With Mike Vick signing a contract in Philly only hours before the launch of the latest iteration of the Madden video game, the folks at EA immediately went to work to add Vick to the Eagles’ roster.
And, per the Los Angeles Times, Vick will be available via Internet download on Wednesday, August 19.
But the process of putting Vick in the game isn’t as simple as it might seem. The ratings system has been improved in recent years (T.J. Houshmandzadeh would disagree with that), and Vick has done nothing on which a rating could be based since December 2006. (Unless, of course, the ratings also have been expanded to include other physical abilities that Vick continued to demonstrate through April 2007.)
“We have art assets from when he was in Madden a few years ago,” EA Tiburon spokesman Rob Semsey said. “We have some player ratings and face maps from that. We used that as the foundation. But a lot of things have changed since then.”
As to the game itself, it seems to be improved. But I’m still partial to EA’s NHL series.
And, no, I’m not saying that in the hopes that they’ll send me an advance copy of NHL 10, which debuts on September 15.
But maybe they will anyway.
