2013 Football gaming (what's safe to assume so far) - cuttingteeth's Blog

cuttingteeth's Blog

2013 Football gaming (what's safe to assume so far)

Posted on April 22, 2013 at 11:30 AM.

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Honestly, I hate assuming anything. It's not my style. With the way game companies slowly leak out footage and/or features listings, you have no choice but to speculate and try to be Sherlock Holmes with it all, though. So, going against what I prefer, here's what is safe to assume about both EA football titles for year 2013 consoles:

The spread option is getting a ton of focus in the way of play designs, how to properly execute them and whatever physics (and animations) are required to make them unfold and look as accurate as EA can achieve.

It's a year where the back-of-the-box selling points will generally come down to, "oh, this year they focused on offense again." That's to be expected, though, especially if you are long, well conditioned in the ways of EA football games. They always tend to focus their game of the year based on the trend of the leagues the year just played. The spread option became all the rage in the NFL, even more high profile college teams ran the spread option and so it's the no-brainer decision for them to focus on that in this year's game iterations. Again...if you know EA...you should have expected this. Just the same, if we see defensive geniuses shut down the spread option in the real leagues this year, we're very likely to get those game plans and defensive focus for football titles, year 2014. I would hope that is the case. I especially expect real NFL teams to learn shutting down spread option plays more than in the college ranks. That should be another safe assumption.

The infinity engine getting upgraded and having the bugs worked out should have been assumed, as well. It seemingly just had to happen. What is exciting more people lately is all of the talk about physics more integrated into the O-line and D-line play. I concur...it's about freaking time. My fear, though (again, based on having to assume I'm right), is that the bulk of the O-line/D-line physics that we'll see is going to be married to more of the plays related to running the spread option. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and suggest that if not for the spread option becoming so popular, and if not for the spread option so specifically relying on "reads" and blocking designs, then line-play wouldn't have been upgraded at all. I think that EA would have just phoned it in on the line-play again. The best I've heard here and there about line-play is that O-line players will shed defenders and get into the second level making blocks, but...I keep hearing this when said person says they were running the spread option and not just regular I-formation or such plays. I've already seen some screens where a RB is a ways downfield, and an O-line guy is standing pat, blocking no one, rather posting up like it was a pass play - i.e. the same old game we know.

Overall, I know they still have a ton of time to tune things. I know that E3 is just around the corner. I am like many of you all...and I need to see substantial gameplay (and deep into the game) to really ease my full set of worries.