Very Early Madden 13 Demo Impressions - rudyjuly2's Blog

rudyjuly2's Blog

Very Early Madden 13 Demo Impressions

Posted on August 14, 2012 at 11:27 PM.

(3)

I was only able to play two games tonight after my son's game and the 75 minute download and install. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. The Infinity engine was not as big a difference as I thought. It's subtle. It will look like a bigger change compared to NCAA because I felt their tackling system is limited. Madden 12's tackling system is better than NCAA 13 imo.

Anyways, I played with the 49ers and then with the Giants. Lost the first game and won the second on All-Pro.

Graphics and Presentation are good. I like the colour of the grass as the old textures were too unbalanced in M12. The camera is a LOT better in M13 as its much closer on running plays. The commentary is excellent. Jim Nantz is a huge upgrade and Phil Simms is really good. The two recorded their audio together and it works great. Overall the presentation is really good EXCEPT for the awful, awful, awful replay system. On pretty much every passing play they have that stupid spline replay system where they show an angle for 1.5 seconds and then keep switching. It's nothing you see on TV and brings nothing to the table. What is the point? I'd rather them focus on the WR/CB battle the whole time. Switching all over the place is just useless and I hate it in NCAA Football too. This was done much better in M12. I wish they would go back. The game seems to look more cartoony than last year. Maybe the colours are too bright not sure. The game does play smooth. Much like last year Madden 12 seems to be done better on the PS3 than NCAA 12 which seems more like a port.

The running game was fine although I still think the juke is a little too weak. I love the juke move and after it was neutered last year I was hoping the special moves would be a little better. It's not bad but I still miss my old powerful juke. I wish we had a slider for special moves to tune it the way we want. The Infinity engine shows some nice broken tackles at times but I was expected to be wowed by this engine and I saw it as subtle. I guess I was expecting more.

The passing game with the new trajectories is good. I really like the way you can time your routes. Madden also features a slower ball speed in the air and tighter/heavier player movement that lets you feel you can actually make plays on pass defense.

I wish Ask Madden was like NCAA where you could cycle through a selection of plays and not just three. Still no special teams sliders separate for human and cpu. I don't get it. It was confusing when they moved the names of the plays to the bottom from the top. Not a big deal but it threw me off initially.

Overall I think M13 will be a nice improvement over M12 other than the stupid, stupid replay angles but I was underwhelmed. I guess I need to play it more but I was hoping to be blown away. My expectations were probably too high.

Comments

# 1 damedash @ Aug 15

I had the Initial reactions when I played yesterday

# 2 damedash @ Aug 15

Lol...I meant to say the same initial reaction

# 3 Beastly Wayz @ Aug 15

Good Read, a lot of what I thought about the demo, you posted. Madden seems to have certain upgrades over the past couple of years, still don't know if it has me excited to stand outside at midnight to pick up the release like it had me several years ago. Still think EA needs to go deeper in broadcasting and presentation.