Madden 12 (some overall ratings released)

[wichmae]

You can actually do levels of scouting. Still somewhat pointless since you dont see the reports during draft time. YOu also start out with a 70 mman roster and work your way on down. I just scored a UDFA TE with a 65 rating and a B potential. However my QB has a role of injury prone which I didnt see when I took him 4th. Prolly take some getting used too.

[Newz]

You can actually do levels of scouting. Still somewhat pointless since you dont see the reports during draft time. YOu also start out with a 70 mman roster and work your way on down. I just scored a UDFA TE with a 65 rating and a B potential. However my QB has a role of injury prone which I didnt see when I took him 4th. Prolly take some getting used too.

Can you see their roles before drafting them? Or they just get them upon drafting/playing?

[wichmae]

Trying to find that out now. I think you have to pay really close attention during scouting. Another down side I just found out is alot of the OC's and DC's in the NFL arent in the game. Kind of a let down TBH.

[BUCKnation]

They need to upgrade the difficulty. I got to the point in madden 10 that at all madden, i was still blowing out the other team. So to pass time i just went "GM mode" with some crappy team and just simmed the games while making all the roster moves and such in hopes for a SB win.

All i ask for a a competive game (same level of competition) most of time and blow outs (crappy teams) from time to time like the real nfl during offline play like in franchise mode.

[Aaron It Out]

Yeah i usually enter "GM Mode" within the first day of owning the game. I'll play important games like a playoff game vs the Eagles or Bears or something, and sometimes I'll play Superbowls, but al I really care about is the management. I was getting real tired of playing the same **** and was going to be done with Madden, but sounds like with these new features it should be entertaining for at least a little while longer than normal.

[RedDeath]

How are the MUT (Ultimate Team) enhancements..... That's basically the only reason I play madden anymore....

[ReasonablySober]

Reviews for the new Madden aren't great. Same story that we get every year. Bumps in presentation, some new character animations, mostly topical improvements to the game modes.

It's so goddamn disappointing.

[zmanishere11]

I've purchased Madden the last 2 years on the day of release - have no desire this year.

I downloaded the demo and it's awful. I'm good at Madden, and I couldn't beat the computer on the 2nd hardest setting (forgot what it's called).

Now that might sound appealing to those of you who want the game harder, but the problem is they've accomplished this by raising the awareness of the opponent and decreasing the awareness of your team dramatically.

Literally every pass I threw over the middle was picked by the safety - every pass my team should have picked was batted down.

My oline didn't even both to block (whoever the Bears DT was with the crazy name), yet Raji / Matthews couldn't get off a block.

I seriously played 5 games and lost every one and finally said screw it. The tackling seems WAAAAAY worse this year.

The one feature they added in 2010 that I loved was ultimate team - but this year, for an additional $30 you could get a bunch of old school players, which sounds cool until you figure out everyone will have the same team to start, and those that don't have those players are screwed.

I'll wait until I can get the game for $10 on ebay.

[Flames24Rulz]

I've purchased Madden the last 2 years on the day of release - have no desire this year.

I downloaded the demo and it's awful. I'm good at Madden, and I couldn't beat the computer on the 2nd hardest setting (forgot what it's called).

Now that might sound appealing to those of you who want the game harder, but the problem is they've accomplished this by raising the awareness of the opponent and decreasing the awareness of your team dramatically.

Literally every pass I threw over the middle was picked by the safety - every pass my team should have picked was batted down.

My oline didn't even both to block (whoever the Bears DT was with the crazy name), yet Raji / Matthews couldn't get off a block.

I seriously played 5 games and lost every one and finally said screw it. The tackling seems WAAAAAY worse this year.

The one feature they added in 2010 that I loved was ultimate team - but this year, for an additional $30 you could get a bunch of old school players, which sounds cool until you figure out everyone will have the same team to start, and those that don't have those players are screwed.

I'll wait until I can get the game for $10 on ebay.

Enough about Madden. Who's the girl in your avatar?

[zmanishere11]

Brooklyn Decker. Yowza

[Flames24Rulz]

Shame on me for not getting that.

You're dead on about the safeties in the demo, though. I consider myself to be pretty decent at Madden, and I could not utilize the middle of the field. The passing game was basically non-existant in this year's version of NCAA. I really hope that isn't the same case with Madden this year. If I can't throw the ball with Rodgers and our WR group, I wouldn't really be too thrilled with this game.

I'm going to get duped into at least pre-ordering it because the only way you can be involved in their tournament this year is by owning the game. I figure I'll do that and then trade it in afterwords because it definitely isn't worth the full $65 after multiple plays on the demo.

[ReasonablySober]

So I bought it, because I always buy it even though I know it'll be a disappointment. Some early thoughts.

• Worst commentary I've heard in a sports game since the original Playstation.

• The play calling system is cumbersome and a huge step back. They had it right years ago. Now they take you immediately to a suggested play, only they don't actually give you an illustration. If you want Madden to give you a suggestion they take you to a screen with three plays, but you can't shuffle around to more plays. You have to exit out and go back to a formations screen. It's a pain in the ass.

• I haven't noticed anything different about the game play. Just like I didn't notice anything different last year or the year before.

• The draft process is still bad, but this year it's three times as terrible. So you probably know that "scouting" involves randomly selecting a 15-20 players and waiting until the season is done to see their ratings. Only this year they added the combine and pro days as two more hurdles to jump through if you wanted to see their scores.

I understand that they have to have some kind of scouting mechanism in the game, but anyone could go to the nearest Kwik Trip or grocery store and pick up a Smith & Street Draft Guide to get the low down on every eligible draft pick. EA shouldn't make you waste time getting information that's so readily available. Then you have the limits. So you can only "scout" five pro days? Get ratings on only 15 prospects? It's **** terrible.

• The Free Agent mini-game all but ensures that I'll never sign a single free agent. Again, completely awful.

• I didn't think the expanded roster and cut down days would be anything of significance, but surprisingly, it's a real nice addition. My gripe is you know almost nothing about the rookies until week four of the preseason, and by then you've already cut most of the players on the bubble. It's also a little wonky. After the final cut I was able to pick up Bruce Carter, Muhammed Wilkerson and Stephen Paea.

• One very positive addition that was long overdue is the ability to edit player ratings. That I really like. But they still came up short in that you can't edit potential. If I think Tim Masthay is a top three punter I'm going to give him ratings that reflect it. But because he only has a B rating for potential his ratings will reflect that again by next season. Instead of an 89 he's an 84 by 2012.

I'll still play because the franchise mode is the only thing out there on consoles, but it's still a **** game.

[LUKE23]

So you really liked it huh.

[Newz]

I had the day off yesterday and was extremely bored so I went out and got it. I like that they added Franchise Mode, since I'm not a huge fan of playing the game... I just like playing as a GM.

It's way, way, way, way too easy. There is a new scouting system and I mastered it after like two seasons. I took the Bills from 2-14, to 5-11 to winning 5 straight Super Bowls with ease and no lopsided trades. (Only real trades I made was Fred Jackson for a 5th, Lee Evans for a 4th to Baltimore and the 3rd overall pick for the 10th, a future 1st and a 3rd) It was just incredibly easy to draft the appropriate players.

The 'personal interview days' that you get five of after the scouting are just extremely overpowered. Within the first three years I had a franchise QB that was like a 96, a WR that was 99 and a RB that was a 97... along with a LT that was a 98. Why all offense? Because in my first two drafts I drafted basically off of luck and ended up with two corners over 90, two safeties over 85, two OLBs over 90 and a DE over 90.

Lame.

[Flames24Rulz]

If anyone has the draft classes from NCAA 12, there's a huge glitch where they don't work when you export them to Madden in the Franchise. That basically makes Madden unplayable for me.

Granted, I can go back in NCAA and just simulate a few seasons and get the draft classes, but I would prefer to have my own individual classes from the seasons that I played. Way to go, EA.

[ReasonablySober]

If the draft class export doesn't work the game gets sold back to Gamestop this weekend.

[rilamann]

It's become an annual tradition to post this but only because every year it's true....NFL2K5>>>>>>>Madden12.

[Ayt]

The DB play is the thing that finally got me off these games. The last football game I owned was NCAA 2006 for the old XBOX.

Even in the newer games it isn't any different. The CBs have eyes in the back of their head. All the players react to the ball even if they couldn't possibly see it. If you play the harder levels, even the LBs make incredible plays on the ball. Safeties react in ways actually players never could.

Field awareness is the main issue though, in fairness to the programmers, it has to be very difficult to program.

[OBF-MKE]

It's become an annual tradition to post this but only because every year it's true....NFL2K5>>>>>>>Madden12.

It's hysterical how NFL2K5 is still better. I mean, how has it been seven years and EA still can't figure out how lineman and and tightends and fullbacks block? And how do idiots keep paying for this ****?

Have a receiver in NFL2K5 run a flag route. Tap the throw button, and it becomes a fade, complete with jockeying for position and contextual animations that make sense. In Madden 12, when selecting a fade pass, you'll get a corner and receiver who arrive early, warp to face the passer and will just jump independently of each other doing an animation as if they were in the middle of the field. Awful, awful, awful.

Ball speed on passes is far too slow relative to the players on the field. It's as if they rightfully sped the players up but forgot about the ball, so receivers that should be hit in stride on slants and seams are either getting lit up, or the pass is broken up or picked by either a linebacker with eyes in the back of his head, or a safety who magically gets infront of a pass that should've arrived half a second earlier.

The lineplay is awful. Five fat bodies operating independently of each other and the play call, and fullbacks often ignore people in the holes.

I only played at a friend's for about four hours, but the gameplay was just utter ****, and pissed me off that I wasted the time on that instead of finishing what could be the best game I've ever played, Deus Ex: Human Revolution.

Playing as a D-Lineman was essentially 'hold this button so your player does what the CPU thinks is best for him to do, because you can't do **** else except try to bat down passes'. Thanks, EA.

Just an awful game.

[OBF-MKE]

The DB play is the thing that finally got me off these games. The last football game I owned was NCAA 2006 for the old XBOX.

Even in the newer games it isn't any different. The CBs have eyes in the back of their head. All the players react to the ball even if they couldn't possibly see it. If you play the harder levels, even the LBs make incredible plays on the ball. Safeties react in ways actually players never could.

Field awareness is the main issue though, in fairness to the programmers, it has to be very difficult to program.

It's simple! Hell, EA even implemented similar code in earlier versions of the game... the dreaded 'passing cone' feature.

Essentially, you assign each player a vision cone, extending out from the front-facing side of the model. The higher the awareness, obviously the bigger the cone. When they did this with the passing cone, every time a player threw a pass, the game did a check to see whether the receiver was in the cone or not. What EA has failed to do is give each defensive player this same, front-facing cone, and has instead opted either for a not a cone but a circle--which, really, is near the height of coding stupidity--OR they've done away with cones entirely, and do something along the lines of:

SITUATION
WR, Running cross, 15 yards deep, 6 degrees left of quarterback
LB, Zone coverage, 8 yards deep, 12 degrees left of quarterback
QB, Passes ball
[calculation of ball flight, determinate on intensity of button push and QB skill to establish a set of possible paths, with one randomly being chosen respective of the aforementioned]
[runs routine, finding any location along the flight of the ball that a defensive player could make a play without having to jump, then diving, then making a full jump]
[finds nearest players, weighs their attributes against the passed values of location, jump height and type required, and whether that jump or height results in a batted ball or an interception attempt]
[takes that resulting data set of the plays that player could make--a diving interception, a leaping tip, a clean break batted ball, and everything in between, and does a dice roll weighed by player rating]
[whatever that dice roll ends up with, that's what happens]

So either they don't have a vision cone and instead opted for a full circle, or they just magically push and pull players into position. Either way is poor problem solving and inefficient as all hell.

The play of the corners piss me off almost as much. Everything they do is reactive. No routes will be jumped, unless the ball is thrown. If a receiver wasn't locked into a breaking animation every time he cut in a route, it'd be a guaranteed completion no matter the corner playing, because the corner is waiting to see what the receiver does and whatever algorithm is used could be abused by hitting the receiver RIGHT THEN.

Some sort of simple Game Theory grid would be so simple to implement and **** world's better.

[WR makes a break]
[corner, five yards off]
CORNER'S CHOICES:
1: Jump route
2: Anticipating a second move and stay off
3: Sag off, baiting a pass
4: Chase after receiver, trying to limit YAC or knock away pass

If the corner has a high awareness level, you give the corner a higher probability of selecting the right choice. If the receiver is running an out and up, and the corner is Tramon, then Tramon is going to stay off, and maybe even break up the field early to take the option away. If the receiver is just running an out, then Tramon jumps the route a wide majority of the time, far more than he'd just stay back or chase.

If DeAngelo Hall or any other gambler is the corner, then they'll jump the route more times than not, regardless of what the route is.

The route running attribute of the receiver can be used to determine the likelihood of a corner's choice. That and the corner's own awareness level. This would be so easy to code I can only hypothesize EA puts even less work into Madden than even the deepest cynic suspects or EA is full of talentless jackasses.

Whatever the case is, the entire Madden engine has to be scrapped before I'd even consider making another purchase.