Since 2005, I have felt that Madden has never been the same. Once the King of football games, trouncing Gameday, Joe Montana, and others, Madden kept on top, but recently have become more of a joke to many.

It has gotten to the point that people are ANTI-Madden and viciously so.
This may stem from Ian Cumming's promises that we will have realism, only for us to be disappointed each year.

The new Madden demo is out, and already we see the complaints and disappointments on the boards. "It feels weird", "Strange animations", "Doesn't look right" "What happened to gang tackling?" "Hate the D-pad"
"Bad lighting" "Looks like bobble heads with big heads and skinny bodies"...

I've played the demo, and it's improved over last year, no doubt. the cut scenes are nice, but missing a TV presentation. The ball acts like a spinning top when tipped and the gang tackles are weird...in fact they just don't happen. The commentary is strange and out of place and everything seems blah. It's just not fun.

Next Gen has taken a step back IMHO. The last few years included player warping, gameplay issues, and a cartoonish look and feel. The overall simplification and catering to the casual sports fan have alienated "sim" gamers like myself.

There is no halftime show ala ESPN 2k5, made 5 years ago.
And last year's attempt to do so was just plain awful.

The Tyree catch, which I saw personally at the 2007 super bowl was a once in a lifetime experience, yet it's a standard animation in Madden.
Plays that are humanly imposssible are common place in Madden.
This makes the game less real, and more super-hero like, again, to rope in
the casual gamers, to "Brag" about stick skills, and they market it that way. Did you see the many ads talking about "bragging rights"?
And those stupefying Madden nation tournaments on TV. It has become the Jerry Springer of video games.

Now they have brought in Gus Johnson to act as an over- acting commentator in XFL style.

See a trend here?

I wish it wasn't so. I'd love to come back to Madden if EA would gets their act together. Make the game fun again, and make it realistic, with a real franchise mode ala head coach, TV presentation ala NCAA 10 basketball and real time physics, but that's a way off, if at all, isn't it?

ESPN 2k5 and All-pro football still both have audiences, but neither has more than a hardcore following. All-pro because of a lack of franchise mode, and creation limitations and ESPN because it's last-gen and 5 years old.

Meanwhile, the badly reviewed Backbreaker has slowly crafted a plan to win over the sim audience.

Releasing the game too soon, it tried to beat NCAA 11 and Madden to the punch, but in retrospect, should have waited till now to release, because of major gameplay issues and a fixed camera that many did not like, especially in the case of replays.

With the users acting as a giant focus group, the devs collect the feedback and made changes, with an announcement of a "major" patch for Backbreaker.

The BB crew took a month to (possibly) fix these issues, ingeniously releasing the patch to select you tubers next week, and the general public a bit later, both right after the Madden demo release.

If the patch is as good as the devs say it is, do you think many Madden gamers will give it a second look after the disappointment of the Madden demo? I think so. And the devs of Madden will take notice. But not do much to change the game, because they don't really feel threatened. They are not going for the sim crowd, despite the lip service they pay to that. They cater to the casual crowd.

With BB and FlyingFinn's editor for the XBOX360, users are able to create NFL rosters and edit individual players, even past the point the game was created for.

Will there still be issues after the patch? Probably. The limitation of being to control only one team in a season, simmed stat issues and no cpu-cpu play is a major issue to me and others I have spoken to, but once that is handled, it could be....dare I say...the greatest football game ever made.

Well played by Backbreaker. Now the patch can save the game and win over a large number of disgruntled Madden users, but it all hinges on the improvements. Will they be as amazing as they have been hyped to be?

We'll find out next week.

mrjordan

[URL]http://www.operationsports.com/forums/backbreaker-rosters/429680-mrjordans-historic-teams-file-download-xbox360.html[/URL]

mrjordan

Since 2005, I have felt that Madden has never been the same. Once the King of football games, trouncing Gameday, Joe Montana, and others, Madden kept on top, but recently have become more of a joke to many.

It has gotten to the point that people are ANTI-Madden and viciously so.
This may stem from Ian Cumming's promises that we will have realism, only for us to be disappointed each year.

The new Madden demo is out, and already we see the complaints and disappointments on the boards. "It feels weird", "Strange animations", "Doesn't look right" "What happened to gang tackling?" "Hate the D-pad"
"Bad lighting" "Looks like bobble heads with big heads and skinny bodies"...

I played it myself and found it to be improved, with nice cut scenes, but no TV style presentation and just not fun. I wish this were not the case. I still hold the hope that one day there will be TV style presentation, a real halftime show and realistic gameplay, but when?

ESPN 2k5, made 5 years ago, had all those things in there.
So why hasn't Madden come close?
Last year's attempt at a halftime show was just plain awful.

Next Gen has been a step back IMHO. The player warping, gameplay issues, cartoonish look and feel, overall simplification and catering to the casual sports fan have alienated "sim" gamers like myself.

The Tyree catch, which I saw personally at the 2007 super bowl was a once in a lifetime experience, yet it's a standard animation in Madden.
Plays that are humanly imposssible are common place in Madden.
This makes the game less real, and more super-hero like, again, to rope in
the casual gamers, to "Brag" about stick skills, like in those cheesy Madden nation tournaments on TV. It has become the Jerry Springer of video games.

Now they have brought in Gus Johnson to act as an over- acting commentator in XFL style.

See a trend here?

ESPN 2k5 and All-pro football still both have audiences, but neither has more than a hardcore following. All-pro because of a lack of franchise mode, and creation limitations and ESPN because it's last-gen and 5 years old.

Meanwhile, the badly reviewed Backbreaker has slowly crafted a plan to win over an audience. Releasing the game too soon, it tried to beat NCAA 11 and Madden to the punch, but in retrospect, should have waited till now to release, because of major gameplay issues and a fixed camera that many did not like, especially in the case of replays.

With the announcement of a major patch for Backbreaker, the BB crew took a month to (possibly) fix these issues, ingeniously releasing the patch to
select you tubers this week, right after the Madden demo release.
After that, the general public gets the patch.

Think many Madden gamers will give it a second look after the disappointment of the Madden demo? I think so. And the devs of Madden will take notice. But not do much to change the game, because they don't really feel threatened. They are not going for the sim crowd, despite the lip service they pay to that. They cater to the casual fan.

With FlyingFinn's editor for the XBOX360, BB users have been able to create NFL rosters and edit individual players, even past the point the game was created for.

Will there still be issues after the patch? Probably. The limitation of being to control only one team in a season, bad simmed stats, and no cpu-cpu play is a major issue to sim gamers, but once that is handled, it could be....dare I say...the greatest football game ever made.

Well played by Backbreaker. Now the patch can save the game and win over a large number of disgruntled Madden users, but it all hinges on the improvements. Will they be as great as they have been rumored to be?

We'll find out very soon.

mrjordan