sports | Through the Shattered Lens

Yes, it’s that time of year everyone. Football season looms … at least, it does for the thousands of student athletes within the NCAA system. The NFL is still in limbo, even if it now appears inevitable (although either way, it won’t slow down the annual Madden release). Now, let me preface this review by saying that I don’t actually enjoy college football. I find the poor defensive play and imbalanced match-ups boring, and I hate the way that the BCS standings come together over the course of a season. The fact that the Big East has an automatic bid is a bad joke, etc. All of this is probably because I never attended a university where college football mattered. But absolutely none of that counts in the world of video games!

As a visceral experience, there’s a lot to be said for the college football style. Here, we still live in a world where running the football can be king, and a world in which the QB option (in a shocking variety of forms) can still be a primary offensive tool. Teams suffer every year from playing the service academies (who still run the triple option) because defending it is so different from the spread, or even the spread option, that most teams run. If you’re looking for a football experience where all of these systems are in play, then you should run — not walk — toward NCAA Football 12. Of course, most people are more NFL fans than NCAA fans, if the numbers are to be believed… but the one thing that the video game version will always have over Madden is that it isn’t quite so formulaic. We’re dealing with an eclectic mixture of offenses and defenses. If you care to start a dynasty (and the dynasty features are outstanding in the new version. In NCAA Football 12 we’re treated to the full coaching experience. More on that in a bit.) you have a ton of player turnover, which can make it difficult to have a consistent program. I suppose it’s probably easier if you’re a fan of Alabama or Florida. I’m not, so this title has a refreshing ‘battle uphill’ feel, especially in the Dynasty Mode.

The flagship promotion for this game has to do with the authentic recreations of the university celebrations, pre-game ceremonies, etc. It deserves to be the most outstanding feature. Granted, it has absolutely no effect on game-play, but one of the things that sets college football apart from the professional game is the sheer number of teams in play – each with their own unique celebrations, entries, and whatever else – who have their own tradition. If that kind of personalized experience doesn’t faze you, then you won’t find much of note has changed between iterations of this game. The graphics are still in the same generation, we have the same playbooks, the announcers have actually become less interesting (which may be a selling point, depending on your point of view – Lee Corso has made his departure), and there are no real innovations in game-play. The tackling feels slightly more authentic — that is, there’s less magnet tackling — and the AI that guides defensive players in zone defenses is dramatically improved over the 2011 version of this title. You can actually feel pretty confident when calling cover 3 defense… of course, this goes double for the AI player, who aggressively bats down passes (but mercifully doesn’t seem to randomly intercept any more). Still, the game emphasizes more than ever the value of lofting a pass high to avoid marauding defenders as opposed to just firing laser beam passes from point A to point B.

Outstanding features include the Dynasty mode. Returning are the online dynasty features, which were a huge improvement in last year’s title… but massively upgraded are the single player versions. You can now create your own coaching avatar who can hold the position of Offensive/Defensive Coordinator, or Head Coach, at a university of your choice – but who is held accountable for the team’s performance. The university has expectations, and you can experience first-hand being on the coaching hot seat and being fired from your job. Of course, if you’re good enough at the game, this is hardly a concern… but it does add a fascinating dynamic to the experience – a bad recruiting class could still doom you! If you are fired, you end up on the coaching carousel looking for a new job. It’s definitely a cool feature, even if you probably won’t run into it much.

The other game mode which received a significant overhaul is the Road to Glory mode. As always, you create a single player, and advance from a top-rated high school prospect through your collegiate career at whatever university. However, this time around, the experience is much more interactive. We’re treated with a game mode that allows us to fully develop a single player in a much more immersive way than in previous installments. Your created player will gain experience and skills — as always — but also adapt to (or be moved into) a specific role on the team. I imagine this is a much more authentic recreation of what going out for Div 1 sports is really like… but you tell me.

The game does take a significant step back in terms of calling audibles. I would say that the player is given more freedom than ever in terms of setting up audibles (with the addition of custom playbooks) but gone are the menus that actually tell you which button push calls what. Or, at least, they were absent for me. It seems like a senseless change, and one that left me feeling pretty bitter through my Dynasty play… when I had to frequently consult my audible chart in order to keep track of what I was calling, and when. If I could remember all of this playart, I’d probably be playing Div 1 football myself.

As always, this game will synergize with the Madden release in terms of draft classes, as the Madden schedule continues uninterrupted. Definitely worth a pick-up if you’re starved for some video game football, or if you consider yourself a college ball fan.

Today, with my mother who couldn’t recall the film, I watched Miracle.

For those of you who don’t know, this film follows the rise of the 1980 USA Olympic hockey team as they prepare themselves for the inevitable clash against the unstoppable juggernaut of the USSR. Facing down the fact that the Soviets haven’t been defeated by the Americans since 1960, and that they’ve won three straight Olympic gold medals, the USA’s team of collegiate athletes nonetheless is looking at their own shot at the gold. I cannot recommend this film highly enough; it rests comfortable atop the pinnacle of sports movies ever made, and it tells a story that has all but been forgotten… at least, until mentioned.

Today, it’s commonplace to hear people talk about the greatest moment in sports history. The greatest call in the game. The greatest game ever played. The greatest goal ever scored. But, at least, for denizens of the United States, that honour is one that will never be taken from the 1980 Olympic squad.

Miracle‘s most endearing attribute is that it’s about a real story. And it’s a story that thrills people who salute the stars and stripes even in 2011, or it should. It’s a better story than that of the Marshall football team. It’s a greater story than any recounting of a sport on these shores. It’s a story that could not happen without another Cold War – the story of a team of beleaguered underdogs (whom we love so well) battling against the unstoppable Soviet Union, in a time before the internal failings of the Soviets were known. This was a match that meant more than anything possibly can in sports today, no matter what team you root for, or what your age happens to be.

For me, personally, Miracle follows events that transpired years before I was born. My memories as a young man are not of the implacable Soviet Union hanging like a dark cloud over half the world, but rather of their collapsing economy, unsustainable with the lack of infrastructure that had secretly crippled them for forty years. Of negotiations and compromise that saw the Berlin Wall torn down, and a tenuous alliance between the Russian Federation and the United States be born. I have never lived an era in which NATO seemed to hang as an aegis between my life and nuclear oblivion, or where the threat of communism seemed like one which would march across the globe and take from me everything I held dear.

But I still feel the chills across my skin, the goosebumps rising, during Miracle’s climactic moments – the semi-finals between the USA and the USSR. Unlike most other sports movies, where the true draw is the characters and the drama, and a scripted sporting event can never mean as much, the semi-finals game in Miracle is sung to the script of history. It was a real game, where nobody on earth knew the result before it was written. Al Michaels reprises his role as play-by-play announcer, dubbing over his own dialog from the original broadcast, and our actors re-enact the twists and turns of this amazing contest on the ice.

I write about it for three reasons. Each of them single lines from the film, and each of them uttered from the roughly 20-straight minutes of hockey that we are treated to as viewers at the end of the film. Kurt Russell delivers for us perhaps the greatest performance of his career, in what is debateably the greatest film of his career, and what is probably the greatest sports film of all time.

“They just benched the best goaltender in the world,” he assures his team after a first period in which the USA dared to tie the score and the Soviets pulled their goaltender, Vladislav Tretiak, in a game where everyone present knew they were lucky to just be trailing by one going into the break.

“He doesn’t know what to do,” Kurt Russell, as the real-life character Herb Brooks, assures us as he sees Soviet coach Viktor Tiknohov barking terse commands at his team halfway into the final period. Against all odds, the USA’s team is still in this game, as the crowd at Lake Placid New York tirelessly chants “U-S-A!”, waving American flags, their energy carrying that USA collegiate team against a squad that, while “amateur” themselves, were easily considered to be the best hockey team in the world.

Finally, as time begins to expire, the digital redubs that Al Michaels recorded of his play-by-play switch back to the original telecast. We hear an Al Michaels thirty years younger screaming into his mic, as the puck is cleared toward center ice, putting the victory literally out of the reach of the USSR, “Do you believe in miracles!?” he pauses an instant, as the time truly does expire, and then screams “Yes!”

And history goes wild.