While we were back home for Christmas I played some Madden with Chris. He had just gotten 2005 for Christmas. He took 2 out of 3 games from me but I hadn't played in a while. It made me want to reinstall whatever Madden I had already, which turned out to be like 2001 or something. I figured I could go to Best Buy (normally against my better judgement since I hate them) but when the new Madden comes out they usually kick the last year's version to the curb and price them at $10.

So we went to Best Buy and I found 2004 for $10. I was all ready to buy it when Court comes up to me with 2005 and it's only $20. Now, why the PS2 version is $50 and the PC version is $20, I don't know. But better, I don't care.

I've been playing for about a week or so. I've already taken the Bears to the Super Bowl and won it. Half the season I played at rookie mode because I was just getting back into playing, but after throwing up 100 pts against the computer in one game I set the difficulty at 'pro' and went from there. I only had one loss all season, and it was one of those where the computer decides there's no way, no way, NO WAY you're winning that game and that was that.

This game has EVERYTHING. You control prices on everything including merchandise and concessions and all that. Plus, there's a 'training camp' mode with drills and all sorts of stuff. I'm sure somebody who really wanted to get into it all could spend hours doing all that crap. I tinker a bit but I don't go crazy.

It's really been fun to play. When we were in college we used to play NBA Live '96 on the PS1 and since it gave you four teams to customize we each took a team and had a draft and everything. It was great. I probably played NBA Live and NHL Live more than football because my friends could kick my tail at Madden any day.

I got a bunch of comp games for Christmas too. Pirates! and Evil Genius are two of the other ones I've played. Pirates! is just what it sounds like. So is Evil Genius pretty much. Thinking "Stepping into Dr. Evil's shoes" and you're good to go.