Maximum Football???

[cartman]

3D Avenue has published a review. It's not pretty. I think he read this thread before writing it.

hxxp://www.3davenue.com/1539.html

Gridiron on the PC may be a niche market, but over the years the PC platform has been host to some truly great gridiron simulations - the FBPro series, Front Office Football, and of course EA's Madden NFL to name a few. However, in more recent times, very little progress has been made, particularly in the areas of user customization - an aspect most other genres on the PC have long since embraced. This is where Maximum Football comes in - a PC gridiron game which puts user interaction first. Want an 8 man indoor league with your own created teams, user made uniforms and all? Want to mix and match rules between Canadian and American style? Want to design a playbook with custom formations? It's all possible with MaxFB, and then some.

One of the unique things about MaxFB is it was primarily made by one man - David Winter of WinterValley Software. While the game is under the label of Matrix Games (the publisher), it was David who did most of the work, and work he did. Although MaxFB was originally announced in April of 2001 and intended for a 2002 release, it has taken until early 2006 for it to hit gold status. That's a long time for a game to be developed. To think, during this game's development, terrorists knocked down the Twin Towers in New York City, the US and its allies went to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, NASA sent robots to Mars, and Conan O'Brien was named the successor to Jay Leno.

When you fire up MaxFB for the first time, you'll notice straight away that the menu's are not designed with convention in mind. First of all, there is no "Options" section to speak off - all you can do from the Main Menu is choose to play a "Quick Game", a "League Game", or exit the game entirely. It is before each game where you define your options - whether they be the rules and boundaries of the game about to be played, or the game's visual detail and resolution. I can understand having the rules option menu come up pre game, but having a general "Options" section for users to toggle their technical settings accessible from the Main Menu would seem to have made more sense - there's a reason just about every PC game has this. A lot of the times graphical detail options are settings you tweak once and forget about, so having them pop up before every game seems like a waste of menu space really.

The "Quick Game" mode is pretty self explanatory, but "League Game" is where the meat of MaxFB is located. The League section is a little confusing to navigate at first, but if you experiment for a little bit you get the hang of it pretty quickly. From here, you can edit leagues, teams, players, as well as obviously run games. Unfortunately though, MaxFB fails to provide much more than this when it comes to league gameplay. There is no money or contract system to speak of, so for the armchair General Managers out there, unfortunately MaxFB is probably not for you. This is actually quite disappointing, as a 3D based gridiron game with a realistic emphasis on the financial dealings of a football team is sorely needed in this genre. On top of this, while there is a player draft, this acts the role of free agency and the rookie draft, which again won't appeal to the team management enthusiasts out there who want realism. At the very least though, MaxFB's Leagues are in a "career" mode, meaning players progress, age and retire.

Naturally, MaxFB does not feature any big league licensing, but it doesn't have to. Thanks to the versatile platform that is the PC, MaxFB can have any league, teams and players you want it to have - providing you're whiling and able to produce the content required to make it happen, or someone else already has and have made it available for download. While Matrix Games won't host content featuring copyrighted material for obvious reasons, such as NFL teams, there are fan based websites that will provide you with such content (links down the bottom of review). This adds a new dimension to MaxFB that no other game, including Madden, can match - if the community interest is there, MaxFB could become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to user addon's. The question is, will there be a user mod community big enough to really drive this aspect of MaxFB? The level of community interaction could literally make or break a game like MaxFB, so it is at least encouraging that Matrix Games are focused on this area by supplying hosting resources and discussion forums for interested users.

When it comes to the actually playing MaxFB in-game, there are three ways to do it - Arcade mode, CPU vs CPU mode and Coach mode. Arcade mode is comparable to Madden's classic mode, which means you have control over the players. However, in MaxFB, this is really not a great way to play given the shortcomings of the game's 3D aspects, which will be discussed in detail later. CPU vs CPU mode is where you watch two teams play out - perhaps useful for online GM leagues, although as I've already outlined there is very little "GM'ing" to be done in MaxFB. Finally, there is Coach mode, which is how most gamers will probably spend their time playing MaxFB. In this mode, you select the play and let the CPU AI execute it for you. Given MaxFB's emphasis on user designed plays, this is by far the most rewarding mode as you know success comes down to how well you plan and coach, not how well you tap buttons.

However, even coach mode can't escape MaxFB's suspect in-game abilities. First of all, the game is simply buggy. It is hard to complete a game without coming across a few bugs, some of which can be quite devastating in effect. For example, on one occasion, I suffered a delay of game penalty on 1st and 10, but rather than move me back 5 yards, the game gave possession of the ball to my opponents on my 30 yard line, which quickly led to a score. I'd like to say stuff like this is rare in MaxFB, but it isn't. Secondly, since coach mode relies on the CPU to execute the plays, AI is very important, but at times MaxFB fails to deliver here too. Defensive coverage is often a problem, as is blocking. Luckily, both of these issues outlined - bugs and AI - could be addressed in future patches, but whether or not they are effectively of if at all is another story.

The best part about MaxFB is quite easily the "Play Development System" - a fancy name for a play and playbook editor. In this editor, you can pretty much do anything. A lot of game developers out there release utilities for their games and say "this is the same utility we used when making the game's content", and then a few sessions later you find out it can't do something which is in the game. You won't find this with MaxFB's "PDS". When making a formation, you have complete control of which positions go where, and when I say complete, I mean complete - players can line up anywhere as long as they're not over the LOS, which means you can basically make any formation you can think of. When making a play for your formation, or an in built formation, you can define receiver routes down to the pixel, and you can also add events to positions such as "block and release", "wait", "random snap count" and "lead block" to name a few. As I said, this is quite easily the best part of MaxFB. The only draw back is the utility is external to the game, but it can be easily accessed from the game's initial menu screen. While the less than enthused MaxFB gamer might not care for making his or her own plays, if you are prepared, it could literally be the most important part of success on the field given the control you have.

Visually, MaxFB is about as low end as you'll find a 3D game on the PC these days. While the stadiums don't look too bad and the player models are semi decent when standing still, it is the animations that really let MaxFB down. We can understand that such a small time project might not have access to stuff like motion capturing, but even if you put aside the less than life like movement of the players, you'll still find disjointed animations that, at times, can be hard to even see properly given their uneven execution speeds - for instance, most tackle animations are so damn quick and featureless you can't even tell what happened. It sounds like players collided, and two guys are on the turf flat on their backs, but that's about as convincing as it gets. At other times, you'll see the backs of defensive linemen facing the QB and still being blocked, defenders making tackles through blockers, and tacklers disappearing off the screen after making a hit just to name a few other animation related quirks. While the game isn't intended to be on par with Madden in terms of its 3D engine (which itself is getting quite dated these days), that doesn't excuse some of the obvious shortcomings in MaxFB's 3D aspects. If you had to take one positive from MaxFB's visuals, it is that the low range quality means you won't need a beast of a PC to run this game smoothly, which might be more important to some fans of this genre than visual quality.

Maximum Football is a very unique game - it's not often gridiron games outside of EASports are released these days, not to mention gridiron games made primarily by one person. While it is an admirable effort given the circumstances of development, it won't be for everyone. Sure, it features an arcade mode like that of normal gameplay in Madden, but it is the coach mode and CPU vs CPU mode which will offer the best gameplay in Max Football, and that filters the user base considerably. For PC gamers out there looking for a coach mode gridiron game that will give them control over most facets of the game and aren't expecting much when it comes to flashy visuals and lifelike animations, Maximum Football is probably a good title to check out. However, for gamers who like the thrills of EA's "hit stick", Madden PC is probably more what you're after, or for gamers who enjoy the GM and roster management aspects of American football, Front Office Football 2004 is probably more what you're after, and you will find both cheaper than MaxFB's retail price of US$ 49.99 (US$39.99 as a digital download) too. Even for the coach mode and customization nuts that MaxFB is aimed at, that's a pretty steep price for a game that is probably 2 or 3 patches and 6 months worth of user created downloads away from what I'd consider a fully featured product.

[Antmeister]

Yeah, I posted that review about 4 pages ago, but I didn't point out the stuff that you did. Check out the other review as well.

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Well if you guys want to see more reviews, and I am sure that you do, here are a couple of them:
http://www.gamevortex.com/gamevortex/soft_rev.php/3005
http://www.3davenue.com/1539.html

By the way, there is a post release beta test for those of you that are interested. You will be able to get the game for free by signing an NDA an helping to weed out the bugs.

Other than that, the board seems to be waiting for the next patch.

It's really strange, but if anyone says anything negative about the game, regardless if the person purchased it or not, a few poeple take it as a personal attack against them. Don't get me wrong, I have seen fanboys before, but not to this extreme.

If anyone complains about the same problems that they are reporting as bugs in the beta forum, they turn it around on that person as exaggerations or lies.

[Flasch186]

can this game be pre-ordered?

[spcd]

David shows that as well as being able to tackle the complexity of football, has an in depth knowledge of possibly the next sport to receive the Maximum treatment

I'm surprised Lacrosse not more popular. It has a lot going for it. It's the oldest sport in North America. It was taken to Europe in the 1400's

Presumably by the Canadian explorers who discovered Europe.

I'm going to sign up to test that one after it's released!

[Antmeister]

Wow! How did I miss that one? Which thread is that in?

[Crim]

Originally Posted by cartman

... you'll notice straight away that the menu's are not designed with convention in mind. First of all, there is no "Options" section to speak off - all you can do from the Main Menu is choose to play a "Quick Game", a "League Game", or exit the game entirely... On top of this, while there is a player draft, this acts the role of free agency and the rookie draft... providing you're whiling and able to produce the content required to make it happen... MaxFB could become a force to be reckoned with when it comes to user addon's...

I bet this review pissed QS off...

[RedKingGold]

I think I've seen one person viewing this thread now for 19 consecutive days....

I wonder what page he's on????

[spcd]

Originally Posted by Antmeister71

Wow! How did I miss that one? Which thread is that in?

It's in the one where they're all pleading for the next game, title is VBData or something.

Even funnier is the discussion about lost players. For some reason, some of the people there are the densest posters I've seen in a long while. About 10 posts of confusion between the words "pro" and "all-pro."

Now that some of them have finished dressing their dolls and started playing, it looks like some interesting holes in the sim engine. Check out the threads titled draft and sim first season.

Obviously that new set of testers have some work on their hands.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by David Winters

All.

Since before the 2nd official release was published to you, the testers and I have been working on the 3rd release (R3) update. This will include the following;

New Features:
- Ability to create a 'non draft' league. This was requested by users that wanted to play league/career mode, but not have to draft players.

- Ability to set the number of rounds in a draft (this is tied to the above). You'll be able to pick the number of rounds you wish your league to have and if this is lower than 110% of your league roster limit, the remainder will be randomly created and added. The reason for the extra 10% is so there are extra players going into training camp. Granted most of these will be training camp fodder, but sometimes you may get lucky.

- Improved Linebacker and DB use of the [READ] and [KEYON] commands. (not really a new feature but a change to the way an existing one works)

- A revamped Play Development System.

Bug Fixes:

- Testers are already testing new team/player statistical groups and items.

- As per the release notes of the 2nd official update, I'm in the process if 'de-generalizing' some of the minor rules. In previous releases, many of the minor rules of the game were generalized and used for all three types of game Maximum-Football allowed you to play. I'm removing some of those generalizations. The spirit of Maximum-Football is to allow as much customization as possible, unfortunately for this official release, these minor rules will not be customizable but will be connected to the type of field you are using. Meaning you will not have the option to use Canadian kick off rules on an American field.

- I have a list of bugs, big and small, that are also being addressed.

Release Schedule:

Due to the large amount of new development being put into this release, there will be longer intervals between the public beta's than there was for the 2nd update. At this time I have no firm date to give for your first look at these new features. But expect screen shots in the next 10 days (right now it's all backend work with no new interface work done so there is nothing really to see).

Going Forward:

And now, here is your chance to have a big say in what the game looks like going forward. The development list for R3 is already set but R4's is not. Below is a list of features that could be built into R4. I would like people to reply to this thread with votes. I can only build ONE of this list into R4 because each of these will take about 4 man months worth of work.

Listed in no particular order;

- Financial system. Trades, salaries, and other popular GM features.

- Online H2H play. It's already known this feature will require a broad band connection. For league play, the 'home team' records the stats and outcomes on that users local DB.

- Additional simulation mode. Invisibly run the 3D game and only display a score board. This will allow a closer match between played out 3D games and game that are quickly simulated to play out a selected portion of the schedule.

- New 3D engine. Allows for better light effects, rag doll physics allows for better looking tackle animations. Overall, just a better looking game. System specs would probably stay about the same.

- New interface design.

Finally.

I certainly understand that the game has some quirks to iron out but I hope people are enjoying the game none the less. Sales for the first weeks of release have been brisk so a sincere thank you to all those that are supporting the project. I hope, with the continued addition of new and exciting features as well as the great support from Matrix, the Maximum-Football community will continue to grow.

Thank you
David A. Winter

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1122577

[stevew]

Sales for the first weeks of release have been brisk

Daivd has a future career in politics if he can spin like that.

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1122577

What is so disappointing is that most people are voting for a faster sim engine and not the financial system or H2H play. I don't understand that at all since I thought many of them wanted to create leagues.

[Bee]

I'm surprised they're not writing in for more uniform options.

[SunDevil]

I think they are all trying to master the more subtle features of photoshop.

[Mustang]

Writing a new 3D Engine is a possible option?

That sounds like more than a tweak or a small new option...

[Bee]

each of these will take about 4 man months worth of work

Based on his work production in the past, I'm guessing he's being a tad optomistic here.

[FrogMan]

In fact...

Originally Posted by Antmeister

What is so disappointing is that most people are voting for a faster sim engine and not the financial system or H2H play. I don't understand that at all since I thought many of them wanted to create leagues.

and

Originally Posted by Bee

I'm surprised they're not writing in for more uniform options.

are linked together. You guys still don't get it. They want better, prettier uniforms and for them to be rendered properly, the game sorely needs a faster sim engine to keep up with pretty colors...

FM

[cartman]

Originally Posted by Daivd

Sales for the first weeks of release have been brisk

Originally Posted by stevew

Daivd has a future career in politics if he can spin like that.

It's legalese. Another way to use brisk would be to describe something that is cold and gets your attention, like a "brisk breeze".

[Flasch186]

or Iced Tea

[Antmeister]

Originally Posted by Mustang

Writing a new 3D Engine is a possible option?

That sounds like more than a tweak or a small new option...

That is true. If you read the comments, made by the people who are voting for the sim option, they are saying they want more realistic stats to the fast sim. That's interesting considering they kept arguing that the stats were just fine when they were pointed out. So you are right Mustang, they are basically fixing something that is still broken. Well, actually, they may fix it if it is voted on.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by FrogMan

They want better, prettier uniforms and for them to be rendered properly, the game sorely needs a faster sim engine to keep up with pretty colors...

Hmm ... I wonder ... does the color of the uniform affect the engine?

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Hmm ... I wonder ... does the color of the uniform affect the engine?

You know, this might not be as crazy as it would initially seem. Frame rate impacts play. One of the results of slower frame rates seems to be lower pass completion rates.

If the complexity of the uniform design impacts frame rate--which I'm guessing it would--then you could maximize your frame rate by having your team wear simple uniforms and reduce the frame rate by having complex uniforms.

The strategy here would be to have multicolored, complex uniforms if you are a run-oriented team that wanted to slow the other team's passing down, and very simple uniforms if you are a passing team that wanted the highest possible completion rates in your passing game.

[KWhit]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

The strategy here would be to have multicolored, complex uniforms if you are a run-oriented team that wanted to slow the other team's passing down, and very simple uniforms if you are a passing team that wanted the highest possible completion rates in your passing game.

Brilliant!

[Bee]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

You know, this might not be as crazy as it would initially seem. Frame rate impacts play. One of the results of slower frame rates seems to be lower pass completion rates.

If the complexity of the uniform design impacts frame rate--which I'm guessing it would--then you could maximize your frame rate by having your team wear simple uniforms and reduce the frame rate by having complex uniforms.

The strategy here would be to have multicolored, complex uniforms if you are a run-oriented team that wanted to slow the other team's passing down, and very simple uniforms if you are a passing team that wanted the highest possible completion rates in your passing game.

I wonder if you could have very simple basic uniforms for your offense and then highly detailed complex uniforms for your defense? I'm starting to see where strategy could come into play with this game!

[stevew]

Originally Posted by Bee

I wonder if you could have very simple basic uniforms for your offense and then highly detailed complex uniforms for your defense? I'm starting to see where strategy could come into play with this game!

Well, if it's like any other game, make the backside of the jerseys a solid color, since you typically get the "behind the offense" view. And then make the front side of the jersey's into a grafitti paradise, since that's the view you usually see when you play defense.

[st.cronin]

wow ... this thread is to the rest of fofc what Joe Montana is to other qbs. Even when he was way past his prime, bearing not a resemblance to the brilliant qb he was in his peak, he was still better than 90% of the threads on the first page.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by Bee

Based on his work production in the past, I'm guessing he's being a tad optomistic here.

What I find very interesting is that a new interface design would take just as much time to do as a new 3D engine that supports rag-doll physics for various animations.

(I'll refrain from pointing out his obvious misuse of the term "3D Engine" with jokes, and just say that I'm sure he means the general game engine, not specifically the 3D Engine since physics and animations do not technically belong there. At least, I hope he meant that.)

[Godzilla Blitz]

Originally Posted by stevew

Well, if it's like any other game, make the backside of the jerseys a solid color, since you typically get the "behind the offense" view. And then make the front side of the jersey's into a grafitti paradise, since that's the view you usually see when you play defense.

Outstanding work! With thinking like that, you're got to be considered the odds-on favorite in the upcoming FOFC Online Maximum Football League.

Another angle on this strategy would be to have a run-oriented offense that only plays night games in the rain in a dome. These three factors would make a huge hit on the frame rate. The "rain in the dome" part might be a bit tricky, but with Maximum Football's customizability, I wouldn't rule it out.

Combine this strategy with your frame-rate conducive uniforms, and your team would be nearly unstoppable.

[Anthony]

last post in the greatest FOFC thread eva!

[cartman]

The sad thing is, this thread has seen as much or more activity as of late than the official Matrix forum.

[st.cronin]

no, i am the threadkiller

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by st.cronin

no, i am the threadkiller

Sure you are.

[QuikSand]

Originally Posted by Godzilla Blitz

You know, this might not be as crazy as it would initially seem. Frame rate impacts play. One of the results of slower frame rates seems to be lower pass completion rates.

If the complexity of the uniform design impacts frame rate--which I'm guessing it would--then you could maximize your frame rate by having your team wear simple uniforms and reduce the frame rate by having complex uniforms.

The strategy here would be to have multicolored, complex uniforms if you are a run-oriented team that wanted to slow the other team's passing down, and very simple uniforms if you are a passing team that wanted the highest possible completion rates in your passing game.

This, and the responding comments, are all "FOFC Time Vault" stuff. Hilarious.

[Rizon]

Wow, I totally forgot about this game.

[CraigSca]

Originally Posted by cartman

The sad thing is, this thread has seen as much or more activity as of late than the official Matrix forum.

No one's talking about MF on the Matrix Forums? Man, if I was Daivd, I'd really be depressed.

[Hurst2112]

Originally Posted by CraigSca

No one's talking about MF on the Matrix Forums? Man, if I was Daivd, I'd really be depressed.

Why be depressed when he is probably taggin the old lady in a pile of money he made from the ga........

err

[Antmeister]

Uhhhh......is this a joke? Or is this person being serious?

I bought the download version of this game. After I downloaded it gave me a download link to download the game. The game that was downloaded was not Maximum football. The game downloaded was front office football 2004. I figured maybe that is the old version of the game so download the patch. I downloaded the patch, it didnt actually patch the front office football, instead it installed maximum football. When I open mfb.exe (maximum football), nothing opens and nothing even pops up. What do I do ?

http://www.matrixgames.com/forums/tm.asp?m=1131285

If you read through the rest of the thread, he says he ended up downloading two games. Is this a joke or is this possibly true?

[bbor]

LOL!

[Marc Vaughan]

If you read through the rest of the thread, he says he ended up downloading two games. Is this a joke or is this possibly true?

I'm guessing he'd downloaded FOF previously and some data from its install were still in his windows cache directory - this can cause the wrong setup file to trigger sometimes when installers are run.

This has been something I've seen people mention with FM before and I'd presume its the case here ...

[Ajaxab]

Someone needs to tell this guy he did download the right game. There is nothing right about Maximum Football.

[Toddzilla]

I will PayPal $5 to the person who posts "At least you downloaded a game that actually works." in that thread.

[digamma]

It has arrived:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Maximum-Football...QQcmdZViewItem

[ice4277]

Hmm, the seller location is about a mile from my house. Scary.

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by ice4277

Hmm, the seller location is about a mile from my house. Scary.

Time to move.

[Dutch]

Only 30 bucks to "buy it now"? An outright steal.

[Rizon]

Originally Posted by Dutch

Only 30 bucks to "buy it now"? An outright steal.

I know, Daivd and Freinds should be ashamed.

[Greyroofoo]

Originally Posted by digamma

It has arrived:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Maximum-Football...QQcmdZViewItem

Daivd is selling his personal copy?

[JeffNights]

Oh man, I had avoided this thread a slong as possible....but after reading some pages...What was I Missing? I cant believe i denied myself the pleasure of this thread!

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by JeffNights

Oh man, I had avoided this thread a slong as possible....but after reading some pages...What was I Missing? I cant believe i denied myself the pleasure of this thread!

May god have mercy on your soul.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by ice4277

Hmm, the seller location is about a mile from my house. Scary.

Oak Park, represent! Heh, lurker and I were just talking about how much we miss Detroit..

[Dutch]

Has this thread officially outlived Maximum Football? I don't think there are any hopefuls left over there.