Five things that Madden has no excuse for getting wrong year after year - thescoop's Blog

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Five things that Madden has no excuse for getting wrong year after year

Posted on January 31, 2012 at 05:05 PM.

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EA Sports takes a lot of heat for its exclusive deal with the NFL. This blog isn't going to dive into the major issues of an exclusive deal, but instead focus on things that if you are the ONLY NFL game you should never get wrong. These are some things so basic that if you are the exclusive NFL video game and you do still get wrong, you are showing us you're just lazy. EA's history with the Madden franchise has had some highlights. But even in it's best years, some of these things have still been there.

1. The London game is a big deal. We may not like the NFL regular season game being played in London, but it happens. I was excited to see it made it into Madden this year, but it is treated as a home game for the Bucs in the game. The announcers make no mention of the game in London. The game on the schedule just appears as a home game for the Bucs. This is pure laziness. We as fans know when the game is. The announcers know they aren't calling a game in Tampa. Make it something we know about in season. Heck, even drop some of the players ratings to show the fatigue factor of traveling to London.

2. The announcers never have a clue what's going on in the actual season they are calling. I'm tired of the announcers not knowing the Colts haven't won a game that season. I'm tired of having an undefeated team in the Super Bowl and there is no mention of them being undefeated. I'm tired of breaking a long standing NFL record and the announcers not knowing it happened. This once again represents a laziness by EA. These types of things are happening in all other sports series it seems, but Madden keeps lagging behind. Trust me, the announcers at the Saints/Falcons games knew how close Brees was to the record. They even paused the game when he broke it. Big moments are special in the NFL. Madden doesn't really think so.

3. Home and road accessories may be different. Aaron Rodgers wears white long sleeves in cold weather home games and green long sleeves in cold weather road games. Real fans know these little things. In Madden, you can only give him one default long sleeve. Again, if you are the officially game of the NFL, these are the type of little things you should know. It may seem like a small fact, but should be something that we can at least set home and road accessories. Also, if we're wearing throwback uniforms, the coaches are usually in throwback shirts. The accessories too wouldn't be the default team color if the throwback is a different color either. This is another example of EA's laziness here and not something the NFL should want from the only NFL game on the market.

4. Late season playoff pushes are important. We know every possible scenario to who would make the playoffs. We know what has to happen for each team with a shot to make it. We never know in Madden. We just kinda have to wait for the final week to work out and see who is where. Would be nice to see a playoff chase page that shows us who is where and what needs to happen for each team to get in. Also, those games should have an added tense feeling to them. They matter like playoff games and should feel like such.

5. The Super Bowl actually rotates home and away between the NFC and the AFC. Madden has never gotten this right. They seem to think the team with best record is always the home team. How can a game that is the Official game of the NFL not know this? It has always rotated. Always. This isn't something new like letting the team that wins the all-star game host it? MLB changed that and guess what? The MLB games have this change in their games. Madden has never felt the need to actually get this detail about the Super Bowl right. It isn't that hard to put in and yet year after year they keep leaving it out. Why? The only excuse here in 2012 is laziness. The Super Bowl is the biggest game and yet they don't do much to make it feel special either. That's a whole different rant. This one was more about little things that a franchise with an exclusive deal still shouldn't be getting wrong.

I'm sure I can go on to major issues that still plague the Madden series that shouldn't for a game with an exclusive license. While these issues are minor in nature for the most part, they are a few things that EA shouldn't still be getting wrong. They aren't ranked in any order (or the Super Bowl home teams would be first) but hopefully someone with EA's new team will see them and maybe we'll finally see them addressed.

Spoiler

Comments

# 1 Packmania15 @ Feb 1

This is exactly why when EA's contract expires, they should bring back the 2K series of NFL games.

# 2 bigsmallwood @ Feb 1

Great points!

# 3 sactown_13 @ Feb 1

Good points, but i would rather see major gameplay improvements before arm bands, shoes, and better presentation for the london game. such as WR/DB interaction, DL interaction, DB's reacting to a play instead of jumping it before the WR even makes his cuts. so many to name

# 4 thescoop @ Feb 2

Sactown, you missed the point of this post. I agree that gameplay improvements should come first, but these are the little things that should take not time to fix and should NOT still be an issue at this point. Again, gameplay is most important and I've written on those issue in the past, but this blog post was about the little things that a game that is the official game of the NFL should NOT still be having. Nowhere am I making the claim these are the most important issues facing Madden.

# 5 thescoop @ Feb 2

I chose not to focus on the gameplay stuff for this one. Those are more important, but have been covered many times. I might do a second on later on that is nothing but gameplay stuff. (Depends on time) But for now I just wanted to do an column on these little things that don't matter as much, but still can take a gamer out of the game. You're points about the gameplay are dead on and I do agree. Just not the point I was making in this column but maybe in the future. Thanks for sharing though.

# 6 cheo25 @ Feb 2

Actually, the Super Bowl does rotate now on Madden between NFC and AFC as the "home" team in Franchise mode.

# 7 Grindtime2311 @ Feb 2

Everything is cool but does that Aaron Rodgers sleeve thing really break the game for you honestly?

# 8 thescoop @ Feb 2

Cheo25, it hasn't been rotating in my Madden franchise. Not at all. And Grindtime, it doesn't break the game for me. You are missing the point of the post. It is one of those little things that they should be able to get right. This isn't about deal breakers, this about pointing out some of the lazy things they can't seem to ever get right.

# 9 supermanemblem @ Feb 4

It's all a moot point if they fail to improve gameplay. Right now, Madden and NCAA are animation festivals. Gamers have about 3 seconds of player control before the animations kick in. But get, it never hurts to ask.