Madden NFL 11 Screenshots and First Details (IGN)

[dmick4324]

I asked my girlfriend to check OS for me to checkout the madden forums. She read to me Madden 11 Screenshots and I got so excited I ripped my laptop out of her hands and pushed her off my bed. This feeling of excitement quickly subsided as I saw the screenshots.

The Miles Austin animation happened about once every 4000 catches near the sideline (for me at least). I now expect this animation to trigger when a receiver is within 10 yards of the sideline.. I'm invisioning Miles Austin tiptoeing the sideline at the hashes. Austin's face does look pretty cool though.

The second screenshot really ruined my excitement. I cringed thinking about a DB jumping to knock the ball out of my WRs hands, climbing on his back, and then gathering enough force in mid air to hit my WR so hard that it sounds like a head to head collision of 2 Toyotas.

Sorry in advance about this.. lol

[Tick32]

Wow i was searching for this thread and just posted one the same lol. Now i find there was already 1

[LoostheMoos]

Underwhelming.

The game is at a crossroads this year in many ways.

I am sure that Ian is expected to produce a product that INCREASES sales year-over-year and that alone creates an enormous amount of inertia that is tough to overcome in any corporate setting (for the youngsters on this forum, pray you never have to learn the inner working of a large conglomerate/corporation like EA). I feel badly for him because it really is the ultimate no-win scenario. Change too much and alienate the "base" of customers and casual game buyers who routinely buy Madden every year. Change too little and you piss off the hard core crowd who always buys the game and always complains about its lack of depth and changes by October 1st each year. Its like trying to make porridge for Goldie-locks without any idea of what she would define as "just right".

On the other hand, a lot of the quotes are starting to sound canned and repeated year after year. This has been true for a long time, but it becomes jarringly so when it is the same person making the annual statements and promising the same fixes as the previous 2 games. Ian is in year 3 of a job that really should not have more than a 2-year public shelf-life.

David Ortiz suffered from many personal attacks and some that were partially justified, but the visceral hate he engendered at the end of his tenure was IMO due to staying on too long in a stagnant franchise.

Madden is going to be Madden. There will be a few things done better, a few things left 100% the same from games as old as 2006 and a few things promised that don't "get into the game though we REALLY wanted that one this year". This is all part of the annual cycle, nearly as predictable as spring thunderstorms and summer sun.

A brief recap:

2006 --> crap game, should have been killed and did so much harm to the series in terms of not meeting even basic expectations that it truly has poisoned the well for the entire series on current gen hardware...

2007 --> better than 2006, but still FAR short of "next-gen" expectations. EA got some credit for making the game playable initially, but glitches came in torrents and the game was generally a big disappointment on the 360 and in its PS3 debut.

2008 --> still progressing over 2006 and 2007, but not at a pace that satisfied many of the game's hardcore fans...worth noting - the 2006 game was done on a very compressed timeline to coincide with the release of the XB360 (November 2005) and THAT decision led to a similar compressed timeline on 2007 (released August 2006). Madden 2008 was truly the first game on this generation to get a full 12 months in development - from September 2006 to August 2007.

2009 --> anger was already boiling over in the fan base for not having a "classic" Madden to play on the PS3 and XB360. In the previous generations, by the 4th title - say Madden NFL 2004 on PS2 or Madden NFL '94 on PS1 - Madden had hit new series highs and won a ton of approval. To date that is still missing this time around...

2010 --> a truly decent Madden in many, many respects; but by this time the "Hate-Madden-is-cool" bandwagon was at full speed and circling the building with sign-waving zealots.

The common thread though all of these releases has been a carefully controlled media circus that starts in the spring and hits a peak with the release of NCAA in July and 4 weeks later culminates in the "new" Madden. Between now and then, about 5,000 times people will say "its still early...wait until 'x,y,z' " and another 5,000 retorts will say "yeah, but what about 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 or 2010?" The long and the short of it is that if you expect too much change in any single Madden then you simply have not been paying attention to the Madden Cycle very well or you are still new to the series.

Madden 11 will satisfy some and disappoint others, but what personally disappoints me is that Backbreaker shows a real attempt to change the perspective of how we play video football and introduces Euphoria-based unique tackles (in place of canned animations) and the only talk out of Orlando is about superficial and following the usual script. It will be enough to trounce Backbreaker in sales for certain, but not in originality and that counts for a lot.

Another year and another Madden that gets incrementally better when most people want something revolutionary every 12 months.

[PantherBeast_OS]

Thanks for the heads of Ian. Just please let it be more indepth please.

[Bgamer90]

Quote: Originally Posted by LoostheMoos

Madden 11 will satisfy some and disappoint others, but what personally disappoints me is that Backbreaker shows a real attempt to change the perspective of how we play video football and introduces Euphoria-based unique tackles (in place of canned animations) and the only talk out of Orlando is about superficial and following the usual script. It will be enough to trounce Backbreaker in sales for certain, but not in originality and that counts for a lot. Another year and another Madden that gets incrementally better when most people want something revolutionary every 12 months.

How can you (and others) make such statements when there's WAAY more info to come about Madden 11 in these upcoming weeks/months?

I don't get it.

[thor-17]

Do you guys remember last year? Ian and Co talked about qb's being able to branch out of the sack animation in M10. Sacks were way down, at least in my game, because everytime I'd hit the qb, he would throw d#$% the ball away. I hope it's not gonna be the same thing this year with the catch animations. Watching the same few new animations over and over and over.....

It seems like whatever the team is working to improve is run into the ground by the game. Instead of just being a part of the flow of the game, it's almost like they are saying," Look at me, I'm the new animation. Didn't see me, ok, here I go again. Still not enough, ok here I am again." I can remember this as far back as the Sega Genesis.

[davep]

I dunno...I think the CDT (Catch Debugging Tool) will be the answer to everyone's prayers!

[lgxjames]

tomorrow looks like a interesting day, wonder how much ign paid for that exclusive (if anything)