Instruction Booklet
 

I just so happened to find my copy of Madden 04 for my NGC and when I opened it up I found a 44page Instruction Booklet. Madden 09 for the 360 is 13 pages. There is a problem here. Many players don't even know all the various features and option you can use in Madden, and 09 has more functions IN-GAME than 04 had. Smart routes, formation audibles, defensive playmaker and so forth.

I understand that EA wantdto save money on pinting and that a lot of the features were ON SCREEN for you to see clear as day how to use them. However, I also know Ian made agreat decision taking away as much of the on-field fluff out and is restoring the game to "Just football." I like that, but this beggs the question of how are NEW players going to get into this game easyer? I started playing video game football on Troy Aikeman Football on my SNES and moved my way up to Madden N64, '99, '02-'09 and over the years there have been aditions and subtractions and I have been able to keep up with them from game to game rather well. however, friends of mine have come and gone and played Madden with me and have no clue about 1/2 the stuff you can do and there is a step learning curve as of the past few years becasue of a poor instruction booklet.

Not being able to pause Madden, open the book, and read trick here or there to help your "game" hurts. I remember over the years we would say "how did you do that? How do I do that? how can I stop that?" We could then open the book up, read pre-play/after-the-snap controls and adjust and improve.

I can only hope that with all the work Ian and his crew are doing this year to improve the game, they also take soem time out to make sure people know how to play this thing. there are too many complaints of "How do i? Why isn'tthere a feature [that is in the game] to do XXX?" I know we will get these questions anyway, but an instruction booklet will tone those questions donw. Also:

NOT EVERYONE HAS INTERNET ACCESS TO ASK QUESTION ABOUT MADDEN.

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

EA has really really crappy instruction books and has for a while. I actually bring this up with my brother sometimes, I appreciate a good instruction book. You guys should look up some of the stuff computer games came with in like the 80's (which ironically EA like pioneered crazy packaging) I read a cool article in Games for Windows about this last year.

Its not just EA sports, its like every EA game. Compare an EA instruction book to a Nintendo book for example. NBA 2k9 instruction book was crappy too, so its not just EA. A more recent example would be the Show for PSP which I got like 2 days ago. The controls in that instruction book don't even make sense....

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

I remember when tecmo superbowl not only had controls in the book, but had team by team summarys with star players. They probably don't put stuff in the book anymore so they can sell the strategy guide.

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yeah my friend had no idea about some of the things you could do

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

Thank you Kehlis

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

there should absolutely be something online that compliments the bare-bones instruction booklet.

there should be no hidden anything in madden... meaning, why don't the devs clearly explain how every rating works? which ratings work against each other? (ie: route running vs man coverage) or, how about whether or not fumbling is possible while holding protect ball while juking? or, how to kick an onside kick? Unfortunately, there's a lot of this hidden stuff in madden for no good reason...

Re: Instruction Booklet
 

yeah a lot of things get included one year if they are new, but then don't get included in the instructions in the following years even if they are still in the game (referring to NCAA i guess, as far as madden I only have 09).

2k used to include an ingame manual that explained everything really deeply. 2k5 explains all the play art and everything. I was really disappointed to find that there was no ingame manual in nba2k9 (and i believe AFP 2k8 too).