A. O. Scott
Anthony Oliver Scott is a U. S. journalist and film critic. Along with Manohla Dargis, he serves as chief film critic for The New York Times. Scott was born in Massachusetts. Both of his parents were professors, his mother, Joan Wallach Scott, is the Harold F. Linder Professor at the School of Social Science in the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, his father, Donald Scott, is a professor of American history at The City University of New York. He is a great nephew of the married acting couple Eli Anne Jackson. Scott is Jewish through his mother's side. Scott attended public schools in Rhode Island, including Classical High School, he graduated magna cum laude from Harvard in 1988 with a degree in literature. Scott began his career at The New York Review of Books, where he served as an assistant to Robert B. Silvers, he served as book critic for Newsday, as a contributor to The New York Review of Books and Slate magazine. In 1993, he was a Television reviewer for Daily Variety, using the name Tony Scott.
He joined The New York Times' Arts section in January 2000, following Janet Maslin's retirement from film criticism. In 2004 he became chief critic, following Elvis Mitchell's resignation, he and the other film critics at the Times host a video podcast on the subject of film, called Critics' Picks. He is Distinguished Professor of Film Criticism at Wesleyan University. In 2006 and 2007, Scott served as guest critic on Ebert & Roeper with Richard Roeper in Roger Ebert's absence due to illness, he and Roeper counted down their selections for the top ten films of 2006 and again for 2007. Although Scott did not appear on the show for most of 2008, he continued to release his own list through The New York Times. On October 24, 2009, Scott began counting down his "Best of the Decade" list on At the Movies. On August 5, 2009, it was announced that Scott, along with Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips, would take over hosting duties on At the Movies from Ben Lyons and Ben Mankiewicz, who would no longer be involved in the show.
Scott and Phillips began their duties when the show started its new season on September 5, 2009, but ratings were low and the show aired for only one season. He has a son named a daughter named Carmen, he has stated that "Maybe not everyone, white is a racist, but racism is what makes us white”. New Yorkers in journalism Media related to A. O. Scott at Wikimedia Commons A. O. Scott on IMDb A. O. Scott: New York Times Biography A. O. Scott: New York Times articles A. O. Scott: New York Times movie reviews
Edgar Wright
Edgar Howard Wright is an English director and producer. He began making independent short films before making his first feature film A Fistful of Fingers. Wright directed the comedy series Asylum in 1996, written with David Walliams. After directing several other television shows, Wright directed the sitcom Spaced, which aired for two series and starred frequent collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. In 2004, Wright directed the first film in the Three Flavours Cornetto, "a romantic comedy with zombies" Shaun of the Dead, starring Pegg and Frost; the film was co-written with Pegg—as were the next two entries in the trilogy, Hot Fuzz and The World's End, which Wright directed and starred the pair. In 2010, Wright co-wrote and directed the comedy action film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. Along with Joe Cornish and Steven Moffat, he co-wrote. Wright and Cornish co-wrote the screenplay for the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man in 2015, which Wright intended to direct but abandoned, citing creative differences.
His latest film, the action film Baby Driver, was released in 2017. Wright has directed numerous music videos, including The Bluetones' "Keep the Home Fires Burning", The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster's "Psychosis Safari", Mint Royale's "Blue Song", Pharrell Williams' "Gust of Wind", Beck's "Colors". Wright was born in Poole and grew up predominantly in Wells in Somerset, he attended The Blue School, Wells from 1985 to 1992, is honoured by a plaque at the school. Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, he directed many short films, first on a Super-8 camera, a gift from a family member and on a Video-8 camcorder that he won in a competition on the television programme Going Live; these films were comedic pastiches of popular genres, such as the super hero-inspired Carbolic Soap and Dirty Harry tribute Dead Right. From 1992 to 1994, Wright attended the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and received an ND in Audio-Visual Design. In June 2018, Arts University Bournemouth awarded Wright an Honorary Fellowship alongside graphic designer Margaret Calvert, costume designer Jenny Beavan and dancer Darcey Bussell.
On receiving the award Wright said "I'm thrilled to accept my honorary fellowship from AUB, or as I knew it back in 1992, the Bournemouth and Poole College of Art and Design. I still think fondly of my time spent there." Wright made his feature film debut in 1995 with a low budget, independent spoof western, A Fistful of Fingers, picked up for a limited theatrical release and broadcast on the satellite TV channel Sky Movies. Despite Wright's dissatisfaction with the finished product, it caught the attention of comedians Matt Lucas and David Walliams, who subsequently chose him as the director of their Paramount Comedy channel production Mash and Peas. During this time he worked on BBC programmes such as Is It Bill Bailey?, Alexei Sayle's Merry-Go-Round and Sir Bernard's Stately Homes. In an interview with journalist and author Robert K. Elder for The Film That Changed My Life, Wright attributes his edgy and comedic style to his love for An American Werewolf in London: I've always been fascinated by horror films and genre films.
And horror films harboured a fascination for me and always have been something I've wanted to watch and wanted to make. I'm fascinated by comedy. I suppose the reason that this film changed my life is that early on in my film-watching experiences, I saw a film, so sophisticated in its tone and what it managed to achieve. In 1998 writer/actors Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes were in the early stages of developing their sitcom Spaced for Channel 4 and thought of asking Wright to direct having fondly remembered working with him on the 1996 Paramount comedy Asylum. Wright gave Spaced an unusual look for the sitcom genre, with dramatic camera angles and movement borrowed from the visual language of science fiction and horror films. Instead of shying away from these influences Wright makes an active effort to show his referencing, adding a'Homage-O-Meter' to all of his releases, a device that displays each directorial nod he has made during shooting. In 2002, he made appearances as a scientist and a technician named Eddie Yorque during both series of Look Around You, a BBC programme created by a member of the Spaced cast, Peter Serafinowicz.
He made two brief appearances in Spaced, one in which he can be seen, along with other crew members on the series, lying asleep in Daisy Steiner's squat as she prepares to leave for her new house. The other is a brief appearance during the montage in the episode "Gone" where Daisy describes to Tim what she thinks would be a fun night out for the two. Edgar is sitting on the subway next to Daisy; the critical success of Spaced paved the way for Wright and Pegg to move to the big screen with Shaun of the Dead, a zombie comedy which mixed a "Brit flick" romantic comedy style with homages to the horror classics of George A. Romero and Sam Raimi; the film was a success critically and financially, its rooting in American genre cinema helped to make it a international hit. The pair subsequently planned out a trilogy of British genre-comedies which were connected not by narrative but by their shared traits and motifs; the trilogy was named "The Three Flavours Cornetto Trilogy" by the pair due to a running joke about the British ice cream product Cornetto and its effectiveness as a hangover cure.
Wright explained to Clark Collis in an interview for Entertainment Weekly, "We put that joke in Shaun of the Dead where Nick asks for a Cornetto first t
John August
John August is an American screenwriter, director and novelist. He is known for writing the films Go, Charlie's Angels, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Big Fish and the Chocolate Factory and Frankenweenie, the novel Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, he hosts the popular screenwriting podcast Scriptnotes with Craig Mazin, maintains an eponymous screenwriting blog and develops screenwriter-targeted software through his company, Quote-Unquote Apps. He is a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, voting in the Writers branch. In 2016, he was awarded the WGAw's Valentine Davies Award for his dignified contributions to the entertainment industry and the community-at-large, has been nominated for a BAFTA and a Grammy. August was raised in Boulder, Colorado, his birth name was John Tilton Meise, a surname he found was difficult to pronounce and wished to change. He earned a degree in journalism from Drake University in Iowa, he went on to earn an MFA in film from The Peter Stark Producing Program at the University of Southern California.
As part of his course at USC, August wrote a romantic tragedy called Now. Though the script never sold, it resulted in August finding agent representation and helped launch his screenwriting career. August's debut film was 1999's critically acclaimed crime-comedy Go, directed by Doug Liman, for which he served as co-producer and second unit director; the film performed moderately at the box office, but was well received, has since become a cult classic. After Go finished filming and Melissa McCarthy, who had a small role in the film, ran into each other in a coffee shop, August told McCarthy that he had written a short film with her in mind; the short film, was shot after Go, but finished and released before. It has been credited as one of the early showcases of McCarthy's comedic talent. August created his first television show, D. C. in 2000 for The WB. The series was produced by Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, with August serving as co-executive producer. Seven episodes were produced. In the same year, August wrote the animated science fiction feature Titan A.
E. and the McG-directed Charlie's Angels. In the fall of 1998, while Go was still in post-production, August had acquired the film rights to Daniel Wallace's novel Big Fish after reading it as a not-yet published manuscript, his adaptation became the 2003 Tim Burton film of the same name and earned August a 2003 BAFTA Award nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. He would return to the world of Charlie's Angels to write its sequel, 2003's Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. August has spoken about the difficult production process for the film, he reunited with Big Fish director Burton in 2005 for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, an adaptation of Roald Dahl's classic children's book. August had written to Dahl as part of a third grade class project, received a postcard reply. Though the reply was a form letter, August still had it, decades when he adapted the book, he earned a 2006 Grammy nomination for his lyrics for “Wonka's Welcome Song” from the film. He collaborated for a third time with Burton on the stop-motion animated fantasy Corpse Bride released in 2005.
The two films were in production with actors including Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter and Christopher Lee appearing in both. The film marked the third of five produced collaborations to date between Burton. August made his feature directorial debut in 2007 with science fiction psychological thriller The Nines, starring Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning; the film, which August wrote, premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and Venice Film Festival's Critics’ Week. One of McCarthy's characters in the film, Margaret, is the same one she played in August's 1998 short film God. In 2010, he partnered with game designer Jordan Mechner to pitch an adaptation of Mechner's Prince of Persia. August served as an executive producer on the resulting film, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, directed by Mike Newell and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, he reunited with Burton again in 2012 for the stop-motion fantasy horror comedy Frankenweenie, a remake of Burton's 1984 short film of the same name.
August received story credit on Burton's Dark Shadows adaptation. August returned to Big Fish for a 2013 Broadway musical adaptation, with music and lyrics by Andrew Lippa and choreographed by Susan Stroman; the musical has subsequently been adapted all over the world, including a 2017 run on London's West End starring Kelsey Grammer. August has written the screenplay for Walt Disney Pictures' upcoming live-action musical fantasy film Aladdin, alongside Vanessa Taylor and director Guy Ritchie. In July 2016, August signed a deal to write a three-book series aimed at middle-grade children, inspired by his experience as a Boy Scout; the first book in the series, Arlo Finch in the Valley of Fire, was published on February 6, 2018 by Roaring Brook Press, an imprint of the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group. Its origins and creation were documented in August's podcast Launch. Arlo Finch in the Lake of the Moon publishes in 2019, the final book in the series will follow in 2020. August was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2003 for Big Fish.
He earned a 2006 Grammy nomination for his lyrics for "Wonka's Welcome Song" from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In 2016, he was awarded the WGAw's Valentine Davies Award for his dignified contributions to the entertainment industry and the community-at-large
Delta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon known as DU, is a collegiate men's fraternity founded on November 4, 1834 at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is the all-male, college Greek-letter organization founded in North America, it is popularly and informally known as "DU" or "Delta U" and its members are called "DUs". Although found on the campuses of small New England private universities, Delta Upsilon has 76 chapters/colonies across the United States and Canada. A number of its buildings are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 2013, Business Insider named Delta Upsilon one of the "17 Fraternities with Top Wall Street Alumni". Notable members include president of the United States James A. Garfield, president of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, Canadian prime minister Lester B. Pearson, Linus Pauling, Joseph P. Kennedy, Lou Holtz, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Charles Evans Hughes, Les Aspin, others. Forty-two brothers of the fraternity have sat in the United States Congress, three in the Parliament of Canada, one in the Imperial House of Peers of Japan, six on the Queen's Privy Council for Canada.
Its members have received six Nobel Prizes, five Olympic gold medals, one Pulitzer Prize, four Medals of Honor, one Lenin Peace Prize, one Presidential Medal of Freedom, seven investitures into the Order of Canada, one investiture each into the Order of St Michael and St George, the Order of Merit, the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav. Delta Upsilon was founded in 1834, when thirty freshman and junior students at Williams College met in the Freshman Recitation Room at the West College building to form what was called "the Social Fraternity"; the move was in response to the establishment of Kappa Alpha and Sigma Phi at the college and, unlike those fraternities, the Social Fraternity was avowedly anti-secret. Its founding came at the tail-end of the anti-Masonic hysteria that had swept the United States, though the idea that it was part of the popular backlash to Freemasonry has been rejected. Growth of the Social Fraternity was exponential. By 1838 two-thirds of all students at Williams belonged to the society which engaged in militant agitation against the other two fraternities.
One violent incident occurred in 1839 when Oudens assaulted the Kappa Alpha house, driving its occupants to the top of Consumption Hill. More refined conflict took the form of pamphlets and debate. An 1855 debate proposed by Kappa Alpha against the Oudens was called-off after the Social Fraternity appointed James Garfield, an Ouden well known for his rhetorical skills, to represent them. In November 1847 Williams' Social Fraternity met with similar societies, formed at Union College, Hamilton College, Amherst College and formed the "Anti-Secret Confederation". A second meeting of the Anti-Secret Confederation in 1852 saw fraternities from Wesleyan University, Case Western Reserve University, Colby College, the University of Vermont join. At the 1862 convention, the fraternity's mother chapter, declared the purposes of the fraternity had been corrupted and, over the objections of the other chapters, withdrew. Two years it dissolved itself. A chapter would be restored. However, Williams being the first chapter and, self-chartering, this would come in the form of a new chapter and not the revival of the original.
It was permanently erased when Williams College banned all fraternities in 1962. The March 1864 convention of the A. S. C. saw the organization formally change its name to Delta Upsilon, standardize insignia and ritual throughout all its member chapters, establish a centralized administrative structure. In 1879, Delta Upsilon formally disavowed its policy of anti-secrecy, instead adopting a program of what it described as "non-secrecy". According to Delta Upsilon, the reason for this change was because it had been victorious in its battle against secrecy, "the character of the secret societies so altered, that hostility toward them decreased"; this explanation has been more skeptically received by some, with one period observer caustically noting that Delta Upsilon "reveals little more of what it does than the latter ". Others commented that chapter meetings were closed to all but initiated members and the fraternity was now practicing selective pledging and initiation, in contrast to its earliest days at Williams.
Therefore, it was proffered, the description of the fraternity as a "private" society rather than a "non-secret" one might be more accurate. The Harvard Crimson, poetically attributed the official change of position as due to "the sheer exhaustion of those that heretofore have maintained a vigorous tilt at the windmill for exercise's sake, on finding that the windmill stands the attack much better than they". Writing in 2013, Benjamin Wurgraft of the New School for Social Research commented that Delta Upsilon's changes made it "nothing more than another fraternity—a rival for pledges rather than a force for unity". At the turn of the century the fraternity's growth plateaued due, in part, to opposition from a group of chapters to what was seen as the lessening of the fraternity's standards through colonization. In 1898, Delta Upsilon joined the recent trend of fraternity expansion into Canada by chartering a chapter at McGill University in Montreal. However, most expansion in this period came in the form of the annexation of established local fraternities.
Zeta Chi at Baker Univers
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story
DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story is a 2004 American sports comedy film written and directed by Rawson M. Thurber and starring Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller; the plot follows a group of misfits entering a Las Vegas dodgeball tournament to save their cherished local gym from the onslaught of a corporate health fitness chain. Peter LaFleur is the owner of Average Joe's Gymnasium, a small, dilapidated gym with only a few members; when he defaults on the gym's mortgage, it is purchased by the arrogant White Goodman, a fitness guru and owner of the Globo Gym across the street. Unless Peter can raise $50,000 in thirty days, White will foreclose on Average Joe's and demolish it to build a parking garage. Attorney Katherine "Kate" Veatch is working on the transaction for White, he unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her. Meanwhile, she develops a close friendship with Peter. Average Joe's employees Dwight and Owen and members Steve and Gordon try to raise the money needed to save the gym. Gordon suggests, they form a team with Peter and watch a 1950s-era training video narrated by dodgeball legend Patches O'Houlihan and a 12-year-old boy named Timmy.
They are soundly defeated by a Girl Scout troop in a local qualifying match but win by default when the Scouts are disqualified because of one member's steroid and beaver tranquilizer use. White spies on Average Joe's using a hidden camera, forms his own dodgeball team to defeat them. Peter is approached by now a wheelchair user, who volunteers to coach the team. Patches's unusual training regimen includes throwing wrenches at the team, forcing them to dodge oncoming cars, berating them with insults. Kate demonstrates skill at the game but declines to join the team as it would be a conflict of interest. Meanwhile, White arranges for Kate to be fired from her law firm to free her from her COI and clear the way for him to date her. Enraged, but now free of COI, she joins the Average Joe's team. At the tournament in Las Vegas, Average Joe's suffers early setbacks but manages to advance to the final round against Globo Gym; the night before the match, Patches is killed by a falling sign. Peter expresses his anxiety that the team will lose and angrily tells Steve that he is not a pirate, causing Steve to leave the team.
Returning to his room, Peter encounters White, who offers him $100,000 for the deed to Average Joe's. The day of the final round, Justin leaves to help his classmate Amber with a cheerleading competition, leaving the team without enough members to compete. Peter has a chance encounter with Lance Armstrong, but he and Justin return too late. Gordon finds a loophole in the rules: a majority of the judges can overturn the forfeiture. Chuck Norris casts the tie-breaking vote allowing the team to play. After an intense game and White face off in a sudden-death match to determine the winner. Inspired by a vision of Patches, Peter blindfolds himself and is able to dodge White's throw and strike him, winning the championship and the prize money. White declares the victory meaningless, revealing that Peter agreed to sell Average Joe's to him the previous night, but Peter reveals that he used White's $100,000 to bet on Average Joe's to win; because Globo Gym is a public company, he purchases a controlling interest in it, thus regaining Average Joe's, fires White.
Steve, now with a more normal appearance, returns to the group and apologizes to Peter, but returns to his pirate persona when Peter shows him his winnings. Peter is shocked when Joyce, a girlfriend of Kate's kisses her passionately, but Kate reveals that she is bisexual and kisses Peter as well. Justin and Amber get married with a baby on the way, while Owen begins dating Fran from the Globo Gym team. Peter opens youth dodgeball classes at a newly renovated Average Joe's, while White slumps to morbid obesity. Cameo appearancesLance Armstrong as himself Chuck Norris as himself David Hasselhoff as himself, coach of the German team In its first week, the film grossed over $29 million, would go on to a domestic gross of $114.3 million, a worldwide total of $167.7 million. On review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 70% based on 162 reviews, with an average rating of 6.3/10. The site's consensus reads, "Proudly profane and splendidly silly, Dodgeball is a worthy spiritual successor to the goofball comedies of the 1980s."
On Metacritic the film has a score of 55 out of 100, based on 34 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale. Slant Magazine dismissed the film as "a less-than-one-joke film", while TV Guide remarked that Ben Stiller "doesn't know when to stop". Other critics, such as The Boston Globe, praised Stiller's satirical take on male virility and praised the chemistry between Vince Vaughn and Christine Taylor. Joe Morgenstern of The Wall Street Journal declined to review the film, believing it was not worthy of his time. However, after reviewing the DVD, he changed his view. Rawson Marshall Thurber's debut feature, starring Ben Stiller opposite Vince Vaughn, is erratic, imbecilic if not idiotic, inconsequential in the small scheme of things, entertaining". Roger Ebert gave the film a three stars out of four rating in his Chicago Sun-Times review and writes "in a miraculous gift to the audience, 20th Century-Fox does not r
American football
American football, referred to as football in the United States and Canada and known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team controlling the oval-shaped football, attempts to advance down the field by running with or passing the ball, while the defense, the team without control of the ball, aims to stop the offense's advance and aims to take control of the ball for themselves; the offense must advance at least ten yards in four downs, or plays, otherwise they turn over the football to the defense. Points are scored by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone for a touchdown or kicking the ball through the opponent's goalposts for a field goal; the team with the most points at the end of a game wins. American football evolved in the United States, originating from the sports of association football and rugby football; the first match of American football was played on November 6, 1869, between two college teams and Princeton, under rules based on the association football rules of the time.
During the latter half of the 1870s, colleges playing association football switched to the Rugby Union code, which allowed carrying the ball. A set of rule changes drawn up from 1880 onward by Walter Camp, the "Father of American Football", established the snap, the line of scrimmage, eleven-player teams, the concept of downs; the sport is related to Canadian football, which evolved parallel and contemporary to the American game, most of the features that distinguish American football from rugby and soccer are present in Canadian football. American football as a whole is the most popular sport in the United States; the most popular forms of the game are professional and college football, with the other major levels being high school and youth football. As of 2012, nearly 1.1 million high school athletes and 70,000 college athletes play the sport in the United States annually all of them men, with a few exceptions. The National Football League, the most popular American football league, has the highest average attendance of any professional sports league in the world.
In the United States, American Football is called "football". The terms "gridiron" or "American football" are favored in English-speaking countries where other codes of football are popular, such as the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia. American football evolved from the sports of rugby football. Rugby football, like American football, is a sport where two competing teams vie for control of a ball, which can be kicked through a set of goalposts or run into the opponent's goal area to score points. What is considered to be the first American football game was played on November 6, 1869, between Rutgers and Princeton, two college teams; the game was played between two teams of 25 players each and used a round ball that could not be picked up or carried. It could, however, be kicked or batted with the feet, head or sides, with the ultimate goal being to advance it into the opponent's goal. Rutgers won the game 6 goals to 4. Collegiate play continued for several years in which matches were played using the rules of the host school.
Representatives of Yale, Columbia and Rutgers met on October 19, 1873 to create a standard set of rules for all schools to adhere to. Teams were set at 20 players each, fields of 400 by 250 feet were specified. Harvard abstained from the conference, as they favored a rugby-style game that allowed running with the ball. After playing McGill University using both Canadian and American rules, the Harvard players preferred the Canadian style having only 11 men on the field, running the ball without having to be chased by an opponent, the forward pass and using an oblong instead of a round ball. An 1875 Harvard–Yale game played under rugby-style rules was observed by two impressed Princeton athletes; these players introduced the sport to Princeton, a feat the Professional Football Researchers Association compared to "selling refrigerators to Eskimos." Princeton, Harvard and Columbia agreed to intercollegiate play using a form of rugby union rules with a modified scoring system. These schools formed the Intercollegiate Football Association, although Yale did not join until 1879.
Yale player Walter Camp, now regarded as the "Father of American Football", secured rule changes in 1880 that reduced the size of each team from 15 to 11 players and instituted the snap to replace the chaotic and inconsistent scrum. The introduction of the snap resulted in unexpected consequences. Prior to the snap, the strategy had been to punt. However, a group of Princeton players realized that, as the snap was uncontested, they now could hold the ball indefinitely to prevent their opponent from scoring. In 1881, both teams in a game between Yale-Princeton used this strategy to maintain their undefeated records; each team held the ball. This "block game" proved unpopular with the spectators and fans of both teams. A rule change was necessary to prevent this strategy from taking hold, a reversion to the scrum was considered. However, Camp proposed a rule in 1882 that limited each team to three downs, or tackles, to adva
Madden NFL 18
Madden NFL 18 is an American football sports video game based on the National Football League and published by EA Sports for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The 29th installment of the Madden NFL series, the game features New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady on the cover, the second straight year a Patriots player has had the distinction, following tight end Rob Gronkowski, it was released worldwide on August 25, 2017, while those who pre-ordered the "G. O. A. T. Edition" were able to play it three days earlier and access their copy on August 22, 2017, it is the first game of the series since Madden NFL 2005 not to be released on both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, the first game in the main series to be available on only two platforms since Madden NFL'94. Madden NFL 18 is the first game in the series to use the Frostbite engine. While the Madden series has featured a Superstar career mode, Madden NFL 18 introduces a story mode known as Longshot, the first such mode in the series. Longshot follows Devin Wade, a quarterback from Mathis, Texas, as he tries to reach the NFL, includes high school and college football games, as well as the NFL Scouting Combine.
The player's decisions and performances in the game determine Devin's career path, as dialog trees are used to help him make decisions. Madden NFL 18 included many subtle game-play changes. One of the major changes was a new element to the overall difficulty of a game, introducing "game styles". Game styles were an attempt to create a more enjoyable experience to the player, allowing them to choose one of three game styles to fit their enjoyment; the first game style was arcade mode, made for players who like an easy experience. Arcade mode made the game much easier for the user; the second game style was simulation mode. This game style was an attempt to make the game-play feel like an authentic NFL game; this brought the difficulty up from arcade mode, but wasn't as intense as the third and final game style, competitive. This was created for the hard-core Madden players, making the AI skilled, making game-play difficult. More minor game-play changes included the addition of Target Passing, a new game-play element when attempting a pass.
The goal of this new feature was to give the user more control over the game and have more confidence in the pass going where it was intended to go. Other changes/additions included the creation of MUT Squads, coaching adjustments in-game. Quarterback Devin Wade, along with childhood friend and wide receiver Colton "Colt" Cruise, visit Indianapolis to participate in the NFL Regional Combine. There, Devin's performance catches the attention of TV producers Ross Fountain and Julia Vasco, who want him to be the star of a series titled Longshot, which would follow the story of a player with low odds of making it into the NFL and turn him into an NFL Draftee, receiving the assistance of coach Jack Ford, the presenter of the program. Devin and Colt leave without an answer to think. On the drive home, Devin reminisces about his successful high school career before his struggles at the University of Texas, which he left after just four games following his father's death in a car accident. To Devin and Julia's surprise, Ross arranges for three other quarterbacks to compete with him on the show.
Although Jack urges Ross to select another quarterback due to Devin's inability to call plays, Ross forces Jack to choose him for his better marketing potential and guilt trips him by mentioning Devin's deceased parents. Annoyed by what he considers boring television, Ross arranges an exhibition match for Devin in front of NFL scouts, scheduled to take place in two weeks. Devin is worried about the game, but Colt, invited to the NFL Super Regional Combine, decides to join the show and help him. At a press conference the day before the game, Devin's confidence is shattered by questions about where he had disappeared after his Texas career. Devin asks Ross to postpone the game. Jack attempts to persuade Devin to stay. In Texas, Colt tells Devin he is tired of helping him only for him to quit whenever the situation proves to be too difficult, sparking an argument. Devin starts working at his friend's construction business, where his coworkers and former Mathis teammates remember their high school days.
That night, Devin is still working against his friends' interests as a Mathis High School football ceremony is taking place. Colt makes amends with Devin. After the ceremony, Julia convinces them to rejoin the show. Returning to the Longshot studios, Devin reunites with Jack and apologizes for leaving, while Jack does so for failing to properly train him. At the meeting, the chairman of the TV network that Longshot is on declares Ross' onscreen behavior inappropriate and leaves his fate in the hands of the player. Following said meeting, Jack introduces Devin to his good friend, former Miami Dolphins great Dan Marino, who further coaches Devin; the two visit a military base in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, where Devin was stationed after enlisting in the Army following his time at Texas. There, Captain McCarthy explains. For the Legends Game, Devin's team is to progress through five challenges, with the first three based on moving the offense downfield from certain starting yard lines in an allotted time frame.
In the fourth, Devin has to complete a scoring drive without throwing a pass to Colt. For the final challenge, rain falls on the stadium as Devin faces a 3rd and 15 situation, an atmosphere resembling his final game at Texas. Aft
