Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

[xylocaine]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

Is it me or did the graphics take on a more lifelike 3d look with locomotion added (which I do like) at the expense of less texture detail (which I don't like)?

Even the menus etc seem to move faster but seem less graphic and almost last gen looking.

Oh I do like being able to chose normal, squib, onsides kickoff by a button at the bottom rather than going through a playbook, this definitely will speed things.

The game definitely plays faster and you don't get caught waiting through cutscenes.

[bomza]

I really, really, really would like to know who came up with the "strategy pad" idea and decided THAT would be one of the new things they actually took time out to program into the game this year instead of one of the hundreds of decent actual "football" suggestions I read in the forums this past year. Maybe this is the latest innovation from the "weapons" and "vision cone" guy who is the son of one of the executives.

And honestly, after all this pre-hype I heard about "Gameflow" changing everything, I think NCAA 11's Gameplan where they give you three choices for six different options on both offense and defense on how you want to play the game beats the hell out of this coach in Madden 11 telling you on almost every play action "hopefully we'll fake them out and we can beat them deep". Really coach? Is that the purpose of a play action? BTW, could you help me tie my shoes, too?

[DaveDQ]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

This demo is an odd experience. On one hand the pace of players seems smooth and natural, but on the other things seem to twitch so much it creates an unbalanced feel to what's going on on the field. Players are sliding into blocking assignments. I literally watched my guard slide to the left right in front of my QB. It's almost like an "ends justifies the means" scenario. He should get into that position but the manner in which he gets there looks so awful.

A good example of how off the movement is is with running the ball. My RB ran 7 yards and then Pro-Tak kicked in. The run to about 6 yards felt ok, but then all of the defenders twitched so quickly into the group tackle and then their response to the motion was way off, bouncing off of a tumbling running back that had no positive motion. It's just a very odd looking scenario.

Passing the ball feels good. It still seems that receivers get far too much separation on slants, making it easy to gain big yardage. Having gameflow calling the plays with its very dumbed down language while using Manning is silly. You are telling Manning how important this play is and how it will develop? It's silly and the slightest experienced Madden player will dismiss the feature.

Obviously the strategy pad on the defensive side of the ball is broken. By the time you pull up the pad the ball is snapped. This may have to do with accelerated clock. The CPU is snapping the ball when it should, you just approach the line too close to the clock running low.

One thing I noticed about the demo (in comparison to the concept of making games playout faster and in half the time) is that maybe the game is playing faster, but it feels so boring and out of place. All the neat things like "J-E-T-S" is in there, but it just doesn't mesh into a seamless experience. Even with Gus Johnson calling the plays, he'll yell out, "He's going fo it all!" and then he casually says, "Touchdown..........Colts." It makes the game fell so sluggish and unresponsive.

Overall, I think the demo confirms what many have said. Madden is just in a very stale state right now and while some things have been added to enhance that experience, they just don't flow properly into the game to make it seem like a quality NFL experience.

[Hooe]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

I really, really, really would like to know who came up with the "strategy pad" idea and decided THAT would be one of the new things they actually took time out to program into the game this year instead of one of the hundreds of decent actual "football" suggestions I read in the forums this past year.

My assumption as to the intention is that many new and casual players felt intimidated by the many pre-play controls Madden has historically had and EA did their best to try to simplify it. The sound of it is that they didn't fully realize that, however.

Downloading the demo nowish.

[FieldMarshallP1]

It is absolutely sad how far this game has fell from grace. I would buy this game yearly and since 92. When madden get back to where your using skill and football knowledge to win rather than glitches cheeses and exploits due to poor game design is when i will purchase. Its sad for me to say that this is the first year since 92 that i will NOT be purchasing madden; i can get over the hype and not fall into it.

[HittinAgenda]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

-GameFlow is worthless without gameplanning.

As well as it should be. IMO the whole point of getting Gameplanning was to fix the terrible Ask Madden...(Now called Gameflow to simulate and O coordinator calling plays)..... by letting us pick the plays for each situation.

I like the idea and reasoning behind it.

Game planning could have been a completely separate (and sorely needed) feature IMO. With GameFlow being the only way to access your Game Plan, you lose out on control. Sure, you essentially set the frequency of a certain playcall by ranking the play higher when you assemble your Game Plan, but you don't have the option to change this once in game. Thus, your essentially treating every opponent the same unless you have a separate Game Plan for them.

Audibles should come from your Game Plan.....

[str8artist]

This demo is an odd experience. On one hand the pace of players seems smooth and natural, but on the other things seem to twitch so much it creates an unbalanced feel to what's going on on the field. Players are sliding into blocking assignments. I literally watched my guard slide to the left right in front of my QB. It's almost like an "ends justifies the means" scenario. He should get into that position but the manner in which he gets there looks so awful.

A good example of how off the movement is is with running the ball. My RB ran 7 yards and then Pro-Tak kicked in. The run to about 6 yards felt ok, but then all of the defenders twitched so quickly into the group tackle and then their response to the motion was way off, bouncing off of a tumbling running back that had no positive motion. It's just a very odd looking scenario.

Passing the ball feels good. It still seems that receivers get far too much separation on slants, making it easy to gain big yardage. Having gameflow calling the plays with its very dumbed down language while using Manning is silly. You are telling Manning how important this play is and how it will develop? It's silly and the slightest experienced Madden player will dismiss the feature.

Obviously the strategy pad on the defensive side of the ball is broken. By the time you pull up the pad the ball is snapped. This may have to do with accelerated clock. The CPU is snapping the ball when it should, you just approach the line too close to the clock running low.

One thing I noticed about the demo (in comparison to the concept of making games playout faster and in half the time) is that maybe the game is playing faster, but it feels so boring and out of place. All the neat things like "J-E-T-S" is in there, but it just doesn't mesh into a seamless experience. Even with Gus Johnson calling the plays, he'll yell out, "He's going fo it all!" and then he casually says, "Touchdown..........Colts." It makes the game fell so sluggish and unresponsive.

Overall, I think the demo confirms what many have said. Madden is just in a very stale state right now and while some things have been added to enhance that experience, they just don't flow properly into the game to make it seem like a quality NFL experience.

good write up.. I agree, it is just stale to me.

Both offenses look the same, nothing stands out in the playbook to separate team philosophy

Broken tackles 80% off the time.

Player model look smaller than college players and cartoonish

Gus- "He passes, He runs , He scores, He picks it off"... I guess Gus is not programmed to say names.


Beside that they took everything good from Madden 10 and did not add on enough for me to buy this year.

[tweety21]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

im loving Madden this year although not many new features the gameplay is much improved and just feels right. And for the 1st time in a long time theres not many BUGS out of the box. The broadcast cam is a great way to view and play the game. Hope u guys grow to enjoy it also

[Hassan Darkside]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

Demo Impressions, played one game on All Pro as the Jets taking on the Colts
The good:
Gus Johnson is 3x better than Tom Hammond, much more exciting and lively

The atmosphere is good, the cheers, authentic stadium music, lots of cool cutscenes

The new locomotion engine

Gameflow really speeds the game up

No fight for fumble

New kicking meter

The bad:
Graphics/lighting are inferior to NCAA. These players look like high schoolers out there on the field.

Locomotion isn't as tight as NCAAs

Gus Johnson sounds like he's having an orgasm on EVERY PLAY

The new audible system/strategy paid SUCKS. It's awful and makes calling audibles and hotroutes more difficult than it should be. It's also useless on defense because the QB always snaps the ball too quickly.

Peyton Manning only threw 2 incompletions the entire game, including jump balls that Revis couldn't touch for whatever reason

This game suffers from cheap DB play like NCAA does, where the DBs run your receivers routes better than your receivers do

Gameflow didn't seem like it was executed real well by the CPU. Perhaps if I actually made a gameplan it would be different.

Pro-Tak/gang tackling didn't trigger as much this year or as it does in NCAA. I think I saw maybe 2 gang tackles the entire game.

[xylocaine]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

Obviously the strategy pad on the defensive side of the ball is broken. By the time you pull up the pad the ball is snapped. This may have to do with accelerated clock. The CPU is snapping the ball when it should, you just approach the line too close to the clock running low.
.

I noticed this too, in previous madden I could with 6 motions move my DL, LB's and CB's before they even got to the line of scrimmage, now with speeding up the game and adding this ridiculous Dpad "strategy pad" even if you go as fast as you can, and don't accidentally push it in the wrong direction, you still only have time for one adjustment. It's kind of like madden 10 and trying to get players in place for FG or xtra point against the computer.

This isn't simpler or deeper by any means. Really alot of the features this year seem to appeal to the casual fan, and I'm not really seeing what the die-hards that would frequent OS will find appealing other than the AI tweaks and the refined engine etc.

[tweety21]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

good write up.. I agree, it is just stale to me.

Both offenses look the same, nothing stands out in the playbook to separate team philosophy

Broken tackles 80% off the time.

Player model look smaller than college players and cartoonish

Gus- "He passes, He runs , He scores, He picks it off"... I guess Gus is not programmed to say names.


Beside that they took everything good from Madden 10 and did not add on enough for me to buy this year.

In the retail GUS says names so dont worry!

[mrclutch]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

The gameplay is basically like 10, which was like 9, which was like 8. Solid but no real blow you away improvments.

I don't get the change to the kick meter. Was it to make it easier or harder? I'm getting perfect kicks most of the time. My money is change to give the impression of improvment.

I like gameplan once I build in more plays I like.

You will turn off Coach Speak.

Gus is better than Tom. Chris is still as bad as Chris last year.

[spankdatazz22]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

Have only played briefly:

POSITIVES:
- Graphics are very sharp/clean
- Catch anims much improved
- Stadium detail seems very well done (very noticeable during cutscenes)
- cpu running game somewhat effective (but...)
- Gus Johnson an improvement over Hammonds
- Like that so many options are available in the demo
- player faces are well done
- replays much better than in NCAA demo

NEGATIVES:
- Player interaction, player interaction, player interaction. I don't see why this isn't a bigger issue than has been talked about. It's horrible to have 1-on-1 players bouncing off each other mess at this point. Other than when a seemingly prescripted OL double-team or a weak Pro-Tak group-hug tackle occurs, I should say. I thought it was bad/noticeable in the NCAA demo; here it's actually worse. Players slide and skate for extra yards while multiple defenders are incapable of interacting in the animations

- The commentary is barely average imo. It's an improvement over what it's been, but that just highlights how bad it's been previously. All the Gus Johnson generalizations ("he", "they", etc.). His trying to sound over-exciteable doesn't make for better commentary. I was more shocked when I heard Johnson or Collinsworth actually refer to a player by name than when I didn't. The issue isn't the people doing the commentary, it's how Tiburon implements it

- Strategy pad: if the goal was to create as non-intuitive a pre-snap audible system as they could, well... mission accomplished

- Cutscenes in sports games were feeling dated two years ago. That Tiburon continues to embrace them is... whatever it is

- Player models are too cartoonish

I think it was M10 that had that ridiculous number of over the shoulder catches and physic DB play. So just the fact that I went through a game without having to see the David Tyree catch technically makes the game an improvement over it's previous iteration. But sadly that's how this game is judged - off it's previous efforts, instead of where the game should be at this point. I do think the game has improved in most areas, obviously. And do feel it will be a step up from M10 overall. But still seems to have way too many frustrating elements

[Triathlete_201]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

Has anyone gotten a user controlled sack?? When I let the cpu control my DL they get sacks every so often but if let's say I control Freeney, as soon as I get to the QB, he'll get rid of it every single time.

[Jetsfan119]

Re: Madden NFL 11 Demo Available Now, Please Post Impressions Here

I'm not sure if this question is placed in the wrong thread, but I just bought a PS3 and I have been looking on the Playstation Store all morning and the only demo showing up is Madden 2010. Has anybody had any luck finding the 2011 demo for PS3??

I'm a converted XBOX360 player so this is all new to me. Thanks!