I personally feel like I have reached an enjoyment peak with Madden and their current gameplay engine. This post is not a gripe in any way but more of an honest assessment and and suggestion to the developers. I watch football on Sundays, and I get that urge to load up a video game of football to get that football gameplay fix. The problem is, when I load up Madden, I can no longer enjoy it for more than a few plays.....Quite simply, it just doesnt hold my interest any more. It feels like too much of the same exact game that I have played over and over and over for the last 10 years.
The action on the field doesnt immerse me into the gameplay any more than it did, 10 years ago....This dissapoints me, because in those last 10 years, I have also played games from other companies that added innovative and refreshing new gameplay elements to make the game much more enjoyable and interactive for the player while Madden pretty much played it safe and made tweaks here and there to the same foundation.
Just to name some features and elements that have really made video game football refreshing and more interactive:
NFL Fever 2004: Passing Cursor System- Brilliant Right Thumbstick Cursor Controlled Passing System to throw the ball anywhere you want on the field without scripted and predefined passes and button based receivers. This was devilishly addicting, and made passing the ball in a football game as fun...and as interactively challenging as cursor based hitting in a baseball game....Great design.
BackBreaker: True Physics Based Gameplay- Once you experience the open and dynamic world of true physics based tackling, and interaction between players, it almost makes it difficult to ever go back to anything with scripted motion captured interaction ever again.
2k Sports: Detailed Attributes & Player Ratings- Anyone who has ever played this game for a few seasons can appreciate the attention to detail and variety that 2K Sports demonstrated with an Attribute and Rating profile for every player that realistically generated subtle differences between similar positional players. For example, a reciever like Randy Moss, Terrell Owens, and Tory Holt, had distinctions and variety in their profiles that really individualized them and their actions on the field.
Maybe I am in the minority here, but I think its well overdue now for the general sports gaming public to expect EA to take their Football Engine to that next level....whatever it is, and completely rebuild it with something new, and much more immersive and interactive.
Is there any news or anything in the works at EA that would give us hope?
I want to love playing Madden again, I want to feel that same sense of excitement and anticipation for this game like I had way back when this game was in its prime
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