Reviewers not being honest....

[ZILLION]

They review the games based on whether they're fun or not. PSM came out and said that the weekly prep navigation was unintuituve and that Franchise Mode was only redeemed by the Gamecast feature. However the game overall was more fun to them than Madden.

Bill Harris wrote this in his blog about ESPN

""In spite of being the hard-[censored] that I am about sports games, though, and even though these are issues that I'd normally get worked up about, this year I just can't. The in-game experience on a second-to-second basis is generally so overwhelmingly positive that ESPN is a joy to play. I don't use that word often, that's for damn sure, but it applies here. It is absolutely wonderful, even with warts.""

He said this about last years game

"I'll tell you why next week, but please remember in the meantime that I absolutely pounded ESPN last year for abysmal 2-minute A.I. Madden has clearly had far superior gameplay (with proper sliders) for the last two years. This year, though, ESPN is just wonderful."

Given that this guy skews more hardcore than your average gamer,it's not hard to understand the ultra high scores and best game ever remarks. If a gamer like Bill Harris loves the game despite its flaws,then nobody should be surprised when a less hardcore mag/site loves the game even more.

[coogrfan]

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bkrich83 said:

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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.
I can only speak for the ps 2 version, but even on the formation sub screen you cannot use a player at any other position than the one he's assigned(cb's can't play safety).

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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. I wasn't questioning the superiority of ESPN's offensive playbooks(although come to think of it the current Cowboys playbook sure looks a lot like the NFL 2k3 Dallas playbook. I find it a little hard to believe that Dave Campo and Parcells run nearly identical offenses, but that's a discussion for another day). I was pointing out that it can be very difficult in ESPN to find a current NFL playbook that has appropriate formations on both sides of the ball for some of the older historic teams. If I'm playing against a cpu controlled Montana era Niners team, I want them to run a West Coast offense and a 3-4 defense against me. All VC has to do to let me do this is make offensive and defensive playbook selection seperate.

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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. I find this one especially annoying because fixing it would be so easy. Apparently VC doesn't think it's a problem.

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One last thought on this subject- all of these "minor issues" have been unresolved problems since NFL 2k3. That's three editions that I know of, and for all I know this stuff may have been that way in the earlier versions too. Now I don't expect a reviewer to know about all the little problems that have gone unresolved in this series. After all, some of them may be playing this game for the first time. But almost no one in this forum has that excuse to fall back on. So I ask all the 2k true believers-exactly how long does VC get to let this stuff slide before you say "enough already, just fix it"?

[bkrich83]

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One last thought on this subject- all of these "minor issues" have been unresolved problems since NFL 2k3. That's three editions that I know of, and for all I know this stuff may have been that way in the earlier versions too.

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The exact same thing could be said for all 3 major titles this year. They have all had little issues like these that have taken multiple versions to fix.

[NYJets]

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coogrfan said:
So I ask all the 2k true believers-exactly how long does VC get to let this stuff slide before you say "enough already, just fix it"?

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I'll let it slide because it doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the game at all. The depth charts are only really annoying online. In franchise the work around takes about a minute longer to do. It would only be annoying having to do it before every game. The other 2 issues don't bother me one bit and are things I probably wouldn't notice if they did fix them.

If they fix them, great. If not, I'll live. I won't stop buying the game because of them. I'd rather things like that not be fixed over 3 years over things like mario running that other games fail to address year after year.

[jiujitsu35]

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NYJets said:

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coogrfan said:
So I ask all the 2k true believers-exactly how long does VC get to let this stuff slide before you say "enough already, just fix it"?

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If they fix them, great. If not, I'll live. I won't stop buying the game because of them. I'd rather things like that not be fixed over 3 years over things like mario running that other games fail to address year after year.

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Coogrfan,I want to ask you how long before Madden fixes the magnetic blocking,100 steps back and on target passing,cheesy tackling or lack of gang tackling,triple coverage on wr and coming up with catch all the times,no real control of defensive player,lack of presentation,lack of upgraded graphics,announcers sounding dead and sounding out of sync,not improving gameplay in years.Please Coogrfan let me know because these issues have been going on since 2001.You see it is not fair to knock games because they all have issues and the issues on Madden are huge but as fan of the game you look passed them,just like fans of ESPN look past some of these small problems

[MarchOfThePigs]

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Coogrfan,I want to ask you how long before Madden fixes the magnetic blocking,100 steps back and on target passing,cheesy tackling or lack of gang tackling,triple coverage on wr and coming up with catch all the times,no real control of defensive player,lack of presentation,lack of upgraded graphics,announcers sounding dead and sounding out of sync,not improving gameplay in years.Please Coogrfan let me know because these issues have been going on since 2001.You see it is not fair to knock games because they all have issues and the issues on Madden are huge but as fan of the game you look passed them,just like fans of ESPN look past some of these small problems

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i can personally tell you that madden has fixed magnetic blocking and 100 step drop backs. if you want to talk about crappy DB AI, go play ESPN 2005 on legend. the DB's seem to run around in circles for no apparent reason on long bombs.

but that's aside from the point of this thread. you say movie reviewers dont do the same thing, but it's different. games are interactive, and a "bug" in the game COULD alter or diminish your enjoyment of the game. it's clear that SPORTS GAMERS dislike these bugs. whether you want to admit it or not, all these little inconsistencies in ESPN do put a blemish on an otherwise fine game. it only takes about 3 sentences to say "Most of the bugs from past years have not been fixed this year, but in my opinion it doesn't take away from the overall package." That will let readers know: Hey, the bugs from 3 years ago are still there, but i personally don't have a problem with it. Don't make assumptions that just because a bug doesn't bother you, it won't bother someone else.

Sports games reviewers are guilty of this in most games. I'm not just talking about ESPN. what about NCAA 2005? Why didn't any of the reviews mention the dropped passes? Why didn't anyone mention the xbox slowdown? Reviews are a nice thought in theory, but there just aren't many good reviewers out there (it may not always be their fault). Take every review with a grain of salt and always assume that the review is painting the best possible picture, that way you wont be disappointed if whatever game you're reading about has bugs/etc.

[bkrich83]

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i can personally tell you that madden has fixed magnetic blocking and 100 step drop backs.

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Hmmm.. Not from what I have seen and heard. I'll believe it when I see it. But we'll have to save any discussion for Madden until we actually get to play the game.

[HMcCoy]

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coogrfan said:
I can only speak for the ps 2 version, but even on the formation sub screen you cannot use a player at any other position than the one he's assigned(cb's can't play safety).

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Incorrect. In the substituion screen, you can use ANY player on the roster at any position. Even sicker, your VIP saves your team subs, so if you adjust the Texans, you never have to do it again as long as you use your VIP.

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I was pointing out that it can be very difficult in ESPN to find a current NFL playbook that has appropriate formations on both sides of the ball for some of the older historic teams. If I'm playing against a cpu controlled Montana era Niners team, I want them to run a West Coast offense and a 3-4 defense against me. All VC has to do to let me do this is make offensive and defensive playbook selection seperate.

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[sighs] Why not create a specific playbook using the generic "West-Coast" offense, then from there you can select 3-4 defensive plays from the Ravens, Steelers or Chargers playbooks. The 80's Niner's never ran a shotgun, so you could even take out ALL of the shotgun plays...and VIOLA. A unique 80's 49'rs playbook.

You could make custom playbooks for all the teams. As a matter of fact you could create a VIP using each classic teams coach. Then you could play a game with each, using that teams style (calling nothing but Power, Wing and Split-T formation runs for the 40's 50's teams, west coast for the Walsh-niners, nothing but deep slants and flags for the 82 Chargers etc...)then each team would not only be named correctly, but they would have era-specific playbooks AND, using the VIP, the CPU would play exactly like that team did.

Imagine you and a friend letting the CPU duke it out where you've created a 50's Browns VIP (when they stuffed Jim Brown down yor throat for 80% of the plays, no jukes-all power moves) and your buddy has created a 85 Bears Profile that also plays just like the real 85 Bears. You two could sit back and crack a brew and WATCH that and get as much satisfaction as playing the game yourself. Thats depth. But some would rather focus on whats' wrong instead of the possiblilities of whats right w/ this game.

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I find this one especially annoying because fixing it would be so easy. Apparently VC doesn't think it's a problem.

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Legit gripe, I guess... Since large selections of alternate uniforms just arrived on the videogame scene two years ago(on 2K3, of course...Madden only had 2 alts per team back in 03) I happen to still be tickled pink that I have 7 Dolphin unis available in the first place. ...Do you have any idea how cool it was in 2K3 to finally have access to the Browns' orange pants? But, I guess those perfectly implemented momentum animations took too much time away from the really important things like uniform selection. What a traveshamockery. At least the Cowboys home games have it right.

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One last thought on this subject- all of these "minor issues" have been unresolved problems since NFL 2k3. That's three editions that I know of, and for all I know this stuff may have been that way in the earlier versions too. Now I don't expect a reviewer to know about all the little problems that have gone unresolved in this series. After all, some of them may be playing this game for the first time. But almost no one in this forum has that excuse to fall back on. So I ask all the 2k true believers-exactly how long does VC get to let this stuff slide before you say "enough already, just fix it"?

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How long did it take for Madden to implement a CPU run game? Or tone down the triple-coverage bombs? Or adress the silly drop-backs? Or the completely unrealistic 1-on-1 blocking schemes and tackling? UHHH, wait...the last two are still pending. That's 18 years and counting. Complaints about "crap being the same" should NEVER come out of the mouths of Madden fans. NEVER.