Author: wgd11

       The history of madden video game started of with the EA’s football franchise. founded in 1986 by Trip Hawkins and EA employees based on the concept of John Madden Football. John Madden asked for several requirements like eleven on eleven play like regular NFL games.  Overtime they worked out a deal and started their creation for the Franchise.  The deal never went through so the game serios was put on pause. With a great idea but no results yet EA managed to assemble John Madden Football in 1988. As any new game it had its kinks and fixes that needed to be made. However, the game was brought to life. One of the struggles Ea had was trying to get an NFL license to so they could use real player names and not fictional. Other features on the game included like changing weather and player fatigue which fans took immediate notice of.

When madden was brought to Sega genesis the system was fast to play on but they wanted to give the customer a better football experience. EA eventually brought Madden to the Super Nintendo, but it had  little complexity Plus, the game released much later than the first Genesis game . This edition of Madden was the first time the action was seen from above a vertical oriented field. Football games before this were seen from the side. This new view gives the player a better view of the action on the field. Also, it allows EA to place more information for the player in the top third of the screen. Such as playbooks, without obscuring the squat, little players. Since the release, Madden games have always defaulted to this view, although customizable cameras were later added to the series.  Sega soon recognized madden success and created the Joe Montana football series with EA.  EA was not the first to license the NFL. SEGA banked the NFL first for the 1993 edition of Joe Montana. EA did not release an NFL-branded football until the following year in 1994. However, from that release on the NFL has been front and center in almost every single one of EA’s Madden games, starting off with Madden Football 64 on the Nintendo 64.

The 1994 version is notable for the inclusion of digitized speech. In response to the “Sports Talk” feature in Joe Montana, EA added it’s now famous “It’s in the game” catchphrase to the game as well as some color from Madden himself. Madden as a commentator would now become both a signature feature of the series and a constant that exists to this day. The 1995 version of Madden NFL not only retained the NFL license, but it also added the Players Association license so EA could use real names and likenesses. 1996 was an interesting year for Madden. As EA completely fumbled the ball on the PlayStation deal, ceding important ground to Sony’s own franchise: Game Day. The series is a forgotten memory to many gamers now, but the shake up rocked EA and backfired . Madden 96 was released on Genesis and SNES. Madden 96 features the addition of a player creator and historical teams.

In 1998, Madden really regained its footing. This was its second season on the PlayStation and EA’s developer Tiburon was showing remarkable proficiency with the platform. However, the series was still primarily using sprites something that put it out-of-tune with the changes of the generation. In IGN’s review of Madden for the PSone, stated: “…the game itself plays and looks similar to all the other Madden titles. Sprite-based graphics, same interface, John Madden it’s all there, but it’s still the same game. It’s hard to change something good, but perhaps an upgrade in graphics wouldn’t hurt the game at all. In fact, it would be a totally new game if EA took its Madden series to the next level, that being polygons.”

Madden NFL 99 re-established Madden as the top dog in football. Sprites were out, polys were now in. The N64 version of the game regained the NFL license that was painfully missing from the previous edition. The biggest new gameplay feature in this edition was the arrival of Franchise Mode, which allows gamers to oversee the development and ultimate fate of a single team franchise over the course of no fewer than 30 seasons. The next year’s game was built largely on the strengths of ’99 but is mostly memorable for being the very first Madden game to not have only John Madden on the cover. The next year, Madden would be gone, and cover athletes would dominate the boxes. Thus, the birth of the Madden curse. Finally, this brings us to the modern era for Madden. The release of Madden NFL 2001  on the PlayStation 2 launched to great fanfare — and solid sales. Game Day self-immolated with an anemic release by comparison. from here on out madden would evolve with eah game system and graphics over time to the game we know today.

Sometimes you just want to dine somewhere with endless options, most of which don’t seem to go together, but are tasty, nonetheless. No, we’re not talking about dinners. We’re talking about The Cheesecake Factory. You know, the place known for its delicious brown bread, its cheesecake, and that one Drake line. Long before Drizzy and suburban moms put The Cheesecake Factory on the map, it was a small basement operation.

It all started in Michigan in the early 1940s. Evelyn Overton, a home baker, stumbled upon a recipe for cheesecake in her local newspaper and decided to give it a shot. She nailed the recipe, and it became her signature. Overton’s friends and family loved her cheesecake so much she decided to open a small bakery outside of Detroit. The shop doesn’t last for long, but that didn’t stop Overton from slinging cheesecake from her basement, selling it to local eateries to help raise her two boys.

Overton’s kids were grown by 1972 and moved out of her house. Officially an empty nester, she and her husband packed up and moved to California. They decided to use their life savings to continue living out Overton’s dream: opening the Cheesecake Factory Bakery. Unlike the bakery in Michigan, the Cheesecake Factory Bakery was a success. The Overtons developed a dependable customer base in the Los Angeles area and things looked good.

Things were looking even better when Mrs. Overton’s curious and ambitious son, David Marshall Overton, started dreaming bigger. He wondered what would happen if they opened a whole restaurant based around his mom’s cheesecakes. A year later, they opened the first Cheesecake Factory restaurant in Beverly Hills. The eatery didn’t have the expansive menu we all know and love now, but it was pretty impressive. The Cheesecake Factory sells sandwiches, salads, and cheesecakes. Duh.

By the early ‘80s, David was an accomplished cook and businessman, so he set his sights even bigger. The Cheesecake Factory opened more locations across Southern California with expanded menus. Like, seriously expanded. During their initial growth stage, David kept an eye on all the hot restaurants in his area. Whatever he saw people flocking to, he added it to The Cheesecake Factory’s menu. It was an interesting strategy for sure, but it seemed to work.

“… I didn’t want another restaurant to open down the block and take my business away. We just kept putting things on the menu that people seemed to like. Finally, I thought, ‘Well, there’s nothing that America wants that we shouldn’t be able to put on the menu.’ So, we just kept at it,” David said at the time.

The Cheesecake Factory’s success didn’t slow at all when the ‘90s arrived. The menu kept growing, people kept coming, and The Cheesecake Factory started opening restaurants on the East Coast. By 1992, the restaurant went public and got a new look. For whatever reason the folks behind the scenes decided to go with an Egyptian theme, which has stuck to this day. Throughout the ‘90s, the restaurant grew in popularity among wine moms and people like Drake. More and more outposts opened across the country and the menu somehow got even bigger.

In the mid-2000s, The Cheesecake Factory had earned a massive following.  In 2011, the chain expanded internationally. It opened its first international location in Dubai, casually located at the bottom of an indoor ski slope. Around the same time, Overton decided the menu had gotten big enough. He capped it at a whopping 250 items, but The Cheesecake Factory continued to swap 10-15 items out for new items each year, which is a stellar workaround.

Currently, The Cheesecake Factory is one of the most successful chain eateries in the world.

Vanilla cake layered with cheesecake, strawberry, chocolate, vanilla mousse, and cream cheese frosting. The beast that is the Celebration Cheesecake seems to be their take on a birthday cake, yet it definitely feels like they’re celebrating themselves as a place that doesn’t care at all about what a cheesecake is supposed to be. It’s almost got that Funfetti feel, with all the bright birthday-ish colors. It’s tasty as hell, but the real problem is that you get tricked into thinking you’re about to take a bite of an ice cream cake, but alas, no ice cream. Just a comically tall slice of cheesecake.

Oreo cookies baked into creamy cheesecake with layers of fudge cake, Oreo cookie mousse, and topped with milk chocolate icing.

Original Cheesecake layered with fudge cake and chocolate truffle cream.
 There’s not enough cheesecake here to even call this cheesecake, but this somehow counterbalances my whole “too much cake” argument and flips it on its ear. Now it’s almost like the cheesecake is the part that’s been added, and it somehow works better. Also, the truffle cream is glorious which gives it more of an authentic look.