No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

[mWolfe]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

I very seldom comment about the tech side of creating Madden because I am a programming layman but I will this time. I think without question, if EA polled Madden gamers on the one area they could sacrifice to expand memory, graphics would be the overwhelming choice.

The way M12 looks graphically on an HD 1080p tv, is astounding but it's of little consequence if that's holding back other things like better player movement and overall gameplay.

TNT touched on this before, if some what over the top, by stating the players could be barrels but I get the sentiment. No matter how much memory the 360/PS3 lack in terms of today's computers, it's still more memory than last gen consoles, so this seems like a poor excuse for Madden's football play not being better.

An analogy for what I am saying is, last gen was like EA having $32,000 to furnish a house and they spread it out evenly throughout each room but this gen they had $512,000 to furnish an allegedly new house yet they allocate the majority of the resources to outside decor.

It would make all the sense in the world to a layman like me if next gen Madden was graphically behind other sports titles but gameplay was on par with them due to memory limits and the fact that football requires so many expanded things. However, like a poster before me stated, this currently all seems like a poor allocation of memory resources rather than a valid reason for why Madden gameplay doesn't represent football as well as other PS3/360 games do for their respective sports and Madden did last gen.

Anyone feel free to enlighten me if I am off base about this.

I would say your about right, it does seem that they went full all out on things they really didn't need rather than what they do need. And to futher put it in layman term we got the Lamborgini body but got a 4 cylinder engine in it.

I may not be a self proclaimed tech geek but I am in the IT field so to add, what about game engine limitations coupled with lack of disc space? If EA doesn't want to completely create a new game engine from the ground up so that it better utilizes memory (they most likely can majorly rewrite current code to do so but much of the game would break and it would be too time consuming and costly to fix and debug), do u believe that limited disc space including lack of a dedicated HDD and use of DVDs ala the 360 further limits this?

No not really you can have a 20gb Disc full of data and the extended memory still can only allocate so much at one time. Thats why I hope the new Xbox and Sony systems have at least 2gb of extended memory and hopefuly a GPU with memory which would alleviate some of the hardware issues.

[dfos81]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

Limitation of memory has more to do w/ the X-Box imo. The games aren't even using half, if that much memory, on a Blu-Ray disc. If they could be built while allocating more data to the Blu-Ray disc, they wouldn't need all these hardware upgrades.
Thank microsoft

BTW, most of my friends that play Madden, didn't even know EA had a Halftime blog lol.

[poulka]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

Here we go again talking about how these consoles lack the ability with their memory. But how come other genres in games such as shooters, racing, have made tremendous strides (for example forza 3 or 4, battlefield, call of duty). Then we have FIFA which has to take a large amount of memory especially with all the available (about 500). To me if these titles can work wonders on their respective consoles so should madden. Not to say the developers are doind real bad, but they are just couple steps away from greatness.

One last thought on consoles I have been around since pong. It seems to me they never maximize a system fully before they are ready to implement a next generation. The PS2 had an expansion bay (memory)on the original version and they never tapped into that. With all that said I don't think I will be moving to next generation because it just looks like it is becoming a racket. The games today look real enough for me and the direction I see them going is for more online features and social websites, which leaves me out.

[ABR173rd]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

I'm not sure If I understood one of the posts correctly, but Madden graphically is definitely NOT "astounding" in any way shape or form when watching it on 1080p. I'm not sure what you would be comparing M12 to graphically but it definitely is nothing to write home about. Arkham city and Uncharted are what I consider to be graphically astounding.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

I'm not sure If I understood one of the posts correctly, but Madden graphically is definitely NOT "astounding" in any way shape or form when watching it on 1080p. I'm not sure what you would be comparing M12 to graphically but it definitely is nothing to write home about. Arkham city and Uncharted are what I consider to be graphically astounding.

LOL. I guess that would be me and that's cool you feel that way. I play on a 1080p 120Hz LED using a HDMI cable, for me the team colors, helmets, cut scenes and replays look graphically astounding. Maybe it's because I play at 120Hz without the tv set to "game mode" but the coin toss looks like it's being broadcast live through an actual camera. I wish I had some kind of recorder to post a video of what I mean.

I have M12, NBA2k12 and Skyrim, which all look astounding to me but I don't really compare the sports titles graphically against the RPG. Now this is all my opinion of course and while I may be less informed than you about want constitutes superior graphics, astounding is just my impression of M12 with the lighting and visual upgrades that were added.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

LOL. I guess that would be me and that's cool you feel that way. I play on a 1080p 120Hz LED using a HDMI cable, for me the team colors, helmets, cut scenes and replays look graphically astounding. Maybe it's because I play at 120Hz without the tv set to "game mode" but the coin toss looks like it's being broadcast live through an actual camera. I wish I had some kind of recorder to post a video of what I mean.

I have M12, NBA2k12 and Skyrim, which all look astounding to me but I don't really compare the sports titles graphically against the RPG. Now this is all my opinion of course and while I may be less informed than you about want constitutes superior graphics, astounding is just my impression of M12 with the lighting and visual upgrades that were added.

I think people confuse graphics and animation. When you pause madden 12 and during the cut scenes, the game looks great. But it's different when the game is in motion. It's hard to explain what's off but I'll try.

Check out this fifa 12 vid.

The players in the game demonstrate the real life moves perfectly.

Now look at any Madden 12 vid.

Just watch the line play, watch how players run and make cuts, watch how wrs make over the shoulder grabs. None of it looks natural. It's not the way real NFL players move at all. I'd have a hard time doing a comparison vid of madden vs real NFL action like the fifa vid pulled off.

[roadman]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

I think people confuse graphics and animation. When you pause madden 12 and during the cut scenes, the game looks great. But it's different when the game is in motion. It's hard to explain what's off but I'll try.

Check out this fifa 12 vid.

The players in the game demonstrate the real life moves perfectly.

Now look at any Madden 12 vid.

Just watch the line play, watch how players run and make cuts, watch how wrs make over the shoulder grabs. None of it looks natural. It's not the way real NFL players move at all. I'd have a hard time doing a comparison vid of madden vs real NFL action like the fifa vid pulled off.

Didn't FIFA just add a new animation engine before 12? If they did, hard to compare apples to apples if Fifa has a new animation engine and Madden doesn't.

[kjcheezhead]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

Didn't FIFA just add a new animation engine before 12? If they did, hard to compare apples to apples if Fifa has a new animation engine and Madden doesn't.

I'm not an avid soccer fan, last FIFA I bought was FIFA 10. I chose the latest FIFA to compare to latest Madden.

Here is an equally impressive video of FIFA 10 tho.

Madden 10 was the year of pro-tak and the "hitch-step". Putting FIFA 10 alongside Madden 10 only highlights Madden's shortcomings more than the vids I posted.

[ABR173rd]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

Didn't FIFA just add a new animation engine before 12? If they did, hard to compare apples to apples if Fifa has a new animation engine and Madden doesn't.

I could be wrong but I think FIFA has had the new engine for at least two years. I'm pretty sure I remember a thread here awhile ago referencing the engine and why isn't Madden using it. Could be wrong but I don't think this is the first year it was implemented.

BigFndeal- I wasn't trying to blow your spot up, Madden Imo just has'nt been visually impressing considering the resources and the amount of time the franchise has been around. It's not really fair to compare it to a game like Skyrim or Uncharted but to me those games are graphically outstanding. I guess I just expect more from Madden.

[BezO]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

LOL! Seems like every year Madden is "coming out BIG". IMO, they haven't actually done it since the PS2 days.

Can't say I'm disappointed in the delayed news. I've almost lost hope this game will ever capture the essence of football, so I'm not expecting them to "come out big". Maybe using that marketing time to work on the game will help. They need every second of every hour as there's much work to be done if they ever want to replicate NFL football.

[jyoung]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl halftime blog.

Agreed - it's the code, not the platform. If they are running into memory or whatever else issues, they need to streamline the code and memory management.

The lags in M12 for just changing menus is insane. That's not because the PS3 is too weak to handle menus.

Truth.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/L5KVMnS9zgY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

The other part of that statement applies to pretty much all EA Sports games, not just Madden. They all have really really bad menu lag.

[Broncos86]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

No offense to anyone, but I'm not going to tell a developer what's wrong with his code, or any of that. We have ZERO idea about that. Anybody who says otherwise is blowing hot air based on speculation. I have no problem suggesting what the code should accomplish (quicker menus, etc), but I'm not going to conclude that someone's code needs to be streamlined when I have no idea about any of the circumstances.

[dfos81]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

Streamline the Code lol. Whatever,
Heres an interesting article, may shed some light, while on the subject of not enough memory.

read more: http://techland.time.com/2011/03/30/...h-for-blu-ray/

"When comparing the PlayStation 3 vs. the Xbox, one thing developers talk about is the difference in space with the consoles’ disc formats. The DVD format’s a bit long in the tooth, and the usable space on the average Xbox 360 dual-layer disc usually tops out at around 6.8 GB out of 7.95 GB."

"Another way to look at this issue is to watch where game engine technology might be heading. If that Epic Games’ Samaritan demo is any indication, the lighting, textures and other graphical considerations alone will take up massive amounts of space, never mind the AI, player input and network coding that it takes to make a game work. That demo video itself was around a whopping 4 GB, so imagine a whole game built in that Unreal Engine technology. If they’re going to stay competitive, Microsoft’s going to have to figure out how to make more storage available for both gamers and developers. After all, does anybody want to do the disc-swapping dance again for Mass Effect 3?"


Imo, sounds like the hardware platform microsoft creates needs to be upgraded before we will see any major improvements in Madden.

Who said platform is not the issue? Microsoft XBOX 8gb dvd(if that) VS PS3 Blu-Ray disc 50gb, COME ON MAN!

[Broncos86]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

That has nothing to do with memory. That's disc storage, not RAM. The Xbox 360 actually has a better RAM situation than the PS3. But we've been through this multiple times on this board. It's old news.

[dfos81]

Re: No Madden NFL 13 Super Bowl Halftime Blog

That has nothing to do with memory. That's disc storage, not RAM. The Xbox 360 actually has a better RAM situation than the PS3. But we've been through this multiple times on this board. It's old news.

When they claim to run out of space for something, thats when i see it as an issue. A single Blu-Ray disc can probably store multiple Maddens and still not be capped on storage room, ie. Mass Effect 2.