E3 2013: Madden NFL 25 Xbox One Hands-On

[The_Balm]

Quote: Originally Posted by The_Rick_14

I've had a couple of correct reads go for no gain. I will say I have yet to see a wrong read gain yards though unless it was a triple option.

Me too, not a lot, but it happens. Are the read option mechanics going to be same in Madden 25 as NCAA 14?

[The Duke]

Quote: Originally Posted by Boilerbuzz

For once, I'm going to defend EA a little bit. Just a little. No one can complain about how the current gen Maddens looked. The game was damned pretty graphically. So, to expect that much of an improvement from a gameplay camera seems a little unreasonable. The "XBox One" version of the game, was actually not using Xbox One hardware. It was on a PC. I do not believe that their next-gen graphics engine is just not ready to show. To me, it looked almost identical to current gen Madden. Now, I'll be the first to gripe that it took them NINE years to do something that that is fundamental to football. And I'm STILL waiting for fronts and coverages. But, the double teams blocking and the pockets looked fantastic and, to me, a positive step is a positive step. If they can clean up this Infinity engine bugs, I'll be cool with that. With that said, I did see some old issues pop up quite a bit. But it's too early. So we will see.

the problem isnt the graphics. Ive always thought Madden looked fantastic. as long as it isnt in motion. the game is hideously ugly when it is moving. in instant replay mode, youve got a beautiful piece of work on your hands. not so much when the game is playing.
movement and animation is the issue. next gen could have the best textures and lighting etc. in the history of video gaming, but it wont mean a thing if the player models are still off and the animation and movement are still unrealistic and unnatural, which seems to be the case. what good is 50000x the animation fidelity when the animations themselves dont resemble anything that actually happens on a football field? these guys simply cant capture and program animation very well. they just dont get it. the two most fundamental things in football - running and tackling - look completely hideous and unrealistic on current gen and im not seeing any real improvement on next gen. all the old problems still exist, albeit slightly less prominent.
next gen looks like a much more detailed version of current gen to me. they need to completely revamp player animation and movement. compared to the industry standard, NCAA and Madden look amateurish, lazy, ignorant and embarrassing.

[maafla1]

Okay, this one's a little late BUT I JUST DISCOVERED THIS LAST NIGHT. The league/conference/division standings logic is completely messed up in Madden 13 Connected Careers. I just finished a regular season where the Colts finished 9-6-1 and a handful of teams, including the Jets, Chiefs, and Chargers finished 9-7. Who made the playoffs? The Jets and Chiefs got wild cards, the Chargers won the AFC West and the Colts were left out. Last time I checked 9-6-1 is a better record than 9-7. Ties count as a half win AND a half loss when calculating winning percentage. Does anybody have any idea if this has been addressed in this year's Madden?

[Only1LT]

I didn't get a chance to watch the IGN live demo until last night cause i was away for a few days last week. After having seen the demo... oh boy lol.

The game looks very much the same as current gen. Yes, there are more polygons on players. Yes, muscles look more defined. Yes, the lighting effects are better, etc, etc, but the game looks very much the same from an animation standpoint.

The animation is smoother, but it still hitches in its rendering. It is incomprehensible to me how, but it does. The running animation looks better. The player's running is more straight up and realistic and not so hunched over (at least AP's is), but it is still a little jerky, hitchy, plagued by marionette limbs, as the current animations we know and hate.

In addition, the animation cancels and branches into new ones in the most unrealistic ways, still. They still have this obsession with short interruptible animation transitions, realism be damned. There were several occasions where this happened. A couple I can remember were on Runs where the player avoidance, or what ever it's called, kicked in, and AP was about to leap over a player on the ground and instantaneously got a little off the ground and then landed in the blink of an eye and went into a canned tackle animation. There were other examples that were in that vein.

Ok, what ever you may think about Backbreaker's physics, the game did a lot right on current gen tech. I can understand though not wanting to go that route on the current gen. This is next gen. The systems are more powerful. If BB can work reasonably OK on last gen, why isn't EA going towards more physics based gameplay on next gen? Why is the game just as reliant on animation based tech as every gen before it? What's the point of Ignite if the game is virtually the same?

Don't get me wrong. The true step stuff looks very good when it kicks in, but that's my point. It has to kick in. It's like the game is built on current gen tech, but they layered some next gen tech in, so you have the game looking very much the same, then you change direction and it looks great, then it goes back to looking the same. It's like they took the easy way out... again.

I'm not giving up on next gen Madden yet (already given up on current gen though), but this is not a great first impression. I'll keep watching and see how the game progresses, but I'm not too full of confidence right now about the prospects of them finally getting it. If anything, I most unfortunately, think that my fears about Madden being a lost cause no matter how powerful the hardware they use to build it on, are starting to look very, frighteningly real.

Ugh

[Papa D]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

I didn't get a chance to watch the IGN live demo until last night cause i was away for a few days last week. After having seen the demo... oh boy lol. The game looks very much the same as current gen. Yes, there are more polygons on players. Yes, muscles look more defined. Yes, the lighting effects are better, etc, etc, but the game looks very much the same from an animation standpoint. The animation is smoother, but it still hitches in its rendering. It is incomprehensible to me how, but it does. The running animation looks better. The player's running is more straight up and realistic and not so hunched over (at least AP's is), but it is still a little jerky, hitchy, plagued by marionette limbs, as the current animations we know and hate. In addition, the animation cancels and branches into new ones in the most unrealistic ways, still. They still have this obsession with short interruptible animation transitions, realism be damned. There were several occasions where this happened. A couple I can remember were on Runs where the player avoidance, or what ever it's called, kicked in, and AP was about to leap over a player on the ground and instantaneously got a little off the ground and then landed in the blink of an eye and went into a canned tackle animation. There were other examples that were in that vein. Ok, what ever you may think about Backbreaker's physics, the game did a lot right on current gen tech. I can understand though not wanting to go that route on the current gen. This is next gen. The systems are more powerful. If BB can work reasonably OK on last gen, why isn't EA going towards more physics based gameplay on next gen? Why is the game just as reliant on animation based tech as every gen before it? What's the point of Ignite if the game is virtually the same? Don't get me wrong. The true step stuff looks very good when it kicks in, but that's my point. It has to kick in. It's like the game is built on current gen tech, but they layered some next gen tech in, so you have the game looking very much the same, then you change direction and it looks great, then it goes back to looking the same. It's like they took the easy way out... again. I'm not giving up on next gen Madden yet (already given up on current gen though), but this is not a great first impression. I'll keep watching and see how the game progresses, but I'm not too full of confidence right now about the prospects of them finally getting it. If anything, I most unfortunately, think that my fears about Madden being a lost cause no matter how powerful the hardware they use to build it on, are starting to look very, frighteningly real. Ugh

Agree 100%

As I stated before to me it looks very similar to current Gen Madden.. Almost like it has been ported from current Gen??

"Ok, what ever you may think about Backbreaker's physics, the game did a lot right on current gen tech. I can understand though not wanting to go that route on the current gen. This is next gen. The systems are more powerful. If BB can work reasonably OK on last gen, why isn't EA going towards more physics based gameplay on next gen? Why is the game just as reliant on animation based tech as every gen before it? What's the point of Ignite if the game is virtually the same?"

Exactly! Very true, good question.. Backbreaker may have not been the best football game ever, but it did do one thing well, and that was true physics. It brought out some new tech & innovation that EA & Madden have been lacking for so long. Also BB did this with current Gen?! Why can't EA sports do something special & new with Next Gen?? Why does it have to look so similar to current gen?? Agree that was a poor first impression, very poor. We shall see what EA sports can do with the Next Gen consoles.. This will give a chance to see if their Dev's have the talent to utilize the Next Gen consoles and create something special. Something worth being called next gen football..

[Wikedjug]

Quote: Originally Posted by Only1LT

I have plenty bad to say about Madden's graphics, but I'll save that for another discussion. And the fact that it is running on a PC is not an argument in the graphics' favor either, as it will not look as good on consoles, unless they were running it on a mid range PC, which absolutely never happens.

So a 8 core cpu, a gpu clocked at 1.8 tflops and 8 gb GDDR5 is a mid range pc(ps4 specs)?

That's a $1200+ PC.

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Wikedjug

So a 8 core cpu, a gpu clocked at 1.8 tflops and 8 gb GDDR5 is a mid range pc(ps4 specs)? That's a $1200+ PC.

I'm guessing that's more like $900.00.

[Only1LT]

Quote: Originally Posted by Wikedjug

So a 8 core cpu, a gpu clocked at 1.8 tflops and 8 gb GDDR5 is a mid range pc(ps4 specs)? That's a $1200+ PC.

I don't think you understand what I'm saying. I was talking about the PC that they present games on at shows. They are high end PCs. That's why Battlefield looks so much better at a show than it does on your PS3 or 360. So I was saying that if you are using the excuse of it being shown on a PC to justify that it could look better on the PS4/One, that that is nonsense. It's already running on the highest end, or close to it, hardware that it could be running on.

Furthermore, a PS4/One is technically a mid range PC. It's an 8 core SOC. It's not an Ivy Bridge CPU. It doesn't have a dedicated high end GPU. There's no Titan or even a GTX 780 inside of a PS4/One. Obviously the hardware is somewhat subsidized, but let's be frank. A Titan GPU costs $1000. The PS4 costs $399 and the One $499. A GTX 780 costs $650. How the heck is a PS4/One not a mid range PC when a high end graphics card costs more than the whole damned system? The only thing that is not mid range about the PS4 is that it uses DDR5 memory as opposed to DDR3.

Now consoles are dedicated gaming solutions, so they don't have nearly as many processes running as a PC, so you can actually get better performance on a console with these specs than you could on a PC built with these specs, but make no mistake about it, as advanced as the new consoles are, they are by no means anywhere close to being high end PCs. Their architecture is more akin to a mobile device or laptop, than it is to a desktop PC.