Jeremy_Stein's Blog
More recently, I've been helping out the Quick Hit guys on their new online football game, Quick Hit Football. It's not a competitor of Madden's. But if you like football, you'll probably dig QHF. It's only in alpha and I'm already enjoying it enough to be playing it just for fun.
And if you're a Minnesotan, I recently started a local sports website dedicated to the type of sports fans who hang out here. You should visit www.funkytownsports.com if you're a Minnesotan who likes more video games and fantasy advice with his sports news.
Since I have a game AND a site to pimp, and the game I used to work on just released a new version, I figure now is the time to finally start blogging on OS.
My completely honest, completely biased take is that I like Madden 10 more than any Madden since Madden 2003. Read on if you're in to specifics...
Things I like about Madden 10
The in-game ticker
I don't think Madden is light years ahead of its brethren, NCAA 10. NCAA 10 is pretty fun. But the litany of useful info fed by the ticker is one reason Madden's presentation is getting such high marks this year. It makes the game more immersive by expanding the narrative of each game and each season. Factoids, streaks ending or extending, events tied to relevant info ... all in a ticker. It's great.
I got sacked by Robert Mathis tonight, and a single ticker banner told me it was his first sack of the preseason and that he had 11 sacks in 2008. I used to have to make up that narrative in my head. Very cool.
The cut scenes
Steve covered this pretty well in his review. Heck, everyone who's reviewed Madden seems to mention the cutscenes. And with good reason ... they're great. They're at least as good as anything I've seen in any other Next Gen sports game, let alone previous versions of Madden. I remember 2k5 having some rad cut scenes, but I bet if I went back they'd be beaten out by what Madden 10 brings.
Being able to run with power backs
The "normal" demo of Madden, with the Giants and Cowboys, was overly short. Two minute quarters wasn't enough time to do much, but it was enough to showcase how much fun power backs are in Madden 10. Pro-Tak will certainly see some fleshing out and tuning in Madden 11, but the way they've improved the animation system in 2010 is already fantastic. Bowling defenders over with Brandon Jacobs was fun, and so far I'm liking what I can do with All Day and Chester Taylor.
Wider rating ranges add gameplay variety
Helen: Everyone's special, Dash.
Dash: [muttering] Which is another way of saying no one is.
The above exchanges from The Incredibles describes a problem Madden had before Madden 10. If everyone is special, no one is special.
Donny Moore and Co. listened to what some of you in the OS community had been saying for a while, and the result is a game that feels more varied than any Madden I remember playing.
The improved franchise interface
Franchise still has a lot of problems, but at least it's showing signs of life again. Just look at the initial screen. The contrast between 09 and 10's franchise interface is stark.
Madden 09 franchise had no soul and no pulse. Not so with 10. The initial screen provides better context to the events of the season, and makes the current event more prominent and interesting.
Playing the Colts this week? You get a picture of Lucas Oil Stadium and immediate access to the Play/Sim option. It's the little things, sometimes.
Throwing horribly while being pulled down
There's even an achievement for this! This gameplay feature is implemented in NCAA 10 as well, though in that game your ducks often turn in to interceptions. I've yet to see a duck-INT happen in Madden, and that's just fine by me. I'm just happy to see QBs throwing out of wraps.
Things I don't like about Madden 10
The microtransactions are whack
I like DLC and I like microtransactions as concepts. I want you to like microtransactions too, because Quick Hit Football will be supported in part by microtransactions.
Unfortunately, Tiburon did us no favors with Madden 10. If you go on XBL and look at the user ratings on the various content, the DLC is getting a rating between one star and two stars.
The "Not Done Yet" DLC lets you keep one player from retiring for one season in Franchise mode. That's cool, I'd use that ... but is that worth $1?
I honestly don't know if QHF's microtransaction pricing will be more fair, but given that the base game is free, I imagine players will cut us more slack. No matter what, I wish more thought was put in to the pricing and utility of Madden's microtransactions. I play Madden, you probably play Madden, and I don't mind paying a fair price for convenience.
Draft class importing remains broken
Maybe I'm the only person who got hooked on NCAA after learning you could take your NCAA class and import it in to Madden.
I'm pretty sure I'm not, which means at least a few of you reading this are similarly unenthused with how Madden handles imported draft classes. You play your dynasty, generate a draft class, import the players in to Madden ... and all hell breaks loose. Madden applies a random number generator to a variety of stats, and depending on the dice rolls, your 97 OVR QB could be a 63 or 75 or a 51 OVR in Madden.
This is not realistic and it's not fun. Going in to a season not knowing how good a college player will be in the pros adds intrigue and some realism. But if you're a GM for an NFL team, you knew Graham Harrell would not turn in to a pro prospect by the first time you (or your scouting director) watched him play at Texas Tech. Likewise, you didn't know *exactly* how good Mark Sanchez would be as pro just from watching a little college tape, but even a junior scout could tell if Sanchez had the potential to start in the NFL before the 2008 college season was even over. They were both great college quarterbacks, but one has a skill set that obviously translates to the pros (Sanchez), and one does not (Harrell).
In other words, if Sanchez and Harrell were legit 99s in NCAA, it's fine if Sanchez exported as somewhere between a 70-80 and Harrell exported somewhere between a 50-60. That's a big range for both, retaining the mystery (and maintaining scouting as a useful mechanic) while not chucking realism out the window. But if Harrel exported as a 79 sometimes and Sanchez sometimes exported as 51 ... that would suck. And that's what can happen right now.
There are lots of other ways to do draft class importing wrong, and this problem does not lie solely at the feet of Josh Looman and the other Madden Franchise devs. When your NCAA dynasty has 10+ players at a position, all with 99 OVRs, there's some tuning that needs to happen on the NCAA team's end. Hopefully the NCAA dynasty devs and Madden franchise devs care enough about their busted synergy and are willing to devote the dev hours needed to fix it.
Steve was right about the announcing
I can't think of a sports game with an on-field announcer that is more inaccurate. The incredible amount of interesting, useful info pumped out by the new ticker makes up for the awful announcing, but hopefully improved announcing is on the roadmap for Madden 11.
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Thanks for reading and make sure to check out Quick Hit and Funky Town Sports, should the mood strike you.
-Jeremy Stein
# 2
Jeremy_Stein @ Aug 15
"Jeremy, did you write this blog to actually discuss Madden 10 or to push your own new projects? A fair question!"
Both!
"As for what you don't like about Madden 10, are you sure that is all? What about the defensive AI issues? Or the fact that offensive players still run straight out of bounds? Are these examples a lot more frustrating than micro-transactions, of which people don't even have to buy if they don't want?"
There are other things I think Madden improved (offensive line play) and other things I still find really annoying (offensive line play). This isn't a comprehensive review ... I've only had a full retail copy in my hands for about 35 hours. Besides, there are hundreds if not thousands of people right next door in the OS forums who are happy to list every last thing they don't like about Madden. I more wanted to kinda thank the Madden team for the new direction they've taken in terms of listening to the community (aka coming to OS and implementing your more constructive suggestions) than I wanted to listen everything good and bad about the game.
..and I wanted to pimp my own stuff.
Both!
"As for what you don't like about Madden 10, are you sure that is all? What about the defensive AI issues? Or the fact that offensive players still run straight out of bounds? Are these examples a lot more frustrating than micro-transactions, of which people don't even have to buy if they don't want?"
There are other things I think Madden improved (offensive line play) and other things I still find really annoying (offensive line play). This isn't a comprehensive review ... I've only had a full retail copy in my hands for about 35 hours. Besides, there are hundreds if not thousands of people right next door in the OS forums who are happy to list every last thing they don't like about Madden. I more wanted to kinda thank the Madden team for the new direction they've taken in terms of listening to the community (aka coming to OS and implementing your more constructive suggestions) than I wanted to listen everything good and bad about the game.
..and I wanted to pimp my own stuff.
# 3
CreatineKasey @ Aug 15
I'm a Minnesotan and I'll be bookmarking your website... I like it! Nice writeup.
# 4
kennytomson @ Aug 15
I'd be more interested in your experience developing the game/ working for EA. What prevented your team from creating a '10'? What are the main obstacles behind the scenes that prevent producing a great poduct?
# 5
Parlett316 @ Aug 15
I disagree with the NCAA import gripe. Just because you were great in college does not guarantee you will have success in the NFL. What was Akili Smith rated in NCAA?
# 6
Pellakin @ Aug 15
Part of the problem with doing more "accurate" scouting from NCAA to Madden is the nature of the release schedule with the seasons.
I've discussed this similarly regarding progression on someone else's blog.
If you wanted to have some REAL reflection in Madden of real college prospects (put aside the issues of licensing/NCAA/whatnot), you'd have to have some kind of "NFL Ready" attribute embedded within either the rating system in NCAA or in Madden watching for specific players to be ported over.
Some players you just know from seeing them early in their college careers that they have NFL potential - you just know it when you see it. Others, though, you don't really get that feeling for until they play their last season, fully developed, and really shine.
This year, for instance, we may see some people really develop and make us go "wow - he wasn't on my radar last year as a Junior, but he's really impressive - I can see him destroying NFL WR's in the open field." etc. But since the game came out before the season, that situation can't really be accurately modeled until after the season is over. And the game's obviously already out - including the year everyone would want to import over for season 2 drafting in their Franchises.
Hence the problem, even if they COULD go in and put that kind of attribute in for everyone, the ACTUAL "NFL Ready" attribute of players across the board couldn't be put in until next year's game, by which time it's too late.
Catch 22.
Yeah, you can get some guys rated for that in May/June before the game ships...and give a pretty good guess on a lot of others, but then you'd have the same "my imported class doesn't reflect reality" situation with many guys based on the current real season, so it'd be about the same outcome.
Good analysis of the game overall. Good luck with the website and game.
I've discussed this similarly regarding progression on someone else's blog.
If you wanted to have some REAL reflection in Madden of real college prospects (put aside the issues of licensing/NCAA/whatnot), you'd have to have some kind of "NFL Ready" attribute embedded within either the rating system in NCAA or in Madden watching for specific players to be ported over.
Some players you just know from seeing them early in their college careers that they have NFL potential - you just know it when you see it. Others, though, you don't really get that feeling for until they play their last season, fully developed, and really shine.
This year, for instance, we may see some people really develop and make us go "wow - he wasn't on my radar last year as a Junior, but he's really impressive - I can see him destroying NFL WR's in the open field." etc. But since the game came out before the season, that situation can't really be accurately modeled until after the season is over. And the game's obviously already out - including the year everyone would want to import over for season 2 drafting in their Franchises.
Hence the problem, even if they COULD go in and put that kind of attribute in for everyone, the ACTUAL "NFL Ready" attribute of players across the board couldn't be put in until next year's game, by which time it's too late.
Catch 22.
Yeah, you can get some guys rated for that in May/June before the game ships...and give a pretty good guess on a lot of others, but then you'd have the same "my imported class doesn't reflect reality" situation with many guys based on the current real season, so it'd be about the same outcome.
Good analysis of the game overall. Good luck with the website and game.
# 7
Uncle Stumpy @ Aug 16
I've only played the Demo of Madden, and I've purchased NCAA, and from what I've seen, for the first time ever, Madden is the more fun game to play. I'm icredibly dissapointed with NCAA. I probabably will trade it in for Madden.
# 8
SuperKyle @ Aug 16
I would like to read your blog but there's a big-*** ad taking up half the screen. 
# 9
marq @ Aug 16
Concerning the cut scenes, it actually seems as if Madden lifted all of 2k5's cut scenes. I'm happy Madden is finally moving forward, but lets be serious here. At least they're finally incorporating what the fans have been asking for...
# 10
TeamLogo @ Aug 17
I love the DLC because it's mostly zero cost straw man stuff. I guess ripping off kids makes up for any adults that see through their BS and don't buy from them.
# 12
CarryTheWeight @ Aug 17
I haven't had many problems with draft classes yet. I judge the real busts and gems by their potential grades. That's the thing I've seen that makes drafting a lot better. Finding guys in the later rounds with high potential ratings is rewarding despite their low ratings. Colt McCoy, Dan LeFevour and Tim Hiller all came in with 50's in my 2010 draft class, but each had either A or B potential grades, signifying that players may need a bit of seasoning before they can truly be dominant.
# 14
BIGROC @ Aug 18
Nice post, and I think you'll definitely garner a few QHF fans from OS. I've been ball breaking about one thing that Madden has been doing wrong wrong wrong over the last few iterations....USER STATS...When they introduced the rings thing it was bad, but this year offline user profile stats have all but dissapeared. I IMPLORE YOU, if you still talk to anyone at EA on the Madden team, tell them to get it in gear, or at least ask why this simple staple of any sports game is getting pushed by the wayside. On a side note, Madden 2005 & 2006 for the original Xbox were by far the best football video games ever.
# 15
ogallagher20 @ Aug 19
Whats going on with the RB's having incredible success receiving the ball in the flats?! play "x-curl" works every time. did you notice this as well?
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As for what you don't like about Madden 10, are you sure that is all? What about the defensive AI issues? Or the fact that offensive players still run straight out of bounds? Are these examples a lot more frustrating than micro-transactions, of which people don't even have to buy if they don't want?
Continued success on your new internet ventures!