Remember before OS and social media when we just played and had fun?

[RyanLeaf16]

If any of you older guys, like me, have a nostalgic kick for some card/dice football. Gotta check out Second Season football. Excellent sim and I’m currently playing through the 1990 season.

Like aholbert said, at this point I’m playing for fun. I try to keep it realistic, but at the end of the day, if things go wonky, I can deal with it. Plus, I’ve been blessed to not be so good at the game that I still get challenged when I play and don’t have to post impressions about how it’s “too easy” on All-Madden and how I have 8500 passing yards and 3000 rushing yards with all my sliders “zeroed out.”


Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

[dawurts]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

Here is my walk down memory lane... Ahhhhh yes the memories. Ask me what is my favorite console football game is right now? Madden 20. Hands down.

I bought Madden 20 and don't regret it one bit. Right now I'm just waiting for those great historical rosters you guys make, and for the patches to fix a few problems in the game itself. Meanwhile I'm still playing my 1985 franchise on 19, using the same coaches that coached the teams back then, and loving every minute of it.

I love all those great games from the past. Whether it's Madden 92, Madden 3DO, Joe Montana Football, Gameday, they were all great. But I've moved on and there's no way those old games can compare to Madden 16-20, they're gorgeous games in glorious HD, no doubt. If you spent a huge chunk of your life playing those older games, you tend to appreciate what we have now a little more I think.

Sure I miss the extra features of all the older games, and wish they'd put em all back into a new Madden. I'd also like the coaches to matter more, and having offensive/defensive coordinators would be nice too. I want a custom cam, relocation to any city, use of old logos on the field or even custom ones, more uniform options (I want those old leather helmets so I can do a 30s-40s sim), custom stadium music would be great (EA did it on NHL old gen so why not), and I'd be endlessly happy if I could make the players and coaches exactly the way I want them to look. I want Landry pacing the sidelines in his suit and hat, and I want Montana, Elway and Marino to look exactly as they should. But I take what I can get, and what I've got is better than anything that came before.

Hopefully Madden games will someday be as good as or better than the other sports titles, but till then I'm lovin' me some Madden, warts and all.

[PGaither84]

EDIT: oops, I still wrote a book... sorry.


Okay, I'll jump back into the fun.





This was my jam when I was a kid. It came out before my 10th birthday, though I did not geta copy until a used one was for sale at Hollywood video on the cheap.









As was shared earlier by Armor and Sword, Game Day 97 has a place in my heart as well. My English teacher in 7th grade played that game and challenged us students to play him at lunch or after school. There was a waiting list of challengers who would sign up to play and he would crush everybody. My day came and after having seen how he plays, I knew how to take it to him. He began with an arrogant "here we go again, more meat for the grinder" look at the start to legit concern as things were not going his way. I took my 49ers and he used Dallas. It was a tight game the whole way and if memory serves I lost by 3 or less in a game which came down to random chance more than anything else. he threw multiple dropped would be interceptions and I played ball control and ran well with my backs, but also scrambled well with Young - often on play action and kept it - and fed Rice the ball. One of the most memorable individual games I had ever played because of the stakes. Despite the loss, the respect earned also got me more games where I eventually got some wins under my belt as well. That probably got me hooked on video game football more than any other one event in my life.


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My parents did not bought my an N64 rather than a Play Station, so Madden 64 was my first version of the franchise. They had the NFL Player's Association but not the rights to the teams and logos.



It had the first attempt at "first person football", and I used it a lot.












My friend got a Dreamcast and while I was busy playing Madden 2000 at home, he had NFL 2k, which was the only game we played together.







I got myself a Game Cube, Star Wars Rouge Squadron, and Madden 02 one day and it took days before I ever even opened the plastic from Rouge Squadron, as my friend and I tore it up in Madden. I was 16/17 at the time, and it was the first game where I played a franchise mode. Even though I enjoy sim football, I had a side franchise where I gamed the AI and made insane trades because the game let me. I remember flipping Bryant Young for rookie Brian Urlacher, Jeff Garcia for Michael Vick because Vick was a low rated rookie while Garcia was coming off a pro bowl in 2000, but I wanted to pair Vick up with Owens, and I had honestly never heard of LaDainian Tomlinson before, so I found myself is disbelief as this Chargers rookie RB was tearing my defense apart - shouts of "Who is this guy?" at the TV were answered in real life not long after.







Madden 03 was the first time my friend and I threw down for a franchise together. Before, we just played exhibition games. I convinced him that we should take our favorite teams and play as our respective opponents each week. We had ground rules on trades and free agency, where we would talk about who we wanted to target and would even negotiate things like, "I'll let you sign him if you let me sign this guy" or played a side game with the NFL Europe teams to decide who could sign a player if we couldn't agree otherwise and really wanted them.


Madden 04 came out and literally changed the game. There were massive improvements in the controls and response, new features, franchise mode and so forth. One of the single greatest jumps from one game to another and 04 will always hold a place in my heart. I made sure to get my Game Cube Copy signed by those devs which still worked at Tiburon when I went for the Madden 11 community day. If memory serves, Ian was a simple data entry guy back then, but I did not mind. That game holds such memories.


It was around this time in my story that I had my first full time job. I had bought a car and was getting my early adult life in order while also going to university. Well, there was one day where I had saved up and went to game stop/funcoland or whatever they were called at the time and got myself an original Xbox with Halo, Madden 05and several other games... and that $20 game which we all know and love. heck, for $20, I might as well try 2k5. 2k and 2k2 were fun, so why not?


ESPN 2k5 was the main football game I played for the next two yeas, though I did have Madden 05 and bought Madden 06. I have nothing bad to say about those Madden games, but they were not ESPN 2k5. It was not until Madden 07 that I finally began to box 2k5 up for weeks/months at a time. that Madden 07 franchise mode had me hooked, and Madden 08 was darn good as well.





Despite the Xbox 360 being released in late 2005 I eventually got one for myself in April 2008 and eventually Madden 09. Disappointment would be an understatement to describe it. The good news though was how an advertisement for the Madden 10 developer blogs while online matches loaded is what eventually steered me to Operation Sports. It was the first time i had been involved in the Madden Community since 2005 and the Madden Manifesto.





The first game in the 5+ year plan to improve gen 3 Madden. While far from perfect, this was a step in the right direction. I made a lot of friends here and a lot of memories. However, a bug which caused defenders to chase a point behind a runner and take bad pursuit angles along with defensive back AI and animation which caused them to come to a near full stop, turn slow and then try to play catch up allowed receivers to burn them over the top all day in man coverage and cover 3. It was unplayable for me until those two issue were fixed, and despite putting the game in my system every one in a while, it was not until the final title update after the super bowl where I saw both issues fixed.





Thanks to Ian and the team at Tiburon, I can say "I am in the game." This is where I was invited to Community Day, which fulfilled a dream of mine, which was to meet and talk to the people who made a game I both loved and loathed for many of the same reasons and pick their brains about why they were able to get so many things so right while other things so very wrong. Why is it that Madden 07/08 on the PS2 was still so much better off the field, and why could they not make a game play as well as 2k5/2k8 on the field? What were the plan for the future, and was there any hope?


Well, thanks to the NDA, I couldn't say much, but I did "warn" everybody that my biggest takeaway from Madden 11 community day was how excited I was for Madden 12. I knew from my talks with Josh Looman that it was 12 which was going to overhaul franchise mode, and I also knew that they had plans for something larger with Madden 13 and beyond. It just took a few years before the rest of the world was allowed to know and I didn't want to get sued. There are still secrets that I have kept which still might come to fruition despite changes in leadership, as there are overarching goals from Electronic Arts and sports gaming as a whole which I would not be surprised if they some day get around to.


I doubt I will get in trouble for saying that ideas were floated about an online only server side disc-free subscription service for Madden with cross platform online play. One big reason is to hurt the resale market, as EA is well aware of how many people buy Madden and then after a few days/weeks sell their copy to game stop or eBay/Amazon and they do not make money off that second customer. They want every player to be a unique purchase, and would love to cut costs of printing discs, boxes, shipping a product, in store ads all while raking in a higher profit margin from direct sales. I think that the Xbox One DRM fiasco of a few years ago is what put a hold on that idea until later.





This and Madden 12 are all the Madden I have ever needed to date.


Madden 12 has a realistic and fluid fatigue/substitution/injury system. Madden 12's franchise mode will have the computer trade with itself and offer trades to the user in the draft. Moreover, it uses a draft value chart somewhat equal to real life draft value charts. I use it to pull off fair trades and build my teams mostly through said draft. I like to pile up to the maximum 20 draft picks and use several of them as fodder to trade up within the same draft, or flip them for future picks of higher value and end up selecting 8-12 players with those 20 picks. I use the scouting guide, but avoid the draft class guide.


Madden 25 has a much improved scouting process. In Madden 12, you just target all of the good players. In Madden 25,thanks to schemes, I can spend 50xp on each player to reveal their scheme, and then only target those which fit my scheme. This way, there are great prospects which I will ignore in favor of players who fit what my team wants. After I find those which fit my zone run offense or 3-4 Zone Blitzing defense, I can then scout the attributes which are most important to that position. I do not care about their athletic abilities (speed, strength, agility, acceleration, jump). I want to know if they can play. How good of a run blocker are the zone run offensive linemen? Anyone who is a C or worse is a waste of time. Any 3-4 defensive lineman who does not have at least a B in block shedding is not worth my time either. The list goes on and on, and when I am all done, I tend to have 8-12 targets on my draft board and don't feel like I am just targeting the "A" potential stars and taking all of the best talent from the draft each year. Furthermore, it helps me buy into the idea of how scheme and coaching are as important as having individual stars.


I am a huge fan of zone running and have soaked up everything I can find about the system and coach Alex Gibbs, reading his articles, playbooks, watching his clinics which can go 3+ hours and more. He has spoken about how that 90's Denver offensive line is often talked about one of the best in NFL history, yet at the time the players were all late round picks and free agent fodder. He has said how any given year, his line has never been ranked higher than 27th in the NFL, yet his team has never ranked worse that top 5 in rushing and several years they were top 3, which you can see for yourself, (Denver 1995-2003, Atlanta 2004-2006). Well, his big point was how the zone run system does not need elite talent to get the job done, and Dallas is an example of what can happen when you ask elite linemen to be zone blockers and how they led the way for Murray and now Elliot. So, when I play, I just know that I need guys who fit my scheme, but not stars, and stick to the philosophy. by doing that, I do not mind if end up with a top 5 or even top 3 rushing attack with lower rated linemen and lower rated HBs... it is still realistic.


I combine that with a custom playbook which copies the Patriots Erhardt-Perkins passing game and do my best by drafting/signing WRs who can block and have solid skills in route running and Catch in traffic. Speed, jump, spectacular catch and all of that do not matter. Just get open in space and hang onto it.


That is why I love Madden 25 (and 12) so much. It feels as close to playing NFL football within the limitations of the video game as I can.

[timhere1970]

Quote: Originally Posted by Armor and Sword

Here is my walk down memory lane. Before even the Atari 2600 football and real sports football we had Tudor Electric Football. I remember my Dad coming home with this in 1980. It was the Steelers vs The Rams edition. I played this game with him for hours on end and even played solitaire with my own set of house rules LMAO. I was 10 freaking years old. Then of course the handhelds that many posted here about. Atari 2600 and Intellivision NFL Football and Baseball. Their boxing game was also a hoot. I loved table top gaming as a middle school and high school sports junkie. Here were my two favorites for football: And here are my baseball ones: I still have my table top games and have played them in recent years. But this electronic football game was awesome and I still have it in it's original box in mint condition: The baseball game was even better and I have all the team cartridges for the 1990 season!!! Favorite nostalgia football video games you say? Ahhhhh yes the memories. Ask me what is my favorite console football game is right now? Madden 20. Hands down.

Statis pro baseball was my game. Played it from the age of 12 to 38. When they quit making cards in '93 i made my own and you can still buy the cards on ebay for the game today. I can't play it anymore because with a wife and kids I don't have time. I was very addicted to it. I put in 18 seasons of 100 game seasons playing every game. I did my time in the navy, then college and even held jobs during that time. Kept statistical records to a degree madden can't come close to with all the computing power at their disposal.

[capa]

By the way, I asked Joe about his football game when I met him on Saturday...he just shook his head and said "those were the days."



C

[dawurts]

Quote: Originally Posted by capa

By the way, I asked Joe about his football game when I met him on Saturday...he just shook his head and said "those were the days." C

Wow...shaking hands with a legend there. I don't need to tell you that hand you're shaking made football history. And his was a truly revolutionary game for its time, first ever football video game to offer persistent multiple seasons, player trading, etc. Many fond memories playing that one.

[Smallville102001]

Its not about OS or social media I just remember when madden was a good game but that was so long ago. Basically ever madden post ps2 gen has been bad. Franchise mode on ps2 had more features, sim stats were not a issue like they are now, older players dropping of to fast no matter what wasn't a issue. CPU clock management was good and wind didn't impact kicks to much like they do now. Madden post ps2 has went backwards in so many ways its not even funny.

[Kanobi]

Quote: Originally Posted by tril

I just wish we had more titles, like we did back in the day.

Ditto! I'd always have NFL2k and Madden. Each game supplemented the other in terms of features, gameplay and overall depth. So to me, having both was essentially like having one perfect game.

The main thing I miss though about the days when we had options...was the competition between developers and the innovation that competition spawned. The consumer/football gamer was the true winner back then.