Madden

The 2011 NFL season may be in doubt, but even amid lockouts and lawsuits, there’s one constant football fans can always rely on: Madden. The franchise, named after Pro Football Hall of Famer John Madden, was developed by EA sports in 1988. Ever since, Madden has consistently been a best seller, selling over 70 million copies worldwide. Featuring all of the real NFL teams, stadiums and even playbooks, gamers can take control of their favourite players and run the show any way they want.

But Madden is the best for so many more reasons. To the world, sports are much more than just entertainment. We’ve all grown up with, and learned fundamental life skills from watching and partaking in them. Anyone who doesn’t realize this should get out of the house more.

Video game enthusiasts who criticize Madden as “just a sports game” don’t seem to realize that sport is synonymous with cool. Think about it: How many friends have you made just over the love of a sport? About 95 per cent for us. In North America, football is a way of life. So, under our mathematical equation (we’ll call it “The Law of Madden”) we understand that, since everyone likes sports and football is the most popular sport in North America, video games about football are the most popular (and clearly best).

Year after year, the Madden franchise has proven to deliver the most dynamic and detailed football game ever. Each match-up provides an experience with unlimited outcomes, always keeping the game play new and exciting. Extremely detailed play-books and head-to-head multiplayer ensures that gamers can play on any level of difficulty while experiencing a unique style of play every time. The graphics are phenomenal; the be-a-player mode has insane detail and the online gameplay will keep you up all night.

The gameplay on the field is great and looks fantastic in motion; players move with the realism you’d expect to see watching Sunday Football with your buddies. Madden comes as close as ever to bringing you every spin move, one-handed grab, and bone-shattering tackle that you see on the real life field. But it is also much more than that. The Madden franchise encompasses both the essence of football and the strategic, competitive nature of video games in one, making it a scary combination to all those video game addicts out there.

The legend of Madden NFL within the video game world has been epitomized with the creation of the American reality television show, Madden Nation, a show where players of the game go head-to-head for a $100,000 grand prize. Are you serious? Entertainment watching others play a video game? Yes.

Madden has proven yet again that it’s one of the most popular and recognizable video game franchises in the world. It’s a game for everybody, passionate or not, and is less brain numbing than many of the action games out there. Madden, rather, is a game of strategy, like a chess match—except they haven’t created a reality TV show for chess matches.

— Noah Batist and Tom Lee

Batman: Arkham Asylum

Nobody wants to be normal. Normal people are boring and live boring lives. I certainly don’t want to be normal, in fact I want to be a superhero and that’s why Batman: Arkham Asylum is my choice for greatest game ever.

The Batman mythos has been in development for more than 70 years now, and the designers drew on this lifetime of stories and characters to make a fantastic game. The fundamentals are solid; controls, graphics are good, but it’s the details that make this game the best.

A villain can make or break a game and the psychotic mastermind Joker was a perfect foil for the terse and stoic caped crusader. He’s voiced by Mark Hamill, who does an expert job and perfectly captures the goofy yet sadistic personality that has made him so popular.

The Joker enacts an elaborate plot to take over the island prison of Arkham Asylum, Gotham’s home for the criminally insane, and proceeds to unleash all the maniacs who are imprisoned there—many of who carry a personal vendetta against Batman for putting them there.

With so many enemies, you’ve got to get your hands dirty and the fluid combat gets the job done. You’ll flow smoothly from punch to counter to aerial flip with dynamic moves to keep it interesting. This is contrasted with the sneaking you’ll need to do to take out gunmen; along the way employing an array of gadgets to get the job done.

With the storyline, it’s the details that shine. The game’s main plot is augmented by 200 puzzles The Riddler has left around the Island, as well as series of psychologist’s interview tapes with Arkham inmates. Another great detail was the way Batman’s suit is damaged and deteriorated during his trials on the island, ending with blood on his face, slashes on his bicep and a tattered cape.

The enemies that inflict these wounds on you are great as well, particularly Scarecrow, who sends you in a drug-induced psychedelic nightmare where you do battle with, and overcome, your fears. It’s trippy, it’s terrifying and it was flippin’ fantastic.

They also manage to weave in the question of Batman’s own sanity, with many of the malefactors asking if maybe you should be behind bars “with the rest of the crazies.” It’s a question given credence by subtle appearances of his single-minded obsession with bats and by association, his vocation of crime-fighting.

Arkham Asylum puts you into the suit of one of the coolest characters around, and does so gracefully. Play it and you’ll lose yourself for hours stopping Gotham’s criminals, and when it’s over, don’t worry—there’s a sequel on the way.

— Andrew Stokes

Mario Kart 64

The greatest things are often the simplest and they are great because they are simple. Without ornamentation, they are free to teach us about ourselves. Stare into a Rothko multiform—it’s just shapes and colours. Keep at it, though, and patterns start to emerge. Before long, you’re looking at coloured blocks, but you’re deep inside your own head, seeing something else.

What is it? I am convinced that this is what Nintendo had in mind when they made Mario Kart 64. The game is simple enough. You have 16 courses, and they are all fundamentally similar, variations on a theme. The obstacles change, but the goal remains the same—be the first racer to complete three laps. Use power-ups to assist your progress or impede your competitors’. And that’s pretty much it. Shapes and colours.

The first time you play it, it feels noisy and cluttered and kind of dumb. Keep playing, though, and it will do strange things to you. You’ll come to know those courses well, and one day, you’ll realize that you’ve been playing without looking at the screen, without realizing that you were playing at all. You’ll have been somewhere else entirely. Mind freed from body in a way that has got to be some kind of zen. What were you thinking about?

And in limbo, you’ll make choices without actively considering them and these choices will tell you something about yourself. You hit an item box and pick up three red shells. Will you unload all three on one unsuspecting driver? Or will you keep two as weirdly orbiting bulwarks against shells and banana peels to come? Lap three on Koopa Troopa Beach and you’re in first place.

Will you shoot for the shortcut to seal the victory, even without a mushroom or star to help you bridge the gap from ramp to tunnel? Or will you play it safe on solid ground? And whom will you choose to represent you in this world? Will you roll with the lumbering, powerful Donkey Kong? Or will you make your way with the nimble Princess Peach? I know what choices I’ve made, and what they say about me: they tell me I’m a ruthless, imprudent asshole who longs to fly and to be a woman.

I have spent a monstrous amount of time playing this game. Over a thousand hours, I’m sure. I don’t consider a second of a minute of those hours wasted. They were a small price to pay for self-knowledge. I’ve stared at Rothkos for hours. I could play Mario Kart for a lifetime.

— Adam Wray