Madden '11

[Oznogrd]

picked it up last night: digging it so far.

Occasional glitches so far though and disappointing lack of variety on pregame presentation but im hoping that gets fixed once im out of the preseason.

[Doobie]

Got it last night too, I must say I love the game even though defense doesn't exist online. Lost 63-57 in my first game that went to OT. Went to OT cause I missed the game winning FG cause it lags too much online while you kick. FUCK.

[shadowgrin]

Got it last night too, I must say I love the game even though defense doesn't exist online. Lost 63-57 in my first game that went to OT. Went to OT cause I missed the game winning FG cause it lags too much online while you kick. FUCK.

Excuses.

[Oznogrd]

You weren't kidding bout the lags on kicks doobs: i missed an extra point and a field goal that would've won me a game yesterday.

Digging franchise although the computer just went into "FUCK YOU" mode on me and had brees throw for 357 yards on me. Ridiculous.

[Oznogrd]

Stolen from a blog I wrote reviewing madden for the hell of it: my overall take on this year's edition. Broken into Hypes/Gripes

Hypes

-Gameflow/Gameplanning
This is a new feature this year. It used to be in Madden if you’d never played before, you could easily be lost in playbooks of 350 plays or more: especially if you had a complicated playbook like the Patriots or relied on specific timing like the Colts. What’s game flow do? It lets your coordinators and coaches call the plays for you based on your teams strengths and weaknesses. Want to run your team unconventionally or not like real life? Outside of games you can set up your offensive and defensive gameplan given any situation you might run into. You can even set the frequency of the play call if you find some that almost always work and others that never do. The indirect result of all this? A Madden game on 5 minute quarters used to take about an hour. It now takes 30 minutes. More accessibility/realism/control/more gameplay and less time in playbooks? This feature is an all out fucking win. You always have the option to pull out to the full playbook or audible if you don’t like the call your coordinators made. I was skeptical when I heard it in theory, but it works so well: I can’t even start griping about this feature. May be the best innovation in football games in years.

-WR awareness of boundary lines
In older versions of Madden: sideline passes were a risky venture. Odds are in your WRs attempt to get around his coverage, he’d just say “oh ill catch it out of bounds because that’s now where the coverage is!” It was annoying and also made over the middle passes too common (and easy to complete). Also made trying to come back near the end of the game almost impossible with no timeouts. Well now? You can watch the WRs strive to keep their feet inbounds while stretching over the line to try to bring a ball in. If they’re sprinting all out towards the sideline, you can watch them decelerate to try to stay in bounds during the catch. More realism? Woot.

-Blocking
The last time I played Madden your only hope for blocking was you had a strong enough running back to run through people. Every once in awhile blocks were thrown correctly but most of the time it became 1 on 11 with you juking and plowing your way to the endzone. While fun, it wasn’t very realistic when my players had over 300 yards rushing after the first hit. This year, the players block much like in real life, setting up runs and you can literally watch holes opening for you to cut and slash through. Draws/Delay rushes finally have the correct timing to work and when called against the right D can be deadly. All in all, it makes the running game not feel like a wrestling match like it used to, but like a planned, conscious strategy where your decisions matter rather than who can spam the most moves on the right joystick.

-Returns aren’t an almost auto TD with a fast player anymore
As recently as last year’s NCAA, Kickoff returns were broken. You put anyone with any sort of speed in as a returner and it was almost a guaranteed 2 TDs a game. EA woke up and fixed this issue, making returns much more challenging, but that much more rewarding when you find the seam and break through to the endzone. Sure speedy players still help (CJ Spiller a rookie RB is completely OP on returns), but its not a gimme play like it used to be.

-Solid/Average players aren’t complete shit anymore
As recently as ’08, if you had a player with an overall rating below 80? They were useless. They couldn’t do anything. With a complete roster revamp since then and weighting of stats: roleplayers on your team matter. A 72 rated player when used correctly can be just as useful as an 85 and up. Sure, they can’t be that go to guy: but roleplayers are a key strategy in any sport. Without them, when a star has an off day or is exceptionally covered, the game is lost.

-Fucking love autoturbo/taking away of sprint button/nerfing of truck stick slightly
Though this is a gripe for a lot of people (the options still there to use it if you want it), in a strive for more realism and less arcade style: Madden took away the infamous turbo button this year. I love this move. The computer automatically speeds up your players for you based on situation and acceleration ratings. In the past, turbo was held for the entire game. I’m not kidding. My right index finger would be sore from holding the button down for entire games. Now: if you’re waiting on your blockers, you don’t outrun them. Once you break into the open field, the all out sprinting occurs and your player hauls ass for as long as they can. Yet another feature making the game feel more real. I love it. Also, while still effective, the truck stick (ballhandling tricks done with the right stick) are slightly nerfed this year in the change to “locomotion” making for much realer tackles and making the run game feel like NFL football and not a spam fest.

-Ultimate Team: Magic the Gathering/YugiOh/Pokemon meets football
This may sound like a weird feature: and really it is. But its amazing. You begin with a starter pack of shit players and by playing games online and against the computer: you build up coins to buy “booster packs” of better players or auctions of the players you like etc. While frustrating to start with such a shitty team, it’s a quite cool mode that requires thought, strategy, and skill at outside of gameplay features (planning which cards to keep/sell). Its hard to explain so I’d youtube it a bit if you’re interested. Sure a lot of people just buy the coins with network points, but hey, I’m not that kind of guy being unemployed.

-Soundtrack
This is the best Madden Soundtrack I’ve heard in a long time: not a single annoying song I want to skip and every single one gets me hyped to play games. The defaults are no longer shitty instrumentals done by Sam Spence that felt more like an Olympics Ceremony than a casual football game. Love it. And for those people who liked the instrumentals. First kill yourself. Then go into the menus and turn them on. Great usage of hidden stuff in menus to make everyone happy.

-Tackling Animations
Tackling used to be pretty generic and if you didn’t solidly wrap a guy up, it was an automatic score. Well now? Arm Tackles, trip ups, shoves, etc. are all effectively programmed into the game showing what looks as close to a real life defensive look as you’re going to get with a well animated physics engine. If your RB gets tripped up at the line, he might fall a couple of yards or rumble a little bit down field, but no huge breakaways from nonsolid hits. Once again, more realism? Yes please.

Gripes

-Franchise Mode seems dumbed down
I’m not through my first season but a lot of things seem to be missing. Can I move my team? What about hot dog and parking prices? What about my coach contract? Can I Scout based on more than potential/Age/Position? Franchise mode used to be known for its depth but nowadays it seems they’re trying to make it more casual. That’s fine I get it, but come on: the casuals play online or exhibitions. Give the hardcore fans what they want with a franchise mode that matters whether you make the right decisions or not.

-Using a RB stable is hard to force with the gameflow feature
A lot of teams nowadays have moved away from the 1 RB system. A ton of teams have a #1 and #2 RB who get about even touches, and some even have whole stables of 3 or more (Saints, Broncos before Shanahan left, NYG a couple of years ago) Well without some tweaking? You’re going to be see your number 1 the entire game. I had to go play with some sub and fatigue sliders to make my Panthers realistically split carries between Thrash (Stewart) and Dash (Williams). If we’re striving to make gameflow feel more real: RB stables need to be incorporated. They’re a highly effective strategy in real life (and are in game), it should occur automatically in game: the player shouldn’t have to force it.

-Strategy pad for defensive adjustments
I hear this is getting patched but it used to take two button presses to make defensive adjustments. Click a trigger a button, move the right stick a direction. It was quick, simple, and painless. Well now all that is based off the dpad (in an awkward position) and requires at least three button presses before your adjustment can be made. I know Madden was trying to make it more realistic so you couldn’t adjust every single play etc. but people are in a fury about this and supposedly its going to be updated soon and back to the old way

-Pregame talks always about QBs?
The announcing is above average with Gus Johnson and Chris Colinsworth this year. Usually its complete shit but this year it works for some reason. I think Gus Johson is just that awesome. On long breakaway plays he starts singing the batman theme from the tv show. Don’t ask me why. I just go with it. But in this set up, they have a pregame “talk about key players” section where the announcers banter about what to watch for. I’ve yet to play a game where it wasn’t about the QBs. I get QB is an important position, but when I have Matt Moore versus Sam Bradford (two untested and probably not well known QBs), Can we talk about Deangelo and Steven Jackson (two of the most dangerous RBs in the NFL) instead? Just a thought.

-Challenge glitches
The feature to challenge plays is great but there seems to be a glitch where the play is either overturned or upheld and the game ignores it and does the opposite. That’s just bad programming. Needs to be patched if possible. Its not game breaking, but it pretty much makes challenging not a strategy but simply rolling the dice. Ah well.

-Pain in the ass to set up a game online
Me and my cousin tried to play a game online yesterday together and it took us about 20 minutes to get into a 2v2 game. There has to be a way to simplify these menus or something. Also constant invites from random fucks because they don’t know you’ve got a teammate waiting with you and are trying to fill up their game.

-Massive lag online
Its really only bad on kicks, but I’ve kicked out of bounds and missed extra points due to the lag. Sometimes I can feel it on run plays too but its not as bad there. Check your servers EA. Kicking should be a useful/reliable tool, not a stick up the ass due to lag.

[Andrew]

-Gameflow/Gameplanning
This is a new feature this year. It used to be in Madden if you’d never played before, you could easily be lost in playbooks of 350 plays or more: especially if you had a complicated playbook like the Patriots or relied on specific timing like the Colts. What’s game flow do? It lets your coordinators and coaches call the plays for you based on your teams strengths and weaknesses. Want to run your team unconventionally or not like real life? Outside of games you can set up your offensive and defensive gameplan given any situation you might run into. You can even set the frequency of the play call if you find some that almost always work and others that never do. The indirect result of all this? A Madden game on 5 minute quarters used to take about an hour. It now takes 30 minutes. More accessibility/realism/control/more gameplay and less time in playbooks? This feature is an all out fucking win. You always have the option to pull out to the full playbook or audible if you don’t like the call your coordinators made. I was skeptical when I heard it in theory, but it works so well: I can’t even start griping about this feature. May be the best innovation in football games in years.

Sounds like a great feature for those unfamiliar with the game as well as those who do but would just like to automate the process. I wouldn't mind having something like that in Elite.

[Oznogrd]

Sounds like a great feature for those unfamiliar with the game as well as those who do but would just like to automate the process. I wouldn't mind having something like that in Elite.

Yeah i consider myself a pretty big football fan who understands the game and i love the gameflow thing. Why should i have to search through 300 plays and several packages when I can tell the game what to call for me? Its awesome.

It'd be great to see this in elite or 2k like you said...except i never run plays in those. Maybe thats why i suck lol.

[benji]

It'd be great to see this in elite or 2k like you said...except i never run plays in those. Maybe thats why i suck lol.

Don't worry, Mike Wang doesn't either.

[koberulz]

Do you need Gold to download rosters this year? It's telling me a LIVE restriction is preventing me from doing so.

[JaoSming]

then probably

[atlwarrior]

Am I the only one that thinks this game sucks and is the same thing every year except for them changing the buttons sometimes? I liked NFL 2k football better but EA took that away. But I did like Madden back when it had competition but now "its like their saying what's the point of trying we dont have competition anymore." I cant argue with the sales though.

[Oznogrd]

Am I the only one that thinks this game sucks and is the same thing every year except for them changing the buttons sometimes? I liked NFL 2k football better but EA took that away. But I did like Madden back when it had competition but now "its like their saying what's the point of trying we dont have competition anymore." I cant argue with the sales though.

No you can argue with the sales. I bought it because i havent owned a 360 generation of Madden and i was sick of playing 08 on my laptop. However, I'm with you, when they had to top 2k, they got better every year. Now that they have no competition they've heavily stagnated since the current system move. I dont think the game sucks, but it could be better in alot of ways. EA Didnt do a damn thing by the way: the NFL auctioned the license. EA had more dough at the time. I think its only 1-2 more years of the contract though so i'm hoping 2k has a football game percolating for when that license runs out.