Madden Impressions from a Simpleton

[Encrypt]

Good morning everyone,

I wanted to share my impressions of Madden 08 on the 360, mainly because I've read several pages of your impressions, and I thought maybe now that the game has had 3 days of praises and complaints, I'd finally play my first game and share what I liked, and what I didn't like.

I chose in the interests of simplicity to do a Play Now game with all settings defaulted except for quarter length, in which I made 7 minutes. I chose a fairly close matchup with the St. Louis Rams (Away) against the Pittsburgh Steelers (Home).

I don't need to go into what all these teams have - you know that. I just want to talk about the game. I will start though, with the final score. The Steelers won 28-20, which in my opinion is a perfectly "normal" NFL game.

Let's start with what I liked:

- The move from 30 to 60 FPS, as seen in NCAA 08, makes a world of gameplay difference. The game feels like it moves at the speed of an actual football game. Everything happens in a fairly fluid manner.

- Weapons systems is interesting, although I'm not really in favor if it adds more to an already good player's stats. It does allow for unknown players to understand who are the go-to people on a team.

- Graphics look decent, they are improved over NCAA08, at least.

- Animations are definitely better than they've ever been, and some of the hits that the receivers and backs take are sick.

These are the items I didn't care for or don't like:

- Rings feature is dumb. This is a football game. You play football in a football game.

- I don't know much about the weapons system, but as I mentioned above, if it makes someone like LT better than he already is, that's not cool.

- Presentation? Anyone? Hello? ESPN License? NFL 2K5 ring a bell? What...yeah, it doesn't exist. Still. And even where I felt Madden was at its height (2005), the presentation still sucked. Come on EA, professional football is presented on television. Want to reward a player for something good they did in a game? Give us multiple replay angles of big plays, like Fox Sports does. Forget your stupid Rings feature. Want to impress us more? - give us a replay montage during half time. Oh, and thanks for the replays, but, certain times there should ALWAYS be a replay. Like every time 3rd or 4th downs are converted. The only time I never see a TV replay of a conversion is during a 2-minute rush offense. They don't have time. You do.

- Lots of sacks happen that shouldn't. This is the same problem IGN complained about in their review of NCAA 08. The quarterbacks simply take way, way, WAY too long in their passing animation. NFL passes are fast, like maybe .25 seconds. Big Ben got sacked 3 times, and only 1 of them was a pure coverage/take too long sack. The other two he was right in the middle of the throwing animation and then the game stopped the animation so he could get hit. I don't necessarily think he should get the pass off clean, but it shouldn't be a sack - that ball should come out, if even sloppy.

- On default settings, receivers and running backs are a little too good. Rothelisberger threw for 215 yards and 3 TDs and 1INT, which is acceptable for him, but did it at 80% accuracy. Bulger threw for 267 yards and no TDs and 2INTs, and had 57% accuracy. Granted, the Steelers have always been a defensive team, but, I think it's just a little off on default settings. I didn't seem to have any fumble or INT trouble that some have complained about. The only thing that seemed unrealistic to me was the number of broken tackles Steven Jackson had. One play he broke 6 tackles during a 55-yard TD run, two those tackles initatied by me using the Hit Stick. Jackson is a good running back and he's hard to tackle, but no one gets it done like that. It's noticeable, and annoying. Receivers on default seem to catch almost anything that isn't throw way off or into coverage. All I had to do was lead the pass the right direction and they caught it. The only thing that I think is wrong with this is that you shouldn't have to lead receivers every single time to avoid an INT. Sometimes they just run a good route where there shouldn't be any danger. But of course, the one time I thought I had a clean route and didn't lead the receiver, Rothelisberger threw it to someone on the other team. Maybe that isn't realistic, maybe it is, I don't really know. I'm not hardcore enough to know. What I do know is that certain teams, the Rams in particular, have plays that are designed to run very specific routes and timings, and they do work without Bulger having to lead them much, if at all.

- The new Hit Stick/Highlight Stick is a fun feature, and I like it, but, it seems under utilized in Madden. In NCAA 08, you can have some serious fun with this feature. You can do some cool stuff in during 1-on-1 situations on offense and defense and create some cool plays. Madden is faster and more furious, and you don't have a lot of time to use the stick to full effectiveness. Now, that could also be my sucktastic skill, but I managed to win the game without much trouble - and I never really got to pull off a good juke or lay on a nice Big Hit. The opportunities simply weren't there.

So my first game of Madden was fun, and I learned a lot about how it plays. I'm going to tweak the sliders this time to my own style of play and see how that goes - not that I don't trust those guys who have built a name making sliders, I just think that sliders are personalized to your skill level. I seem to be fairly challenged at Pro level - but I'm sure for some people it's like playing on Rookie level. But I had to play and talk about what I found from a base level that everyone can play from.

Thank you for your time.

[TJdaSportsGuy]

Please use the already existing impressions thread. No need to create your own.