AFL is a winner; EA, start working on 2007 now!!!

[renojedi]

This game is really good and I am glad it is selling well. Arena Football is an awesome sport and great for that period between Football and baseball.

EA, you have to beef up the presentation. That is the only missing factor this year. Here are my recommendations after about 7 games.

1. You have to have commentators. In most games they get boring but in a league where there is a constant need to get players recognized, you need announcers who say that a guy played for an NFL team, was a standout in college, or had great stats last year. I can tell you that most people don't even know what makes a good season in the AFL. Everyone knows the 1000 yds for rushers, 3000 for QBs, etc for the NFL. Use announcers to teach people about the AFL stats. And have them explain the rules violations so people understand what twisting was (sometimes I can't even tell on the game).

2. We need a lot more instant replays. If you can do the ones with the telestrator, that would be awesome.

3. Get rid of the late hit cut scenes (this isn't blitz) and add cut scenes of the fans. In AFL you get to keep the ball if it comes into the stands. Have some cut scenes with that.

4. We need AFL2 as a feeder system. There is no draft so put those teams in and give us some guys to pick from in addition to the free agents.

5. Madden has the worst overlays in sports games (hopefully ESPN fixes it). Arena has similar ones and needs get away from that. Make it look professional instead of like NES.

6. Stadium atmosphere stinks. Nuff said.

7. Music should play in snippets between plays, not all game long.

8. Guys who run into the boards when they are watching the ball should fall down. This happens. Guys who have the ball and are running should not. This doesn't happen. It is a little unrealistic. They should use the boad to their advantage. I have seen guys run along the top of the wall for a couple steps or bouce off them to juke a defender.

9. Have the TE signal that he is the tight end (raises arm like in real life). This would help to understand jack and mack linebacker better.

10. Little things say the game was rushed so start working on it now. John Dutton (yes the coverboy) doesn't even have a in game picture and a lot of others do not. And some teams are called the away or home team by the announcer so not even all the real teams were . Guys with from small schools have their college listed as none. All these things can and should be cleaned up.

11. Make better create a team logos (ones that real teams might actually use--Madden is pretty good at this). Make sure other logos are in so we can put the voodoo back in. better yet, make the Brigade logo available as a download. If you can't put historic teams in season, that would be a good trade-off. And make sure he announcer records "voodoo" and others. Madden was good about having the announcer say the name of the logo. Example: you pick the CAT logo titled general and name your team generals and then the announcer says that. That is a cool feature.

Most of all just tweak gameplay, don't re-do it or add superstar mode or other junk (though minigames would be good to learn more about Arena specific plays and controls). If you have to add something, maybe unlockable owners like Elway and Jaws or music by Bon Jovi. Really sell the league! And not sure how much you can do with the NFL license but if cross over stars like Maddox and Warner can be brought back, that would be really awesome.

That's all for now and just my two cents. I am sure others have their requests as well. The bottom line is that you have a winner here. Keep it going!

[CaptainZombie]

Quote: Originally Posted by renojedi

This game is really good and I am glad it is selling well. Arena Football is an awesome sport and great for that period between Football and baseball. EA, you have to beef up the presentation. That is the only missing factor this year. Here are my recommendations after about 7 games. 1. You have to have commentators. In most games they get boring but in a league where there is a constant need to get players recognized, you need announcers who say that a guy played for an NFL team, was a standout in college, or had great stats last year. I can tell you that most people don't even know what makes a good season in the AFL. Everyone knows the 1000 yds for rushers, 3000 for QBs, etc for the NFL. Use announcers to teach people about the AFL stats. And have them explain the rules violations so people understand what twisting was (sometimes I can't even tell on the game). 2. We need a lot more instant replays. If you can do the ones with the telestrator, that would be awesome. 3. Get rid of the late hit cut scenes (this isn't blitz) and add cut scenes of the fans. In AFL you get to keep the ball if it comes into the stands. Have some cut scenes with that. 4. We need AFL2 as a feeder system. There is no draft so put those teams in and give us some guys to pick from in addition to the free agents. 5. Madden has the worst overlays in sports games (hopefully ESPN fixes it). Arena has similar ones and needs get away from that. Make it look professional instead of like NES. 6. Stadium atmosphere stinks. Nuff said. 7. Music should play in snippets between plays, not all game long. 8. Guys who run into the boards when they are watching the ball should fall down. This happens. Guys who have the ball and are running should not. This doesn't happen. It is a little unrealistic. They should use the boad to their advantage. I have seen guys run along the top of the wall for a couple steps or bouce off them to juke a defender. 9. Have the TE signal that he is the tight end (raises arm like in real life). This would help to understand jack and mack linebacker better. 10. Little things say the game was rushed so start working on it now. John Dutton (yes the coverboy) doesn't even have a in game picture and a lot of others do not. And some teams are called the away or home team by the announcer so not even all the real teams were . Guys with from small schools have their college listed as none. All these things can and should be cleaned up. 11. Make better create a team logos (ones that real teams might actually use--Madden is pretty good at this). Make sure other logos are in so we can put the voodoo back in. better yet, make the Brigade logo available as a download. If you can't put historic teams in season, that would be a good trade-off. And make sure he announcer records "voodoo" and others. Madden was good about having the announcer say the name of the logo. Example: you pick the CAT logo titled general and name your team generals and then the announcer says that. That is a cool feature. Most of all just tweak gameplay, don't re-do it or add superstar mode or other junk (though minigames would be good to learn more about Arena specific plays and controls). If you have to add something, maybe unlockable owners like Elway and Jaws or music by Bon Jovi. Really sell the league! And not sure how much you can do with the NFL license but if cross over stars like Maddox and Warner can be brought back, that would be really awesome. That's all for now and just my two cents. I am sure others have their requests as well. The bottom line is that you have a winner here. Keep it going!

If EA fixes these issues alone, than I think that this game next year will be better than this year.

[NorthDallas40]

Good stuff.

I'd add:

1) some trick plays. Ex: a WR reverse pass.

2) a lateral buton

3) the Hit Stick. Being able to access telemetry during a play isn't very uesful.

4) custom button config. Or at least a better layout (the current one waste buttons; do we really need a dedicated celebration button (L trigger)?) and not as different from Madden/NCAA as the current one is. Since EA has ALL the "real" football titles there's no reason that can't keep the button assignments as uniform as possible throughtout their titles. Gamers shouldn't have to "re-learn" where "turbo," "sprint," "dive," etc. is when going from NCAA to Madden to Arena.

[Thrasha]

I just rented this game at Blockbuster after picking up Black. After my rental period is over I'm going to Best Buy and picking this up along with MVP06. The game isn't great, but it definitely shows potential, and is a fun diversion for until MLB2k6 and the new Midnight Club comes out.

Their definitely needs to be improvement in the alot of the areas, especially informing the player about how the AFL works. I personally think Jaws should be a commentator next year. He would be perfect as the "color" guy who could give you the run-down on rules, plays, player stats...etc.

More to come as I play some more.

Oh yeah, something HAS to be done with the play-calling screen, it's ridiculously crappy looking, and a pain in the butt to have to scroll up or down.