Staff Roundtable: Madden NFL 12 Demo Impressions

[TracerBullet]

Quote: Originally Posted by CRMosier_LM

I won't mention it but contact them and see what you can get for me. You may be able to get like a stick of gum or something.

I heard they would only give OS the stick of gum if we took JaMarcus Russell as well. That's why you're still here.

[seasprite]

Quote: Originally Posted by Smoke6

You must not have played the demo But here is the SUPER DB clip... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-69B_qFyy_8

I don't see super DBs in this. Certainly not to the level of NCAA

[CRMosier_LM]

Quote: Originally Posted by seasprite

I don't see super DBs in this. Certainly not to the level of NCAA

To me it just looked like a horribly timed throw.

[spankdatazz22]

Quote: Originally Posted by jfsolo

It's a given that unhappy people are going to be the most vocal about their feelings. Some of it is about Madden 12 specifically, and some of it is about their legacy anger toward the franchise.

Personally I think the demo is good. But compared to what? While I think the demo is good, I also think the game easily has the worst animations of any major sports game. We're going another year where there hasn't been a single significant gameplay contribution from Madden football; perhaps DPP will but I didn't notice anything too great in the demo. It all seems more about building on top of what most people acknowledge is a flawed base, fixing past issues. The system of player movement and interaction is improved in places (tackling), poor in others (OL/DL interaction). A lot of the appeal comes from the license; not sure we'd have people saying the engine's very enjoyable if the game were lacking the license.

Two points that stuck out to me in the roundtable are that Madden doesn't appear to have an identity and that it's probably time to blow it up and start from scratch. It may not be practical to do a MVP-like redo in this age, but I think most people would love to see it happen.

[mf756193]

I think the Madden 12 demo is great so I really don't know where all the hate is coming from, but to each their own. I'm a huge NCAA Football player and always enjoy that game more, but the Madden 12 demo puts NCAA 12 to shame.

[PVarck31]

I'm fascinated by the comments about the E3 build being a marked improvement over the demo build. I really hope we get that version in the retail copy. Especially because I really like the demo.

[jyoung]

I think the retail version of Madden 12 will be a lot better than the demo ala NCAA 12. At least, I hope that's what happens. I'm already bored and disappointed with the Madden demo.

Back to enjoying NCAA 12.

[bichettehappens]

I was extremely pleased with the demo. Most of my minor complaints are likely fixable via sliders (WRs catching everything, linebackers with big hits) and really my biggest complaint isn't too much of a bother because I'm used to it and that's the quick CPU QB snaps. Oh also, the quick QB movement in the pocket I imagine would get annoying if I played much online but since most of my time is spent in offline franchise I don't expect that to matter much

Outside of that I was extremely impressed with the new collision system, blocking (and conversely, block shedding), zone defense, receiver movement when the ball is in the air, CPU playcalling and decision-making (ex: stepping up in the pocket and scrambling), presentation, heck I even liked the layout and presentation during halftime better than what they had last year.

And I'm not seeing the issues people are having with play action. Most of my PA passes were successful, much improved from 11 IMO.