Just because I love sports doesn’t mean I have warm feelings towards sports games.
Frankly, I only ever enjoyed games that let you body slam your opponents repeatedly even after a play was over.
At used video game stores, I never blinked an eye at the dozens of copies of NFL, NBA, or FIFA cartridges and discs I saw stacked all around, rejected by their owners for newer versions of the same game. It seemed to me evidence that only a very particular crowd of gamers bought each new release of these games, and even fewer collected them. It seems just like the smart phone crowd, always eager for the next big (literally) phone.
Regardless, even I enjoyed the giddy and bizarre new trailer EA Sports has concocted to advertise Madden NFL 16. I mean, I keep watching it.
Last year’s music video-styled trailer for Madden NFL 15 featuring Kevin Hart was nothing spectacular. (If you really want to put yourself through it, go ahead. But you’ve been warned.)
But this year—oh, this year. In an insane, action-packed 5-minute “Madden film” trailer for a film that doesn’t exist (but I wish did after seeing it), Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Rob Gronkowski, Julio Jones, Antonio Brown, Coach Rex Ryan, and Colin Kaepernick slam together in a blast of action to do some of their best, most promising work yet. An epic narrative of girlfriend-rescuing and Madden revenge, these lads will train through blood, sweat, and assassination-by-football; through dancing on Bollywood sets and arm-wrestling; through explosions, riding motorcycles into battle; and do everything from karate-chopping to football-machine-gun-firing to dinosaur-commanding to yell-spitting before it’s all over.
The trailer’s series of masterful, original, and over-the-top gags are truly “Impossible to unwatch,” and Dave Franco may actually be “probably the best actor ever.” But the highlight (for me at least) had to be Colin Kaepernick as Al Pacino from Scent of a Woman, “Hoo-ah!” entering in a red convertible and flying through the air like a boss. And eating the game plan. What do you think?
Should we “Cancel awards season… we have a winner”? What do you think about this year’s promo? Major hit or major miss? Could it even make you buy Madden 16? Have I gone insane, or was this actually sickly awesome?
Madden NFL 16 is available on August 25th on PS4 and Xbox One.
