[fisher]

Quote: Originally Posted by StormJH1

Good point. What's the most frequent complaint against buying Madden year after year? "Oh, you're getting nothing more than a roster update." With APF, not only was the gameplay only a mediocre refinement of 2k5's last-gen engine, but you don't even get a "roster update" because: (1) The game isn't made or supported anymore (2) The game lacks an NFL license (3) There were never real "rosters" to begin with b/c you had this strange alternate universe where fake players and retired NFL vets play in a "league"

And this is why All-Pro Football ultimately failed (gameplay wise, it played a better game than Madden). There's no way a football game released without legit NFL rosters (or real NCAA schools) will succeed, irregardless of how good the gameplay is. Nothing 2K (or anyone else for that matter) does can change that.

Which is a shame, really. Football games are the worst sports games out there these days exactly because there's no competition (2K's baseball game is pretty subpar, but baseball fans still have the Show to play; NBA fans have 2 games to choose from (I prefer NBA 2K); NHL fans have 2 games to choose from (I prefer EA's NHL series)).

Quote: Originally Posted by StormJH1

(4) Roster management never would've worked in a game with no ratings, transactions, drafts, or franchise modes anyway. Rather than always hiding behing the "big, bad EA" argument, why are those shortcomings overlooked?

Nobody's overlooking what you pointed out as flaws of All-Pro Football. The problem is that it's exactly because of the NFL's exclusive license with EA that nobody else can make an NFL game (and like you and I said above, nobody's going to care about fake players and fake leagues).

Quote: Originally Posted by StormJH1

When people evaluate Madden or NCAA, they invariably say stupid things like "Well, this game lacks true field degradation and time of day progression, so those are deal-breakers for me" Crappy, niche features that nobody notices are "deal-breakers", but the total failure to provide anything looking like a professional football league of any kind is not!?!

Funny, but a lot of football fans want their football games to be somewhat sim. You know, they want the stuff in the game to mirror what they see on Sundays. The problem with Madden is that it doesn't even try to be sim-like. It's the same old problems year after year and it's a pretty bad time to be a football gamer these days. Madden was at its best at around 2005 on the Xbox/PS2 (ironically enough, when 2K was making NFL games as well). The fear EA had of competition to their biggest selling game made them buy out exclusive rights and now the rest of us are stuck with one choice.

It's not like EA's sports games are all trash. Look what they've done with the NHL series. If the Madden team put even a quarter of the effort into their game that the NHL crew does, it might well be a half way decent game.