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Rookie
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It's Where I'm Comming From!!!
To the Devs,
I’ve played football for years. I’ve played all of my life, from little leagues, high school, and even at a collegiate level, all the way to some very minor semi-pro stuff in Canada. I’ve played as a TE, FB, HB, DE, OLB, and SS. I’ve played it in real life, and in video games once my body’s ability left me. Since that time, I’ve been a trainer, an assistant coach and a Pop Warner head coach trying to get into the Pee Wee levels and eventually working with a high school team, and maybe even making a living at it. I know the game, I love the game, I live the game and I try to get others to appreciate what it is that makes football the greatest team sport there is… That’s not boastful or false in any way, it’s what I do, and it’s who I am…
I’ve been around the Madden franchise for years… It was the best thing going for years hands down. I still have my copies for the old Sega Genesis, starting with ‘91 (I even have Mutant League). At the time the Sports Talk football franchise was the competition, though it wasn’t even close, at least not in the eyes of a wide eyed sports fan that once stood in line over night to get a copy, against my parents wishes, only to get grounded and loose my gaming system for a month as a result… But one month later, OH! glorious pixilated mayhem on the gridiron was mine. Three buttons A(Dive), B(Umph), C(Spin) and yet still we could do pretty much anything that we could pretty much imagine. No NFL licenses, player names or any of that stuff. But it was the best we could get for the times and we loved it… Along came ’92 which added four game modes and a few modding options such as quarter lengths and co-op play… Amazing! They added stuff that mattered and made the game better… And then 95 happened, we got names, we got teams, emblems and all that jazz, things were good, we had new buttons that we could use to get another 5 WRs to pass too and stiff arm trigger buttons and the hurdle… All of this added to the playability of the game and it was all pertinent additions to the game itself…
I’ve had them all up until the PS2, at which point things started to change… With the exception of ’99, it was always about the game and with ’99 came the Franchise mode (which was and always has been the selling point for me since then). But then slowly, something started to happen, we began seeing individual players appear on the covers of the game (Barry Sanders being the first, although covertly portrayed player) and rappers/musicians making the soundtracks (A point which I still find funny, what with all of the music one could ever possibly want coming from Autumn Thunder, what more do you need for authentic football music). One of the last games which I acutely have kept in the series is the 2001 game which features the “Create a Play” and was a pretty solid game for being the first one in the franchise on PS2, the other I’ve kept is 2004, which I still update rosters for… That being said, we began to see full out marketing hit us at a rate never before seen in the video game world. Big name stars on the cover, and big name artists in the soundtracks, and by this time, very little was changing as far as the core-game was concerned. THAT being said, Madden 2003 won “Sports Game of the Year” awards, which only shows to what extent the game has fallen off…
Despite this fact, the lack of innovation in the following games resulted in a lot of critics and gamers making statements like “Yet another roster update from EA”… And this, was the start of the end. The game, having been on the cutting edge for so long, began to add things which, in my opinion did nothing to improve the core game and adding flash and dash to the same old game in a new box with new music and a score of features (usually aiding the side of the cover athletes side of the ball) that would make an appearance one year, only to be removed the following, for no apparent reason… When you then add in the fact that we’ve now gotten to the point that we are on the PS3 and have progressed through four years, and are well on our way to a fifth, and we still don’t have some of the key features for things such as Franchise mode, it begs the question “Why the he(( not!” We have a lot of game modes now… A lot more then need be, in my humble opinion. Add in the fact that all of a sudden we’re now needing patches in order to get a brand new game working properly with even some of the simplest of things like clocks/time management still needing to be address. (That’s a core fundamental skill in the game of football… Games are won and lost as a result of time issues i.e see Patriots last season, see Cardinals this season, etc… etc…) It’s even gotten to the point where a football game with no game play to it at all, Head Coach, has become EA’s “flagship”, 20 years running football game’s biggest competitor (A similar incident occurred at another little company called GM between the Grand Nationals and the Corvettes). At any rate, 20 years in and $1200 later, here we are, and things are looking good. Things are sounding like they’re turning around, but as many have pointed out, we’ve ALL heard this before.
I read in a reply from Ian a while back he asked what changes did Madden make that really impressed us. So at long last after all that long winded stuff that came before this. I’m adding in a list of things that I loved, liked, disliked and downright loathed in the series, that I think still apply (I’ve also added stuff from the NCAA series as well).
LOVED (Would be assets in present version(s)):
-Franchise Mode from 2001 up to 2005.
-Create-A-Play.
-Playmaker Controls as done in 2004… Simple, effective and executed just right…
-Defensive Options added in 2005…
-Smart Routes
-NCAA Home Field Advantage/Turn the Tide
-NCAA QB Quiz (Would work great in conjunction with the Rewind feature)
-NCAA Coaching Strategy at Time Outs
-NCAA Player Motivation (I know it was in 2005, but NCAA did it better)
-NCAA Online Franchise
LIKED (Would be nice to have):
-Concept of the vision cone, though the execution was lacking as one couldn’t move the cone and press the WR’s button at the same time… Double tap system would’ve fixed that…
-NCAA Hitstick which allows people to hit high or low and doesn’t impact hit strength so much. Hit strength could be controlled via button press, not unlike how passes are.
-Highlight Stick, though again, the execution of this could be better as stats should impact a players abilities and reactions more so then individual user commands, resulting in scrub HBs looking like Mr. Sanders. What would be nice to see is maybe having this stick controlling the runners straff.
-The sports ticker.
-History books and anything historically/statistically related to the NFL.
DISLIKED/LOATHED (Should be done away with):
-Superstar Mode, it takes away from what the core game is and no doubt takes production time, effort, and money away from things that could be made better and that highly matter more. I played the first one and have never, EVER ventured past a few minutes into this game mode ever again.
-Ring Creator, the perfect example of a gimmick.
-Card Book, another gimmick which encouraged cheating and bending of rules, none the less.
-Player Weapons.
-Lead blocker Control.
-User celebrations and “Hot Zones”… If the NFL is fining players for excessive celebrations, why encourage this.
-Repetitive announcers with idiotic catch phrases.
-Player catches. Most leagues I play in forbid player catching with WRs and limit interception attempts to DBs.
WOULD LIKE TO SEE (Stuff that should be in sometime):
-Head Coach’s negotiations system.
-Team Roadmaps.
-Special Teams Play that matters. Squib kicks, kickoff return options. See 2K5
-Practice Squads.
-Multiple player motions per play.
-Multiple announcers like they had in FIFA with their own brand of announcing.
-Improved hotroute system using right analogue stick. See 2K5.
Other then all of that stuff, the game is great… I’ve been on these boards for a while now. Some call me negative. Some call me troll. Some have flat out tried to get me banned… Maybe now people will understand where I’m coming from a bit more. I’m a firm believer that you never really learn from positive feedback, at least not as much as you should or would from constructive criticisms. Thus far, it would appear that Ian is on the right track and appears to be genuine. I appreciate the fact that everyone here from the dev side of things is willing to speak about what they’ve been up too and what they have planned for the new year’s game. I have very high hopes for this year’s game, but as has been the case for several years now, I’m holding my breath, and renting first. I just don’t have any interest in making it $1260, if it’s not going to be all that I expect it to, or should be…
P.S. As a side note, since Head Coach is done as of 2009’s season and there isn’t another game for people to buy this season… Would it be too much to ask for ONE more roster update? I hope I don’t need it, but if I do, at least I’d have something to tide me over one more year… I don’t know what would be involved from a dev stand point, BUT if it’s simple enough to convert Madden rosters to HC rosters, that’d be great!
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Last edited by Swingking77; 05-08-2009 at 04:39 AM.
Reason: Edits made to correct transfer issues...
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05-08-2009, 03:09 AM
