Tuesday, July 21, 2009
PBFL Interest Thread
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Currently included-
Bradshaw Mountain High School- HS I attended 1994-1995, in Prescott Valley, AZ, where we won the 3-A West conference championship both years.
Breckenridge High School- I attended 1996-1997, in Breckenridge, MN. We won both Class B Heart-o-Lakes conference both years. This uniform features the old, Wyoming Cowboys logo that the school wore when I was there, rather than the new one before Wyoming threatened legal action.
Eastern State University- Fictional school from the film, "The Program". If anyone has an image of the wolf head from the helmet logo in the movie, I'd greatly appreciate it. The one I'm using is lifted from the full ESU logo and I'm not very good at photo work.
Texas State University- Fictional school from the film, "Necessary Roughness". The TSU logo is wrong, but I can't find one anywhere online. This uses a college font I found, closest I could get, but it looks a bit awkward.
Concordia College- Local division 3 school
Minnesota State University, Moorhead- Local division 2 school
North Dakota State University- Local FCS school
Monday, May 25, 2009
For many years, to me, they've been one and the same. Going back to the PS1 versions of the game, I was just as excited, if not more so, for NCAA as I was for Madden. At heart, I'm a college guy. I love the variety in the game, I love seeing an option team take on a spread team. I love the myriad of defensive formations. I love how colorful the game is. I love how Michigan vs. Notre Dame has the atmosphere of the Superbowl even when both teams are terrible. Sans the idiocy known as the BCS and the absurdity of the champion selection, College football is simply more entertaining than the NFL.
But this year, I have a sinking feeling, I'll be playing Madden almost exclusively. Oh, I'll buy NCAA, as Team Builder has me very excited, but I can't imagine, once Madden drops, NCAA will get much rotation beyond a change of pace.
Its the first year I've ever considered not buying NCAA, and honestly, without Team Builder, I wouldn't. We've been over all the improvements that are applying to both games- improved pursuit, pass blocking, branching animations coming over the NCAA, WR/DB interaction, and I'm very happy about all of this, but the two big ones; game speed (including pass velocity) and Pro-Tak are not.
Now, I could live without Pro-Tak in NCAA this year. It's a huge game change in Madden, but it's some complex tech and I wouldn't want NCAA to ship without it tuned properly. However, the change of game speed in Madden is the single biggest upgrade in the game, in my opinion, and NCAA would have benefited even more from it.
Have you ever honestly read the defensive tackle's gap post-stance to decide whether you would give it the ball to the FB on the triple option? If you have, you've got better reflexes than I do, because I'm forced to just limit the FB handoffs to when the right guard is in a bubble. It's just too fast, I don't have the reflexes to identify the tackle's movement and get my hand off the button in time to prevent the handoff.
Then there's pass speed... NCAA's will apparently be the same supercharged rocket as last year, and that is where the entire passing game breaks down. Timing is of little importance when the pass is moving near the sound barrier.
This coming off-season, it's time for Peter Moore and EA Sports to make the change that should have been made years ago, the change that is the most logical, intelligent, and obvious change Tiburon could make; Stop with having two teams with shared resources, and create an EA Football Creative Lead. One team, two halves. Differences should be deliberate and only exist to accentuate the differences between the NFL and college football.
If NCAA team leadership was wise, they'd have followed Ian Cummings lead. Perhaps the Great Experiment on the Madden team will be carried over to NCAA next season, in which case, great. Either way, there should be one over-seer with the kind of vision for Tiburon football that Ian Cummings has brought to Madden NFL 10.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Monday, March 30, 2009
As positive as things are looking, now just over 4 months from release, we have yet, as a community, really touched on Tiburon's biggest problem over the past several years; Stability.
Certainly it's not a big secret that my favorite football game ever comes from Tiburon: NFL Head Coach 09. To me, this is the game that gave me my faith in the current Madden team. It's brilliance is in its balance. The genius with which the game was structured and organized is evidence that there are, indeed, great minds at Tiburon waiting to be unleashed. But yet, for all the accomplishments of Josh Looman, Donny Moore, Chris Staymates, and the rest of the Head Coach team, NFL Head Coach 09 is perhaps the clearest example of where Tiburon has repeatedly let us down in the Next Gen era.
NFL Head Coach is plagued by freezes. Mid-week, mid-game, every menu option is an adventure as you progress slowly, just waiting for the next time the clock simply stops moving. We Head Coach faithful simply make several game saves and hope we don't lose anything big in the process, and mentally prepare ourselves for perhaps having to play a game twice, as the abandonment of the franchise means no more patches. Madden fans don't have to fear that, but the same freezing issues have also made franchise mode virtually unplayable.
Games are becoming infinitely more complex in the modern era, and only look to get more so. Pure professional pride should push Tiburon to eliminate these embarrassing plights on what can be otherwise solid games. They are the only major game developer I can think of that is so inundated by these problems. And now, with EA Sports barely scratching the PC platform anymore, the are no longer developing for innumerable different hardware setups.
It's time, Tiburon, to finally thaw out franchise mode.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
The monkey on Cummings' back isn't a Hall of Fame quarterback, but 2k Sports' now legendary ESPN NFL 2k5, considered by many (most?) to be the greatest football video game of all time. Madden had had challengers before; NFL Gameday being the most notable, here, finally, was an almost unarguably superior game. The physics, the presentation, the replays. When it came down too it, this was the game that sucked you in and made you love the NFL more than you would without it. Madden, for all it's longevity, didn't do that anymore.
Add to that the fact that the Tiburon team at the time was apparently purposefully dismantling the game. Each year, some aspect of franchise mode got less and less accurate. Some new back-of-the-box feature made the previous years' back-of-the-box feature obsolete. The game didn't progress, it simply walked it circles searching in vein for an identity until it had trod so many times in it's own tracks that no clear path could be found.
Enter: Phil Frazier. Taking over for the beleaguered David Ortiz, of whom the online community was quite tired of, Frazier inherited the unenviable task of righting the Madden ship. How do you catch up with a game that is still beating you 4 years after it hit shelves? How do you turn that much time... that much mis-prioritization, that much incompetence, that much complacency around in one year?
Admiral Frazier answered by appointing Captain Cummings. Ian Cummings brings with him an approachability and a personality Ortiz never had as the face of the Madden product (NOTE: Ortiz held the position on the team Frazier does, but it is Cummings that has become the face of Madden, as Frazier's work online has been more subtle). While Ortiz never seemed passionate about the simulation aspects of the game (in fact, he came off as pointedly dismissive), Ian Cummings has embraced the challenge of turning Madden into a thinking man's game with fervor.
So where does the dynamic duo of Ian Cummings and Phil Frazier have to go to turn the Madden franchise back into the World Wide leader in America's Game? Here are a few key points to keep in mind.
Don't forget where you came from.
I haven't met many people who work in game development who aren't gamers, but I've met quite a few of them who seem to think they've ascended to some higher plane of gaming. Ian Cummings seems to have the necessary arrogance to push him to test the limits of where gaming has been, but can he keep it in check and retain an eye-contact type relationship with the community? If so, his free and open style of communication will be a boon for EA for years to come. If not, he could put off a few too many people and perhaps do as much damage as he's fixed so far.
Don't be afraid to get technical.
We may spend our days trolling a gaming site, but we're not cretins. Most of us are partially educated, in fact. We're accustom to large companies talking down to us, treating us like *shudder* "consumers". We can handle long words and terms, and for the most part, we have a reasonable understanding of how computers work.
David Ortiz always had a air of "you wouldn't understand" about him, and to say it was off-putting would be an understatement. Don't let yourselves fall into that trap.
Address what The People want, but make the last call.
For the most part, the online community has good input and solid ideas when discussing or wishlisting a game. However, there are limits. A mob mentality can and does take over, with regularity, and a good eye for what's honest discussion and what's mob think is necessary to separate the wheat from the chaff on a site like OS.
When the MM community came together with Steve McGuire leading the way to create the Madden Manifesto, David Ortiz ignored it. Today's Madden team have wadded into the unwashed masses and taken our input to heart. But there are limits, and there will come times when bad ideas will become very popular. Ian, Phil, and Tiburon are going to have to learn when to smile and nod.
You've set the goal: Now stick with it!
"Everything you see on Sundays"
This cannot be a one year thing. This must be posted on every wall, in every corner, over every door at Tiburon studios. It must become the Play like a Champion sign in Notre Dame stadium, and it must be permanent.
I can see it so clearly; Madden 2010 drops, and it's a hit. People on OS are excited because of how great a jump it is. Maybe it doesn't surpass 2k5 in every conceivable way, but it shows that we're finally where we need to be to make that leap. And all of the sudden, someone at Tiburon pipes up, "I've got a great idea!"
And it all goes downhill. The beast has been slain... time to get back to the Back of the Box features. Franchise mode falls back into disrepair, overall ratings start climbing again, the Sack Stick and the Cover-Cone come into play and unbalance the game.
"Everything you see on Sundays" Don't. Ever. Forget. That line may prove to be the thing that makes Madden NFL 10 the Legend Killer.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Posted on March 13, 2009 at 07:17 AM.
Idle thoughts, wanders, and my own personal wish list. In generalities, of course. What I'm doing is taking Madden 09, adding what we know about Madden 10, and then decided what else I want to see to make it everything I hope Madden 10 is. It doesn't have to live up to all of this for me to buy it, but if it did, I'd hang a poster of Ian Cummings on my wall right between the Irish and American flags.** Game Play
First and foremost is always game play. Without solid game play, everything else is a waste of disk space. If I wanted to sim 30 years of franchise mode, I'd be playing Front Office Football. So lets cover a few game play elements first.
The most important aspect of football is the trenches, and this is an area where nobody- no, not even 2K Sports- has ever come close to getting it right. On a purely physical level, the types of interactions I see on the football field need to be reflected in Madden. Hook blocks, double teams, traps, zone blocking, man blocking, pocket protection, moving pockets, everything. Do I expect all of that in one year? No, moving pockets is probably a complex AI routine that I can live without for a season, but double teams are important, and proper traps are fundamental to the running game. Overall, what I want to see is Madden lines have the toolbox that NFL lines have.
And defenders need to be able to counter this. I need 350lb tackles to be able to take on a double team and hold his ground, or bust up run plays in the backfield if the opponent doesn't respect his ability to do so. I want to see coordinated stunts and aimed rushes. I want to see ends setting up moves and then feinting them.
I really want to see the branching animation system applied to defensive line moves. I want to be able to come off the right end looking like hooking the tackle, but then club back inside for the sack.
To build on that, I want to see the defensive AI work as a coordinated team, not a gang of individuals all bent on punishing the ball carrier. Corners need to hold containment, linemen need to eat up blockers, and linebackers need to check and flow. This is simplistic, it's basic HS defense 101, but it'd be a start... just to see the defense play the run as a team.
That combined with the other game play improvements already announced for Madden 10 would make the game on the field something to get truly excited for. Now onto the extras.
** Franchise mode
Franchise mode- real simple here, folks... clone NFL Head Coach. That's right, damn near every bit of it. The draft, the media aspect, the method of signing coaches, the salary cap management, player personalities, live events, real time (or "turn based" day-by-day where everything resolves when you advance, which would make for a better online system), and most importantly team road maps.
Yes, team road maps. It didn't mean all that much to the player, to be honest, as he made his own decisions. But it was the fundamental backbone of brilliant CPU AI. The computer, other than a few bonehead trades during the draft (rare, but the head scratchers happened), was astonishingly intelligent, yet made mistakes in a way that made them seem human. This was because of the team road map combined with how the ratings system worked, with each team assigning an overall based on its personal preferences at each position, and the evaluation skill of its coaches. Potential was an unknown unless he was on your team, and even then it could have been flat wrong if your GM wasn't good at evaluating a player's potential.
The simple use of the team road maps concept would improve the single player franchise to an immeasurable degree.
Two other very important elements make up franchise mode. Player progression and generated/imported drafts.
Even if NFL Head Coach doesn't get copied and pasted over Madden's horrendous franchise mode, bringing in the basic concepts of progression from Head Coach would help. While I'm not a fan of performance dictating improvement, I don't mind, so much, the way it's handled in Head Coach.
Each rating itself (SPD, AWR, AGI, etc.) has it's own potential. How quickly it improves is based on two major factors- performance is one, yes, but the other is coaching. The fact that the player has a predisposed potential, and it requires the right choices by you, as the head of the organization, to bring about that potential, is one of the brilliant aspects of Head Coach, and should be brought over.
The Drafts themselves can ruin a franchise mode. I've never been a fan of importing NCAA draft classes simply because the classes are so ridiculously unbalanced and deep. I'm going to get an instant pro bowler in the first 3 rounds if I let my cat make the picks for me. What fun is that? Imported draft classes can't have flat penalties to ratings- the class needs to be re-calculated to run the gambit from potential hall-of-famer to training camp cut victim.
** Presentation
Third on my list of priorities is presentation and atmosphere. I don't bring this aspect up as much as I do game play and franchise mode, to be sure, but that's not because I don't care. 2K Sports has certainly taught me the value of great presentation, and it's a lesson EA needs to learn.
First and foremost is crowd noise. The sound itself is pitiful. A crowd of 30,000 in Madden sounds more like a crowd of 250,000 15 miles away. It's not cheering, it's just static. If the crowd dies down, their intensity doesn't change, just the distance they seem to be away from the stadium. Volume changes, pitch doesn't. I don't hear that collective "YEA---" as a player seems to be about to break out on a long one. I don't hear the excitement turn to disappointment when the play the fans see doesn't quite materialize. Maybe it's just me, but crowd noise is the most important aspect of atmosphere in a football game.
** Options
Finally, options. I need to be able to customize my game. I'll be honest, I almost turned on Ian last fall. I'd defended him to the hilt at MM and caught a lot of heat for it. I don't regret it, but for a brief moment last fall, when I learned there would be no CPU sliders in Madden 09, I almost broke. I almost joined the dark side. I was angry, confused, lonely, and frightened. Well, maybe just angry and confused.
Give me back my CPU sliders, and add more! We've got game speed and speed differential... great start. How about pursuit angles? Arm strength differential, passing range, fatigue rate, injury severity... everything you can tune, let us tune, that's basically what I'm asking. Give us the tools, we'll make the game what we want it to be.
So that's it. I don't think I'm asking much, am I?
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
It's difficult to think of any one game that has mastered the art of player progression. It always seems like its too fast, too slow, too arbitrary, too predictable, too random, or non-existent. Madden itself has run that entire gambit in its history. NFL Head Coach 09's player progression was very fair, very transparent, and utterly wrong.
It's hard for me to say that as I truly consider NFL Head Coach to sport the single greatest franchise mode this side of Front Office Football and other text-based simulations. The game was a work of genius and, to my mind, set the standard for all console franchise modes to come. However, NFL Head Coach fell into the same trap as most games, and indeed most gamers, do. The belief that, somehow, player progression should be tied to performance. (coaching also played a role, but ultimately it was performance that made the ratings increase)
How often have you seen it? An angry gamer posting on a sports game forum; "My 68 rated runningback ran for 1600 yards! He only gained 1 point!" On the surface, this seems to make sense. Clearly if he ran for 1600 yards, he must be better than a 68, and thus he should get such recognition. But what happens if he gains the progression to put him at a rating befitting a 1600 yard performance? He's now, say, a 90 overall. Now how many yards is he going to run for? 1800? 2000? Talk about a quick way to destroy a franchise mode.
In reality, improvement begets production, not the other way around. So what dictates a player's real life progression? Personal work ethic and coaching, mostly. So why don't games reflect this? Mostly because of us. We, the player, demand that our 68 rated back who ran for 1600 yards be rewarded, even though, in that scenario, he probably simply benefited from a great offensive line.
In this new era of intimate developer interaction, we, as gamers, need to start getting our priorities straight. If they're going to listen to our input, we have to take responsibility for making sure our input is worthwhile and, more importantly, good for the game. In respect to progression, we need to stop and think about what really makes a player improve, and act on that.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
But as we move closer and closer to photo-realistic graphics and we close in on the era of dedicated physics cards, immersion finds itself at the forefront of gaming.
For me, the first evidence of it was a fairly little known game called King's Field on the PlaystationOne. It really wasn't much of a game. The graphics were dull polygons, everything looked pretty much the same, but something about seeing through the eyes of your hero could suck you in. Suddenly, you're feeling some of the things your character would be feeling. Such as the dread of pacing down that unexplored hallway, not knowing what's in store, and the fright when a skeleton warrior jumped out at you unexpectedly.
Still, it was only a hint. And it wasn't something that sports games really picked up on. Immersion in a sports game, at that time, was digitized announcers and a dull static-sounding crowd that got louder now and then, but never really changed pitch.
A few games played around with putting you more "in" the game. NFL 2k had first person football... a miserable failure. Madden had Superstar mode... great idea in theory, has yet to really live up to its promise.
Then came NFL Head Coach. Now, I'd heard of Road to the Show and Be a Pro mode in other games, but this was the first time I'd honestly gone into a sports game representing only a single individual; Me. And, oh, how it changed my perspective.
I can hardly play a normal game of Madden anymore. It counters everything I'm looking for in a sports video game- realism. I find myself asking, "What do I represent?"... am I an incorporeal ghost, temporarily possession whichever player has the ball or the best shot at the tackle at a given time? In NFL Head Coach, my role was clearly defined, and somehow, I liked that better.
It didn't intrude on my suspension of disbelief.
NHL 09 was the next foray into single-role sports gaming. I've now completed an 82 game regular season and am 3 wins away from winning the Stanley Cup. I've spent this entire season in control of one player... again, me. And it's one of the most satisfying sports gaming experiences I've ever had.
I'm not saying that this sort of thing is for everyone. Certainly, there is a huge percentage of traditionalists that would just as soon stick with running the entire franchise, top down, and don't have issues with suspension of disbelief, but I'd venture to guess there's more than a few of us that are looking for that perfect Superstar or Coach mode in Madden.
Hopefully Ian and Co. continue to deliver, and bring us into the Immersion era in sports gaming.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Sure, Create-a-League, technically, never existed. It's always the NFL, it's always a 17 week grind before a 4 round, single elimination playoff, but it's amazing how a league entirely of ones own making can completely renew the experience.
I went through the effort to created the fictional AFFA from the film, Any Given Sunday. I had to fill in a few holes, as a full 32 teams were never portrayed in the film, but the feel remained. The Chicago Rhinos, the Minnesota Americans, the Los Angeles Crusaders, and the Dallas Knights, and every other team I could get an ounce of info on, were all carefully detailed to match as close to the movie uniforms and rosters as the Madden team creation engine could manage.
But alas, it was all for naught. I loaded up the franchise mode and found I could not load all of those teams. It wasn't that the functionality wasn't there... it was. Madden is perfectly capable of playing out a franchise with 32 created teams. But you can't scroll down past the first ten on the load screen!
Such a tiny detail... the ability to scroll through your saved files... destroyed my single favorite aspect of Madden. And it is this lack of attention to detail that has plagued the series more than any other issue for the past 4 years or so.
Here's to Ian and Phil, who really seem to be making those changes this time around. I only pray it extends not just to the field, but to the technical side of things.
Please, give me back my AFFA!
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