Well, I did it again. Today, I pre-ordered the Madden Collector’s Edition for the Nth year in a row, thereby guaranteeing myself a largely frustrating couple of months where I get pissed off about the game’s shortcomings and actively question my decision to plop down $60 bucks (or in this case, $80) for what will amount to a roster update and some half-assed new features, none of which will come close to addressing the real gameplay problems that have plagued the series for the past few years.

The sad thing is, I plunked down my money on this year’s edition almost entirely on the supposed strength of the new, improved NFL Head Coach game. Yes, I’ve been suckered in by EA Sports once again, mostly because the Head Coach development team has been very active on the message boards in responding to questions and sharing their progress in creating the game. But this is a huge, huge leap of faith, especially considering how godawful the first NFL Head Coach edition was.

Why do I do this? Why do I let EA Sports sucker me in year after year? More self-flagellation after the jump.

I remember when EA Sports was like a favorite uncle. They made cool sports games that were fun to play, and they managed to do things year after year that seemed to push the envelope. Almost anyone who played video games in the 1990’s remembers the titles quite fondly. NHLPA ‘93 and NHL 94 were revolutionary, to the point that I shelled out $50 for my friend’s Sega Genesis before I left for my freshman year of college, just so that I could play NHL 94 (this was in 1997, mind you). Both Madden Football and Bill Walsh College Football were classics that sucked you in to their little artificial worlds. PGA Tour Golf was always a solid title.

Even with the jump to the next-gen system of the time (the original Playstation), EA Sports kept its fastball, and added a few more pitches. The NHL series remained strong, with ‘98 putting in a good bid for “most engrossing sports title” on that system. College Football took a gigantic leap forward — the addition of dynasty mode, complete with recruiting and schedule modification, stole most of my spare time during my junior and senior years of college. Even the basketball titles weren’t terrible — NBA 99 was actually quite good.

But in recent years, EA Sports has become the embodiment of everything unlikeable in the sports/entertainment industrial complex. The majority of their franchises have slid into a morass of mediocrity, or even worse — out-and-out bugginess that keeps the titles unentertaining for the core gamer. They’ve completely and utterly ruined the College Football series, which had become my one must-purchase title every year. Look at some of the threads regarding this year’s College Football game on Operation Sports or Utopia Football, and you see bug report after bug report, and frustrated user after frustrated user.

Even Madden, which is EA’s big sports title in terms of sales and hype, has become a pale imitation of itself. Heck, one of this year’s big “new features” is the ability for a player to RE-DO A PLAY. The hell is that? “Oh, oops, I only gained six yards on Third and 8…let’s try that again.” Poppycock. Meanwhile, the game will continue to atrophy, thanks to EA having bought out its competition by virtue of an exclusivity contract with the NFL.

Now, I’m no fool about this stuff. I understand that EA is a corporation that needs to turn a profit, and that at this stage, they could basically take a crap in a box, stick a Madden logo on it, and sell 300,000 units without so much as lifting a finger for marketing. There’s just no need for EA to instill any quality in their products anymore, because they have nothing left to prove. And as a result, the folks who really get into these games end up getting nothing of value.

It’s this backdrop that has me at least somewhat excited about NFL Head Coach…but that excitement is counterbalanced with a tremendous amount of antipathy towards what I’m going to get on August 12, when the Collector’s Edition comes out. In a way, I feel like Fox Mulder…I Want To Believe that we’ve finally got a development team that cares about the product they’re putting out. Yet I’m going into this fully expecting to be let down. By my estimation, we’ve now gone four years since the last decent Madden game (the 2005 edition, even though Tony Bruno almost ruined that game for me singlehandedly), and five years since the last decent College Football game (2004, with Buckeye-hater Carson Palmer on the cover). Tiburon blew it with College Football this year, and they could very well blow it with Madden. But NFL Head Coach could salvage the season.

The only other thing that gives me hope is the fact that, improbably, EA Sports resurrected the heart and soul of the NHL series, finally taking the mantle of “best hockey game” back from 2K Sports last year. While that’s a different developmental team entirely, it could at least point the way towards EA Sports starting to give a crap about what they’re putting out there.