Do You Think Madden 10 Will Deliver?

[Steel Mamba]

Don't we go through this every year?

07 came out, people where pissed, but 08 was going to be incredible, hype was up there, people were talking, videos online where mesmerizing, then the game came out, it was fun for a month, and then started to get like 07, the same thing happened in Madden 09, where it was pushed and pushed as the Greatest Football game that was ever going to come out, and lo and behold, it surely doesn't deliver.

Madden fans keep getting suckered year after year and keep lining up for more.

[packersfan4eva]

i think it'll be another epic fail

[OnlyOneBeerLeft]

Well guys i think of it this way....video games are so dam advanced these days i think that it takes 3+ years to get it right....I mean we all loved the PS2 version, but that was an easier system, there is so much shit that can be done on these newer systems, the problem is, by the time its all perfect, sony and microsoft will come out with new systems and fuck it up again.

Video game designing is not an easy task, so I've been leniant, Madden is NOT garbage, these are actually good games, its just with no other market to compare too theres so much we expect but physically can not be delivered yet, EVERY SINGLE game has flaws of some sort, there is no way around it. Its easy to be like oh this game is shit, but if you ever realized the actual amount of work that goes into these, you would be surprised we even have what we have.

Sports games arent like shooters or platforms, they have a different style, while you play your Halo's and GOW and resistance and fallout, you dont want or need it to be as real as possible, but sports games HAVE to be for most people. I know there have been HUGE steps each year in next gen Madden titles...pick up Madden 06 for 5 dollars and 07 for 10 and you will see the changes we have gone through. I'm hopeful this year is closer to what we want but everybody wants different things, they can't cater to all our needs, and we all continue to play it nowing that its not as shitty as we might say it is.

/rant

[OnlyOneBeerLeft]

I've felt the same way around this time of the year about the new madden every year. And every year I feel let down. I havent been able to sit down and play madden for 5+ hours straight every day of the week since PS2 Madden.

got job?

[dave]

I am cautiously optimistic.
But I have my doubts.
If David Ortiz was on the boards last year like Ian and Phil are right now, we'd probably be sharing adembroski's enthusiasm.

Simply being active members of a message board isn't enough for me. Ian and Phil have to deliver the goods. Until then, they're just EA employees hyping their product.

[adembroski]

I am cautiously optimistic.
But I have my doubts.
If David Ortiz was on the boards last year like Ian and Phil are right now, we'd probably be sharing adembroski's enthusiasm.

I doubt it. I've considered Ortiz the problem for years. He was the face and voice of Madden, and he was never about anything but making shit better for the tourney players. That's all he gave a damn about because that's what he was, and you could tell by the way he pushed the game.

Simply being active members of a message board isn't enough for me. Ian and Phil have to deliver the goods. Until then, they're just EA employees hyping their product.

Here's specifically where I take issue with a lot of your arguments... the word "hype"... hype is bullshit. Hype is "OMG, THIS SHIT IS HOT, IT'S GOING TO BLOW YOU AWAY"... there's no substance, and the Ortiz era gave nothing but hype.

So far, Ian's given substance. He hasn't said, "This will redefine football" or anything close too it. He's giving us substance... not back of the box "revolutionary" features like Ortiz did, but fundamental football. There's a striking difference.

I don't take issue with your stance. I respect it and goddamn well understand it. You know why you didn't see me dog Madden from '06-'08? Because I disliked the game so much I didn't bother. It wasn't worthy my time or my money. Everyone talking about "vote with your wallet", I did. I didn't buy Madden for 3 years. I finally bought '09, and while it wasn't what I was hoping for, it was a damn sight better than '08, and far more importantly, it showed to a limited extent what the platform they're making the game on is capable of (I'm specifically talking about the branching animations system for runningbacks).

But all the gameplay advancements combined from the first NextGen product to '09 don't equal what the blogs have already shown. Hell, the last two blogs alone blow away anything Ortiz did his entire time there... it's just a matter of tuning.

Maybe the tuning doesn't work, maybe we get a broken game. If that happens, I'll eat crow and I'll be damned if I ever buy another Madden again.

I did say in a previous post that I didn't think Madden 10 would surpass 2k5 in every way, and I'll give you a few examples.

* It's too far behind in presentation to make up the ground in one season, period. Wont happen. We'll see improvements, but if they concentrated enough on that to surpass 2k5, the gameplay would still be shit.

* I don't think the running game will quite get there... I think it'll be close though, but unless they do some major tuning for defensive player pursuit logic... specifically things like check-and-plug and outside containment, it wont be there. 2k5 didn't have that, but some other aspects of it helped make up for it.

* Computer Play calling... 2k5s wasn't great, but Madden's was horrid. I don't get the sense they're rewriting this from the bottom up, It seems more like they're going to tweak it the best they can within the platform they have, which means it's going to be another year of pretty much randomly selected plays with little rhyme or reason behind them. This is a HUGE one for me, and it'll be a big let down if they don't do something with it. Alas, I don't think they will.

* Defensive playbooks... once again, 2k5s wasn't great, but the fact that you could select stunts and shifts independently of the coverage call is a big one. I hate it when I'm looking for a good weak slant to help me shut down the running game, but I can't get it in a cover 3. It's already confirmed we wont see this this year, and it's one area 2k5 has in spades.

* Online... I don't expect we'll see the coveted online franchise this year. Nothing in particular out of Madden camp to suggest it wont, but it's hard to believe considering how much of the last NCAA cycle online dynasty took up to think Madden will be doing as much as it is and still have time and resources left over to get it done. 2k5 had very advanced online options for its time. Madden's too far behind here.

Then again, I'm a bit more of a realist than most 2k5 players. I know the game was flawed, and worse yet, I know the people who made it took MASSIVE short cuts that, if people knew what was going on under the hood, they'd be disgusted by it. The player inertia was non-existant before 2004, and poorly implemented in 2005 (try a screen pass if you wanna know what I mean... while you're player takes several seconds to recover from catching the ball, the defensive end who's bearing down on the QB suddenly morphs so that he's facing the other direction and is running full speed at the ball carrier). 2k5s playbooks always received SOOO much hype, but if you follow the evolution of offensive football, you realize that Madden is always 2-3 years behind the NFL, and 2k5 is always about 5 years behind Madden (actually, I'd be willing to say that APFs playbooks were the worst I've ever seen in a football game... they seem to have selected 2 or 3 basic passing concepts and repeated them ad nauseoum in different forms throughout the playbooks. How many drag routes of different depths can we fit in THIS play? Biggest reason I stopped playing the game, honestly. Sick of fucking drag routes).

PS: If you're gonna have a sig that size, at least make it nude?

[Saluki]

I refuse to pass judge a game thats nearly 6 months away, regardless of what logic you come up with for or against it the simple fact is that you just don't know enough to make anything like an educated answer.

[ThunderHorse]

and thats why I always played madden to get a real football feel.

because the playcalling was always so much more realistic.

then again, the defensive play calling in 2K made more sense, but when the playmaker came out and you where able to make line shifts manually it wasn't a big deal.

Madden still doesn't have the player movement 2K had, and thats what I want the most.

[dave]

PS: If you're gonna have a sig that size, at least make it nude?

The Vandervoort doesn't do nude ... and told me the sig isn't big enough.

[adembroski]

Are you guys serious? The player movement of the 2k series? You mean linebackers that can warp through themselves and suddenly be running in the opposite direction at full speed with no deceleration?

[Point Blank]

Bump

[dave]

Is that the same girl in Smallville? sorry for being off topic

Yes..........

[Sven Draconian]

I thnk Ian does care and I think that they are actually putting in the effort to make the game "sim" (whatever it is that actually means).

I'm just not sure it's possible.

Their AI is so bad that its hard for me to see a really "sim" game when the OL has no idea who to block and the defense has no idea of its responsibilities. How can a game be "sim" when the CPU players AI is so horrendous?

Did they finally put in a new blocking engine? Without a new blocking system I really can't see how this game will be ay better than any other version Dive to the line, get the defense engaged, break it outside or cut it back.

Do players actuall have weight yet? I'm excited about some of the new animations they've shown for starting/stopping, WR cuts and the inability to turn onto a dime. Those are really going to help the game. But I want each player to feel somewhat different.

5'8 190 pound RB's should be shifty regardless of the ratings. 6'0 240 pound backs should be much more apt to fall forward, regardless of the ratings.

I really like the route they are trying to go with the game, I'm just not sure they've addressed the core issue. Until the players on the field are smarter this game is going to be a cheese fest because they are so easy to exploit.

[RainboUnicorn]

How hard is it for them to make online leagues correctly? Honestly that better be fixed this year. Last years online league was crap.

Too bad they cant use the backbreaker engine whatever they use for tackling. The tackling is amazing to say the least compared to madden.

[adembroski]

Call me a sucka, but I actually think EA is feeling sweated by the Madden community callinng them out year in year out. I really think they are putting in more effort than ever this time around and I have high expectations. One thing is for sure, it cant be worse than the choppy Madden 07 for the PS3.

For the record, they have finally gotten the PS3 version on par visually with the X360. Finally 1080 support for both.