Southwestern College Collegian

Issue date: 4/16/08 Section: Sports

While we all wait on pens and needles to see if Brett Favre is going to pull a Michael Jordan there are a lot of other things that can keep a person entertained for hours. Such as trying to figure out how to field a baseball on Xbox360. While it is a simple concept, my real world golden glove skills just don't transfer well in to virtual reality. Almost every sports game has one these days, a "create a player" feature. If a game does not have said option, destroy the game immediately or just take it back to the store like any sane person would. It is a fun little quirk that allows maximum escaping from reality. Every sports nut/video gamer has made their own player on the multitude of games that have come out over the years, I've even fallen victim to it. I always get called out when I make my own player on a video game. When the guys and I all gather around a PS2 for a night of Smack Down, they see the character I've made and here comes all the comments. "Oh jeez Nate, you're not that tall…" or "I don't think you're that strong in real life." Of course I'm not, that's why it's a video game. Just this past football season when Madden '08 was a major influence in my life I caught a lot of flak. "Nate you're not that fast," they would say. "Dude, you don't have any visible abdominal muscles," and "Sir, there is no way you'd be taken as the number one draft choice." My favorite is "Man, Nate there's no way you can be a quarterback." Ahh, but thanks to John Madden I can be. And I stand by my firm belief that I could throw a touchdown pass in the NFL having never played quarterback at any level, wanting to is half the battle. Just get me in the right situation like first and goal on the three yard line, sub me in for the starting QB, call a pass play and let me make a spectacle of myself. Anyway, back to the real issue at hand-creating a fake, virtual depiction of one's self is all kinds of fun. And I've found a loop hole where my friends can no longer accuse me of a false representation. It is very simple. I'll stick to my Madden football exploits for the example. I made a quarterback on Madden '08. Standing at about 6'7" equipped with a cannon for an arm and turbo boosters for legs he was unstoppable. Defenses had no answer. Sure enough, I heard "Nate, that guy is not like you at all." And I would say "I know, because his name isn't Nate Jones, its Nate Lee." Yes I knew there was a reason for the existence of middle names. Go ahead. Feel free to give me a tip of your hat. I give myself one all the time. My little trick stopped people in their tracks. They sputtered an attempt at a retort but it was useless, much like those defenders against my awesome quarterback. They shook their head and let it be. There was one thing my player couldn't run through, juke away from, or have any success at all against and that is my friend erasing everything that wasn't his from his PS3 hard drive. Thanks man, Nate Lee died that day and now remains that way despite several futile attempts to recreate him. It just wasn't the same. I encourage everyone who creates a player on any sports game to give your player the maximum in all the attributes, dominate, and win all the awards. I'm gonna go set up a tire swing and practice my goal line throwing strategies. That coupled with video games should have pro scouts calling me any day now.

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