EA Sports: We're in the Game?

		Your Junk my Happy Zone
		by Brandon Corbett

It is a nasty spring day: cold, windy, and wet. Not a day suitable for getting out and playing Wiffleball at all. You sit down in front of your TV, turn on your gaming system of choice, a couple developer and sponsor screens scroll by, and then BOOM!: a WSEM splash screen with images of DeLano and Pearson covering the screen with the sound of screaming fans in concert with a Passalacqua tune coming out of your speakers. You are getting the full-on digital WSEM experience! One that is being shared by thousands of at least sixty other fans out there! Okay, so the idea of a video game, like "The Show", built around you and your league is a just a little bit of a distant dream, still. But, let us run with the thought for a minute: "what if this was a video game?" [<- NSFW] What would that look like? How would your team show in those "attribute ratings" graphics? Well, close your eyes (figuratively, you need them to read the rest of this) and prepare yourself for dalliance!





So, I can sense the question hanging on your lips: what does any of this mean? Well, as much as you want it to. As is the way in video games, you can win it all with the Lions in Tecmo Super Bowl; you can win the Stanley Cup with the Nordiques in NHL '94; you can take the Colts to the Superbowl in Madden '95; Beavis and Butthead can beat Gore and Clinton for the championship in NBA Jam; you can do just about anything you want in Ken Griffey, Jr. Presents Major League Baseball; and then there is whatever the heck is going on in (the pretty Wiffle-y itself) Baseball Simulator 1.000! As is also the way in video games, these attribute ratings are never exactly accurate; more like a fun estimate to visually leverage game play and skill. Basically, evaluation of talent - especially in the digital realm - means nothing compared to how that talent eventually gets used by you on the field: real or pixels.

It is fun to dream, though!