Airborne may not have arrived at real-life fields yet, but its virtual counterpart is now available at a toy store near you.
Always up on the current trends (we do love those Backstreet Boys), we wanted to see what was sweeping the Playstation football world. But more importantly, we wanted to make sure if these games did any justice to our beloved Duke football team.
Are you curious who will win this weekend's game: Duke or Northwestern?
Wonder no more.
We played out that game using EA Sports' NCAA Football 2000 in Vic's basement, and without a doubt, we witnessed the single most exciting event that ever happened in said basement.
As expected, Duke's running game became an oxymoron midway through its opening drive and Airborne took over. Stunningly, it looked good. Romine tossed a pair of touchdowns to Richmond Flowers and the Blue Devils, with Airborne diehard Neal, were on their way.
But the Wildcats discovered their running game late as Damien Anderson, who rumbled for 90 yards in the game, went to work. With 13 seconds left, Northwestern was down by five but had a fourth-and-goal at the Duke three. Lamar Grant was activated from his suspension just in time to get torched on the play by Wildcats tight end Jay Tant in the endzone.
As Vic celebrated the play with his Brandi Chastain
They needed Kevin Schmidt.
Wildcats kicker Tim Long shanked his squib kick attempt, and instead of the kick bouncing harmlessly around in the grass, it went straight into the hands of the dangerous Schimdt. The backup center tucked the ball under his arm, and did exactly what he knew best-ran for glory. Schmidt rumbled for 60-plus yards and sent the stadium into a frenzy as the Blue Devils celebrated the first win of the Airborne era.
We tried to duplicate that moment of orgasmic bliss on GameBreaker but failed miserably. In our Duke-ECU rematch, Airborne looked even worse on the TV screen than it did in real life. Romine was simply awful, missing open target after open target. Pirates linebacker Jeff Kerr had another outstanding day, making Romine his personal bitch as Duke fell 19-0.
Midway through the first quarter, linebacker Kevin Lewis picked off a pass and at the end of the play struck the Heisman pose. Now, anyone who knows a thing about football knows Lewis has absolutely no chance of hell in winning college football's most prestigious prize.
That's because safety Eric Jones is a virtual lock. Just three games into our season, the senior has a whopping eight interceptions.
All in all, both games offered an exciting way to bring Airborne into your own basement. It's usually tough to crowd so much excitement on one couch, and both games succeed, but they also have several unique interpretations of Duke football.
In both games, Spencer Romine isn't much of a passer, but he is a stud when it comes to the option. Neither one of us have ever seen Romine move this well in real life, but Franks may want to consider a change in offensive strategy.
Overall, GameBreaker has the Blue Devils rated slightly higher while NCAA 2000 definitely loses credibility by skipping over B.J. Hill on the roster.
Both games try admirably to portray our own piece of heaven known as Wally Wade Stadium, but overall, GameBreaker does a better job, even if it is missing the giant Duke helmet on the 50-yard line. Although it does features several signs along the wall supporting the Blue Devils, the famed "Back Duke or Back Off" sign was noticeably absent.
In NCAA 2000, Wally Wade does not look as pristine as the real-life version, but it does have the helmet at the 50-yard line. Unfortunately the game's designers have not visited Durham in awhile, for they neglected our million-dollar scoreboard in favor of the old-school version.
Somewhere, Joe Alleva cries.
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