Madden 13 Sales Figures

[Sven Draconian]

This is the first year I haven't played Madden since 2002. I occasionally get the urge to play it... then I'll pop in NCAA 2013 and remember why I did not waste my money.

 

[PP]

Madden 13 was a solid game. But the fun factor just isn't there to keep me playing like it is with FIFA. NHL had a similar collapse this year. The game was released with broken team play, for a good month on PS3. Finally it was patched but it wasn't the same. More shit was broken and nothing new in terms of game tweaks etc. No competition drags games down, its quite apparent with the NFL and NHL games being subpar, yet FIFA is a top notch title every year trying to push the limits since they have a rival in Konami.

 

[Sven Draconian]

My biggest issue with Madden (and I heard it was even worse this year, but about a year of Dynasty with NCAA was enough for me to give up hope) is the horrendous AI playcalling. The incessant defensive back blitzes, constantly using line stunts that do not work, lining up in things completely unsound (Using 3-3 and Dime defenses constantly) just ruin the offensive experience. Playing defense is worse, since the AI consistantly calls screen passes it cannot execute, running plays that have a 0 success rate (toss, draw and in NCAA any form of option play). Uhg.

The AI can handle a very limited amount of plays. In fact, it's probably a little too good at some (crossing routes mostly). Why they can't just build the AI playcalling around plays it can execute is beyond me. Offline play is just atrocious.

Online is ok, but I will never be a good online player. I don't want to spend hours labbing up ways to beat AI animations and trigger specific animations. That isn't fun for me. That isn't football to me. I don't have any issues with that style of play, it's a competition do whatever you want. I just don't enjoy it .

 

[Sven Draconian]

To take it a step further...

Madden is really running, basically, JV level football schemes up front. There's no pulling or trapping (that is effective anyway). They really just run a really basic level of zone blocking. Which is fine. It's still a vast improvement over what it used to be.

But then they want those very basic schemes to be able to block an NFL level defense, with a multitude of fronts and coverages without the AI Qb having the ability to audible (since it's a computer). So you get the computer running zone plays into an extra defender. On NCAA it'll run zone read when there are two backside defenders. So the game will get a "keep" read and the QB gets plastered because there is an extra guy just sitting there, which happens because there is no rationality into how the defense is programmed. So you get these really unsound defenses being called (by the AI and by humans) because it wants to run a certain "play" regardless of what the offensive formation is, and again; the AI has no ability to check into and out of certain looks.

You get the same thing in the secondary. The AI can execute the coverages at a junior varsity football level, but the offense NFL style passing concepts and can execute them fairly well. The secondary plays Cover 3 like an 8th grade team with the defensive backs just backpedaling for shits and giggles because that is what the coverage says to do. Then there are the animations where the defender bites on the double move/play-action (uhg).

It's an area that really gets worse every year because they add more and more plays without any improvements into how the offense and defense actually call plays and align themselves. The worst part, kind of, is that the offensive plays get implemented very well; which renders the defense helpless. So either you can score 50+ a game or the game makes up for it's ineffectiveness with ridiculous animations animations (block shedding, the always present super jumps, magical spins ect...)