Madden 11 Demo Impressions Thread

[jags224]

personally i enjoyed playing this demo 100% better than last years demo to say the least. Gus johnson goes a little bit overboard at times lol but he does that IRL too. the i dont like the strategy pad it takes more time to do adjustments. i like kicking though using the A button because it will be some what of a challenge to kick field goals instead of just flicking the joystick. i like the presentation it looks good, players on the sidline actually look visible. i like at timeouts how the trainer will be giving the players water and shit. game flow isnt too bad sometimes it doesnt make sense though.

[Maynard]

why does anyone even say anything about gameflow? its the same feature in NCAA minus the game planning. Its stupid and nothing more than a glorified ask madden.
wtf is EA thinking that people would actually care about a stupid ass feature like that? Oh wait they need to go after the casual gamer

even if madden plays just like ncaa it wont be enough to make up for the boring delivery the developers of madden have mastered.

my DL is already at 35% and moving rapidly

[jags224]

why does anyone even say anything about gameflow? its the same feature in NCAA minus the game planning. Its stupid and nothing more than a glorified ask madden.
wtf is EA thinking that people would actually care about a stupid ass feature like that? Oh wait they need to go after the casual gamer

even if madden plays just like ncaa it wont be enough to make up for the boring delivery the developers of madden have mastered.

my DL is already at 35% and moving rapidly

surprisingly i have never played ncaa so the gameflow was new to me thats why i brought it up. and it is true about that its just a glorified ask madden.

[Rudi]

Itll be nice when it drops for PS3.

[Maynard]

trying to set aside my preconceived negative feelings towards this game.
There isnt anything that stands out as a "cool" thing at all. the pregame presentation has some new scenes but its nothing that seems great. They cut to the crowd cheering before the game and its sounds like the 4 guys they show are the only 4 people making noises....its just very dull and very meh

i put it on normal speed with no gameflow. Normal plays like slow speed in ncaa.
The gameplay is the exact same stuff u see in ncaa. The improvements to the blocking are the same, the new animations on the sideline and with the running back moves with the RS are exactly the same

even with the gameplay being the same there are some big differences that really make no sense at all.

For one thing, ncaa has done a good job with capturing the atmosphere in the stadium. Like someone said, in madden, the crowd goes dead silent in between plays. Johnson is very over zealous and Chris is kind of dull and sounds like he is making a dragged out dramatic comment all the time.
Then after the whistle we are always forced to watch these cut scenes of players walking back to the huddle or doing some other thing before we get to the playcall screen. Now this has always been the case but in this demo u hit the A button to get back to the playcall screen but it wont advance u. Your forced to watch these dumb scenes for a few seconds. Its already annoying to me after 1 game. anytime u been used to advancing things by pushing the A or X button, it wont advance and u have to watch (except between quarters it allows u to advance with A or X)

The biggest and most annoying/stupid thing that is different about these 2 games is the playcalling stuff. They both use a 3 play window, but ncaa chooses to scroll L/R and u can only use 1 button to choose a play. Madden scrolls U/D and allows you to choose from 3 buttons.

then there is the strategy pad. If ever there was a if it aint broke dont fix it to be applied to something its this. WHY WHY WHY THE FUCK did these FUCKING RETARDS change this? what purpose does it serve to scrap the system we have been using for years to implement a new system that functions the exact same way. It doesnt do anything new at all. The only thing new about the strategy pad is that EA changed the button scheme for doing anything u want to do presnap. And its confusing. Why? Because half the time when u use it u dont even know if it was applied unless u saw it visually on defense. If it at least highlighted the option u chose so u know it was applied....like how ncaa does it on a run pass commit...it highlights what u chose.....madden doesnt do this though. What is most annoying about this strategy pad is that NCAA doesnt use this so if your playing both games u have to use one set of controls vs another and its alot different.

Then there is the hurry up play calling. If u play ncaa u know ncaa made a nice new way to run hurry up and allows all your plays to be available by simply popping up the play call windows while your at the line. Simple and it works. Not in madden....why? because madden doesnt allow this. your still limited by the same 5 audibles and 4 formation audibles as u have been in the past.

Speaking of formation audibles. another if it aint broke situation. Now when u hit X for audibles, it brings up the plays at the bottom. so instead of hitting the RS in a direction for a formation audible u have to scroll L/R and pick one.....but it doesnt stop there. U can also hit X for MORE to bring up the normal preset audibles at the bottom and they replace the options for the formation audibles. But instead of having u scroll L/R thru these like u do the formation audibles, they make u hit a face button....why not just have u scroll thru both sets....so much for simplier

i am not expecting anything from madden and this demo just shows me there is nothing to expect from this game. If EA is going to use the same gameplay locomotion stuff and use the same playbooks/plays for both games, then why not just take everything used and make it used in both games? why make anything different with controls and functions and shit. Why not just take the ncaa program slap the nfl stuff on top of it. I am not saying ncaa is the end all be all....but why these games use different functions and controls is beyond me.

Plus when u play ncaa u feel some excitement on the field. With this demo, at least, it just feels like madden

[Rudi]

The fact that the hurry up that is in NCAA isn't in Madden is extremely disappointing. Good impressions Maynard, sounds like EA really screwed the pooch on Madden this year.

[killgod]

I think Gameflow or Planning or whatever the fuck you call it......can be useful if you're daring to bore yourself offline.

The biggest sticker to playing the CPU is the wretched playcalling (all out blitz on every 3rd down ring a bell?)

Since you can create plans for the CPU, it might up the challenge from ridiculously easy to somewhat easy.

[albidnis]

Anyone have an idea on what time the PS3 version will be out

[killgod]

Anyone have an idea on what time the PS3 version will be out

i think late afternoon

[killgod]

taken from a Madden 11 blog

"Of course, one thing to be clear on is that everything is optional. If you want to play without GameFlow you can. You can choose to play with the conventional play call screen (old style play call screen that's been around since the advent of football gaming). You can choose to turn off coordinator audio, subtitles, and strategy pad. Pretty much everything is an option."

Apparently this gay strategy pad everyone hates can be turned off.

[Maynard]

I give the demo a go and see good and bad in it.

1- the atmosphere as everyone said, is terrible. It speaks for itself so the less said about it the better.
2- the strategy pad. Go fuck yourself EA. Way to make something way more difficult than it needed to be. I found myself having to go through a few different menus and barely getting adjustments in before the snap. I imagine I'll memorize it all and get much quicker but still
3- Gameplanning. I think a few of you hate it, but I can see where it could come in very handy. I mean most guys already know what they're going to do in certain situations so this just helps you get your play called faster by giving it to you. If you don't like the gameplanning you can always just go into your play book yourself. The notion of selecting a handful of plays for 2nd and short and then weighting them to your liking is nice. I do almost wish they had used a run vs pass ratio, and even a short vs long ratio.

on defense its especially bad because the cpu offense is so quick to call the snap. the system in ncaa is hard enough to make pre snap adjustments, in madden its next to impossible because of this new system.

i didnt use the gameflow at all. one of the biggest issues i have with it in ncaa is that u cant make formation package subs. the game planning option might allow for this to take place based on the situation, but i like to make all those decisions myself. The AI is bad enough so i suspect the gameflow AI is gonna be dumb too

[albidnis]

What does the strategy pad do?

[Maynard]

taken from a Madden 11 blog



Apparently this gay strategy pad everyone hates can be turned off.

that would be nice but i didnt see a menu option to turn it off. I was able to turn off the other stuff mentioned though. That audio coordinator got shut off real fast....he is very annoying

i also turned off the acc clock option. But for some reason the game still did its own run off

What does the strategy pad do?

its all the pre snap stuff your used to doing with the R1/L1...the Y button for coverage and hot routes on O. All that stuff as you have done it in the past have been put into this strategy pad....Its just a new control scheme for making the pre snap adjustments

[killgod]

What does the strategy pad do?

it's the new way to call pre snap adjustments

[MrBill]

I think it has the potential to be a decent addition. I want to dick around with it a bit first before really saying if I like it or not. I'm worried that the gameplanning feature won't fully use the variety of plays I add to my gameplan, and/or won't use them according to how I've weighted them.

I've been hesitant to come down on the strategy pad feature as well because it might be ok once I get used to it. Like Maynard said though, the CPU snaps the ball so quickly you can't get even the most basic adjustments completed.