A bunch of stuff.

First, I believe at some point Madden is going to backfire on EA. When, I don't know. But if they keep up with this pile of crap and a competitor comes out...

I am in an online franchise with 2old2shoot. I am controlling my beloved Packers. Teufel advances the week every sunday and wednesday. We are delayed this week because of EA's shoddy programming. There was a patch this weekend, it added the Ultimate Team feature. Basically turning Madden into a trading card game but I will discuss this next. Well, apparently there is a bug with this patch. If one person downloaded the ultimate team dlc has to play someone who does in an online franchise the one that doesn't get's an DLC not found error. The ultimate team has nothing to do with an online franchise, it shouldn't be interfering with it.

In ultimate team you use in game points to purchase card packs of either bronze, silver, gold, or bronze. You start with a starter pack that is 36 bronze cards. Now, in real life trading card games you would get some uncommon and rares in a starter pack. EA should have done this. My team is decent though I can win with them. I can't win because the QB blows chunks. My RB can run well for a 66 rating. But my QB consistantly throws 10 yards past or 5 yards short causing interceptions. So here's the issue and why EA can burn in hell. On each card is a contract number, that is how many games that player can play before you ahve to renew the contract. I don't know what renewing the contract involves. To get more cards to use as replacement requires points. To get a decent number of points you need to win OR buy them with microsoft points. So I need to know what happens when my starter pack's contracts are finished. Do I need to spend points on renewing it? If I spent all my points on a booster pack and have no points to renew the contracts am I forced to use real money if I want to continue playing that game mode? Or does it start me over with the starter pack?

It is a cool idea. You get to compare your team VS friends throught he leader boards. However, they need to change the starter pack. Of the 36 cards you get they should all be bronze except you get 3-4 silvers and 1 gold. I can understand you not being able to get a platinum because those are palyers in their prime (like Barry Sanders with the Lions). The mode also has a weekly deal - usually some high 90s players for 1400 game points. There is also an auction house - EA is trying to do the Forza thing there. So my question is how long until a point glitch?

Ok, enough Madden, onto MW2. I've been playing quite abit of MW2 lately - basically to play something different. I've been playing a lot of Borderlands and need a break from that. I like MW2 but there are a bunch of aspects about the game I don't like. I don't like being force to play the public. The ranking system is fine except you are forced to play the public if you want to be able to compete with friends that have unlocked stuff or upgraded their weapons. I don't see the point of prestiging, except to get the extra custom slots if you need them. Why put yourself through that hell of not having anything good again and being forced to play in the public? Until this last week I have been mainly playing private rooms with 2old2shoot. The problem comes when someone makes up a rule that I can't abide by because I haven't unlocked something. We usually have it the winner of the loosing team picks map, game type, and any rules we have to abide by (like throwing knifes only). So I have been biting my lip and playing the public to rank up. How can people be so stupid and so annoying...

One thing I really hate about MW2 is nukes. The idea is nice, reward the player that has a 25 kill streak. Deservingly so. However, it should not be allowed in certain game types like domination. We were kicking ass in domination at the quary. The match ended with something like 198 to 117. We lost because some guy went 65-7. Obviously he had the nuke most of the match and waited until the very end to use it. It rewards one player with a win when the rest of the team sucked.

Other than the ranking system the game is great. IT has a wide variety of game types, a decent number of maps, a great control scheme, a great feel for the controls, and it can be played quick or slow - whatever your preference. Ok, the party system blows. Treyarch at least had a decent party system - why didn't IW talk to them! In all honest the networking system of W@W is superior to both COD4 and MW2. IW cannot do networking. They can do map design and weapon balancing better than Treyarch though. W@W also seems to have less glitches. It seems a new glitch comes up every week in MW2. I don't remember that happening with W@W. There were glitches but not as abundant. COD4 had an abundant supply of glitches also.