Madden NFL 11 Discussion: The Good and the Bad

[rrrdawg2]

Madden has many game flaws that have plagued the series for years: Rocket catching, Morphing, Suction blocking, Bad physics, Bad animations, Bad ratings, etc.

What does EA focus on? Shortening game times, Easier to use playbooks, Locomotion (which if it is anything like in NCAA 11 demo, isn't something to be completely proud of yet), and Swagger.

I don't mind playing a longer game, I had no trouble with the old playbooks, and Locomotion just isn't there yet (using NCAA 11 demo as a judge). Oh well, at least they're doing something with the awful running animations.

Still, I'm upset on how little they are focusing on fixing the aforementioned problems. It just feels like too much flash, not enough substance.

So I would like input from the OS community. I don't want to completely condemn the game in July. I really want EA to turn it around and make a decent title, but things look bleak to me.

[Mack Attack 11]

The same thing is said evey year. Nothing changes. The feature set is always the focus and adding a new "catch phrase" to make it appear that the game is better is always the priority.

When I read the below in the EA blog it made me cringe like every year. I guees M12 will be the year. As always maybe next year.


E3 Feature Announcement and Career Modes Update

by Phil Frazier 06/11/10 1:50 PM


We feel great about where we’ve taken the foundation of Madden NFL and are ready to refocus on building Franchise and SuperStar from the ground up. We have already assembled a team fully dedicated on setting the vision for what Franchise and SuperStar modes can and should be in the future. Since we are starting with a clean canvas heading into Madden NFL 12,

[rrrdawg2]

You're right. I can see the Madden '12 pitches now: "Lead your team to victory in the revamped Superstar mode!" as well as "Build the ultimate team in the newly designed Dynasty mode!" Dear EA, if I wanted to stare at menu screens all day, I'd work overtime.

Anyway, thanks for posting.

[jvaccaro]

Quote: Originally Posted by rrrdawg2

Madden has many game flaws that have plagued the series for years: Rocket catching, Morphing, Suction blocking, Bad physics, Bad animations, Bad ratings, etc. What does EA focus on? Shortening game times, Easier to use playbooks, Locomotion (which if it is anything like in NCAA 11 demo, isn't something to be completely proud of yet), and Swagger. I don't mind playing a longer game, I had no trouble with the old playbooks, and Locomotion just isn't there yet (using NCAA 11 demo as a judge). Oh well, at least they're doing something with the awful running animations. Still, I'm upset on how little they are focusing on fixing the aforementioned problems. It just feels like too much flash, not enough substance. So I would like input from the OS community. I don't want to completely condemn the game in July. I really want EA to turn it around and make a decent title, but things look bleak to me.

you are funny. the bold items you complain haven't been addressed were some of the biggest focus areas for m11 development.

Sure, the rocket catch was a bit of an issue, but it seems they've given the WR the much-needed ability to jump and fight for the ball with better animations this year.

Morphing, bad physics, and bad animations should be addressed with new run animations, no backpack DB swat tackle, and the new locomotion system.

Suction blocking has been worked on a lot with the all new run blocking re-write. I don't know how you can overlook this.

Bad ratings is too general of a complaint. Too many too high, too low? Too close together, too spread apart? I mean, they totally re-rated all the players for m10 to be much more spread out and are continuing to tweak the system for m11.


now, did you really have specific issues, or are you just assuming that m11 is the same ol same ol as years past?

[aussiepats89]

Honestly I think the game is moving ahead nicely but I do think there's still a lot of things to fix. I'm siding with Ian & co simply because while I enjoyed earlier Ortiz Maddens I'm seeing now that there was a lot to fix up. It could be better now but I enjoy the game each year so I'm not too fussy.

[Skyboxer]

Could be better ...could be worse...
It's a video game....

[roadman]

Didn't the OP post this in another thread? I know I just read it a few minutes ago.

No comments one way or the other for me until it's released.

[proud2bawesome]

I completely agree with the OP. The dev team does too little in a full cycle to justify anything...To me, it seems like they're more or less phoning it in until the license runs out and then they'll just cash out. So many of these problems are fairly simple to address and any other dev team facing competition would have taken care of them a long time ago in order to stay in business.