Big FN I have read your posts here for some time and I have a great amount of respect for your opinion and the amount of thought that you put into sharing your opinions and ideas. Having said that....I think you've finally snapped.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. -Albert Einstein.
Look at the primary complaints of the hardcore Madden gamer over the last decade +. Motion, OL/DL interaction, twitchy movement, CPU GM logic, franchise depth, franchise immersion, basic fundamental football sense and reactions by the players. I would say that I became a serious Madden player when Madden 99 came out on PC. These were the complaints about the game
then. Do they sound familiar?
How far have we
really come? Excluding all graphics....how much significant improvement has Madden seen in the core fundamentals of gameplay in the last 10 years? Movement is better...it's more fluid...and I think most of the morphing/warping is gone. However, my backs get tackled by my OL, suction blocking and tackling does still exist, kickers can block elite DE's, average WRs can beat elite CB's, Safeties can't take a proper angle even when a ball carrier runs a straight line....etc, etc.
GM logic is improved but we still RGIII, Luck and others in FA. The CPU has massive salary cap problems.
EA has spent at least 13 years phasing in and out worthless "features" and "innovations" but really hasn't delved into the core gameplay issues with any real seriousness. The actual improvements to this game when viewed in their entirety over the last decade+ have been minimal.
EA does a masterful job of selling us on the "steps" and "processes" of improvement as well as using dev team overhauls as indicators of a brighter future without ever delivering any true substance.
I think about the hype surrounding IE, PROTAK, and other innovations and how excited I was....and then I think about whats really and fundamentally wrong with the game...and I realize that nothing really got fixed. I get mad....the hype for the game starts...and I believe. Insane.
At what point do we have to face that EA has ruined this game, has made little real effort to achieve excellence, and has no real intention of doing so in the near future? And yes, I'll probably buy M14.
