[SoxFan01605]

Quote: Originally Posted by BrianFifaFan

I'm feeling you, Ian. But I'm gonna mix games right now and bring up what could be considered a "fundimental" design flaw with the football gameplay engine. Already I can see where the underlying code in NCAA is tuned to be Offensive friendly. That'll make the game more "fun." Problem is that you can't bring any D-Line pressure without blitzing. And then the CPU is superhuman anyway, so if you get close he just goes into Tom Brady mode anyway and completes 85% of his passes. What's my point? The game wasn't re-written so much, save the breakaway engine and new controls. But then they "tune" the game to put the D at a major disadvantage to complete the illusion. Why? Why can't both be good? It really wouldn't be such a big deal if the OL/DL stuff wasn't so broken to begin with. But to tune the game to lessen my ability to get pressure when I could barely get any in previous games? It's like the Michael Vick fiasco of Madden 04 again. I'm not saying that Madden will be this way, really hoping not. But it is really evident that NCAA needs some fundimental reprogramming to get the game to balance out where you can have fast smart offense and fasr smart D. This tuning back and forth is making for unbalanced, bordering on unrealistic gameplay. Oh yeah, I can see the comeback AI has been brought back to keep the game exciting. Overall a good game, but I'm hoping that Madden is far more "sim" than NCAA.......

I haven't played the new NCAA yet, but I can definitely echo the general sentiment. Too often in videogames period (including Madden...at least up to this point) it seems that instead of actually fixing issues they are "patched up" leading to other issues entirely (isn't this essentially how the excessive turnover garbage came to fruition in 08?). I know nothing about game development, and I'm sure it's not an easy thing to flat out fix balancing issues in a short time frame, but it is frustrating from the consumers end.

It would be nice if Madden could take a year and just focus on core gameplay tuning (like OL/DL, WR/DB, and QB pocket movement, etc) without having to weaken "A" to strengthen "B," but I also understand that (as I beleve Ian said some time ago) it would be tough to market that to the average consumer. The irony is that all the time taken to "tune" the game to be more competative or exciting could probably be used to make a more authentic experience...which would probably lead to competative and exciting games.