Madden NFL 12 Reviewer Impressions: Gameplay

[Radja]

i think we are seeing typical madden improvements so far from what you have written. again this will boil down to how much the consumer thinks it is worth to pay for.

granted some things are hard to simulate. like when you wrote, the DB's sometimes completely ignore the WR in the zone. that happens sometimes with real games when coverages are blown, so ... it boils down to how often that occurs in the game.

for a lot of us it will be whether they improved the offline franchise aspects.

personally, i can stick to a sports game for a couple years if i like my franchise presently. so unless its a massive improvement, i am sticking with my present madden franchise.

[northface28]

Good review and informative. So far there are too many questionable things going on once you get past all the fluff. Sure its an improvement over M11, but whats that really say? M11 was a mess. Jury is still out, but, for now, im not seeing enough improvement to justify a full price purchase. Ill just continue the waiting game.

[scottyp180]

i wonder how much the first patch will change the game and peoples impression of this game. It seems most sports titles have a day one update so maybe there will be some new impressions next week. Either way I plan on buying this game. I havent purchased madden in 5 years and after playing the demo I finally see enough improvements (again over a 5 year span) to warrant a $60 purchase,

[maddcatt]

It's a game, it's football and I'm easily buying it ...All games have faults and I realize there will never be a game that is going to emulate a real football game perfectly ...I also realize, Nobody is ever going to buy a sports game that's more geared towards towards the defensive side of the ball

[bucky60]

Quote: Originally Posted by Turbo Lax 33

At the end of the day Madden is a video game, not a recreation of actually playing the game. If you want the experiences the writer has nitpicked about, the only way you will ever get it is by actually playing the game of football, not a video counterpart.

Nothing wrong with having low expectations. I'm happy for you that you can and will enjoy your gaming experience. Some of us do have higher expectations and do want to see the game improved. Nothing wrong with that either.

[PAPERNUT]

Quote: Originally Posted by scottyp180

i wonder how much the first patch will change the game and peoples impression of this game. It seems most sports titles have a day one update so maybe there will be some new impressions next week.

I was wondering the same. Is there any known patch that is due to hit this game on the 30th for launch for the retail disks?

[Playmakers]

Quote: Originally Posted by DJ

I hope you do enjoy the game. Within 10 minutes, I regretted buying Madden 11 last year and no amount of patches and slider-tweaking ever made that game enjoyable. I don't want to go through that feeling again this year, so I'd rather wait.

I feel better about Madden 12 than NCAA 12

But having said that i'm not going to open it for about a week LOL!

I waiting for impressions and stuff from guys i trust on here....I can't get my full $60 bucks for NCAA 12 so I'm not opening Madden 12 right away.

With my luck i'll open it and EA will have a laundry list of things they are doing with a patch....

[Celtic34]

I haven't bought the game and have just messed around with the demo, but I think EA did a pretty good job in the gameplay department striking that balance between arcade and sim. What I noticed is that this game plays differently this year compared to years past where there definately is a sim element to it. I'm finding I have to work for things a bit more. Maybe it's because of the improved zone coverages or a smoke screen and as I play it more i will find the flaws but it seems to be a bit more challenging this year. Whether it's realistic or not is another story. Star players do seem to play more realistically though and differentiate themselves a bit. Players seem to be more active in their zones. All in all along with the presentation and graphical improvements, this is the best madden i've played to date. It just doesn't have that wow factor though and doesn't do anything that really deviates from that formula overly. I still see a lot of unrealistic stuff like defenders magically turning and intercepting the ball only to have it bounce off their head the next when they are in perfect position. WR/DB interaction is iffy, but at least I see defenders getting burnt on bump and run this year and I have to think about if I want to call it or not.

a Madden game that actually does make an attempt to be a sim is a rarity so this is one of the better Madden games I've played. I think EA did make an attempt here to make gameplay improvements and there are quite a few.