ENTERTAINMENT

Madden might seem like the ultimate frat-boy game, but GameStop is hoping to change that.

When Madden NFL 09 was released last week, the video-game retailer was ready to go with its "Girls Night In" marketing campaign to persuade women to give the game a chance.

The effort was built mostly around the Wii version of Madden NFL 09, which was designed to be a bit more user-friendly than the other console versions.

There's a Web site, of course (www.gamestop.com/girlsnightin), which teeters on the edge of condescension, with useful features such as a dictionary of basic football lingo set against more dubious offerings such as a list of "Touchdown Recipes."

Duh. Just get some chicken wings and tortilla chips. (Heck, I'm usually content with a bag of gummy bears.)

Betty Shock, a regional vice president for GameStop in the Baltimore-Washington, D.C., area, says the Nintendo DS and Wii have brought a lot of casual gamers into the market in the last few years, and a lot of the newbies are women.

The Girls Night In campaign is intended to introduce them to titles they might have initially assumed were designed solely for hard-core players.

"Let's face it, 360 and PS3 controllers, unless you're a real gamer, you struggle through that," she says.

According to the Entertainment Software Association, roughly 40 percent of all gamers are female.

It's still early in the Girls Night In promotion, so GameStop isn't offering any concrete data on how it's performed, other than to report general satisfaction.

But if the concept takes off, individual stores could host Girls Night In special events, which presumably would include, I don't know, everyone grilling up some Touchdown Recipes and sharing leg-waxing tips or something. (Kidding! Please, no hate mail!)

I've railed in the last few weeks against Electronic Arts' perceived indifference to glitches and bugs in its games. I'm not sure, though, whether the company's latest attitude is an improvement.

When the company's Tiger Woods 08 came out last year, a user found a goof where you could make Tiger hit a ball while standing on a lake, a so-called "Jesus shot" (Not my phrase! Again, please, no hate mail!)

Well, EA recently released a video promoting the new Tiger Woods 09 that is both inspired and disturbing.

In the video, real-life Tiger strolls onto a lake, chips the ball onto the green and into the hole. The clip closes with the tag line: "It's not a glitch. He's just that good."

Frankly, it's a wonderful piece of self-mocking humor, a trait that could serve EA very well in rebuilding its reputation among the most fanatical gamers.

On the other hand, golly, EA, shouldn't the money you spent making this ad have been spent on making sure the next version of Tiger Woods doesn't have these kinds of obvious mistakes?

Humor is great, but I'd rather have a glitch-free game.

And while Tiger Woods 09 might well be flawless, this ad sure doesn't give me any assurance on that front.