Madden NFL 12 Review (360/PS3)

[BlackJackRabbit]

It's amazing how much more positive the reviews were for Madden 11 than Madden 12, and Madden 12 is clearly better than Madden 11.

http://www.operationsports.com/revie...madden-nfl-11/

It seems like, to me, that writers are tired of the baby steps that this franchise has been taking this generation. The jist I get is " too little, too late." Madden has lagged behind the rest of the sports genre for too long, and writers aren't sugarcoating things anymore.

[jkra0512]

To the people making the point, "Well, football games are hard to make." Does that mean we should give developers a free pass? Also, when the SAME problems crop up year after year, should the consumer say, "Oh well, the game is hard to make, they can't fix everything...Here is $60, EA."

I agree that no game will EVER be bugless or glitch-less upon release, but as Chris pointed out in his review, some of the design decisions are questionable, at best. Is that because a football game is hard to make? I would let the argument go if it were the first or second edition on the current gen, but we are almost six years into this generation and they still haven't ironed out the details. Instead, the consumer is stuck dealing with the "three-year cycle," that begins every year.

There are some promising features such as the new Franchise additions, but that's not enough to warrant a $60 purchase for me, with many other features that need to looked at and tweaked...

[tril]

the problem with Madden is probably the lack of sliders. All the complaints found in most sports games are usually corrected with a correlating set of sliders.
Madden developers should include mroe specific sliders. for every position. not just the core sliders found every year.

[SageWonder]

Quote: Originally Posted by scoonie05

Can somebody name one sports game that has been with released without any bug's or issue's?? I know madden has plenty of issue's but some guys are nit picking at everything. There will NEVER be a perfect football game.

Taken from a previous thread(tired of people making this "no game is perfect" argument):

NO ONE HAS EVER EXPECTED MADDEN TO BE PERFECT!

What people do expect:
3+ year legacy issues/bugs to be fixed.
An overhyped mode that hasn't been touched in 3 years to finally get an update.
Things from "that other football game", such as head/ball tracking, WR/DB & OL/DL interactions, football fundamentals per position, etc, to finally be implemented correctly in Madden after 6 years of waiting.

Basically, we just want the bugs fixed and for the gameplay to finally add these long-needed features that a 6 year old game had.

Posted using the power of knowledge.

[RaychelSnr]

Quote: Originally Posted by SageWonder

Taken from a previous thread(tired of people making this "no game is perfect" argument): NO ONE HAS EVER EXPECTED MADDEN TO BE PERFECT! What people do expect: 3+ year legacy issues/bugs to be fixed. An overhyped mode that hasn't been touched in 3 years to finally get an update. Things from "that other football game", such as head/ball tracking, WR/DB & OL/DL interactions, football fundamentals per position, etc, to finally be implemented correctly in Madden after 6 years of waiting. Basically, we just want the bugs fixed and for the gameplay to finally add these long-needed features that a 6 year old game had. Posted using the power of knowledge.

The 'no game is perfect' argument is a good one when factoring in buying decisions...Madden is a fun but not realistic game (and I said as much in the review). However when judging a game on our full 10 point scale, a 10 is essentially a perfect game. Many sites with a similar 10 point scale will give deeply flawed games 10/10 because they are great in so many other areas. In my time at OS, even under the old scale, we have never given a 10 and even 9.5s were exceedingly rare. I say that because now, most games will see lower scores but will still be fun and perfectly playable games.

The way the scale was designed is that anything over a 7 starts to be a very solid buy for most because those games are in the upper 25% of our scale. Anything from 5-7 is probably more for fans of the sport and anything below a five starts getting into 'don't buy unless' territory. So yes no game is perfect but we are going to be scoring games at OS with either the perfect simulation OR arcade sports experience in mind.

[Zastrin]

Two words - LOVE IT.

[BenGerman]

Nice review. I'll probably pick this up eventually, but I'm definitely going to hold off until I absolutely need an NFL fix. First year I didn't pre-order Madden in a long time.

[soxfan2815]

Quote: Originally Posted by MMChrisS

The 'no game is perfect' argument is a good one when factoring in buying decisions...Madden is a fun but not realistic game (and I said as much in the review). However when judging a game on our full 10 point scale, a 10 is essentially a perfect game. Many sites with a similar 10 point scale will give deeply flawed games 10/10 because they are great in so many other areas. In my time at OS, even under the old scale, we have never given a 10 and even 9.5s were exceedingly rare. I say that because now, most games will see lower scores but will still be fun and perfectly playable games. The way the scale was designed is that anything over a 7 starts to be a very solid buy for most because those games are in the upper 25% of our scale. Anything from 5-7 is probably more for fans of the sport and anything below a five starts getting into 'don't buy unless' territory. So yes no game is perfect but we are going to be scoring games at OS with either the perfect simulation OR arcade sports experience in mind.

I agree that many sites are giving way too many games a 10/10. That system is overused. I think the new scoring system here is throwing a lot of people off. I don't know if it's just that most people haven't been informed about the new scoring system yet or what but even for me it's a little confusing. I'm just curious what you would give Madden under the old system? What would a 7.5 equal?