[GiantBlue76]

One of the animations that's been in the game for years that drives me crazy is the one where the running back gets hit in the back field, before he can get any momentum going forward. He will then proceed to somehow go into a spinning animation that allows him to fall forward for 6 yards. It wouldn't be a huge deal if it happened once in a while, but you can play a SINGLE game and see it no less than 10 times. It's ridiculous. This particular instance is one of many that cause me to want to throw my controller through the TV. It's not the outcome, it's HOW that outcome came to be. These plays tell me the game is scripted. How can I be proven wrong in this case? I got into the back field, hit the guy while he was flat footed, yet he continued to go into an animation that is not possible to do from a physics standpoint given the context of that situation.

That is the kind of crap that makes me put it down and is the root of so much frustration with this game. It should be more organic. Any reasonable person knows it is software, so it won't be exactly right all of the time. No game has ever been that way, but it needs to be right 95% of the time. Fool me into thinking things are not pre-determined and that the players have life to them. Playing in an online league you get to the point where you are numb from these types of things. You start hearing terms and phrases like, "got screwed by the game", "I was maddened"... These things come from these types of scenarios. Some of the animations look fine. It's the player interactions that happen in the wrong context that make it look terrible. Not to mention, the synchronized animations are just AWFUL. Seeing two or more players doing the EXACT same animation at the EXACT same time is one of the biggest immersion killers in any game, and I've yet to see a game that is even close to being as bad as Madden in this regard.