Breaking Madden
January 30, 2014 1:29 PM   Subscribe

This NFL season, Jon Bois has been on a weekly mission to turn Madden 25 from a reasonably accurate video game simulation of football into strange and wonderful things using only the character editor and rules options already present in the game. He's created BEEFTANK, an unstoppable 400 pound quarterback/bowling ball. He turned off the offsides rule in a quest for 60 fumbles. He demonstrated to us all that Pat McAfee is the Destroyer of Worlds. He's proven that you can NEVER count out Touchdown Tom. Today, he ended the season with a Super Bowl for the ages. In short, he has Broken Madden. (previously)

If you watch absolutely nothing else, watch the end credits video, which has a hilarious and delightful compilation of the season's highlights.
posted by Copronymus (86 comments total) 72 users marked this as a favorite
 
Beeftank should be this generation's philosopher-poet.
posted by drezdn at 1:31 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


BEEFTANK makes me think of the container for vat-grown meat
posted by blakewest at 1:37 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I couldn't care less about this game if you held a gun to my head and demanded it on pain of death, but I really appreciate the writing here.
posted by brennen at 1:37 PM on January 30, 2014 [7 favorites]


I'm still not comfortable counting out Touchdown Tom.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:38 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


I have loved the SHIT out of Breaking Madden. Jon Bois is fantastic. I think he also curates the SBNation Gif Oracle, which we talked about at some point.

"The Super Bowls leading up to this one have become increasingly stale experiences. A lot of them are inside, which is the same place where you watch Up in your sweatpants and cry"

...is for my money the greatest sentence in the history of sportswriting.
posted by dismas at 1:38 PM on January 30, 2014 [9 favorites]


Jon Bois previously.

I love Breaking Madden so much. I'm sure there's a good explanation for why overflowing the score counter creates garbage in the rest of the game, but I don't want to know it because Madden 25 declaring "fuck it, I'm out, here's a horrible perversion of nature" is so much better.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:42 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Jon Bois is fantastic. I think he also curates the SBNation Gif Oracle, which we talked about at some point.

I think he also wrote a bunch of the old Dugout chatlog comics, which is one of those things where I start to feel like the universe is unfair because he's done so much awesome stuff.
posted by Copronymus at 1:45 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


There is so much about this that is so good that I don't know what to say.
posted by kiltedtaco at 1:47 PM on January 30, 2014


The Headless Hockey Players article linked in the BEEFTANK one was pretty great, too. Especially the Scott Walker-scored video.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:48 PM on January 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


For a series that's entirely about tweaking the settings on a sportball video game, this is unreasonably funny.
posted by mhoye at 1:49 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I thought I was the only one who did this. Every NBA and NFL game I play its a compulsion. 5'1 dunking bowling balls. 7' wide-receivers. 6'10" point-guards. I think the only that would further these games is they allowed a more nuanced ability to effect AI, as well, and then of course, share players. Brilliant.
posted by doktahdunn at 1:50 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Oh god BEEFTANK is killing me.

Is this the same guy who made an entire Bucs team out of clones of their coach?
posted by COBRA! at 1:50 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


Jon Bois: it's like this half-Bronco, half-Seahawk fetus
the game has told me in the only language it has left that it has been broken
Spencer Hall: you made that Jon
you took science
and made an abomination
you did that
Jon Bois: i'm a dad
hand me a cigar
Spencer Hall: [puts it out in that thing's eye]
eye hole
whatever it has

posted by Rock Steady at 1:50 PM on January 30, 2014 [7 favorites]


Bois is a good writer. This is funny stuff. Thanks for sharing.
posted by cribcage at 1:50 PM on January 30, 2014


SCHIANO MEN is a thing that happened, yes.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 1:51 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


"Refers to liquids in plural, i.e., a glass of milk is 'a glass of some milks.'"

Yeah, this is fantastic.
posted by jason_steakums at 1:53 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


the game has told me in the only language it has left that it has been broken

I wanted that to be the post title more than anything, but it's just over the character limit.

And, yeah, Bois is such a good writer that he actually made me feel sympathy for Brett Favre, which I would not have told you was remotely possible until it happened.
posted by Copronymus at 1:55 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also, it's worth watching the trailer he made for this episode as a work of art on its own.
posted by Rock Steady at 1:58 PM on January 30, 2014 [7 favorites]


Oh God the BEEFTANK gif where he bowls through his own team-mate.

I can't stop laughing.
posted by running order squabble fest at 2:00 PM on January 30, 2014


Oh wow the trailers are all genius.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:03 PM on January 30, 2014


Hey, I don't really know where to put this, so it's just going to go here: the Broncos' uniforms are the ugliest in football by a considerable margin. The orange and blue don't work together at all, the logo screams "create-a-team default," and the numbers look like they were ripped off the Rocketeer's mailbox. Also, the dark-blue sides make y'all look like you're wearing sandwich boards.

This has needed to be said for a long, long time.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:03 PM on January 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


Played college football at DeVry, where he studied poetry. He finished with a GPA of reddish-gray.
posted by Foosnark at 2:08 PM on January 30, 2014 [8 favorites]


I think I learned more about football from reading Breaking Madden than I have from decades of once in a while trying to learn football. I still have no idea how football works, but Breaking Madden has taught me that the point is that football doesn't work but everybody pretends it does and gets really excited about it.

Kind of like adulthood, I guess.
posted by ardgedee at 2:14 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


I thought everybody did this kind of thing. I remember crafting my own rosters of players for Triple Play Baseball and giving them all max ability in all running/speed categories. I got a lineup that could bunt for hits an infinite amount of times, scoring 25-30 runs in a single half-inning before being deterred not by pitching or defense, but by boredom on my part.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:16 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


I thought everybody did this kind of thing.

Amazingly, writers will sometimes write about common activities that everyone can relate to.
posted by empath at 2:20 PM on January 30, 2014


I'm sure there's a good explanation for why overflowing the score counter creates garbage in the rest of the game, but I don't want to know it because Madden 25 declaring "fuck it, I'm out, here's a horrible perversion of nature" is so much better.

Holy buffer overflow!

I always forget to keep up with Jon Bois. Thanks for reminding me. I'm in tears from laughter at the Super Bowl.
posted by kmz at 2:29 PM on January 30, 2014


Thank you MeFi for introducing me to this via the Schianos a few months ago.

Aside from the brilliant writing, what makes this work is Madden itself. It's realistic enough (or perhaps pro football is absurd enough?) to suspend disbelief, such that when everything goes haywire you're left imagining a real game played under Bois's conditions rather than just a bunch of machinima. When he turned off the offsides penalty and placed his linebackers behind the quarterback I was crying.

Go Hawks.
posted by rouftop at 2:35 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


CLARENCE BEEFTANK
Slab BulkHead
Fist RockBone
Blast HardCheese
Gristle McThornBody
Big McLargeHuge
posted by ActingTheGoat at 2:38 PM on January 30, 2014 [16 favorites]


Now I see a reason to play such games.
posted by Saxon Kane at 2:39 PM on January 30, 2014


Somebody needs to put together a football video game that's completely custom AI controlled and start the football version of Salty Bet, just live streaming custom AIs and ridiculous character models going head-to-head on the field. I don't watch football, but I would watch that.
posted by jason_steakums at 2:41 PM on January 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


He opens an article about football with a quote from Calvin and Hobbes.

I'm sold.
posted by Wolfdog at 2:44 PM on January 30, 2014


Wolfdog: enjoy.
posted by Navelgazer at 2:46 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Somebody needs to put together a football video game that's completely custom AI controlled and start the football version of Salty Bet

I'm pretty sure you can have AI vs AI in Madden. The only problem for something like SaltyBet would be automating starting every match.
posted by kmz at 2:52 PM on January 30, 2014


I'd like to see something like the "Many Tom Bradys" one, but more pure and more inclusive. So forget about things like "I upped the Tom Brady receivers' reception stats", and forget about having defense / special teams players who are not Tom Brady. So just 53 Tom Bradys, with Tom Brady's unmodified stats. And on the other team, 53 Mike Mohameds, with Mike Mohamed's unmodified stats.

And a huge league, one team per existing player.
posted by Flunkie at 2:59 PM on January 30, 2014 [5 favorites]


This is pretty cool! It makes me wish I knew more about footb—
Injuries were piling up. They suffered broken jaws, herniated disks, and dislocated elbows. By the end of the first quarter, Lana Berry and Josh Butler were the only two backs who were medically able to play.
Wait, so the video game of this sport is set up to describe the specific injuries the simulated athletes suffer? Well, of course, naturally, otherwise it wouldn't be realistic...

Oh, yeah, that feeling of utter revulsion... I guess that's why I don't know much about football.
posted by BrashTech at 3:00 PM on January 30, 2014


One thing about this series is it reveals, time and again, how games like this employ rubberbanding to keep the game competitive, even when you stack things hilariously against the computer's favor. You put Superman on your team, and the other side will start selectively breaking the rules to match him.
posted by JHarris at 3:27 PM on January 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


Wait, so the video game of this sport is set up to describe the specific injuries the simulated athletes suffer?

That's nothing. In Dwarf Fortress you get ridiculously specific blow-by-blow battle reports. "The goblin's club bruised Uther's left kidney!" "Uther's axe severed a tendon in the goblin's right leg!" Every battle, in ridiculous detail.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 3:31 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


Also, how about a game release for the Xbox 360 in 2013 that stops counting points because it stores the score in a byte.
posted by JHarris at 3:45 PM on January 30, 2014 [9 favorites]


Yeah the 255 point thing has been in Madden for years and years. One of the early ones for XBox had a card system where you could collect cards that made the other team fumble all the time and whatnot, which is how I found out about it. Also some of the stats would rollover after a certain amount, so that instead of 2019 rushing yards or whatever you would only have 19. This even applied to season stats I think, so your player could go from an all time record amount in some category to having almost none.
posted by burnmp3s at 3:51 PM on January 30, 2014


unsigned char score[2];
posted by scose at 4:05 PM on January 30, 2014 [9 favorites]


this reminds me of jack nichalas 2 and 3, which allowed you to make some rather perverse, and impossible looking golf courses - greens at the bottom of a 200 ft hole in the ground? - why not? - canyons? why not? - 400 ft hills in the middle of the hole? - sure, why not? - little 10 yd greens surrounded by 100 yds of sand? - anything goes - crazy up and down impossible to play terrain? - parking lots with a tiny little green in them? - anything goes ...

alas, starting with 4, such hijinks in golf design were no longer possible - and 2 was much more out of control than 3 was

i still have the last version, 6, on my computer - fun game, but i miss the crazy courses ...
posted by pyramid termite at 4:12 PM on January 30, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'm pretty sure you can have AI vs AI in Madden. The only problem for something like SaltyBet would be automating starting every match.

Oh I mean like user-customized AIs, like what gives Salty Bet weird, unbalanced, hilarious matchups and would give a similar sense of what Bois is doing, breaking the game in unexpected ways. Maybe also have rules disable at random and stat randomizers for every player.
posted by jason_steakums at 4:41 PM on January 30, 2014


The GIF-on-hover is one of the best uses of the image format I've seen. Quick to load, and easy to restart. More of this (and less auto-playing/looping GIFs) please!
posted by Wulfhere at 4:45 PM on January 30, 2014 [15 favorites]


If you do not have the time to read SCHIANO MEN, I still recommend you read this infographic.
posted by maryr at 4:48 PM on January 30, 2014 [5 favorites]


Follow your dreams,
you can reach your goals,
I'm living proof.

BEEFTANK

B E E F T A N K!
posted by delfin at 5:40 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


One thing about this series is it reveals, time and again, how games like this employ rubberbanding to keep the game competitive, even when you stack things hilariously against the computer's favor. You put Superman on your team, and the other side will start selectively breaking the rules to match him.

To an extent, but I think in this case the game is having a breakdown rather than specifically plotting to level the playing field. That guy may move like The Flash, but he totally fails to make the tackle.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:49 PM on January 30, 2014


But that's not how a sensibly-coded game should work. Humorous attributing of anthropomorphic attributes to your adorable computer box aside, they don't have breakdowns.

And he might not make the tackle, but he could have, and that's what makes it clear some rubberbanding is going on. You could still plug Donkey Kong with a red shell, but that doesn't mean he's not getting a speed boost to keep up with you.

(I have no explanation for that thing on the field at the Super Bowl.)
posted by JHarris at 6:11 PM on January 30, 2014




Humorous attributing of anthropomorphic attributes to your adorable computer box aside, they don't have breakdowns.

Potayto potahto, I think. Computers - and more accurately programs - may not have breakdowns, but they do break down. "Breaking Madden" is in part about glitching the system by doing things that the system isn't set up to cope with - highlighting the ways coding, sensible or otherwise, can be subverted by a human agent refusing to go along with the intended actions provided by its affordances.

That superspeed might be the system trying to compensate and create a fair game, but it would be a lot easier to do that, if that was what you were aiming to do, by serious rubberbanding - making numerical differences between player stats less significant the further apart they are - so the 10 points between 50 and 60 in toughness represent a larger difference than those between the first and last 5 points of difference between 0 and 100.

Giving one tackle a moment of superspeed does potentially change the balance of the game, but so does having one of the players walk off the field in the middle of a play, which happens a couple of times as well, and I don't think that's why it happens.
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:45 PM on January 30, 2014


Oh god the tackling gifs in this episode of BEEFTANK.
posted by Pyry at 7:03 PM on January 30, 2014


In other SB-Nation-based-crimes-against-decency news: Spilly's recipes.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:31 PM on January 30, 2014


Giving one tackle a moment of superspeed does potentially change the balance of the game, but so does having one of the players walk off the field in the middle of a play, which happens a couple of times as well, and I don't think that's why it happens.

It's probably more than the game isn't entirely a physics-based simulation -- it's running some numbers to determine whether the player gets tackled, then uses physics to get the players to get from point a to point b in a reasonably realistic way-- and that when you have sensible stats for players, it's less likely to have to do some crazy, unrealistic animations to make it happen.
posted by empath at 7:34 PM on January 30, 2014


The choice of GY!BE for the trailer ... too perfect.
posted by kiltedtaco at 8:21 PM on January 30, 2014 [3 favorites]


So what you're saying is, behind the scenes it rolled 00: Players walk off field?
posted by JHarris at 9:21 PM on January 30, 2014


Kinda! In the same way that if you get to places in Deus Ex that the game's designers didn't anticipate, e.g. by using sticky bombs as steps, you might end up falling through the map... tracking down every possible glitch is impossible, so you focus on the most likely situations.

(Thinking about it, what Madden really needs is a voiceover in the style of The Stanley Parable.)
posted by running order squabble fest at 9:41 PM on January 30, 2014


This guy makes me want to play Madden for the first time since the SNES. But instead, I think I'm gonna get my nerd football on.
posted by jason_steakums at 10:06 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


These are really entertaining! Thanks for the links -- love the McAfee neck flip animation.
posted by newper at 10:26 PM on January 30, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hmm. But no, that's not all like Deus Ex, which achieved its vaunted flexibility of play by presenting a world with rules that you could take advantage of. This looks to be more like a glitch. The designer should know what outcomes are possible, and players walking off for Gatorade in the middle of the play shouldn't be possible. I don't know what kind of underlying simulation would allow for that to happen.

Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing.
posted by JHarris at 10:38 PM on January 30, 2014


The gif where the Seattle Monstars destroy the Tiny Broncos defensive line in unison made me laugh loud enough to scare the dog.
posted by ob1quixote at 10:50 PM on January 30, 2014 [4 favorites]


Some other animated GIFs from the series:
Madden tells Jon "No".
Sometimes BEEFTANK outruns himself.
Not the most shining example of AI.
Going for Gatorade while the play's still going For added fun, take note of the "realistic" crowd in the background.
The neck-flip animation newper refers to.
"Dude, you think we should tackle him?" "No way, look at the size of him!"
This is the GIF ob1quixote's referring to, I think.
posted by JHarris at 10:57 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


JHarris: "Hmm. But no, that's not all like Deus Ex, which achieved its vaunted flexibility of play by presenting a world with rules that you could take advantage of. This looks to be more like a glitch. The designer should know what outcomes are possible, and players walking off for Gatorade in the middle of the play shouldn't be possible. I don't know what kind of underlying simulation would allow for that to happen.

Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing.
"

I suspect that it may be partially due to the game's heavy use of motion capture for the specific details of football, and then Bois' use of extreme settings to tweak the game in ways that it isn't meant to be played. A driving simulation that behaved oddly or unrealistically if you hacked the cars to go 500 mph doesn't necessarily mean that the simulation is bad; it means you're trying to do something way outside the normal behaviour. The goal of the game is to simulate what happens when a 6'4" 250 lb linebacker tackles a 6'1" 215 lb running back and they both know how to play football, not what happens when a 5'0" 160 lb teenaged McDonald's worker who knows nothing about football attempts to tackle a 7'0" 400 lb running back.

It's entirely possible that the Gatorade walk has some simulation aspects gone wrong, but it seems at least possible that it's a player running a downfield route, turning the wrong way due to 0/100 football awareness or because something equally bizarre is happening, and then slowing down to a walk because that is a logical and common thing to do when the play is way down on the other side of the field, and you're never going to catch up and block. The Gatorade is presumably a lucky coincidence that it is located there, although had the play started somewhere else, he could be "heading to chat with the cheerleaders" or something else.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 11:58 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]


It was this one entitled "Line Collapse," JHarris.
posted by ob1quixote at 11:59 PM on January 30, 2014 [2 favorites]




Ah, I messed up the link, that's the one I intended to link to ob1quixote, thanks.
posted by JHarris at 12:04 AM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Also, designing your sports simulation that the system has already decided ahead of time how the play's going to go doesn't mesh well with the idea of player agency. What happens if the player does something that doesn't agree with your script? You either ignore what the player does (in which case that's an awfully slick looking movie you've got there, shame you can't play it) or you regenerate the script the moment the player interferes with it, in which case, why bother pre-generating it at all? Just use a general AI for the players, it'd amount to the same thing."

No, I don't think it's decided ahead of time how the play is going to go, but there's probably a really simple layer that keeps track of player location, momentum, various skills and so on and constantly does checks to see if various things happen, then kicks in the physics/animation engine to make it happen on the screen. That would explain why the kicker can kick the ball while a blocker has moved him 6 feet away from the hold. The 'kick' check probably doesn't care where the kicker is actually standing.

And it explains a lot of the weird behavior around tackling, where you might have one stat saying that the guy should be tackling the other guy, and another stat saying that the guy can't be tackled, and then the physics engine needs to do something with that.
posted by empath at 12:13 AM on January 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


That makes sense empath, thanks.
posted by JHarris at 1:33 AM on January 31, 2014


WTF?

Because I looked for their source but it took me awhile to find it, those awful tackles from the credits are from the third BEEFTANK post:
Third worst, Second worst, Worst
posted by JHarris at 1:48 AM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


That would explain why the kicker can kick the ball while a blocker has moved him 6 feet away from the hold. The 'kick' check probably doesn't care where the kicker is actually standing.

Right - and in the normal run of a football game modelled in Madden, it wouldn't be an issue, because one set of actions would have the kicker on screen run to the ball and kick it, and another would have the ball move according to the force, direction, accuracy etc of the kick. It's only if you change the rules to the point that it no longer resembles a game of football - by removing offsides, and therefore being able to position a defensive player between the ball and the kicker - that you can generate a situation where the kicker is physically prevented from running to the ball, but still does the kicking animation somewhere off to its left, and the ball still flies in the air.

You could say that this is poor QA, and that testing should have either resulted in it being impossible for that situation to occur (by making it impossible to remove the offside rule, e.g.), or have led to the realistic mapping of the consequences of removing the offside rule, (i.e. sometimes kicks simply do not happen, because the kicker is blocked, and the ball probably becomes a free ball). However, that I think would be a long way down in the list of QA concerns, because the overwhelming majority of people buying the game are buying it to play something resembling football rather than to see how they can make the game they are playing not football.

So, it's mechanically similar to, say, the Hercules check in NHL13, but on the available evidence it's relatively hard to engineer within the normal bounds of the game, whereas you can engineer the Hercules check in the progress of a normal, intended-to-be-realistic game, which the games of Madden Jon Bois is creating are not.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:32 AM on January 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


MetaFilter: Your struggles are over now, BEEFTANK.

This was great. Just great. Reminds me of creating a team of my friends on Madden (97 I think). We were all 300+ pounds, over 6 foot tall and ran 4.0 40s. We'd run every kick off back to the 1 just to gain the most yardage on every possession. Great times.
posted by stltony at 5:58 AM on January 31, 2014


Also I love love love they way they went full-on Snow Fall-style formatting for the season finale.
posted by Rock Steady at 7:16 AM on January 31, 2014


FOOTBALL!
posted by Navelgazer at 8:57 AM on January 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


The gif where the Seattle Monstars destroy the Tiny Broncos defensive line in unison made me laugh loud enough to scare the dog.

The one where the little tiny Bronco is clinging to the giant Seahawk's leg is the one that has made me honk like a drunk goose.
posted by elizardbits at 9:01 AM on January 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


The one thing I could never wrap my head around was how Madden (and the NCAA equivalent) managed the game clock. By default most games have 5-minute quarters, but you can adjust the amount of time from 1 to 15 minutes.

But it would seem the game is already geared to "realistically" simulate a normal NFL game for 5-minute quarters. Playing a "real world" game of 15-minute quarters often results in scores like 156-27, with 1000+ rushing yards.

I understand that to actually play 15-minute-quarter games would result in 2-3 hours of gameplay, but I would have imagined that if the game "sped up" things to match for 5-minute quarters, it could incrementally or exponentially speed up for 15-minute ones.
posted by CancerMan at 9:49 AM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh my goodness, the good Sirs could not look more out of place than they do in those jerseys.
posted by maryr at 11:17 AM on January 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


The way it speeds things up is by cutting out things that normally run time off the clock between plays, though. You don't have to wait for refs to get the ball and re-set it, because it just teleports to the new line of scrimmage. The coach doesn't have to communicate the play call to the QB, you just pick it and then break the huddle. "Realistic" speed would be the same amount of gameplay with a ton more waiting around.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 11:31 AM on January 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Relevant Simpsons frame of the week.
posted by maryr at 1:26 PM on January 31, 2014


I'm making my way through all of these, and so far my favorite glitchiness is when the AI goes very weird indeed in Tony Gonzales, cranky old man of destruction. The sideways run up the field is wonderful. (Also I could watch this gif all day)
posted by jason_steakums at 6:11 PM on January 31, 2014


I'm gonna miss this series.
posted by The Card Cheat at 8:01 PM on January 31, 2014






Not from the video game.
posted by empath at 3:47 PM on February 2, 2014 [7 favorites]


So far the biggest differences between this and the simulation have been that Denver managed to score once, and they replaced the giant fetus with Bruno Mars.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:20 PM on February 2, 2014 [8 favorites]


Yeah, Breaking Madden looks like of prophetic now. I look forward to Clarence BEEFTANK's introduction as a physical player next season.
posted by JHarris at 12:11 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


There were a couple tackles in the game where I actually went back to see how close they were to the simulated tackles. Incredible sizes discrepencies aside, a couple seemed close.

I like how all of SBnation's Super Bowl gifs seem to be subtitled "The Broncos are going to lose the Super Bowl."

I also like that they have three times as many Puppy Bowl gifs as Super Bowl gifs.
posted by maryr at 10:30 AM on February 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Jon did an interview with Buzzfeed, where, most importantly, he promised both another season of Breaking Madden and some NBA 2K14 manipulation.
posted by Copronymus at 10:09 PM on February 5, 2014 [3 favorites]


JHarris: “I look forward to Clarence BEEFTANK's introduction as a physical player next season.”
Jared Lorenzen: Still playing football, still enormous, still an American hero, Rodger Sherman, SB Nation Lookit, 03 February 2014

q.v. BEEFTANK!
posted by ob1quixote at 2:36 PM on February 6, 2014 [2 favorites]


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