Commentary hasn't improved much...if at all.

[J Masta J]

Hey guys. Haven't posted in awhile. With real football almost upon us, I've found something better to do then talk about a game I won't by. I've been challenging my efforts into a Packers blog, which I encourage you to check out if you're a fan of the Green and Gold: JonBob's Packer Blog

Anyway, I haven't been paying much attention to Madden recently. I made up my mind a long time ago just to stick with the last good Madden (2005), create a the WFL, and do some fantasy drafts. I've never used Madden Manifesto so I'm hoping to that as well.

Even with that said, when I came upon this video, I just had to comment. Take a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3BAOkWai0c

Really the only bit I'm concerned about is the first play. Pay attention to the commentary. The timing is absolutely, positively, ATROCIOUS. It flat-out RUINS THE PLAY. Gus Johnson doesn't comment that an interception has been made until a good 5 seconds have elapsed, and when he does so he sounds absolutely horrible.

This, in general, is what I've seen from the commentary this year. Little to no improvement. It still sounds as bad as it did with Hammond.

This is the point I'm trying to make. Changing the commentary did not make things better. Why? Because that's not where the primary problem is. The problem is that EA apparently has no idea how to properly put together a realistic commentary package. It doesn't make a difference if it's Hammond, Gus Johnson, or John Madden himself, when the people implementing the audio are as poor as the lot at Tiburon, the end result is going to turn out to be just plain BAD.

But I guess it's easier just to say "WE HIRED GUS JOHNSON!!! WOOOHOOO!!!" then to actually fix the problem, no?

BOTTOM LINE. EA needs to give up with the bells and whistles and get to the core of their commentary problems that have plagued the current gen system. A new voice won't do it, but maybe some new programmers will.

[J Masta J]

Also, apparently Jim Leonhard's last name is pronounced "Lester"??!?!

[KlassiK]

I think the commentary still sounds way to scripted. Not gonna lie, Gus Johnson might be worse for reading lines, it almost sounds like sarcasm. If they can get the lines to actually flow and fit the correct situations (which they should), it would be much better.

They also need to make the commentary sound like real sentences, the second gap between a word and the name of a team/player is incredibly annoying.

[Dino]

I don't ever remember Gus Johnson doing an NFL broadcast. Only know him from college basketball.
I don't understand why ea would hire a basketball guy to do football. Kinda ruins the game for me. Add in the radio sound from the coordinator, and we have Madden '09 combined with NCAA 2k10. LoL.
Ea madden team needs to join up with their NHL staff for game commentary.

[rooney8]

This was discussed in the thread with that video. Agree completely the timing is way off. Gus brought the emotion but sometimes he seems very excited over nothing.

[IamLEGENDsince87]

Dino, Gus Johnson does NFL games every week for CBS, he's one of the best

[roadman]

Let's hope they tightened up the final build since the demo build.

That's about all we can hope for.

[jpdavis82]

If you watched shopmaster's live streaming of the demo you would know that the game actually sounds better than that. I think the final version will sound even better and I was impressed with what I heard last night. In fact, I think the majority of the 100 plus viewers were saying that Gus was one of the most impressive things about the demo.