Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

[Segagendude]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

You join a league and you start your own online franchise, college football dynasty, fantasy draft, whatever; the game is flexible enough to accommodate just about any league type you and your league-mates can think up.

I've participated in tons over the last couple of years and they all trump just about any offline mode you could think up.

This game was made for head-to-head play, whether offline or online, not grinding out season after season against a predictable AI opponent.

I don't play online, my connection s*cks.

I'm a single player, no kids, and only one controller, so head-to-head is out.

So for me, APF offers nothing. That's all I'm sayin'......

But I'm not here to bash. Just my personal opinion.

Enjoy...

[LBzrule]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

I agree on the trenches. EA still has not caught up with 2k there yet. One problem that I have with both games though is that to me both games have the DE's and 3-4 OLB's coming out of their stance and off the line too slow. 2k8 is year's beyond Madden in the pass blocking department with the ability of linemen to pass one defender off to another lineman.

I also absolutely abhor the sixth sense of A.I QB's, which is one of the reasons why I stopped playing against the A.I in EA games a long time ago. You can even change your coverage at the last second and the QB still already knows where to put it within one second after the ball is hiked. That tells me it does not read coverage. And the things that apply to me never apply to the A.I. I cannot stop my drop if the play has the QB dropping 7 steps. But the A.I can stop its drop if I'm getting pressure. The procedural awareness does not kick in for WR's as they are always ready for the ball whether they have made their cut or not. No sense of timing in the passing game. Anyways, I like the new Madden but it has a much longer way to go than I previously thought.

[lostintravise]

great post. agreed with everything you said.

[fisher]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

Good point. What's the most frequent complaint against buying Madden year after year? "Oh, you're getting nothing more than a roster update." With APF, not only was the gameplay only a mediocre refinement of 2k5's last-gen engine, but you don't even get a "roster update" because:
(1) The game isn't made or supported anymore
(2) The game lacks an NFL license
(3) There were never real "rosters" to begin with b/c you had this strange alternate universe where fake players and retired NFL vets play in a "league"

And this is why All-Pro Football ultimately failed (gameplay wise, it played a better game than Madden). There's no way a football game released without legit NFL rosters (or real NCAA schools) will succeed, irregardless of how good the gameplay is. Nothing 2K (or anyone else for that matter) does can change that.

Which is a shame, really. Football games are the worst sports games out there these days exactly because there's no competition (2K's baseball game is pretty subpar, but baseball fans still have the Show to play; NBA fans have 2 games to choose from (I prefer NBA 2K); NHL fans have 2 games to choose from (I prefer EA's NHL series)).

(4) Roster management never would've worked in a game with no ratings, transactions, drafts, or franchise modes anyway.

Rather than always hiding behing the "big, bad EA" argument, why are those shortcomings overlooked?

Nobody's overlooking what you pointed out as flaws of All-Pro Football. The problem is that it's exactly because of the NFL's exclusive license with EA that nobody else can make an NFL game (and like you and I said above, nobody's going to care about fake players and fake leagues).

When people evaluate Madden or NCAA, they invariably say stupid things like "Well, this game lacks true field degradation and time of day progression, so those are deal-breakers for me" Crappy, niche features that nobody notices are "deal-breakers", but the total failure to provide anything looking like a professional football league of any kind is not!?!

Funny, but a lot of football fans want their football games to be somewhat sim. You know, they want the stuff in the game to mirror what they see on Sundays. The problem with Madden is that it doesn't even try to be sim-like. It's the same old problems year after year and it's a pretty bad time to be a football gamer these days. Madden was at its best at around 2005 on the Xbox/PS2 (ironically enough, when 2K was making NFL games as well). The fear EA had of competition to their biggest selling game made them buy out exclusive rights and now the rest of us are stuck with one choice.

It's not like EA's sports games are all trash. Look what they've done with the NHL series. If the Madden team put even a quarter of the effort into their game that the NHL crew does, it might well be a half way decent game.

[kingzfan2000]

Is there anything we could do to convince 2k to release a football game and just say screw the nfl license? I remember madden 2000 for the n64 didnt have the nfl license. It just had city names and numbers but people still bought it. 2k really should just make a 2k10 (or I guess it would be 2k11 now) and make it just like 2k5 with full franchise mode and everything.

At this point the only reason Im playing madden is because Im in an online franchise and if not for that I would have traded it in already because there should be a picture of this game in the dictionary next to the word bad.

[kingzfan2000]

I still play All-Pro Football 2K8 and NFL 2K5...till this day!!! I just played a game of All-Pro last night... I havent played Madden 10 in about 10 days because of the same ol sh!+...
2K just needs to make a new football game and call it Pro Football 2k10 and blow EA Sports out the water!!! To me 2K didnt have to stop making football games bcuz of the loss of the NFL License...Just keep making games for the fans....Plllllllllllleeeeeeaaaaaassssse 2K if reading this!!! Just do it!!!!

I think we need to get a serious legit movement going to get 2k to get back into the football business. At this point I could care less about the NFL license, thats how fed up I am with these garbage games EA keeps putting out. And I am not a 2k fanboy EA *****. I absolutely loved the PS2 maddens and I played the religiously but ever since madden has hit the current gen it has been garbage.

We need to seriously find a way to get 2k to realize that we want another 2k football game and that great realistic gameplay is more important than player and team names and team logos.

[Joeyland]

The best way to revive the 2K series is to direct the noise, (complaints, videos, and pleas) to the big man. The NFL itself, bury the commissioner of the league under a pile of e mails. Roger Goodell are you listening? Your being petty, you've ruined football gaming, you've driven many to create their own teams and shun the league, you've sold your exclusive license to many times. Leave gaming alone, its probably some other exec. that started this stuff, but you the man in charge, and the public is pissed.
Then say something about knowing where he lives, and sign with an Italian name.

[DCMC]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

Good point. What's the most frequent complaint against buying Madden year after year? "Oh, you're getting nothing more than a roster update." With APF, not only was the gameplay only a mediocre refinement of 2k5's last-gen engine, but you don't even get a "roster update" because:
(1) The game isn't made or supported anymore
(2) The game lacks an NFL license
(3) There were never real "rosters" to begin with b/c you had this strange alternate universe where fake players and retired NFL vets play in a "league"
(4) Roster management never would've worked in a game with no ratings, transactions, drafts, or franchise modes anyway.

Rather than always hiding behing the "big, bad EA" argument, why are those shortcomings overlooked?

When people evaluate Madden or NCAA, they invariably say stupid things like "Well, this game lacks true field degradation and time of day progression, so those are deal-breakers for me" Crappy, niche features that nobody notices are "deal-breakers", but the total failure to provide anything looking like a professional football league of any kind is not!?!

This

[Computalover]

Stick Skillz?? WAAY TO EASY MAN! LOL!!

He wants to play REAL ball?? lmao!! well.. go try out for a semi pro team, or a college team if you wanna play "REAL" ball.. I did both and video games arent even close to "REAL" ball.. lmao!!

never had a bone broken, ACL strains and bruises playing madden.. but does carpal tunnel count? lmao!!

[shavane]

Great article very well written, thought out, and informative. I will begin by saying that I have bought every edition of Madden from roughly 92 on. I returned 05 to 09 because they were just bad games. I'm finally able to play and enjoy 10 but I'm not blind and I'm not a fool because there are huge holes and flaws with this game.

When comparing 2k5 to Madden you have to immediately handicap the discussion because

1. 2k5 was 5 years ago on a ps2 or xbox.

2. Both games had flaws, money plays, and problems with line blocking. I could get 77 sacks with my DT because of one of these flaws, and 28 picks with a safety on 2k which is a serious flaw. But 5 years is a lot of time to fix these flaws...hey we still have these same type of flaws on Madden.

Overall if you ran 100 plays on Madden, and 100 on 2k, the line play is far superior. 2k had that little slide animation on running plays, when RBs came into contact with the back of the lineman instead of running in place like Madden they slid to one side or the other this is a seamless animation that kept the flow and was realistic. We want complete control but sometimes having something like that actually helps.

3. The passing game was sick...like I said there were money plays and unstoppable fades and corner routes but they developed more realistically and overall it was more organic like a real football game. Madden seems canned and predetermined if the play called is a post then thats what they run on Madden 2k they run a post but if your WR has awareness its a post to the soft spot of the D instead of a predetermined post directly into the safety follow.

4. Defensively and offensively players just moved better and more realistic than Madden.

5. Its five years later and we are still having this discussion thats just mindblowing.

[TombSong]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

AP2K8 with whatever flaw you could bring up about it is still WAY better than Madden on the field.

The WR route running.
The Oline/Dline interaction
The way you call your defensive hot routes is faster and better.
The fact that you CAN run a fade route in the game(they ARE defensible...VERY defensible) In Madden the streak and the fade are dead.

The defense plays their zones better and without warping/super leaping

The man defense did not cheat. (run the WRs routes before the WR's)

Star players stood out and the scrubs had distinguishing abilities.

Could create your own playbooks.
Formation audibles.
Better commentary.
etc etc

Madden still got a long way to go.

[killzonemaniac]

still playing nfl 2k5

[CharlieBlack]

Great article. Madden is getting better, but the engine for 2k overall is still the best.

[Only1LT]

You make some great points OP. I agree with most of it and also agree, wholeheartedly, that 2K gameplay is much better than Madden's. This goes for the golden years of Madden, ie 2005, as well.

Madden 10 is definitely playable, and I appreciate the strides that it has made, but after playing 2K5 and 2K8, it is very hard to really enjoy Madden anymore, because I know how green the grass is on the other side. And no, this does NOT mean that 2K is perfect. This is the oldest means to derail a discussion that I have ever seen. All it means is that in my opinion, 2K is a MUCH closer representation of real Football, even with it's shortcomings, than Madden is. Don't even get me started on the passing game comparison lol.

As for the OP, again, good post, but one thin I must say as a negative though are your vidz. They are way too short, start sometimes too late to capture the essence of what you are pointing out, and should have been shown at regular and then slow-mo to get the point across better. I had to rewind them about 5 times each to really see what was wrong in the vid. The other vidz by other people that you linked to were good though.

[lasthour]

Re: Why All-Pro Football Still Trumps Madden

Hey LB could 2k release 2k5 on xbox live, in high defintion. And maybe with some sort of patched updated version also?