SBartlett's Blog
I have decided to open this up to chat if any of you are on Xbox Live while I happen to be on playing through Madden, you can hit me up for a small chat to talk about the game if you have questions. My tag is Amaru37, and my Twitter is @Hurricane414!
My Impressions
Right out of the case, Madden NFL 10 has some of the best presentation elements you will see in a sports game. With that said, the game play remains stagnant. So it comes down to great visuals against mediocre game play. Let’s go into detail.
Presentation
Most of the presentation elements that have been added to the game you all have already seen through the OS media coverage of the game. The sound and atmosphere of the stadiums is phenomenal in person. It feels like you are entering a FIFA World Cup match, and the FIFA atmospheres are alive so this is a great achievement.
The pregame warm-ups will bring back memories of the Madden NFL 2002 days. Or, if you are a NFL2k5 fan, you will notice the visuals of the fans entering the stadium going through their Sunday rituals. So it is very similar in that aspect in terms of these cut-scenes, which will be much to the enjoyment of the 2k football die hards.
The player detail seems to be one of the main focuses of the Madden NFL 10 team. You will see all those small details on all your favorite players. While it adds great realism, it doesn’t mean much to me. I could go without it. Arm bands and towels are cool, but mean nothing.
The franchise NFL quarterbacks have their voice overs in the game, as they have in year’s past, but they also have added new throwing motions for most of these premier qb’s as well. It is a nice touch of realism, an area where the Madden NFL 10 team seems to have listened to their fans.
Game play
If you are looking for revolutionary game play in terms of new physics and less canned animations, well, you are going to have to keep looking. While the pro-tak animation system is awesome, it doesn’t have influence on any other aspects of the game. The tackling is great, but there will be times where you will be in the open field and your wide receiver will get caught from behind into a fight for every yard scenario which is kind of awkward.
A positive from the pro-tak animation system is that you never know what is going to happen with your runner. He can get through a guy, get tripped up, get slowed down then keep fighting and continue, or cause a pile up. It's pretty entertaining running the ball against certain match-ups and line backers out there. The physics with the pro-tak animation system seem to be a success this far in. I like it a lot. Guys like Ray Lewis almost always will take you down in your tracks - these are things we like to see.
The game is slowed down and it is on the slow setting out of the case so you can go in and adjust if you want. I found that the normal speed setting made it speed up a little bit more and it was much more playable. Overall, the game play remains very similar to last year. The passing was changed so that your quarterback has to do his drop back before you can release the ball, which is a nice improvement. I'm having trouble with completing the deep passes so I will continue to practice.
You still can’t throw jump balls, fades, or any sort of lobs when you are in the redzone. This is mainly due to the ball flight’s mechanics that have not been addressed. The producers said it was changed, but it doesn’t matter what type of change they made because these types of passes still do not work or come off with a feel that is natural.
Cutting is another issue that slows the game down – the players directional movement remains unchanged. Even with all those momentum improvements and the animations of players supposedly running in and out of breaks don’t do much. These improvements, while present, don’t effect the overall game play. Not to mention ball carriers still run awkwardly. It’s frustrating when your player doesn’t turn and run in coverage to get back on a deep ball; or when you have a hole to the outside, but your running back breaks into a awkward cut animation that doesn’t really make a cut fast enough to reach that hole.
There are some nice pieces that have been added to the passing game though. When a quarterback is hit in his throwing animation, he will continue the throwing motion while going down. The ball will come flying out like a wounded duck – as many of you have seen in the demo – or the ball will come out in an inaccurate wobbly pass. I will get into more detail with another set of impressions based on the passing game as I play through it more.
So at first look, Madden NFL 10 has some sick authenticity – great visuals, great presentation, and great sound. Pro-Tak, for the most part, is a straight up awesome addition to the game. The rest of the game play and core engines remain the same as Madden NFL 09. There are some sweet adjustments that have been made – and believe me, I love the subtleties in a sports title – but the core game play still has serious issues.
These are my first impressions and I will continue them this week; the next with a focus with the offensive sticks.
# 2
Uncle Stumpy @ Aug 7
Hey I actually recognize this name. I think you just killed me in FightNight on ps3 yesterday lol. Man I suck at Fight night. Thanks for your blog
# 3
TreyIM2 @ Aug 7
I actually played the PS3 retail version, today, at a Gamestop near me. I spoke on it on PastaPadre but it was more about playing as me Jets! I didn't want to leave the store but I of course I had to, empty handed, no less, because they weren't selling the game yet, not to mention the GS dude even lied to me saying it was the demo NOT the fulll, retail game. I let him know and proved to him that I'm not a fool and he just shutup once I told him how I knew it wasn't demo before I actually got my hands on playing it.
# 4
savoie2006 @ Aug 8
Good write up, can't wait to read more. I'm buying the game still. I'm a sucker for Madden every year, I admit it.
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I still feel as though EA is scared to death to shake up the core engine of Madden which I feel would really improve the game. If they get away from their core engine just a little this would allow for better running, tackling, and other animations. Madden always feels like the players are on a track and they lack fluidness which is what football is all about.
If they took a risk and didn't worry about alienating the die hardfans in order to fix the basic fundamental issues with Madden then this would be a perfect game. Hey maybe then we could actually have things like sideline catches, toe taps and fades. You would think that with the catch in the superbowl that that would have been one of their main focuses this year.