First off I am a HUGE Madden fan and a pretty strong supporter of Playstation.
This years Madden is a huge rip off. It feels like an unfinished game. The framerate issue has been discussed plenty here but thats not even the biggest issue. The AI is horrible, here are some of my favorite examples.
CPU's ball , 3rd down 5 to go for the first down, 6 seconds left in first half, they have the ball on my 35 yard line. ok now a normal player is thinking 1 of 2 things. either throw a hail mary into the endzone or try a long field goal. well what does the CPU do - line up and punt!! on 3rd down! on my side of the field!
The game has done other odd crap, like its my ball, 4th and 1. i go for the QB sneak and pickup about 4 yards and it gives them the ball like a turnover on downs. Now to make it even wierder, they spotted the ball correctly. Meaning they spotted the ball 4 yards downfield and still didnt give me the 1st.
Another real smooth example, I get a major hit on thier QB, he fumbles, his OL picks up the ball with the scoop animation and without being tackled it blows the play dead.
When its raining, its actually only raining in the middle of the field, when you hit R2 to see the play and widen the view its not even raining on the sides of the field.
I have yet to see ANY wind in my franchise games.
The play by play announcer and the in stadium announcer never say the same thing. Meaning after a play the play by play guy goes "White for a gain of 2" then seconds later the in stadium guy goes "White for a gain of 6".
You can never tell how many timeouts your opponent has.
The main menu lags if you dont turn down/off that EA ticker at the bottom. Online this problem is about 10x worse.
And the general stupidity of the CPU is overwhelming. They need a TD in the 2 minute drill. What do they do, come out in goaline package with 0 WR's then go no huddle still with no WR's.
There are WAY to many fumbles, I had a game last night vs cpu that had 9 total fumbles.
After a TD, my man Randy Moss is doing a little celebratory dance that starts near the back of the endzone. By the time he is done he has travled THRU the wall at the bottom of the stands without missing a beat. Then just calmly walks back out of the wall.
After a long run down the sideline Vince Young is pushed out of bounds. He is doing a little dance type thing to show he is pumped up but all I can see are the low res renders of players on the sideline. Then I notice the one helmet thats actually round instead of block shaped. Thats Vince among the crowd of PS1 level characters.
Those are just a few examples, this list could go on for days.
EA gets away with this crap cause they know people will buy the game anyway. I got a horrible feeling most all these problems are PS3 only and EA just explains it away with "we are new to programming for the PS3" well how about this, until you actually produce a game thats next gen quality drop your price back down to $50. Paying that next gen premium is a big slap in the face when its for an unfinished piece of crap. Any tester that played more then 2 games would have a list 3 pages long of stuff thats wrong in this game. Its unfinished crap. And no it doesnt matter if its a pretty pile of crap, I still feel very ripped off. And now I am hearing this same kinda crap can be expected in NHL 08 as well.
SCREW EA SPORTS!!!!! They have killed my favorite game and charged me more then ever for the right to play thier piece of unfinished crap. If you are gonna charge next gen prices then give me next gen quality!!!!! I have a slight hope that they will release a patch for the PS3 version, but more then likely all we will see is the normal roster updates and that will be it.
On a side note, Screw the NFL too. Some of the blame goes to them for selling out to EA and giving them exclusive rights to NFL team names and such. Just so happens the last good Madden was the last year they had actuall competition. The NFL also screwed the majority of thier fans over last year when they extended the exclusive deal they have with Direct TV for the Sunday Ticket package. Why not let cable and satellite providers sell the package and thus open the door for the majority of NFL fans to see the games and not just satellite owners?
