Gamers can quickly improve their skills and get more info

Aug 27, 2014 23:15 GMT  ·  By

The big problem with any sport in the world is that the rules in themselves can be often very dry and uninformative, and those who want to become familiar with the action need to watch a lot of matches, while also looking up various details and, ideally, benefiting from the input of a friend who knows more.

Growing up in Romania, Europe, I was always fascinated by football, or soccer as Americans call it, and I watched a lot of it on TV, learning the rules by osmosis and by playing with a gang of other kids on various fields around my hometown.

I have not actually touched a football for about 10 years, but I continue to spend a lot of time with the FIFA series from EA Sports and with Football Manager from Sports Interactive, always trying to lead my favorite club, Liverpool, towards victory.

Football, or American football as one half of the world calls it, never existed for me until I got to see some classic movies associated with it, including Any Given Sunday and The Replacements, and while I appreciated the drama associated with the sport, I thought it was too arcade for its own good.

I finally became actually interested in learning more while I was watching a television series, Friday Night Lights, in which the actual game got a lot of screen time, and elements about tactics and player strategy were discussed.

I managed to get the basics about the game but I never quite understood its subtleties, and I never managed to find the time or the energy to watch enough actual National Football League to learn by seeing.

So after playing about 20 matches in Madden NFL 15 and losing about 60 percent of them, some in shameful fashion, I turned to the training modes of the EA Sports video game and I was pleasantly surprised by what I found.

The developers have done a great job of putting together a package that includes lot of information about the sport and gives gamers tasks that reflect what they will do during an actual game.

The repetition also creates a sort of muscle memory that’s very important because I can then execute the tasks under pressure, even if my brain is a little overwhelmed by all the information that Madden NFL 15 is throwing my way.

I still have a lot to learn and the game is an excellent way of gaining both theoretical and practical knowledge.