Madden Ultimate Team Alternate Take

[Valdarez]

I played one game of it, but when I realized that you could use any settings to play game (effectively making coins / points unimportant) and I couldn't use my own created team uniforms, I never played it again (think I had Oakland by default...).

[JayhawkerStL]

I think this was a much more fair representation of what you actually get in MUT. That said, if the kids want to spend their money and play, EA can make plenty of money from those kids, and really shouldn't feel the need to cater to those of us that won't spend any cash on the game.

I would say that the basics are there for an amazingly cool game mode. But they need to monetize it differently. Either sell adds, and hope the MUT keeps us playing longer, or a subscription fee. Doing this allows the card game to become strategically fun as hell.

Then they have to add in, no just friend play, tournaments and other modes that allow us to show off our team in fresh ways.

But you can forget about the customization. This is an NFL game, and the NFL wants NFL teams represented. I can totally live with that. It may be silly, but the overall mode is more than enough fun to make up for it.

I love that I am learning about lower tier players, and I enjoy trying to find new uniforms, stadiums, playbooks, and coaches to spice up the game. MUT really does showcase what makes the NFL so great.

I was a hue APFB fan, so this mode scratches the same itches, and provides some advantages. I like knowing more about how my role players are, and having the ability to decide how many stars I want.

But like th author, I can't recommend the game in its current state. Playing cheesers and cash built teams online is bad enough. But being forced into completely blind random games, and then rewarding cheesers with larger payouts is nauseating.

OS kicks make sense i MUT, becasue Offense is where you really drive up the coin totals. So give your opponent a short field, and get the ball back quicker, and in poor enough field portion that you can rack up more yardage. I won't play this way, but I am sick to death of being forced to sit through a game becasue I want some points for the games I lose by playing.

All EA needs to do is find a better way to monetize the game, and introduce a much better way to match people up in a system that tracks the kind of ratings gamers have. APFB 2K8's system was not perfect, but it was far more reliable to find a decent game. And then let us play friends, and set up tournaments.

But I'm not holding my breath, becasue I am not certain that my ideas would generate more revenue that what EA is currently doing. So i may just have to realize that MUT really isn't for me.

[LingeringRegime]

I think it was a decent first effort. Online is very fun, if, and this is a big IF....

You find decent people to play. If not, it makes you want to throw the game in the backyard. I am honestly shocked at how many people online don't play realistic football. Disgraceful, really.

A franchise style mode with Ultimate would have been awesome. Oh well, maybe that will be a new feature new year.

[jyoung]

Yeah you're right on, Box.

Games have just become more difficult and more expensive to develop this generation, and the result is companies trying to maximize their profits while minimizing the costs and resources they have to put into their products.

We've seen this already with the purchasable equipment boosts EA added to NHL 10, the dynasty accelerators you can find in this year's Madden/NCAA, as well as the sub-par "arcade" games that EA's put out for the Madden and NHL series.

Quality and innovation are definitely lacking this generation in sports games across the board, and the challenges of developing for the 360/PS3 seem to be a big reason why.

I miss the days where a 10-man development team could sit down and create a game like Tecmo Bowl and not have their company's entire livelihood put into the development of that one game.

[KingV2k3]

I wish there was a franchise mode, where you could progress your players and have stats.

I guess that's just pretty much running a fantasy draft, but...

[pointNumberOne]

I'm having a lot of fun with Ultimate Team, but don't believe any final judgments can be made until after people realize you are not meant to have large #'s of legendary players on your team. Too many people threw money at this game mode (at least on xbox) and are now getting burned because they didn't think it through. Once the game economy settles down, and these flash-in-the-pan spenders get frustrated and leave, I believe this can have some serious long-term success.

[oneamongthefence]

Well with all the money they make hopefully they'll add more developers and a better game next year.

[HiTEqMETHOD]

"Gaming is Hollywood now, the good old days where a couple of geeks could slap together a great game on a shoe string budget for the fun of it are gone forever."

Definitely the sad truth. It seems like the people who try and push the envelope are gone too. Everyone has been playing it very safe the past few years. When the next gen consoles first came out devs were so optimistic and enthusiastic about what they could do with the technology, but once a few decent games came out everyone started sticking to set formulas of what worked. Everything has become so linear since then. The passion in the gaming industry is gone.