SBartlett's Blog
Madden Impressions Part 2 - You Can’t C Me Addition- 2pac from M10 Soundtrack
Posted on August 8, 2009 at 01:08 PM.
What's up everyone? I'm Steve Montani Bartlett and I've been writing for OS since last September. I'm writing the OS Review for M10.
I have decided to open this up to chat if any of you are on Xbox Live while I happen to be on playing through Madden, you can hit me up for a small chat to talk about the game if you have questions. My tag is Amaru37, and my Twitter is @Hurricane414!
M10 Passing Game
M10 is a game I am wanting to love and I’m sure a lot of you will feel the same way. The NFL feel it brings is awesome and so are the new hits. 2Pac even has a song in the game which makes the game so gangsta it's funny. There are some elements holding this series back, though (in my opinion of course). So here are some pro’s and con’s I drafted up and observed in the few days of playing.
Let’s start with the quarterbacks. The quarterback drop back feature is pretty sweet. It forces you to play from the pocket for the most part. The pocket formation is better than it has been on the past 360 and PS3 Maddens so that is a plus. In my Seahawks franchise, Hasselback is awesome with the short to mid range passes. You can really tell where his strengths are with his accuracy in a quick fire west-coast offense. It’s actually a blast picking defenses apart from the pocket.
The passing game is more difficult to go deep this year. I noticed you really can’t get much separation with wide-outs with the current speed settings. You can adjust the speed settings and player speed threshold to give the players more drastic separation. I find the game to be more enjoyable once I bump the speed up.
The new quarterback ratings are most prevalent when you fire the ball to medium and long distance. If you hold the button down and those lengths, your quarterback better be accurate; otherwise they throw missiles over guy’s heads like Donovan McNabb (I still got love for you Donovan, just saying).
The quarterbacks aren’t as realistically detailed as you would find 2k football where each QB was very unique in feel when it came to their throw power, accuracy, mobility, and touch…but the detail in each unique QB is a step up in the right direction. Cutler throws darts out there, and guys like Warner and Brady are highly accurate at any yard distance. It’s good to see quarterbacks being differentiated in other ways than a vision cone.
Another nice lil addition is the spiral on the ball – when you’re rushed and hurried, the ball comes out flatter and wobbly as opposed to planting your feet and delivering a strike. It’s not drastic, but there was some attention paid here so that is a positive.
There are still issues plaguing the passing game when you lead a wide receiver on a crossing route. The wide out almost jumps towards the line of scrimmage when catching the pass slowing him down in the process. The result is not being able to complete a quick hit in stride to catch and go – instead you have to steer your guy upfield again before you can continue running.
It’s hard to lead wide-outs on any type of fade, or even on in-routes for that matter – similar to last year. Sometimes you will lead them with a lob pass perfectly, and other times the ball will come out 20 yards short of where you want to throw it. This unpredictability in the passing game really holds back the overall gun slinging mentality I used to bring to Madden back in the Playstation 2 days. Man, back then I was dropping 50 on people like it was my job – none of my friends could C me in it. Maybe M10 is trying more simulation based. I don’t know. I just find leading wide-outs inaccurate and in some instances it can just be ineffective which detracts from the game experience.
The wide receivers break in and out of their cuts much better, but you the passing game still isn’t really timing based. I mean at times, you can throw an out pattern early and your guy will break and get to it, but it isn’t seamless or fluid.
The wide-receiver defensive back interaction at the line is slightly improved, but they don’t really fight for position with their hands or anything when the ball is in flight. It’s more like the corner just runs into the wide-out and tries to push him out of the way.
They added a few catch animations to the game this year. The over the shoulder catch is very well done. Once the wide receiver snags the ball, he can keep running in stride. His head snaps over his shoulder to look the ball into his hands. Another catch animation is the Torry Holt circus catch. It’s pretty cool to see in a video game, although I have only seen it once so far.
On a side note, I scored a 90% on the IQ test and created my superstar and I was drafted by the New England Patriots – my hometown team. I will most likely cover the ground game next.
SBartlett
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Either way nice writeup those are a few things I would like to know before I get the game home.