In my series of navel-gazing posts last week, I noted that games criticism has struggled to say anything particularly interesting about sports games. These games are tremendously popular (Madden 11, a slow seller, moved more than 5 million copies), and virtually everyone who owns a console has played at least one. The critical response has been to produce software reviews, listing off the features, judging the graphics and responsiveness, and calling it a day. There are exceptions, such as Steven O’Dell’s fascinating “Living the Life” series, but the footprint of sports games in the critical discourse is tiny relative to [Read more…]