This is why I hate playing against the unwashed masses. First off, just as we started this game, my wife called me downstairs to check out some design options our interior decorator had for us. I don’t really care about the design choices, but I figured that I should be the good husband and go look, so I asked my online opponent for a ‘friendly quit’ which won’t affect anyone’s stats or rankings. Then I left the room and went downstairs for a few minutes to look at the floral arrangements . When I came back upstairs, I discovered that not only did this douche refuse my ‘friendly quit,’ but had continued to play the game without me present.

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With the recent releases of “NCAA Football 09” and “Madden 09” and their new online dynasty and league, respectively, I will be spend a fair amount of time on the virtual gridiron. My friends and I are starting up an NCAA tournament this week and I’ll be heading up a Madden League as well. Each video game has the new option of saving highlights as a Flash movie and uploading it to the internet for the world to see. So you can expect to see video highlights and game recaps each week from these two tournaments as I coach the Washington Huskies and Seattle Seahawks to glory! Stay tuned.

Ha! Now how does it feel, you stupid CPU?

Inspired by actual NFL football, I fired up my Seattle Seahawks franchise in “Madden 08” again. This time the ghost in the machine got vaporized like it was in “Ghost Busters.” As you may recall from a previous post, my team lost on an improbable play when the Saints backup quarterback threw an 80-yard bomb against my prevent defense to win on the last play of the game, 45-38.  This time the shoe was on the other foot in a Week 10 match against the visiting San Francisco 49ers.

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I remember back during the media blitz before the launch of “Madden 08” that a producer of the game was asked about the competitive nature of the CPU in offline play. More specifically, people felt that the CPU would “cheat” to either make the game tight at the end or to outright win the game. While the producer denied that there was any coding in the game to cause this issue, I believe there’s still a ghost in the machine.

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