Press Row Podcast Episode 108: Madden 60 Days Later

[RaychelSnr]

The 108th episode of the Press Row Podcast features a full panel of Press Row regulars revisiting Madden NFL 15, 60 days after its release. We discuss what we enjoy and what nags at us, what makes Madden fun for us this season, and where the overall franchise is today and moving forward. Afterwards, some interesting nuggets came out of EA’s latest financial call, a lot of which directly impacts sports games. Lastly, some listener questions are answered.

Enjoy!

Joining us this week:

Chris Sanner, Operation Sports (@ChrisSnr)
Bryan Wiedey, PastaPadre (@PastaPadre)
Owen Good, Polygon (@OwenGood)
Samit Sarkar, Polygon (@SamitSarkar)
Kat Bailey, US Gamer (@The_Katbot)
T.J. Lauerman, ThatSportsGamer (@ThatSportsGamer)
And your host, Richard Grisham (@richgrisham)

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• Follow the show on Twitter at @PressRowPodcast and send us some Tweets while you’re there
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Enjoy the show!

Run Time: 1:38

[Introvese]

i hope the guests actually been playing the game. too many times guests commenting on the game which the havent played in weeks or since launch.

[jyoung]

Relevant to the Ultimate Team/EA quarterly earnings discussion:

1) South Park season 18, episode 6: "Freemium Isn't Free"

2) The Psychology Behind Ultimate Team's Success

3) One more interesting quote from the EA Q2 earnings report:

Quote: Originally Posted by EA

"During the six months ended September 30, 2014 , approximately 72 percent of our North America net revenue was derived from our top ten customers."

[Wilk5280]

Great episode! First I must state that playing in the PRP league has really enhanced my enjoyment of Madden this year. Even without the league though I think on the field the game has made a lot of improvements and is much more fun to play than previous years. At launch I was extremely frustrated by the insane completion percentage of CPU QB's, but since that patch I've seen their numbers drop quite a bit.

Was it Pasta who stated that there's no deep ball in this year? It's in there, but you definitely have to set it up and work for it. I've seen blown coverages deep and hit wide open receivers down field for big gains. The chunk plays are there, they're just not money and you've gotta get into the right situations.

CONFIDENCE! ugh, what's there to say. Kat is right.. Player progression is absolutely terrible.

I wish MUT would just go away

[Fist Of Kings]

I'm an offline franchise guy, so I never paid much attention to mut, but $60-80 bucks for a card pack? I agree that's pretty ridiculous. I also think that guy nailed the problems with the commentators and how they don't notice anything that goes on. I'll have to disagree with this being a good game though, because to me there's a lot of things that add up that drag the game down.

[darkknightrises]

I just traded the game in yesterday at best buy for $39. The game plays the best it has in a long time but getting 8-9 sacks a game is just to much of a game killer. If QB played like this in real life no QB would ever play all 16 games in a season has they take so many hits just because they will not pass the ball. Out of the 8-9 sacks a game I get like 5-6 of them are on sacks. If they could fix that the game would be pretty good but ever year something gets worse that was not a problem the year before. If a patch comes out to fix sacks then I will maybe buy the game again for a lot cheaper price.


I skipped last years madden for the first time in years has I have not liked madden sences 07 on gamecube but have been despert for a good football game again. I got tired of wasting my money on madden and being sick of the game after 2 months because of the issues. But I wanted to try this year has I wanted to try madden to see what it is like with it being on a new system but I can say no matter what I am skipping next year. Maybe by like madden 2100 or something madden wont have any major issues for once.

[Jerros]

Seriously, is anyone that understands football playing this game at all?? I mean are they not seeing the broken nonsense taking place in gameplay??

Here's a small list of issues I have with the game that can ALL be backed up with visual video evidence.

Limbs and body tangibility
Poor Ball tangibility
No Collision awareness
Broken Tackling physics
Broken Blocking physics
Broken Animation sequences
Broken Read react A.I.
Broken Zone coverage A.I.
Broken Man coverage A.I.
Broken Blocking logic
Lack of football techniques
Lack of football fundamentals
No Organic awareness
Rubber band A.I.
Stiff Last Gen animations
Levitating Players
Bad QB mechanics
Broken challenge system
Broken penalty system
Inconsequential weather
Warping and Suction
Sliding Animations
Synchronized Animations
Meaningless Player Stats
Player's bodies contorting
Players stuck in odd positions
Predetermined outcomes
Players spring boarding
Player's arms phasing through own
bodies from stiff arm animation

What game on this planet with all these issues would be considered game of the year??? Who is reviewing this game?? Seriously. Get someone in there that knows football. This is why the game will never improve. Baffling, truly baffling.

[Fist Of Kings]

Quote: Originally Posted by darkknightrises

I just traded the game in yesterday at best buy for $39. The game plays the best it has in a long time but getting 8-9 sacks a game is just to much of a game killer. If QB played like this in real life no QB would ever play all 16 games in a season has they take so many hits just because they will not pass the ball. Out of the 8-9 sacks a game I get like 5-6 of them are on sacks. If they could fix that the game would be pretty good but ever year something gets worse that was not a problem the year before. If a patch comes out to fix sacks then I will maybe buy the game again for a lot cheaper price. I skipped last years madden for the first time in years has I have not liked madden sences 07 on gamecube but have been despert for a good football game again. I got tired of wasting my money on madden and being sick of the game after 2 months because of the issues. But I wanted to try this year has I wanted to try madden to see what it is like with it being on a new system but I can say no matter what I am skipping next year. Maybe by like madden 2100 or something madden wont have any major issues for once.

That's a good find, I called gamestop yesterday and would only offer me $21 bucks for it. This weekend I played a lot more than I have in a while, but the verdict is the same: robo qb, game lacking in most areas, and the biggest flaw, the qb holding on to the ball and taking sack after sack makes this game unplayable offline. The robo qbs are bad enough, but the qbs constantly taking sacks even renders that useless, since it puts the ai on 3rd and longs and they're usually forced to punt.

6 of my defensive players were nominated for DPOTY. My rolb lead the league with 38 sacks only in week 11, while my lolb was 2nd with 34 sacks. On the flip side, the next highest sack total from an ai controlled team only had 9 sacks, and for whatever reason the simmed qb stats are bad. Andrew Luck had 15 tds/11 ints as the commentators praised him for having 'few' ints.

And one final cringe worthy moment, Rex Ryan(now the coach of the Packers) was wearing a Packers jersey while still wearing his Jets cap. While that's not as big as the game's other problems, I'm left wondering how things like this are overlooked, so obviously I strongly disagree with the podcast hosts on this being nominated as a goty candidate.