By
Chris Lindsey
The TV played
bellowed. People who walked
through the Student Recreation Center stopped to see what was happening.
The
people in the Rec Center looked at the first annual Madden Tournament. A football based videogame for the Xbox
360, Madden features every NFL team and allows competitive play. The cap filled the first available day at
16 people. The single elimination
tournament means every team needs to win to move to the next round.
This
tournament was the first annual Madden bracket. Videogame tournaments among colleges are very popular. College students favored the Nintendo
Wii shortly after its arrival. However
it soon died and 360 games became widely played.
Rec Center Assistant
Director Rob Patchett thought about playing one of the NCAA games. The NCAA games are the same layout as
Madden but feature college football teams. He said that although those are popular, for a campus whose
football team is not as popular as others such as Ohio State or Michigan, it’s
smarter to play Madden.
One
participant of the tournament, Joe Holder, recalled his feelings about the game,
“I love Madden. My favorite one
was Madden 2005 for GameCube because of how interactive it was.” In the 2005 GameCube edition the player
could alter different parts of the game, such as changing the ticket
prices. He had never played Madden
2012 but was still confident in his abilities.
Anthony
Garcia, another player in the tournament, found out about the Madden Tournament
through an email. He played in the
first game as the Houston Texans.
Garcia defeated the Detroit Lions in the second quarter by the mercy
rule.
Rec Center Coordinator
Micah Walters put the mercy rule in place to shorten the length of games. The rule is, if at any point the leader
is winning by 21 points the game is over.
Garcia scored 21 points before his opponent could even score a
touchdown. By exposing several
people to the tournament in the lobby Patchett and Walters said they hope to
bring in more participants next year.
Sources
Rob Patchett-Assistant Director
Joe Holder-participant
Anthony Garcia-participant
No comments:
Post a Comment