Reviewers not being honest....

[bkrich83]

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Depth charts :VC's are written in stone. If they have a player lined up a cb, by God he's going to play cb or nothing. In real life it's not uncommon for players to move from cb to safety or vice-versa, Madden lets you do this, ESPN doesn't. Think this is a minor issue? Try playing as the Texans with the hopeless Marlon McCree at fs. The real world Texans are moving cb Marcus Coleman to fs because they realize that McCree is a career backup at best. It's a definite handicap for my virtual Texans that I can't do likewise.

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Actually I believe you can. But you have to substitute them at the formation sub screen. Agreed their depth chart system needs work, but there is a work around I believe.

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Playbooks: ESPN forces you to pick a single teams playbook for both offense and defense, Madden lets you choose seperate playbooks for each side of the ball. If your playing with historic teams VC's method can make it almost impossible to find an appropriate playbook.

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Of course what your failing to mention is that in Madden just about every team in the league has the same defensive playbook. Not to mention the variances in playbooks is far greateer in ESPN, while Madden's playbooks have been in the past at least quite generic. Although I have to say I have been asking for seperate playbooks for both sides of the ball for a while. I agree, but when it comes to playbooks overall, ESPN's blow Madden's away. Still poor implmentation.

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Uniform selection : my pet peeve. Madden lets the home team choose from all of their uniforms(light and dark) while limiting the road team to only those uni's that are the opposite of the home teams choice. VC gives the home team free reign, but generally limits road teams to light jerseys no matter what the home team picks. So if you're the Dolphins(or Panthers, Cards, Bucs or any of the many other teams that in real life choose to wear light jerseys when playing at home early in the season) you either deal with 22 guys all running around in virtually identical unis or you just don't use the light jerseys at all. Weak.

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Minor issue, but I agree it is annoying. I would like to see this changed also. Actually I asked for it the last couple of years, I can't imagine this would be hard to implement.

[tmac2k3]

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fossen said:
A review is not a QA report.


You mention movie reviewers .... I have yet to read a movie review where the critic is saying "In this shot, you can see the Coke can in the background. But when the angle changes, the Coke can is gone! And what about the scene when he takes the elevator? Everyone knows that the elevators in that building are blue!"

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That would apply to this situation if the movie was about a Coke Can... A movie critic will say that a certain scene just wasn't a convincing representation of what would likely happen in reality. Sega is trying to accurately represent football. They refer to their game as a "sim." And, one of the most important aspects of a franchise mode in a football game is the draft. How fun is it to draft when the first round is broken. How fun is it to assign a WR to be doubled when it just, well....doesn't happen. How fun is it break the 100 yard rushing mark and have the computer take 37 yards out of your rb's yards because of a glitch. Ok enough, I think I've made my point...

Everyone's favorite line is that no game can be perfect. 9.4, 9.5, 9.8, and as Game Informer put it "the one football game you must own." Come on, somebody tell the reviewers that.

[Moegames]

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tmac2k3 said:
It's funny that in all of the reviews out there on the game, no one really points out any glitches in the game. For example, the double wr feature in the defensive matchup menu option hasn't worked in two years. Will ESPN NFL 2K6 make that three years in a row. No one pointed out the first round draft glitch with only QB's, HB's, and DE's being taken. I wouldn't exactly call that mentioning insignificant facts or nitpicking. No one pointed out the clipping penalty glitch either. I haven't seen a review that touches on any of this. Are they just sucking up to Sega and VC because they'd like to continue to get interviews, and the games weeks before they come out?? Where are the real reviews at...These gaming sites need to start writing game reviews like the movie critics do their reviews. Scrutinize the hell out of it. And, then give it a 9.5 Then the hardcore gamers and fanboys would be happy.

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Let me guess...every good review ESPN 2k5 has gotten..which honestly every review gave ESPN high scores and praises is just a conspiracy right? Its people like you that rain on the parade bro...stop it, its depressing.

Take your negativity else where or sit down,shut up and enjoy the game.

[bkrich83]

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tmac2k3 said:

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fossen said:
A review is not a QA report.


You mention movie reviewers .... I have yet to read a movie review where the critic is saying "In this shot, you can see the Coke can in the background. But when the angle changes, the Coke can is gone! And what about the scene when he takes the elevator? Everyone knows that the elevators in that building are blue!"

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That would apply to this situation if the movie was about a Coke Can... A movie critic will say that a certain scene just wasn't a convincing representation of what would likely happen in reality. Sega is trying to accurately represent football. They refer to their game as a "sim." And, one of the most important aspects of a franchise mode in a football game is the draft. How fun is it to draft when the first round is broken. How fun is it to assign a WR to be doubled when it just, well....doesn't happen. How fun is it break the 100 yard rushing mark and have the computer take 37 yards out of your rb's yards because of a glitch. Ok enough, I think I've made my point...

Everyone's favorite line is that no game can be perfect. 9.4, 9.5, 9.8, and as Game Informer put it "the one football game you must own." Come on, somebody tell the reviewers that.

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Hmmm... Not really that hard to figure out. They are game reviews, not QA reports. Really, it's quite simple.

[tmac2k3]

Oh, I get it now. You just review what works. And, you just leave the rest out because if you mention any of that, then it becomes a QA report. Gotcha.

[bkrich83]

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tmac2k3 said:
Oh, I get it now. You just review what works. And, you just leave the rest out because if you mention any of that, then it becomes a QA report.

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Are you really that simple?? Is the concept of a review, really that far from your grasp?

[bronxct1]

no its not that, its just that these things are not big things in the overall game, if the passing or running was messed up you would hear about it, but these are not gamebreaking things and really are not significant.

[LBzrule]

Reviewing a book and reviewing a game do share something in common however. The fundamental question is does this "object" fulfill its purpose. A good book is not judge on typo's. It's judge on whether the author fulfills what he/she set out to do and whether his/her argument is cogent, valid, consistent and coherent. Typo's are not part of a book review, that's the reason why there are 2nd and 3rd editions to the same book with additions here and there. With a game, one could ask the same thing. Does the game fulfill its purpose? But with respect to a video game, in this case ESPN 2k5, an Explicit purpose was not stated. Thus a review would be predicated upon purposes that we assign to it. So we may ask is the game fun? How close does it "portray" (I use this in a soft sense) NFL football? The question as to whether the developer is consistent, coherent, and meticulous and accomplishing these purposes may be out of order because it assumes that the developer had the same purposes that we transcribe onto the game, and they just may not have had those purposes in mind. We hope they do though.

But anyways, yes there is some subjectivity in game reviews, but, let's be honest too, if a game is horrible there are not that many reviewers that are going to "soften the blow" by not pointing certain things out. Thus in a sense I'll take both sides. If it is a game we are enamoured with, we're just enamoured and we overlook things because we are just excited and love the game. Sometimes we don't overlook things it may just be that some things slipped under the radar. But if there are some facts that cannot be denied, like slowdown, framerate issues, those perhaps SHOULD be mentioned in passing. And from experience we see games get denigrated all the time and alot of us have no problem with it because we agree with what is being said. And to be honest, some games NEED public scrutiny. When Gameday and NFL FEVER were on the market there was no problem when in a review people mentioned the game plays slow for the most part and while the Defensive Macro's are a wonderful addition to the serious they are poorly mapped and do not provide one with the flexibility to change once one has made a move because it takes soo long to pull off by the time you are done the ball will be hiked. What's wrong with these as part of a review? I wouldn't call it nitpicking either. Slowdown is a "fact." That's not simply nitpicking I'm afraid. Poorly mapped controls is not nitpicking. These are realities that one WILL have to deal with as one plays the game.

On the other side however, ultimately the reviewer is as honest as he or she can be within his/her horizon of experience with the game. You cannot EXPECT the reviewer to grasp and speak about every aspect and facet of the game. Typo's don't ruin books if the overall argument is well crafted and the book fulfills its purpose. While small glitches may annoy the living HELL OUT OF ME and trust me they do, the game fulfills "a purpose" that I have assigned to it. Every night when I get home after a long day of study, work, and then hitting the gym, I put dinner in the oven, hit the power button on the Xbox, throw in ESPN 2k5, hit the practice field for awhile and then get online. I don't know what the developers EXPLICIT purpose was in developing this game, but the game calls me back again and again and provides rich experiences, even though at times it makes me want to BREAK something.

I said it about a month ago, whatever game you choose, YOU WILL find yourself coming to terms or having to deal with a set of problems. NCAA has its set. ESPN has its set. And for those holding out "hope" that in a week and a few days you will get a game that doesn't have a set of problems for you to deal with, let me bring you down to earth. It will. You can bet your 50 dollars it will. Doesn't mean any of these games are not fun. They all have value and provide some enjoyment, but you will deal.