Are Football games this year disappointing?

[Mbalmer]

I think this years crop of football games are average at best.

I could never get into backbreaker because of the camera angle. I have only played the demo so I can't comment on it to much, but if they would have given us "Total Customization" like they said then it could have been a better game. For that game to be a commercial success it has to have better player models, a camera system like 2k5 where you can adjust it several ways, total customization letting us change everything we want to about a player, commentary, and better cpu ai. That is just a few short examples why this game failed.

Madden 11 is an utter disapointment. When I first started to play it I thought it was pretty good, but the more I played it the worse it became. I just sold my copy on ebay. Everything Madden does is carried out almost half assed. New commentary, but they never have banter between each other and Chris even still says "Tom" sometimes. Pro-tak is a joke because we still have players that just fall down instead of hit someone. CPU QB play still has a robo feel to it. I have hit the qb while his arm is going back and my player just morphed into his arm and he still completed the pass to his wr. ETC, ETC. I am not going to say what everyone else has said on the Madden Forum Section. All in all, it is not a good game of football compared to games that are from last gen.

NCAA football seems to be my favorite of the 3. However it suffers from some of the things that Madden does. When I first started to play this game I was very happy overall with it, but the more I play it the worse it becomes. I haven't even played it in about a week. I just can't get past people falling down instead of getting in on the action. I will keep this game, but I don't think I will play it much past college football season.

Football games are just so far behind other sports games as a whole. Basketball looks good this year, hockey has been reviewed rather well, Soccer games always look good, (not a fan of soccer but people are big fans of FIFA) MLB the Show is awesome.

It is a shame that the number 1 sport in the US has such a poor showing in the video game world. Some competition in this field would do us sports gamers wonders. It is crazy to play a game like Oblivion and see all the stuff they put in that game and how wonderful it plays and then compare that level of game to Madden or NCAA. I understand the Oblivion has a longer dev cycle, but we have been on this generation of consoles just as long as it takes for a game like Oblivion to be developed and we haven't had any significant development in fooball games this generation. Sure everyone wants to say that M11 is better then M10, and M10 was better then M9 etc, but I don't honestly think that anyone can say that any of these games are where they should be at in relation to other sports games and certainly not when compared to other genres.

EA is more concerned with people buying tokens and other add ons then fixing gameplay issues. Ian and the gang are only going to work hard enough to not get fired. I found it funny how in this months game informer magazine they had a page with questions that fans wanted to have answered and nothing was mentioned about the biggest gameplay flaws. The questions were spoon fed to Ian and that publication should be embarrased for even publishing it. It drove me nuts to read that Ian is commited to making the best "kick-*** NFL simulation" Well maybe he should get the basics of tackling down and then go from there, huh? I would be embarassed if I put out a product like that. I have said multiple times that he, or anyone working on the game, does not know how to fix the tackling animations. If I had something in my line of work that I couldn't do I would bust my *** to make sure I figured it out. He clearly doesn't care, and why would he when people keep buying the product? (myself included)

I sure hope the exclusive license is over with in the next year or so.