Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

I am going to try to keep this as objective as possible because there is enough passionate opinions out there that have been already been expressed ad nauseum.

I have to say though that EA sports by virtue of years of relatively small yearly incremental upgrades has successfully conditioned the average madden consumer (ie most, or average casual fans) that they should be satisfied or even happy with whatever new features they get. No matter how inconsequential, or even potentially bad they may be. Please save the "truck stick", "more precision passing", "cone-vision" (which I prophetically predict most casual fans will turn off becase it will make the game too har...errr, realistic to play)

And before the "why should they put a lot of effort into this version when the next gen is just around the corner" crowd starts up-then answer me precisely why I would pay 50 dollars for a game that I predict will be just a sliver better, or even worse than the 2005 version I payed 29 dollars for?

I know this-for better or worse NFL 2k5 and for that matter NFL fever even made more changes from one year to the next than 3-4 years of Madden updates. The sad part is with no competition in the NFL arena, real substantial innovations will be slowly leaked to us over the next decade when the talent and resources exist at EA to deliver them much sooner. Many of you that will respond to this post in disagreement will eventually come to see that but unfortunately it will take many years.

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

You'll probally get super flammed for posting this..but honestly, i gotta agree with you. It just pisses me off that these guys over at EAsports take advantage of its consumers, toss in a few new novelty idea's,tweak the game engine a bit and slap a 50 dollar price tag on it. What pisses me off even more is people or the majority of people fall for their lazy product every friggen year...

Madden is a solid playing football game..there is no denying that but when you get this skimpy on improvments each year and still charge full price for that game..it begins to get ridiculous

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

I confess that I don't really feel that way. Whether it was because EA was pushed by the 2K series or not (and most likely it was), I thought that Madden 2005 was the most improved sports game of the year. I hated 2004- it was actually the first time I've sold a football game, any football game, while the season was still going on, but ESPN Football was so much better than it that I found no reason to own Madden. But 2005 was a vast improvement. It didn't change much graphically, but under the hood it was a substantially different game, and it ended up being the best football game available last year. If EA is able to make subtle improvements upon last year's game, I'll be happy for the three months that I have the Xbox version...then it will be all about the 360.

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

it seems to me that the madden games are really good every other year. I loved 2001, 2002 was meh, 2003 kicked ***, 2004 i hated, 2005 i liked alot. Next comes 2006. Now that i think about it, same way with ncaa. 2002 I loved, 2003 was good but not a big upgrade, 2004 was god, 2005 was horse ****......yeah 2006 is coming up!!!!

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

HAHAHAHA EA Takes advantage of it's consumers. That has to be the funniest thing I've read all day.

Welcome to the real world. Show me a company that makes millions of dollars a year, that doesn't take advantage of consumers.

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

People don't like hearing it, but I just think Tiburon is spread too thin talent-wise to do any better. They make Madden for every console, phone and watch known to man. The argument that it would be pointless to improve the current gen game, with the next gen games on the horizon, just doesn't fly. EA DOES change some things every year.

For instance, I'm sure there will be some new replays added to the game this year. But they probably still won't be anything you would see in a real TV broadcast. That means that they decided to add new replays, but instead of going the ESPN route, they decided to go in a different direction. That, or it never even occurred to them that TV-style replays are better. I've got to believe that if the talent was there, we'd get a little more of what we're all looking for. That's just my opinion on the subject.

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

You actually just sort-of proved why they aren't going to put a lot of effort into this years game, because not only do they have next-gen, but next season(Madden 2007 for the next gen systems) They get the ESPN rights, so I don't expect many drastic changes in presentation, because I know next year they will go down the ESPN route.

Re: Flame me now but most Madden fans expectations are too low
 

You hit the nail right on the head in my opinion. Reasonable minds my differ on which game is better, but at the end of the day when you can honestly say that ESPN 2k5 is slightly better or Madden is slightly better, how do you as a madden fan justify spending $50 for the game? It boggles my mind that espn is just as good as madden (in my opinion much better) yet charges you only $20 for vast amounts of changes from the previous versions, as opposed to madden that barely changes the game from year to year yet charges its fan base $30 more. Well, if the ea finds are that bound to the game, cheers to ya! It makes no sense to me.