Invited to EA to play some Madden ....

I received good news yesterday as I got an email from EA Sports saying that they want me to fly down to Orlando to participate in a group of people who will get a chance to play early builds of Madden 09. Along with Madden, I will also be able to play NCAA 09 and Head Coach 09. Now this is not my first time going, in fact last year they invited me out to LA to play the game early and to also take me to the ESPYS. That's right I got to get on the red carpet with all the sports stars and participate in the taping of the ESPY. That was a sweet deal and out of all the things EA has done, that was definitely the cooles thing they have ever done.

I'm not the only one going, Moostache from my site was invited also. Moos is a passionate gamer who is very long winded when he gets a chance to sit down and write. I'm going to ask him to cover the NCAA 09 side of things while I cover Madden. The dates are from May 28th to May 31st, with the 28th and 31st being travel days. So that leaves 2 days to "bang hard" on the game and give our assesments. The cool thing about this event than the others I've been too is that this will be the earliest that I've been able to play the Madden and it will enable us to give direct feedback to the developers so they can continue to tweak the game and improve it. We've been asking for this opportunity for a while now because in recent years by the time we've had a chance to play it, it was too late to make any changes.

The downside to playing the game this early is one, it's not finished yet; but I think it's going to be stressful on us that go because I think there will be a lot of things that we can't tell you guys. New features that haven't been spoken about that we have to keep underwraps. I know a couple of things right now and it's killing me not to say anything, because I see people asking about it.

There are a number of others that are going also, CDJ from NCAASTRATEGIES.com and Bobby Morgan from Gametimephilly.net. I think there are about 13 overall and not all of them have websites you can go to but I'm sure they will find somewhere to post their impressions.

These events are a lot of fun and EA really treats us like honored guest. They fly us in, pay for our meals, and fly us out. Last year when I went I think we ran up like a $400 plus bill as we had shots of patrone and some more stuff. It was great. Those are the times that really make having a community a lot of fun.

I'll update you guys later on the event.