As a prelude to Saturday’s victory over the Mean Green, the voice of the Mustangs’ football team, Rich Phillips, defeated UNT announcer George Dunham in EA Sports’ Gameslinger competition earlier in the day at Victory Park.
Hosted by The Dallas Morning News and EA Sports, the event took place from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and allowed video game enthusiasts from around the area to test their skills at various EA Sports games.
“We’ve got ‘[NCAA] Football 08,’ ‘Madden 08,’ ‘Fight Night,’ ‘NASCAR 08’ and ‘Tiger Woods 08,” said EA Sports employee Rico Williams.
The five games included in the competition were all available to play on the enormous screens lining the walls of Victory Park. Aside from “Madden NFL,” the games at the competition were only available to play on the Xbox 360.
The company’s popular NFL football game was available to play on two consoles – the Playstation 2 and the Xbox 360. Sony’s next-generation gaming console, the Playstation 3, was not available to play on, nor was Nintendo’s critically acclaimed Wii.
Many of the games included audio commentary broadcasted over loudspeakers by EA Sports’ emcees. Live music was provided courtesy of DJ Kaleem.
Over a hundred people gathered to watch Phillips and his team of SMU students take on Dunham and his team. SMU won 15-3, a score not quite indicative of the real-life game that would be played later that day, although the final result remained the same.
“I had a lot of fun. I usually don’t play video games – I don’t even own a system,” said Phillips.
Players rotated every quarter and competed to win an EA Sports prize pack, which included round-trip airline tickets courtesy of Southwest Airlines.
The event in Dallas was the first of 17 stops across the nation including: Houston, Phoenix, Washington D.C., Philadelphia and Minneapolis, among others.
“This event is a nice exhibition for Dallas. It’s a nice preface for the Madden Challenge,” Williams noted.
Much like the Gameslinger competition, EA Sports’ Madden Challenge is an annual event that focuses solely on the latest installment in the Madden series.
The Madden Challenge kicks off in Dallas on Sept. 15 at Texas Stadium.
