Madden NFL 09 2008 Super Bowl Video (IGN)

[adembroski]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

Madden is definitely much more "sim" than NCAA. It's been a while since I've heard the old "comeback code" line...I swear on my life there is no such thing.

Over the years it's been denied and denied, but I've always had a hard time believing it. Seriously; there have been years when it was positively uncanny. The consistency with which the opponent would come back was staggering.

There came a point where my strategy became "Get as big an early lead as humanly possible and try to out last 'em".

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianFifaFan

I guess what frustrates me is that the game goes one way or the other depending on focus for that year instead of growing in a balanced manner toward reality. Is it a time thing or a vision thing, "the running game is weak so lets give them hit and truck sticks....."

Yeah in the situation of NCAA this year the focus as a company was on "Wide Open Gameplay". The main goal there was to really add more disparity between teams and also spread the feel out more between Madden and NCAA. It's unfortunate to hear that the DL play isn't quite up to snuff and the "Robo-QB" seems to be back. Those are pretty straightforward to tune...maybe they can be patched (I'll ask around). I don't think the goal is to skew the play one way or the other...but I do know that there was a bit of guarded caution this year to make sure the offense could actually be effective and fun due to the skewed amount of pick-6's and turnovers last year.

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianFifaFan

P.S. I might be the only one who does this but I read the credits on NCAA. I saw the shared resource teams you were talking about. I tinl they were called "centrals?" It was cool to see your name and Simon's and Adam's. That's why I'm bringing up NCAA gameplay. It seems to be a shared resource, to an extent.

Yeah, the gameplay and animation team is shared between Madden and NCAA...but we built tools and processes that allow us to easily change key aspects across the two games, from AI to animation. Simon is the director of animation...I was the guy in charge of gameplay until January of this year...now it's Sean Bailey.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by adembroski

Over the years it's been denied and denied, but I've always had a hard time believing it. Seriously; there have been years when it was positively uncanny. The consistency with which the opponent would come back was staggering. There came a point where my strategy became "Get as big an early lead as humanly possible and try to out last 'em".

I think the only explanation has to be our play-tracking AI. It's in there, though relatively basic, where the CPU has some memory to what plays you are calling, and mixes up what they are doing to beat you.

[Ian_Cummings]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianFifaFan

Yeah, this balancing thing was brought up in a thread in NCAA about a conference call with the NCAA guy. He was asked about the lack of DL pressure and said that had to be as not to mess up the balancing of other parts of the game. So did they rob Peter to pay Paul. That can end up being just as frustraing as was the lack of responsiveness that my Offensive players controlling like barges the first few years of this gen. Now my D guys move half-dumb and you can see the advantage that O players have with the new branching animations and super juking ability. Games not fair. Now I'm the Colts, trying to outscore everyone.

Yeah, that's just not true. Can you point me to the thread?

[Agame]

Re: Line play the foundation of video game?

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Re: Line play the foundation of video game?

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Nza





It all starts up front, in real life and in virtual representations of the sport. 09 may play well, hell it may play great, but Madden can't and won't push the gameplay barrier until this is addressed; it is simply too integral to the sport for it to not to matter this much. Right now, Madden plays its own brand of football that, while mimicking real life, fails to address far too many real life aspects. Properly done OL and DL will change this into Madden playing NFL football.



Ian, I think that you feel this way....YOU want real Football.....It starts with the line play............WE ALL (O.K. Most) thing 2009 looks like a base for a fun and realistic game of Madden ................can Madden NFL 2010 be the year for the focus on OL/DL?


Bring your "A" game

[BrianFifaFan]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

Yeah, that's just not true. Can you point me to the thread?

Here you go Ian. Bout halfway down.....http://www.operationsports.com/forum...r-gamplay.html

[maddenps2]

People complain about a comeback code and complain about realism at the same time. Those complaints somewhat contradict each since in many instances a real-life NFL team will be more aggressive when they are down and need to score. Especially a team with talented players and a top quarterback such as manning of favre. Not all teams/players can do this but many do and can.

Do people not want teams/players to change their intensity regardless of the situation?

I hope that EA takes this into account somewhat because computer players should mimic there real life counterparts at times and turn up the intensity during crucial game-time situations.

[MaxMan1000]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheFuture15

All valid points. I definitely understand where the criticism is coming from, and there's nothing wrong with that. What I'm trying to do though is dig to the bottom - if someone will not accept a game as being good or improved if a "fundamental" issue is not addressed, this to me is an easy cop-out to always be disappointed with the game, because no matter what I'm assuming there will always be an issue that could be categorized as "fundamental". It's still a video game, and I don't foresee any time in the near future us programming an exact representation of the NFL. I'm going to make it awesome and realistic...but it will never be EXACT...ya know? Am I making sense here, or am I just rambling?

I hear ya. I agree that the idea of the game being exact is virtually impossible. I've read stuff where people won't play the game because a guy doesn't move a quarter of an inch the right way in a specific animation, lol. I have my wants too, but even I don't understand giving up on a game for things like that, especially considering that no football game has ever been so exact like that... well, there was Mike Ditka's Quarterback Attack but that was FMV and you couldn't control a whole lot...

I'm not a hardcore guy, I barely touch franchise and I play 5 min quarters of less. I can't say that all who fall into my category think this way, but I honestly don't even notice the issues people bring up about stuff like OL/DL interaction and a bunch of other slight movements and things. I'm so focused on trying to make a play down the field that I'm hardly paying attention to that.

I think if you're a hardcore football fanatic AND a hardcore Madden player, you're going to notice everything about everything; OL/DL play/movement is fundamental in real life and so you're probably going to carry that expectation over. Quarterback footwork, RB instincts, precise headtracking... all that stuff is a hardcore thing I think and I doubt stuff like that is scrutinized at all by any group other than the hardcore. I never notice problems with those things unless an animation looks really strange. Now, I'm a football fanatic but only a casual gamer, but the football fanatic part of me doesn't carry over much into what I want from Madden. Gameplay feel, graphics, presentation... that's all I care about. As long as no animation pops-out as terribly quirky, I would never notice or even look into it hard enough to see if it's 100% fundamentally sound to pro football.

I think back to why I enjoyed old Madden's on PS1, and it was because of the feel, graphics and presentation (like Madden '98 on PS1! I still play it!). I scrutinize the hell outta those three things, but beyond those it doesn't take much to satisfy me.