When we drew lots for what to write on, I came up with the latest installment of the Madden NFL franchise on Nintendo's "revolution"ary new console, the Wii. And while Electronic Arts took care to point out that what I had my hands on was still a work in progress, what I experienced gives me a good deal of comfort as to the future of our precious little lunchbox's successor. I'll be honest, I was certain that Nintendo would do some amazing things with their personal titles on the Wii - Metroid, Zelda, Mario, et cetera - given that they built the thing. However, I was concerned as to how third parties would react with the unorthodox control schemes presented to them. Would the third party developers do right by the new ideas Nintendo is putting forward? Would they drop the ball? Wii also supports GameCube controllers, so would they just skip the issue entirely and stay with what worked? Thankfully, EA is on the right track.

The Wii build of Madden was restricted to a few practice drills and one two-minute quick simulation of Super Bowl XL. Passing worked as follows: to hike the ball, the player flicks the Wii-mote controller upwards and uses the analog stick on the nunchuck controller to maneuver the quarterback (or any other player for that matter) around on-field. For the Wii demo, players were locked in to using the Super Bowl XL champion Pittsburgh Steelers, so I was controlling QB Ben Roethlisberger in the drills. And yes, it did feel wrong and dirty [Editor's note: GCC Editor in Chief Kevin McGinnis is a dyed in the wool Pittsburgh Steelers fan, Mr. Twomey, however, is a New York Giants fan - in which case I would like to remind our readers which team won the Super Bowl and which team lost 23-0 in the playoffs], such is the nature of my job - I take the slings and arrows so you don't have to. Passing is done by selecting a receiver with the D-pad or with the A button, then flicking the Wii-mote forward. There was no vision cone in the demo, but that is no indication that the concept was dropped from the latest version - more than likely, EA wanted to keep things simple.

Next drill was kicking, which is where we run into a bit of a problem…beyond having to play as Steelers kicker Chris Gardocki. The arrows, they just keep on comin'. Anyhow, the direction of the kick is adjusted by shifting an arrow with the D-pad, then the player presses the A button to start the kicker's approach towards the ball. Actual kicking is done by jerking the Wii-mote directly upwards - the strength of the kick being proportional to how sharply you moved the controller. I personally had trouble with this, as in focusing on getting the right power behind the kick; I would pull the controller off to one side or another on the way up, causing the ball to go wide. And this was in a basic practice drill, with no wind. Now, imagine this problem, compounded by playing in Chicago, San Francisco, or Pittsburgh. I see this getting resolved in either EA accommodating players in the control mapping, or leaving it alone and forcing the player to work past the handicap. I'm not entirely opposed to leaving it alone - it definitely adds a little extra drama to those last-minute, fourth-quarter, playoff, "why we're paying you what we're paying you just to kick a ball" "dear God, we need this one" kicks in games with your friends. You know, if you take Madden that seriously. And how else could you take it? [Editor's note: not to mention, this would prevent the New England Patriots from ever winning again.]

The kick drill completed, the demo moves on to the actual competitive gameplay. The Pittsburgh Steelers, me, against the Seattle Seahawks, the computer, for two minutes of regulation play. Spinning, juking, and stiffarming are all incorporated into the demo and done with flicks of the nunchuck or Wii-mote controllers, the direction of the flick determining which way the character moves. This was where I came to my biggest issue with the demo. The Wii-mote is used to select which play you want to run, and of course, there is a movable dot to indicate what play is currently selected. I'm not comfortable with this idea at all; as it gives away which play you plan on running to your opponent, making for easy audible calls. I mean, I play with a crowd that would all but walk into Fort Knox before selecting their play to ensure strategic security. And this habit stretches all the way back to Tecmo Bowl, people. Really, am I alone in this?

Regardless, I do enjoy how EA has brought the Wii-mote into the Madden world, and I truly doubt I'll be the only one. There's something oddly satisfying about physically flicking that controller and landing a 40+-yard completion. As if that extra activity translates to greater superiority over your opponent than originally found by just calling a good play. Perhaps that's it - in earlier Maddens, you mostly just outthought the other guy. With the Wii-mote, there's now a sense (however minute) of athletic superiority. I can see this leading to a whole new level of Madden play. I can also see this resulting in a lot more fistfights and broken friendships. Wii'll see. (Sorry. I…I just had to.)