Madden 21 Beta: The Most Positive Takeaways

[Steve_OS]

What are the most positive takeaways you had after playing the Madden 21 beta? Josh Houtz:...

Written By: Operation Sports

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[Darth Aegis]

Good read. End of August can't get here soon enough for Madden 21. Hopefully EA polishes up the tackling & doesn't cave to changing the slower movement & weight feel.

[roadman]

It was a good read.

Pretty much on point how I felt.

The negative takeaways will probably align with what my thoughts were.

[canes21]

I agree with a lot of what they are saying. When speaking of the positives, I do agree that the cuts look and feel good as do most movements in the game now. I am a big fan of the locomotion in the game at this point. It's the best Madden has felt since the PS2 days to me and it easily rivals NCAA 14 which I know many here on OS hold as the golden standard for movement in EA games. I think it moves a tad slower than NCAA and players feel like they are grounded more as well, but that is all in a positive manner.

I also think that the new animations that I spotted look really good. The new tackle animations that I saw were smooth and looked like real football tackles, not a couple of amateurs trying to recreate a tackle like a lot of the animations in the game are like.

Graphically the game remains impressive, but that is never a worry with EA games. If there is one thing they nail consistently across all of their series, it is the visuals.

Those are the areas I was the most impressed with. I think the locomotion is so good that it makes me sad the game is surrounded by so many other areas that need work. The same can be said for the animations. If all of the animations in the game were at the level of quality as the brand new animations, Madden would be a very good game to me.

If you enjoy the series these days still, if you enjoyed 19 and/or 20, then I think you will be happy with 21 based off of what I saw in the beta. You can see there is progress being made in areas for the better. Whether you think the progress year to year is enough is another story, but what has changed on the field has changed for the better in my eyes.

[baconbits11]

I had almost the same experience with the wow moment reported about the receiver reaching over the goal line. I had a catch on the sideline and the receiver twisted in midair, layed out, to get around a tackler and dive into the end zone! I admit it was impressive and something I had not seen before. I think I also had something to do with it, as I moved the stick to the left and turned it to try to evade the tackler.

[4thQtrStre5S]

Player speed and Change of Direction (COD) rating were my tops behind the options to adjust zone depth. The latter will need some adjustments, for one, adjusts either carried over from one Play Now game to another, or they reset to zero randomly.



I felt the speed and COD assisted in making the game more believable to the eyes by reducing warping and suction effects.



I thought the zones were a little loose compared to M2M coverage. I don't want zones so tight that passing is a chore. I am fine with looser zones as long as the Matching zones follow logic and don't get glitched out.



I still noticed CBs turning the wrong way based on safety help and/or positioning. I did like how CBs looped around to catch a hard breaking WR as opposed to trying to stop and change direction.

[tsbmolina]

It's Madeen is all I can say about the Beta.