Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

[DeuceDouglas]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

but let's not fool ourselves thinking this is as good as it can get or extremely better play-by-play from last year.

I don't think anybody is trying to fool themselves into thinking that this is as good as the commentary can get. And I don't know if you heard last year's commentary but it was god awful. It was the first Madden ever where it was so bad that I wanted to turn it off rather than listen to it.

With that being said, I do believe this year will be a very nice improvement over what we got last year. Am I expecting it to be the greatest sports commentary ever? No. But I do believe it's a good start, and a better start, than we've seen in previous iterations of Madden.

[jbd345]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

Madden has a new commentary engine for Madden 13, not outdated, and completely new commentary lines, over 82 hours.

I know. I was referring to past maddens and sports games in general.

[Big FN Deal]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

Football is by far the hardest to duplicate IMO, it has so many highs and lows and stops and starts. I'd give this commentary a solid C+ to B-, last year was probably a D-, so yeah I'm happy. Realistic expectations for a one year improvement and starting from scratch from what we had last year would be in the C range, anything better than that is a testament to just how much effort this team has put in. It seems to me people are expecting Madden 13 to be an A or even A+ in every category, just not realistic. Heck NBA2k has been out a very long time and 2k12 was very mediocre in gameplay and online gaming. There isn't and never will be a perfect sports game, the sooner you realize that the more you will enjoy these games. Madden 13 should be a very solid sports game, hopefully Madden 14 will take the next step and become an elite sports game. Then maybe Madden 15 goes one step further and becomes THE sports game and a legit GOTY contender. That is the kind of improvement we are after.

I agree about not expecting M13 commentary to be comparable to that of NBA2k but I disagree about football commentary being more difficult. IMO, basketball would be more difficult due to the fast pace of the action, where football has many natural pauses in the actions.

The only time I think football commentary's pace is comparable to that of basketball is during a hurry up/2 minute style offense.

[jpdavis82]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

I agree about not expecting M13 commentary to be comparable to that of NBA2k but I disagree about football commentary being more difficult. IMO, basketball would be more difficult due to the fast pace of the action, where football has many natural pauses in the actions.

The only time I think football commentary's pace is comparable to that of basketball is during a hurry up/2 minute style offense.

The reason I think football is harder, is because in basketball you can say, Westbrook, to Durant, over to Harden, Harden for 3... good! It all kind of flows smoothly. Hockey and Soccer are the same way.

In football you have, 1st and 10 Packers at their own 42 yard line, Rodgers in the shotgun, steps back to pass, he's got a man open, it's Jennings and he's got it at the Bears 40 for a Packer first down where he's taken down by Tillman and the safety Conte was also there to make the tackle. It's very up and down and a lot of stops and starts. Then after all of that you have the color commentator to break down what just happened.

[SweetBabyJebus]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

Baseball or not, if you listen to the MLB 2k9 commentary example and how it flows and includes the actual names of players seamlessly and keeps the dead air to a reasonable minimum, then you can see how a faster sport can be represented with commentary that interjected upon itself to account for split second changes like NBA2k does with facial dunks or oops.

And to be honest, the announcers in the nfl dont name every person that is having their tackle broken, every person thats blitzing, so commentary of this pace and detail could work for an NFL game

[SweetBabyJebus]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

The reason I think football is harder, is because in basketball you can say, Westbrook, to Durant, over to Harden, Harden for 3... good! It all kind of flows smoothly. Hockey and Soccer are the same way.

In football you have, 1st and 10 Packers at their own 42 yard line, Rodgers in the shotgun, steps back to pass, he's got a man open, it's Jennings and he's got it at the Bears 40 for a Packer first down where he's taken down by Tillman and the safety Conte was also there to make the tackle. It's very up and down and a lot of stops and starts. Then after all of that you have the color commentator to break down what just happened.

Basketball commentary can be just as specific...that was a one-sided example.

In any event, NBA2ks commentary isnt anywhere near as detailed as possible, but gets the job done, hell, no game is, so i refuse to lower the bar as if the expectations for Madden are unreasonable.

[bichettehappens]

Yeah, it's the analysis portion where football becomes much more difficult and where I think a lot of the awkward silence resides. There are so many things that can go right/wrong leading amongst the interactions of the 22 players on the field that it would take extremely extensive program to cover them accurately and fluidly.

Right now they show us a replay post-play and say nothing a majority of the time, or it's a very brief and generic statement. Hopefully they are working to improve this, whether this year or next

We should get a good idea on June 4th just how far they've come with commentary improvements so far.

[ChaseB]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

Basketball commentary can be just as specific...that was a one-sided example.

In any event, NBA2ks commentary isnt anywhere near as detailed as possible, but gets the job done, hell, no game is, so i refuse to lower the bar as if the expectations for Madden are unreasonable.

I think the best way to end this tangent is to just say every sports game has challenges when it comes to creating anything in the game.

[Pezell04x]

Not really, not the play-by-play I've heard. One thing about Cris & Gus was the errors from the Madden team, we don't know if that will still be a problem upon release (besides Phil or Jim addressing each other as Tom, of course that'll be fixed) but I said the pregame is much better. But Madden would still have the worse commentary in sports gaming right now if we end up getting what we've heard so far, but I assume it's not finished, at least I would hope.

I've heard good things from NHL's commentary, I've heard how good MLB's is, FIFA's is on point and I get NBA2K every other year and it's ridiculously good (especially in Association mode). Madden can't kept being average or sub-par in so many aspects of sports gaming. They really need to make sure they deliver with all the hype going right now. But other games are much more specific with their commentary these days. Now, if you don't play anything but Madden or not that much of a presentation/commentary guy, obviously some aren't either gonna know just how behind they are or care. But I am a presentation/commentary kinda guy and have experienced what other games are doing with commentary and Madden is still far behind.

LOL! The NHL commentary is ****ing atrocious

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

[SweetBabyJebus]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

Yeah, it's the analysis portion where football becomes much more difficult and where I think a lot of the awkward silence resides. There are so many things that can go right/wrong leading amongst the interactions of the 22 players on the field that it would take extremely extensive program to cover them accurately and fluidly.

Right now they show us a replay post-play and say nothing a majority of the time, or it's a very brief and generic statement. Hopefully they are working to improve this, whether this year or next

We should get a good idea on June 4th just how far they've come with commentary improvements so far.

The bolded is what i agree with. The problem is that what we have seen from Madden isnt analysis, its gameplay commentary and its not getting the job done. And its not because its not as detailed as 'JPdavis82' would have you believe...

heres an example

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Z-sXaPcjBKs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

gameplay commentary highlight 1

- "Second Down and 10"
- "blitz"
- "down the sideline"
- "Nelson with the leaping grab and its good"

gameplay commentary highlight 2

- *balls hiked* "........"
- "thrown again, its a deep ball"
- "its Marshall..."
- "Has the catch and the touchdown!!!"

and so on and so forth... i think the point is clear, specificity and emotion are the problem not some unrealistic level of detail expectation. NFL 2k5 had emotion and detail even if it happened to be patchy.

[SweetBabyJebus]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

I think the best way to end this tangent is to just say every sports game has challenges when it comes to creating anything in the game.

That band-aid statement could be applied to end complaints about any and every game shortcoming now couldnt it

But as a consumer its not my job to worry about challenges, I just make sure my expectations are realistic. There should be challenges in making millions of dollars.

[DeuceDouglas]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

and so on and so forth... i think the point is clear, specificity and emotion are the problem not some unrealistic level of detail expectation. NFL 2k5 had emotion and detail even if it happened to be patchy.

It's a double edged sword with emotion. If there isn't enough, people complain that there is no emotion and it's boring. If there is emotion, people complain about them getting too excited at certain things.

I'm still very hesitant to even judge the commentary based on the fact that we've still only heard about a minute of legitimate commentary.

[jpdavis82]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

I don't know if you guys just haven't heard the commentary in the podcast or what, but the strength of it by far was Phil's analysis of the plays after they happen. There's no dead air in the podcast commentary, and in the last clip you can hear it go from one play to the next, not one second of dead air.

[SweetBabyJebus]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

It's a double edged sword with emotion. If there isn't enough, people complain that there is no emotion and it's boring. If there is emotion, people complain about them getting too excited at certain things.

I'm still very hesitant to even judge the commentary based on the fact that we've still only heard about a minute of legitimate commentary.

I dont think too many people would be upset with emotion on fumbles,touchdowns, long first downs and first downs late in the 4th quarter of close games, spectacular catch animations, sacks, break a ways, long runs and big hits.

[jpdavis82]

Re: Madden NFL 13 Video - Gameplay With Jim Nantz and Phil Simms In-Game Commentary

I dont think too many people would be upset with emotion on fumbles,touchdowns, long first downs and first downs late in the 4th quarter of close games, spectacular catch animations, sacks, break a ways, long runs and big hits.

I noticed a lack of emotion in the video of the older build (phi vs dal) but in the new clips from the podcast I thought the emotion was where it should be.