The New-Gen Controllers What is Holding Madden Back?

[ridemooses]

If you think a little bit about what makes good video games it's the ability to use the controller to make the characters do what you want them to do. Zelda is a perfect example of a game that did exactly this, it doesn't require a complicated controller to do what you want Link to do, like kill baddies. Same thing with most first person shooters, the controllers for Xbox 360 and PS3 work really well for basic movement of a single character, allowing you to look around perform basic movements such as shoot a gun or plant a bomb.

Football on the other hand is a intricate and complicated game filled with many different actions and movements. It requires you to be able to see the whole field and react to a play in a split second. The basic actions of Football are running, catching, throwing and LOOKING. With the current controllers for the 360 and PS3 you are able to run around fairly effectively. However, actions such as throwing, catching and looking around are not quite as simple. They take complicated actions in real life and make them overly simple such as pressing a button. It is impossible to get accurate results from throwing a pass when all you do is press and button and rely on the ratings of your player to determine whether or not you should complete the pass.

Now I'm no game designer and I know most of the people on this Forum aren't either but I think most of us could think of a different way to use the current controllers to allow for more human generated accuracy when it comes to throwing or catching.

I recently bought MLB 2K8 for Xbox 360 because it was on sale for 8 bucks and I wanted a next gen baseball game. If anyone is familiar with this game, or any of the 2K baseball series that use the right stick for pitching, knows how it takes practice to get the right stick to get you to do what you want. (For those who aren't familiar essentially you use the right stick in two motions, depending on the pitch, to get a result. The better you do this, the better the pitch). In general, I think Madden could take away from a lot of other games, especially from the 2K developers.

I'm proposing that in order to attain accurate, human generated results from throwing a football, the way in which you achieve this on a next-gen controller need to be changed. The right stick needs to be utilized better in Madden, it is one of the few actions you can use to actually get timing in a video game (Swinging at a pitch, shooting a free throw etc.).

Until controllers such as that as the Wii uses are perfected for accurate motions we are going to have the kind of button mashing controllers we have had since video games were invented. What Madden can do is adopt a better usage of the current controller in order to allow more human interaction between what you put into the controller and what you get out. It's this active result which so many of us miss in Madden and why we prefer to play other games when Madden gets frustrating because we don't seem to get the result out of it which we put in.

[Valdarez]

Madden's still using last generation movements (save for ProTak). They need a complete overhaul of their footwork, weight, physics engine to account for real player movement. Until that is done I'm not sure anything controller wise that's worth using can be implemented.

I own all 3 systems, and when the controllers work on the Wii, they work well (Resident Evil 4 anyone???). Then again, when they are bad, they are really bad. So controllers can be either a gift or a curse.

I liked the idea someone introduced awhile back about using the RT button as a 'speed' controller for the HB when running. Though I don't know if I could controll myself when I'm running such that I could pressure it properly. It might need 'gears', such that RT shifts 1 speed faster, and LT shifts 1 speed slower.

Lots of ideas to toss around.

[nacnud]

I think a lot of the stuff you guys are talking about overcomplicates the game, a physics engine that works properly would bring the game forward leaps and bounds. Im not sure controls are the problem with the game, but getting 100 percent accurate physics is.

[adam45h]

I would love to switch the Finesse/Power Moves button from the right stick to the bumpers, I'm so tired of seeing my player stumble 15 yards out of the way because I thought a block was still engaged but the CPU reads it as a hit stick attempt.


A bit off-topic, I know, but something that I just realized in a game earlier today!

[scarface scotty]

Quote: Originally Posted by nacnud

I think a lot of the stuff you guys are talking about overcomplicates the game, a physics engine that works properly would bring the game forward leaps and bounds. Im not sure controls are the problem with the game, but getting 100 percent accurate physics is.

This!