F_PR_LA_AN_YC_EH_RIS_SE
Not every sports star can be
as big a video-game brand as
John Madden, but that’s never
stopped others from trying

Dr. J and Larry
_o B_nir_Od_nG_eo One

ELECTRONIC ARTS, 1983 Sure, giggle now, but two stick figures tossing around a suspiciously cubelike basketball was considered state-of-the-art PC gaming back in 1983.

“Did so meone say tacos?”

James “Buster”
K ^Don^uo^gck^lao^sut Boxing
SEGA, 1990

For knocking out the theretofore-invincible Mike Tyson in 1990, Douglas was rewarded with his very own video game. Actually, Sega just took a Japanese boxing game called Final Blow and stuck his name on it, which seems fitting, somehow.

Every year, proposals are made and petitions circulated in favor of new national holidays honoring everything from Richard Nixon’s birthday to Space Exploration Day. One of the most persistent is a yearly effort to enshrine the annual mid-August release date of Electronic Arts’ Madden football video game (Madden Day?)—the logic being that so many people already call in sick to work or stay home from school, we might as well institutionalize this inevitable sloth.

Madden NFL 09 (EA Sports, PS3, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, PS2, PSP, and DS) marks the 20th anniversary of one of America’s most popular video-game series, which has sold 70 million copies. That’s especially impressive given the game’s humble origins as John Madden Football for the Apple II in 1988, which featured crude, blocky players and stuttering motion that would be unrecognizable to today’s gamers. It wasn’t until EA took Madden out of the desktop computer and into living rooms on the Sega Genesis console in 1990 that the game gained mass appeal and over the years popularized concepts like the franchise mode, which follows a team through multiple seasons (introduced in 1997), and head-to-head online play ( introduced in 2003). This year’s edition includes an onscreen Telestrator for analyzing plays and picture-in-picture for displaying stats and options without pausing the game.

Ironically, the former Raiders coach turned TV analyst has been largely benched in his own game: Madden’s smiling mug hasn’t graced a box cover since 2000, and he

no longer provides the play-by-play (you can still get him to offer advice by clicking the “Ask Madden” button). Some NFL players may prefer to have him back on the cover—the so-called Madden curse is a surprisingly accurate indicator of future injuries or poor performance for almost anyone who has graced the game’s cover (just ask Michael Vick, Daunte Culpepper, Donovan McNabb, or Shaun Alexander). Maybe that’s why the 20th anniversary cover boy is retired quarterback Brett Favre. If he gets injured, no one’s Super Bowl dreams go down with him.

But why has Madden remained so popular over the last 20 years? After all, critics claim the game’s makers have grown complacent since EA locked down an exclusive multiyear deal with the NFL, leaving competitors such as 2K Sports’ All Pro Football (starring more than 200 retired players) and Midway’s Blitz series (featuring former Giants bad boy Lawrence Taylor) on the sales-chart sidelines. The most serious charge is that the series forces fans to buy a new game every year just to get the latest rosters. There’s at least some truth to that—EA offers Madden updates online during that year’s season, but not beyond.

For these fans, the annual $60 investment is well worth it. Unlike hits such as Halo or Guitar Hero, Madden has a brutally difficult learning curve, requiring deep knowledge of football tactics and the ability to memorize dozens of commands and button combinations; it’s this complexity and time commitment that engender such slavish devotion and scare fickle newbies away. We’re starting to feel a case of the sniffles coming on already. DAN ACKERMAN

Shaq-Fu

ELEC TRONIC AR TS, 1994 On his way to a charity basketball tournament, Shaquille O’Neal falls into another dimension and winds up fighting evil hack-a-Shaq mummies. Only marginally worse than the Big Aristotle’s rapping and acting efforts.

Don King
P ^Pr ^reiz^se^efiⁿg^th ^s:ter

2K SPORTS, 2008

The legendary (and legendarily coiffed) promoter puts a unique spin on the traditional boxing game, using video cameos from Larry Holmes and Mario Van Peebles (!?) to tell the hard-luck story of your custom-made pugilist. D.A.