that it was a year ago thanks to the corners shading inside. But what this does is open up the “out” route on an audible (a route that was a certain interception a year ago and thus completely lost from my playbook). Paying attention to the way the defensive backs are shading your receivers will aid you in reading the defense and figuring out which receiver to throw too, but also helps you to “get on the same page” with your receiver running an option route. If you see the corner shading your receiver inside, there’s a good bet your receiver is going to run the “out” or “up” route on that option play.

Tall Receivers

As noted by a friend of mine who also just picked up his copy of Madden 2007, taller receivers seem to do better in the “jump ball” category. This year’s passing game emulates the real NFL so much better in that area. You can now throw some balls up in tight coverage and if you have a tall receiver against a smaller corner, particularly if your receiver has good hands and high strength, and expect your receiver to make the catch. Likewise, cornerbacks who possess good strength and hands can also make similiar plays.

Lead Blocking

Another new addition to the game gives you the chance to play as a blocker on running plays. This is a pretty neat feature, kind of like “bullet time” in the Matrix movies. You choose a player before the snap of the ball (fullback, lineman, etc.). Once the play starts, with a slight slow-down in the gameplay, you run around and try to block a defender. You have several moves at your disposal – pulling them aside, cutting their legs and the like. Once you make your block the game slows down into super slow-motion, and you automatically switch to the runningback, allowing you to take over before the game speeds back up to normal. If this all sounds complicated it isn’t. It’s incredibly intuitive the way EA has set it up, and many of the variables (slow motion, auto-switch to runningback) can be adjusted in the game’s settings, allowing you to customize the experience to a certain degree.

Screen Plays

The screen play has also been improved, although it’s still got some flaws. Previously, attempting to run a screen play was pretty much a guarenteed turnover or loss of yardage. The way EA has programmed the screen plays in the past they just weren’t worthwhile to run. But this year they work – somewhat. A successful screen play is now a real possibility. The offensive linemen will pull properly and block defenders like they’re supposed to, and your running back can actually make a reception without having to turn around and stop to wait for the ball. He’ll catch it on the run, in other words, which is how you make a screen play work. However, the play isn’t without considerable risk. I’ve had way too many fumbles already trying to run the screen play, as my quarterback doesn’t drop back fast enough before I have to get rid of the football. Thus the “throw” to the runningback becomes a “lateral”. The runningback invariably drops it, the ball gets loose on the ground while the defense recovers it.

To remedy this you have to take control of the quarterback’s dropback manually and try and drop him as quickly as possible before the linemen eat you. The problem with manually controlling the the quarterback is that you don’t want your thumb pressing down on the stick in a backwards motion (which you have to do for the “dropback”) when you throw the ball to the runningback, otherwise you end up with a pass that falls short of its target. So you have to have perfect timing to lift your thumb off the stick/pad before you throw the ball with “touch”. Pull it off and you have a chance to make the screen work, though you still have to hope your linemen block and your runningback doesn’t get caught from behind. All in all the screen works better this year, but the percentage chance of succeeding with it is very small. I’ve ran probably twenty screens so far and less than five have gone for positive yardage, and I’ve lost a few to lateral-fumbles.

The advantage to running the screen in real football is that it causes aggressive defense to think twice about rushing the quarterback with reckless abandon. A successfull screen can ease the pass rush pressure on your quarterback. I can’t say for certain if that correlation exists in Madden 2007, but the one or two times I’ve pulled off a screen play for big yardage it seemed as if the pass rush wasn’t nearly as aggressive the next few plays. So it’s worth pursuing further I think.

Inuries

Another neat feature EA has added this year are sliders for injuries, separating simulated games from played games. This was a neccessary addition. Simulated games in previous versions of Madden had way more injuries that played games. I played through several franchise seasons in the 2006 version of the game and almost never had a player injured, let alone a serious injury. Thankfully you can adjust injuries for played games in 2007 and increase the realism. Penalties still aren’t called very often in played games, but you can adjust those sliders as well to increase the frequency and add some realism. Nothing screams NFL realism like watching a beautiful punt return or long pass get called back because of a phantom holding penalty…

Kick & Punt Returns

Which reminds me – one last note: the kick return and punt return games appear to have been vastly improved. I’ve actually already ran a kickoff return back for a touchdown, and so has the AI against me. Running a kick return back for a touchdown now has a lot more to do with paying attention to blocks and the angles that the players are taking toward you, and finding a running lane somewhere. When playing, every kick return feels like it could be the one you might run back for a score, as opposed to feeling like you have no shot, and that makes all the difference. A kick return should be an opportunity to make a play. It wasn’t in 2006, but it is now.

Conclusion

After a week playing the game I’d say Madden 2007 is without a doubt the best of the Madden games. I’d score it a 95% compared to its predicessors. It looks better and plays better, and this year’s new feature (lead blocking), unlike last year’s new feature (QB vision) doesn’t suck.

If you love Madden get this game. It’s worth every penny.

Madden 2007 was released yesterday, and with it we can finally – officially – usher in the 2007 NFL season. I scored a copy (PC version) last night at the local Walmart and installed the game immediately when I got home. Having updated rosters is nice, but my big hope was that certain flaws in the actual gameplay would be fixed. Were they? Let’s find out.

Startup & Menus

The first thing to notice this year is that the opening video clips of players yapping into the camera or cheerleaders flaunting their pom-poms are gone. Thank goodness, because even on my AMD 3500+ with a GB of RAM and a Radeon 9800 256 the video clips still choked on my computer. Whatever code Electronic Arts used to display those clips was junk, and all it did was slow down the process of getting to the game.

The menu system has been redone – again – for this year’s release. Evidently EA must have a team of graphics designers they feel they need to pay, because each season the user interface is different. This year’s interface is a step backwards in terms of look; gone is the red, black and white color scheme, replaced entirely by black and white. The monochromatic scheme makes one feel as if they’ve taken a step backwards in time. Do we need to use punch cards to play this game as well? Or maybe EA was trying to appeal to a new demographic in football simulation: Zebras.

Gameplay

Menus aren’t why we buy Madden though. We buy it to play football. The game is (amazingly) 17 years old now. With an exclusive license for the NFL they’re the only game in town, and that means we count on them to fix bugs and improve the game from year to year. So have they?

Well, sort of.

The game feels more realistic this year (speaking from the point of view of a guy who has only ever played pickup tackle games and flag football – I’ve never set foot behind a real NFL center). Some of the super annoying flaws in Madden ‘07 have been fixed. For instance, the Pass Lead Sensitivity setting actually seems to work this year. In Madden ‘06 changing this setting had no affect on the ability of the QB to lead the receiver with the ball. Fact was, in the ‘06 version I simply could not overthrow my receiver on a long pass even if I used a quarterback with a cannon for an arm. I was pleasantly surprised to find that on the default setting in ‘07 I can overthrow receivers on long routes. This helps to make the deep passing game a reality.

Another addition to the deep passing game is that the safeties are no longer clairvoyant and cornerbacks no longer have the recovery speed of a cheetah. In Madden ‘06, if you tried to throw a post, fly or corner/fade route your chance of success rested completely on the wide receivers ability to leap up and fight for the ball, because no matter where he was on the field he was going to be swarmed by defenders. This was unrealistic and highly frustrating because it eliminated several routes from your playbook.

For instance, in real life the Seattle Seahawks frequently use a fly route along the sideline against “Cover 2″ defenses. The wide receiver is responsible for getting past the cornerback and finding the soft spot in the zone along the sideline, between the shallow corner and the deep safety. In Madden ‘06 there was no way to complete a pass like that because the safety – no matter who he was or how bad his ability – could cover that ground in the blink of an eye and swarm your receiver (if not intercept the ball outright). That particular “soft spot” in that zone simply didn’t exist in Madden ‘06 (unless, of course, you were running that defense, at which time the computer AI offense would always find it against your sloth defenders). But things have changed in Madden ‘07. Players don’t “slide” across the turf very much anymore, moving faster than their legs can take them, covering 20 yards in .005 seconds. The deep soft spots in certain zones seem to exist now, and completing a post or fly is actually possible even on the “All Madden” difficulty setting, thanks to defenders that don’t have superhuman recovery skills or eyes in the back of their heads. Even linebackers seem to have lost some of their ability to leap tall buildings with a single bound and steal unbelievable passes from the middle of the field.

The passing game in general feels like it has undergone the most change. Corners now back off receivers or try and cheat to cover the tight end, and they sometimes give cushion to the receiver. They may also shade your receiver against an inside or outside route, and sometimes they even stick to their receiver like glue. Thus, it becomes your job, as the quarterback, to find the reciever with the most separation. Not just the receiver who is wide open – because like the real NFL that doesn’t happen very often – but the guy with the best chance to catch the ball. That has added a level of realism to the game that wasn’t there in previous versions.

Quarterbacks also miss their receivers now. It is quite maddening (pun intended) in previous incarnations of the game to face the AI quarterbacks. Regardless of their ratings they all seem to hit every receiver on every play, so the only way to force incompletions was to sack the quarterback, pressure him into throwing into the ground, or intercept/knock down the pass with a defender. The quarterback “missing” his target never happened. But in the opening pre-season game I played last night I had the AI quarterback miss his receiver twice and watched gleefully as the ball zipped past the player and skidded across the turf.

Problems

For all that Madden ‘07 gets right in the passing game, however, there’s still one massive bug that drives me nuts: the opponent (AI) controlled offensive line is simply awesome compared to mine, regardless of ratings. I played preseason games with the Dolphins and Seahawks last night. Seattle should have one of the better offensive lines in the NFL – they have the best left tackle in all of football. Against a four-man rush however, they leaked defenders like a shower faucet and I frequently had to throw the ball as soon as my QB finished his drop. I had little time to check 2nd, 3rd or 4th receivers; either throw to the first guy on my read or be sacked. Conversely, if I only rushed four linemen against the AI their line held up just fine, giving the QB all day to throw – and I was playing against Dallas in a preseason game, a team that has offensive line problems. Fixing this involves adjusting the AI settings slider and putting pass protection to the max (as I had to do in the ‘06 version), which always feels like cheating to me. I shouldn’t have to adjust anything. By default the game should be fair, and the ratings of the players should dictate how well my offensive line protects me.

Other bugs that were in previous versions of Madden still exist. For instance, in the PC version of the game (I have no idea if the XBox/Playstation versions have this problem) there is no QB Slide ability. This is super-annoying on a couple of levels. First, when the AI quarterbacks run they do have the ability to slide and avoid being hit or causing a fumble. This is inheritly unfair that the human-controlled quarterback can’t slide. Second, if you elect to run outside of the pocket and try to scramble for a first down you can’t slide, so you either have to try and get out of bounds (not an option if you escape up the middle) or you have to dive head-first (which usually causes a fumble) or get tackled (which almost always results in a fumble and/or your QB getting hurt). Thus, scrambling of any kind with your QB is a huge risk to be avoided at all costs, even when you have a mobile QB like Matt Hasselbeck or Michael Vick.

Another annoying “feature” of the game is that some new stuff – which is actually pretty neat – is not documented in the manual. For instance, when examining a player on your roster you may see special icons associated with them. But no where in the manual can you find a list and descriptions of these icons; you have no idea what they mean. Are they important? Should I be paying attention to them? It would be nice to know what they mean. Further inspection of the game (and by that I mean: “screens that display useful information while the game is loading”) reveals that Madden ‘07 features some new “Roles” that players can achieve, like “Franchise Quarterback” or “Possession Receiver.” These roles can have an effect on other players in the organization, boosting their stats and whatnot. One would assume that possibly the little icons I saw relate to some of these new roles, but where can you find that information in the manual? You can’t. Considering EA’s website is (a) slow and (b) a piece of crap that I don’t enjoy visiting even on a high bandwidth connection, one would hope they would spend a little extra effort on the printed manual.

Non Gamplay Problems

In addition to the flaws in the gameplay, the ‘07 version also seems to be a step backwards in terms of features. The official EA message boards are lit up today with players complaining about the removal of some of their favorite ‘06 features, particularly where the Franchise mode is concerned. With only a single evening spent playing preseason games I didn’t get to dig too deep into the rest of the game, but if it’s missing features that’s not a good thing. Consumers don’t enjoy it when their products lose features, especially after they’ve become attached to them.

First Impression Grade: 80%

I play Madden exclusively in Franchise Mode. The bulk of what I care about is the gameplay; the on-field action. In that respect Madden ‘07 looks like an improvement over the ‘06 version, for the most part. It’s definately more difficult, and I think probably more realistic, and my initial impressions are probably colored slightly by the sheer difficulty of the gameplay. That said, players who care about things other than the gameplay – like Fantasy Drafts – might want to pass on this version. Several important features appear to be missing from the game. Depending on what’s important to you, Madden ‘07 may not be worth the price of admission.

Horror movies are rarely about true horror; about finding one’s self in a very bad situation and having to deal with that reality. Instead, horror films typically rely on stupid, brain-dead characters to advance a flimsy and tired plot that focuses on some supernatural killer, like Jason from Friday the 13th or Freddy from A Nightmare on Elm Street.

The Descent is not one of those films.

The Descent is what horror is really all about; about finding yourself in a situation that is truly terrible and hopeless and then being reduced to the most basic of human instincts: survival. It is about how normal, intelligent, atheletic people can find themselves in a the worst circumstance, and how those people cope and adapt and attempt to survive.

The Descent follows six multicultural women on a spelunking expedition to some caves in the Appalachian Mountains. Most of the women have known each other for a long time, and this is their yearly get together for some outdoor adventure. Bumper stickers on their vehicles hint at past mountain climbing expeditions, river raft trips and other thrillseeking expeditions. For one of them, Sarah, the trip is an attempt to get back in the saddle of life after suffering the loss of her husband and only child the previous year. She is joined by longtime friend Juno, along with Beth, Rebecca and Sam (siblings) and a newcomer to the group, Holly. After an uneventful evening spent in some wilderness cabins, the ladies drive several miles along majestic Appalachian backwoods and then start their descent down into what is supposed to be a well established “level 2″ cave system. Things aren’t what they seem though, as one of them has elected to keep a secret from the others, and soon things start to go awry.

The film has been compared to Ridly Scott’s classic Alien; right on the poster they are so bold as to declare it the “best horror film since Alien.” Only this is not some promotional balony – this really is the best horror film since Alien.

Much like Ridly Scott does with Alien and Steven Spielberg does with Jaws, the director, Neil Marshall, refrains from revealing the “monsters” to the audience too soon. Instead, we are treated to events that unfold naturally, with a slow and deliberate pace that begins building tension from the first moments inside the cave. The first mishaps that happen have nothing to do with the creatures lurking in the dark. Instead, unfortunate events occur because of actions the characters take themselves. We get to see cause and effect in full force, instead of mechanical plot devices, and we are easily able to imagine ourselves in the position these ladies find themselves in. We start to wonder what we would do if confronted with similiar obstacles, and how we might feel trying to overcome them.

The predicament these women find themselves in once they get a little ways inside the cave is bad enough. Then the creatures show up, and the world for these characters becomes a lot more terrifying and a lot less hopeful.

The second act of the film is spent dealing with this new threat to their survival (a threat, I should note, that is not supernatural, and thus makes it entirely more frightening and real). However, instead of employing the ridiculous and tiresome plot device of splitting up the victims and sending them down individual paths so that a singular threat can slay them in isolated circumstances, we’re treated to a much more realistic scenario as the women attempt to stick together and move rapidly through the cave system toward escape, trying to work as a team.

I won’t reveal what happens for the rest of the film. It is sufficient to say it is a horror film, and enough blood is spilled to make other horror films look like trips to Disneyland. But what is truly great about The Descent is that at no time does it stray from it’s realistic roots; we are always presented with characters that make logical, rational decisions and behave as we expect them to. We are never forced to suffer through illogical behavior or irrational decisions for the sake of an advancing plot. These are intelligent and physically fit women, and they react to their situation each according to her own abilities and mental state. Transformations take place though, and much like Cillian Murphy in 28 Days Later, some of the ladies find themselves stripped of their inhibitions and relying on pure survival instinct. It is a wonderful thing to behold – to see the characters forced to confront such a dire situation without any false intervention from the writer or director.

The film is shot wonderfully, and the clausterphobic confines of the cave system are very apparent. I actually had to look around the theater a time or two to remind myself I was in a very large and open space because I was finding myself feeling uncomfortable. The movie is directed with a perfect hand; the pacing is right on, the buildup is superb, and the horror feels very real. There’s even a surprise or two along the way, yet nothing out of character. We’re shocked when certain events transpire, but not to the point of disbelief. We can imagine these women actually making these choices in this situation.

The Descent is one of the best films I’ve seen, and maybe the best film of the summer. It’s just superb filmmaking. This is how horror should be done.

Whenever someone asks me what I do for a living I’m never really sure what to tell them. Saying “I’m a programmer” is a one-way ticket to the Kingdom of Glazed Over Eyes. “Oh,” they reply, as if they are unsure whether to console me for the plight my life has become, or shun me as if “programming” were a contractable disease; but they know for sure to immedately change the topic of conversation because they have no clue what I really do and talking about someone’s boring job ranks somewhere between “root canal” and “public speaking” on their list of Things To Avoid In Life. You can always tell that they have no clue what a programmer does, except that it must take place in a dark cave with a computer screen and require hideously long hours that result in the poor S.O.B. not being able to bathe or see his family for weeks on end. If you press these people I bet they would tell you in the strictest confidence that they think programmers eventually turn into werewolves and live the remainder of their days in the wild chasing down rabbits for food.

The truth is most programmers – at least the ones I’ve known in my lifetime – are very smart and creative people. The smart part almost goes without saying – we’re not serving hamburgers here. No offense to the people in food service (hey, haven’t we all done that at one time in our life?), but when I order “ketchup only” and get back a hamburger with everything but ketchup, I know i’m not working with a potential Mensa candidate. What most programmers deal with on a daily basis is what I liked to call “mental gymnastics.” In my life I’ve never worked in a field that required this much mental heavy lifting day to day. There’s gotta be something upstairs to do this line of work.

But the creative part is probably what would surprise most folks. Despite the steriotypes, programmers and software engineering people are able to make complete use of their right brain. Many of the ones I know are musicians, or artists, or both. We are not simply drones pounding out lines of code.

So it wasn’t surprising to me to see this post from Chris Sells run across my aggregator today. It’s a pointer to a musical parody by Ted and Carl from DotNetRocks, called “Why Did Shipping Vista Turn Out To Be So Hard”. It’s done to the tune of “Me and Julio Down by the School Yard,” by Paul Simon. Click it – it’s a good laugh.