Onyxmeth said:
Most of your points have nothing to do with it being a bad football game though. Limited innovations are a problem with every single sports game on this planet that is on a yearly basis. There are limited amounts of innovations that can be done given only 12 months of dev time. Why does Madden need to be the single sports game to get called out on it? I didn't see monster revelations going from MLB 08 the Show to MLB 09 the Show, but they are both fantastic games. When you are the one and only sports franchise for your sport? And it's the most popular sport to boot? You better be by far the best football experience. Innovation...New features.....Things to keep people interested better be your specialty.
The only valid points brought up are the Franchise mode, which I agree with even though it doesn't affect me personally and the complaint of the game playing itself too much, which I don't understand at all. To counter the first point, Madden 09 introduced online leagues, which is a huge addition. And ask any Madden player how poorly online leagues are implemented and you will see why. They could have been much better but they weren't.
For the second point, what about Madden is different from other football games to make it feel like you aren't playing? On offense, you pick plays, run hot routes, throw the ball or give it to an RB and then you take control of the individual with the ball until you get tackled or you score. Most Madden's you don't ever have to catch the pass. Sure you can user catch but most of the time it's to no benefit of yourself. If you start playing Madden on higher difficulties it becomes decently difficult to bounce runs to the outsite (Without a fast RB). So you end up passing the ball and running the ball up the middle. Running the ball up the middle essentially takes very little effort or skill and passing to the open guy while the CPU catches it.
You punt and hit field goals just like other football games. Punting and Field Goals in these games are like Punting and FGs for two year olds. The kicking is incredibly easy. There is no issue whatsoever making the longest field goal in the world. Why did they get rid of the moving Field Goal aimer?
You return kickoffs like all other football games. Or you can just let the computer return for you.
On defense, you swap defensive players with the press of a button just like other football games. I'm not saying you are necessarily wrong, but I don't see it. Defense in an effort to stop 'glitchers' they completely sacrificed an element of the game that I enjoyed. Now you can't manually move your defensive players to different parts of the line of scrimmage because Madden added this wonderful CPU based 'jumping offsides' feature. Listen, If I want to jump off-sides? Let me manually do it. Don't jump me off sides while I'm controlling my guy.
Run Defense usually comes down to calling the proper play and that's about it. While the CPU does all the work. Pass Defense you'd better pray your CPU defender is covering his position and the CPU defender is there to make a play.
NFL 2K5 for example, Defense was far more skill based in many ways. It wasn't so much simulated success. I think Madden is alright in it's own right but by taking the NFL license exclusively, you are going to get criticized from all over for people who want to play a fun football game and not necessarily one that tries to be realistic but fails at doing so consistently.
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