Madden NFL 15 Gameplay Videos - Day 1

[OhMrHanky]

Not that it matters, but it just kills me to see some of these tourney players still rocking the 2 man rush on defense and playing as a Dlineman and dropping back into coverage (making it a 1 man rush). Lol. Part of what has killed the online experience for years. Supposedly the draw plays will work better this year to counter that 'strategy'. But, I just get a kick out of seeing it. I've always been more of a franchise offline player, but I'm hoping to go online again with 15 as it seems more sim friendly.

[Malcd9583]

Just watching the packers bears game in the snow and I'm the one to care about gameplay more then anything but man oh man as you look in the crowd in the snow game they all have on short sleeves and some shorts smh. Like with these new consoles crowds and sidelines should have different attire for different weather.

[Connolly22]

god damn the gameplay looks freaking fantastic

[cima]

Quote: Originally Posted by TheSaints7

Because its a small feature that it an easy fix. When your playing in the Snow, you want to feel like you are. And if the fans and camera men are wearing shorts then it takes away from that.

Does it really though? I mean REALLY ask yourself "does it?" IMO to feel like you're playing in the snow it comes down to players sliding more, losing their footing, more dropped passes, etc...not the attire of a non-player who will rarely be seen while playing.

[bad_philanthropy]

Quote: Originally Posted by cima

Does it really though? I mean REALLY ask yourself "does it?" IMO to feel like you're playing in the snow it comes down to players sliding more, losing their footing, more dropped passes, etc...not the attire of a non-player who will rarely be seen while playing.

Gameplay is definitely number one, but I think most posters here also appreciate visual authenticity as well. Just look at the popularity of the NCAA '07-'14 and Madden 25 photograph threads. It's just kind of lame and breaks a bit of the immersion to see this two years in a row when the rest of the game has such an authentic look to it. I've spent a lot of time in replay mode over the years just admiring the look of things.

I want gameplay first, but I also don't want aspects of visual authenticity to take steps back like this. Madden has had weather appropriate crowds/sidelines in the past.

[countryboy]

Actually I think it does as well. Is it a gamebreaker? Absolutely not, but it does hurt the "atmosphere" of the game. With the crowds being more detailed and sidelines being populated, you would like for them to help "sell" the atmosphere of the game taking place, whether its rain jackets or warm clothing on cold nights.

I hope its ok for me to bring this up, but in MLB The Show, it helps sell the atmosphere of early spring games or postseason games in October, with the crowd wearing jackets, long sleeve shirts, hats, taboggans, and gloves. It's also nice that children are at the game.

While none of that takes anything away from the gameplay, it does take away from the atmosphere and the "fantasy world" that you're living in during that game.

[FaceMask]

I saw a lot of good things.

The tackles have improved quite a bit from what we initially saw from E3. Can't ignore that. Not 100% where I want it, but I can go with it.

Graphics are nice, of course.

Larry Ridley's commentary is surprisingly good. The pre-game in general is sleek, precise, and to the point. It's just short enough to feel fresh and not too long for them to screw it up.

Saw some improvements on camera work. Still needs work, but it's better for sure.


AND SOME NOT-SO GOOD THINGS:

Play-By-Play commentary sounds practically the same, and it's just not good enough. Too many generic lines, too much "he has it", "takes it left" without calling out whose doing what. Unacceptable.

Big guys are too thin. WAY too thin. They say they have enough body types, but to me it seems like every player is based off the same body type, and bigger guys are just larger versions of the small body type. Some of the QB's look like punters.

The pocket-forming is just not there consistently. I notice in some vids where the devs unnecessarily stepped up in the pocket and moved around as if they were trying to give the illusion of a real impending pass rush. I don't like to accuse people of things, but I don't know how else I can describe it. The rush just wasn't there in the dev streams, and there was no reason to step up or move position the overwhelming majority of the time. Does the pocket form sometimes? Yep, but it's not consistent at all.

Why they have the QB's holding the ball so low, I'll never know and I don't want to know. They just need to fix that. It looks ridiculous. Some of these throwing motions look ridiculous, too. They were never great in Madden to begin with, but stripping away all of the QB animations just to have all the QB's throw the same funky way is just awful.

Cutscenes from Madden 13 and 25 still in the game? Un-acc-eptable! Especially the end of the game ones. They have to know better than that. They just have to.

The momentum/cutting was taken down way too much. PeterJaguars posted a video where a Jags ballcarrier literally cut right to left as if he was weightless. This isn't the PS1 era, we shouldn't ever be seeing that in this generation. Not good.

I'm concerned that not a doggone thing has been done to improve weather, i.e. more snow settings than just a blizzard and more rain settings than just a monsoon. I really hate that if this is the case, but I imagine if they'd done anything to weather we'd have known about it by now.

I think the game will be entertaining. What bugs me is that many of the games issues are minor quality gaps that may be more an issue of overall QA (not simply department specific QA). The distance between something being right on and being off is pretty narrow in this game, but the number of those things have a cumulative effect, and that's what's holding the game back from going to the next level.

[countryboy]

Quote: Originally Posted by FaceMask

The tackles have improved quite a bit from what we initially saw from E3. Can't ignore that. Not 100% where I want it, but I can go with it.

This is something I noticed as well after watching all the videos. It isn't where it needs to be, but its on the right track, and is 10 times better than what we witnessed during the E3 videos.