In Defense of the Strategy Pad - ZACKATTACK52's Blog

ZACKATTACK52's Blog

In Defense of the Strategy Pad

Posted on July 31, 2010 at 09:02 AM.

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Ever since the Madden 11 Demo was released there have been many blogs, postings, forum threads and outspoken commentaries against the new strategy pad. This seems to be a very vocal minority in general, and I was quite surprised to see some of my favorite sources being so firmly against this new implementation. Most surprising of all was Pastapadre, who I always turn to for my sports gaming information. I have always found his site to be reliable, accurate, honest, and unbiased. It appears to me though as he has launched a personal agenda against the new strategy pad, and is using his website to make it sound as if all hardcore madden gamers are against the new innovation.

After countless hours with the demo I have found that strategy pad is actually one of my favorite improvements in this years game. I am the type of player who executes multiple pre-snap adjustments on both sides of the ball and I have found that once I memorized the outlay that strategy pad is able to execute more adjustments in less time. I think the only time it takes longer is when you only make one pre-snap adjustment, if you do two or more it works out to be faster.

I really can't understand the outrage against strategy pad, and the complaints that the CPU snaps the ball too quickly are absurd, I have time to press my corners, shift and crash my line and shift my linebackers all before the CPU snaps the ball. Personally I think people are uncomfortable with the change because they refuse to just learn the new system and give it a try. They would rather complain and get the old system back in the game, which was slow, somewhat glitchy as far as snapping the ball on time, and not intuitive. I would like to thank EA for making tough decisions such as this, which may be bemoaned by the crusty madden elite initially, but which over time will be recognized for a great, intuitive innovation.

Comments

# 1 killer miller31 @ Jul 31

finaly someone who makes some sense! lol i feel the same... im liking it the more i try it...people are over reacting so bad about this its not even real anymore..lol

# 2 TreyIM2 @ Jul 31

Yea, it takes time for the mind to make it intuitive. I've definitely gotten used to it but at first, whoa!

# 3 killer miller31 @ Jul 31

yeah man exactly it wasnt easy but if you just keep at it you pick it up its not a game killer like everyone seems to feel lol...

# 4 jvaccaro @ Sep 18

I was very against the SP at first, but once I learned it I haven't used the old school patch, and now I like it much better. The best thing I did was go to the menu to turn the SP menu OFF, now you don't have to press any button first just to iniate the controls.