Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

[Steve_OS]

5W-G has posted an article entitled, Building a Better Madden.

"For the first time since the Xbox 360 debuted, a “next-gen” console’s version of Madden is finally up to snuff with the series’ past greatness from its PlayStation 2 heyday. But it’s not perfect - no game is.

Certainly, more patches are forthcoming, but online issues and AI quirks still frustrate many Madden gamers. Based on my time with the game, there are a few reasonable changes that I believe could be made that would make the game better and fit within the current development cycle - which is always the real catch."

[BezO]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

My list is longer, but this is a good start. And I agree that fixing the line interaction would improve the game more than anyting.

[bigfnjoe96]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

My list is longer, but this is a good start. And I agree that fixing the line interaction would improve the game more than any new feature.

You want to see the line inter action call "QUARTERS" Defense & watch your 3 down lineman during the REPLAY....

[Jet Sufferer]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

My list is longer, but this is a good start. And I agree that fixing the line interaction would improve the game more than any new feature.

Mine too and I agree about the line play being crucial, I want to fight in the trenches, I want to be able to do a double move as a DE, if I try to inside rip and I only move the O-Lineman a little bit I would like to be able to interrupt the animation and go with an outside club. Line play should be a mini game within itself, it's weak right now. I can live with the current player models BUT madden needs to have people working right now to double or triple the frames of animation if they really want this game to be a technological marvel. Then they can maximize the different animations, there should be at least 100 different catching animations, endless tackling animations, and any and all animations should be able to be broken at any time depending on the situation.

If they just did this and stopped with the endless new "features" and gimmicks. The game looks pretty nice now but just doesn't animate that well.

[Nintari]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

There's alot of things that alot of people want in this franchise, but I'll dumb it down to only TWO.

1.)Basically just rip off 2k5's presentation and ESPN integration. If you took that, and put it into Madden 2010 with more polish, it would be amazing.

2.)Make franchise the main focal point. Really flesh it out, and give it the attention it deserves.

If they ignored just about everything apart from these two things next year, we would have one hell of an amazing game. All they'd have to do after that in 2011 is tweak the gameplay and it would be perfect.

[MaxMan1000]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

2.)Make franchise the main focal point. Really flesh it out, and give it the attention it deserves.

They'll never make franchise the main focal point. It's not where Madden's money is made. Never has been. It's always been about "new features" and of course gameplay with this product.

Making sure franchise works properly is probably the most important thing about franchise, and that's been their biggest hurdle for years.

What I'm not quite getting about this year's Madden is how things we've had for years in Madden just upped and disappeared, like the temperature control setting... What was the reason to get rid of it? Or why are the weather settings less varied than they've been in the past? What happened to light rain/snow settings?

The rational side of me says decisions like that were made because of code conflict. But the fan side of me says it was just overlooked for no good reason. Why? Because when I go into franchise (and I'm not really into franchise by the way), I see cold fields without snow but I can't select it in exhibition. I see the players breath in some cold games, but I can't make that happen in exhibition because there are no temperature controls.

Or take how you can't abort a highlight when creating highlights; you have to watch the entire highlight before you can select another highlight camera angle. Couldn't they have programmed a command to abort the highlight whenever you want? It's very frustrating.

Madden 09 is a good football game. But some of the omissions make no sense. The omissions get me more than the mistakes, lol.

[BezO]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

Mine too and I agree about the line play being crucial, I want to fight in the trenches, I want to be able to do a double move as a DE, if I try to inside rip and I only move the O-Lineman a little bit I would like to be able to interrupt the animation and go with an outside club. Line play should be a mini game within itself, it's weak right now.

Yeah, only 2 defensive moves is baffling. We need club, rip, hump, speed & bull rushes. And we need to be able to string them together like the jukes.

Why EA thinks everyone cares about offense only is beyond me.

I can live with the current player models BUT madden needs to have people working right now to double or triple the frames of animation if they really want this game to be a technological marvel.

I'm sure this is one reason why the animations look so stiff. They need to watch that All Pro 2K8 vs NCAA 2008 vid, study the patterns by Rice and update thier animations to that level.

If they just did this and stopped with the endless new "features" and gimmicks. The game looks pretty nice now but just doesn't animate that well.

I wish they would take at least one year off from new features, lay-off anyone that's not involved with gameplay, play calling design, animations or in-game presentation and just work on the fundamentals of football... and presentation.

There's alot of things that alot of people want in this franchise, but I'll dumb it down to only TWO.

2.)Make franchise the main focal point. Really flesh it out, and give it the attention it deserves.

If they ignored just about everything apart from these two things next year, we would have one hell of an amazing game. All they'd have to do after that in 2011 is tweak the gameplay and it would be perfect.

I'm primarily a franchise player with sports games, but I can't even enjoy a play now game at this point. Franchise is worthless to me without the gameplay fixes. I won't buy this game, much less start a franchise until the line interaction is fixed.

[LAKE4742]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

They'll never make franchise the main focal point. It's not where Madden's money is made. Never has been. It's always been about "new features" and of course gameplay with this product.

New features-yeah. But, gameplay? Are you sure? Because I can't effin' tell!!!!

[MaxMan1000]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

^^^^ LOL. Some people say that the "85 New features/enhancements" were a gimmick line, too... but I say a number of them aren't so much "new" as they are "resurrected"...

Now coming from a guy who couldn't stomach playing Madden '08, I'd say for me '09 has been far more playable even though I have to jump through hoops to set sliders with 2 controllers and see how it affects what, over and over again.

[Jet Sufferer]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

I'm sure this is one reason why the animations look so stiff. They need to watch that All Pro 2K8 vs NCAA 2008 vid, study the patterns by Rice and update thier animations to that level.
.

Look at the animation of the players in MLB 08 The Show, All Pro Football 2k8, and Konami's Japanese Baseball Game. They all put EA's animation department to shame, in comparison, they animate like 8-bit NES sports games.

EA is supposed to be the premier sports game developer, I just named 3 other developers off the top of my head that make EA's animation department look amateurish by comparison.

Want to make Madden awesome? Go find the guys who animated those games and offer them double their salary plus a signing bonus to animate Madden, problem solved. PM me for my consulting fees EA.

[thejake]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

That is a good list. The illegal numbers bother me too. That would seem like a simple fix.

[Benicio10]

Re: Building a Better Madden Article (5W-G)

Look at the animation of the players in MLB 08 The Show, All Pro Football 2k8, and Konami's Japanese Baseball Game. They all put EA's animation department to shame, in comparison, they animate like 8-bit NES sports games.

EA is supposed to be the premier sports game developer, I just named 3 other developers off the top of my head that make EA's animation department look amateurish by comparison.

Want to make Madden awesome? Go find the guys who animated those games and offer them double their salary plus a signing bonus to animate Madden, problem solved. PM me for my consulting fees EA.

Finally some good emphasis on OS in this thread on animations. Animations are what makes a game feel real. when we talk SIM, it starts with animations.

players need a more human-like movement feel to them. it's the single biggest difference between 2K and EA.

[Jet Sufferer]

Finally some good emphasis on OS in this thread on animations. Animations are what makes a game feel real. when we talk SIM, it starts with animations.

players need a more human-like movement feel to them. it's the single biggest difference between 2K and EA.

Yup, animation is where it's at.

Let me say this: Unlike others I hold no animosity towards EA for getting the exclusive NFL License. It wasn't their idea, the NFL wanted to maximize their profit and put it up for bid EA WON the contract. They would have been crazy to not go all out to get it to continue the Madden Franchise. I just haven't liked the games they put out. 09 is a good game, not a great game. It took them 4 years to put out a good game on next gen, (Insert your own frustration here). At this point I wouldn't care if they hired the 2k team who apparently have superior ability to animate games and bring them to life. I just want a true mind-blowing video football game, if it's Madden or 2K on the cover it makes no difference to me.

The real tragedy in the license deal is that APF 2K8 sold what? 200K copies and Madden sells like 5-6 million copies? The game is 10 dollars at Best Buy and Gamestop, how could it not sell a million copies at this price? People love the NFL, not neccesarily video game football, so it's possible that a by-product of the exclusive license is that we won't see a fully realized next gen 2K football game.

APF 2K8 is so close to being the game I dreamed about while playing Madden 92 with my Sega Arcade Joystick for more hours than I care to admit. If they slapped the NFL license on APF 2K8 and released it as Madden 08 the game would have caused a revolution, the world might have exploded, as it is the game was outsold 30 to 1??? It's like seeing a poll where men favored Rosie O'Donnell to Scarlett Johannsen 30 to 1, I'm just as baffled.

I hope EA buys Take Two and turns them loose, how about the old AFL?? How about Madden AFL 1968!

Back to animation, my dream game would be something like Jets vs. Raiders 1968. Signature styles for every player 3 times the animations of 2K8, every last detail down to the white tape around Joe Namaths shoes, the tape getting tattered during the game. Joe Namath, the first QB to throw for 4000 yards in 1968 versus the Raiders Lamonica "The Mad Bomber". The Silver and Black versus the Green and White, take 2 teams and fill the disk with animations until it explodes.

Besided the animations which is my biggest gripe with Madden 09 is the SIZE of the players, it's just tough to look at them anymore.

The Madden business model is successful and in the end that's what really matters to a company and I don't have a problem with that either. It would take some very forward thinking by EA to build a better game. It's like the drug conversation in The Godfather, the problem isn't now but 5 years from now. They are really being passed by other developers, NBA anyone???

EA is a monolith, they're on top in football now but have been leaving the door open for a long time, leave it open long enough.....Rome fell so can EA. Go hire the best in the business instead of pretending you are, dishing out the big money for the NFL license was SMART. Hiring the best programmers in the world would be smarter, a tiny piece of the advertising budget would yield them the best programmers in the world, and in the end the best products. They've got the marketing part down, it's time for a better product to go with it.

[jrp1918]

The line interaction is #1 thing. Its terrible now and has been awful in madden forever. There is no pocket. That's kind of inexcusable. A common mantra is that the games of won in the trenches, the game should reflect that a little more, at the moment, playing behind the Pats o line, with everyone 90+ feels no different then playing with the Raiders atrocious unit.

[jrp1918]

also, i was a big franchise player, but with head coach i could not care less what they do with it. Really all I'd want them to do is make a way for me to use my head coach team in madden, or better yet, just make Head Coach the franchise mode.