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Madden NFL 10 Impressions
When I first started playing Madden 10, I thought the developers had removed the turbo button. At first, it was a bit of a culture shock to be experiencing this slowed down version of Madden, but I think it will be for the better in the end -- if it's not, there's always a slider to boost the game speed.
Now, I believe the slowed down gameplay will work for Madden because of the QB pocket development, right-stick QB evasion moves and the fact that you will be pushing the pile or doing things like trying to maneuver while within a tackle. If the game was going a hundred miles an hour, I just don't think my brain would have time to process everything going on in this game. In other words, I wouldn't be able to effectively handle some of the new gameplay elements that are at my disposal.
After all, as nice as it is to say that I want Madden to mimic the NFL in every way possible, if the game was moving at the pace of a real NFL game, I would get sacked every single play. As a QB I would never be able to make my reads in time, and I certainly would not be able to find the holes in the offensive line quickly enough when I was using a running back.
But since the game is slowed down a bit, I can feel a pocket develop around my QB as I step up to throw a laser. During a running play, I have a split second longer to look for a hole and cut through it.
Beyond the slowed down gameplay, the next thing I noticed was the passing game. Besides the discussed evasion moves and pocket protection -- which like I said, are quite noticeable -- the inaccuracy of the quarterbacks was another culture shock of sorts. Tarvaris Jackson, not so hot in the accuracy department. Jay Cutler, strong arm but was not always on point with the deep balls. David Garrard, well he simply threw a bad ball to the flats while under pressure.
It's one of those noticeable differences that might make me curse out loud sometimes, but on the other hand, I'm happy it's there because it's a fact of football: quarterbacks are not always accurate.
In general, while it's hard to gauge the gameplay experience in this type of environment -- and I'll never say something overwhelmingly positive or negative after just a bit of hands-on time -- I know I'm excited to play a bit more over the next few days to see what else has changed.
And maybe that's the best compliment I can give the game: It's a yearly sports franchise that essentially feels like a whole new experience. The improved presentation, tweaked gameplay style and fresh technology help to prove the point that a lot has been crammed into this game on the gameplay front, which is not something you could always say about Madden in the past.
Does that mean Madden really nailed it on the gameplay front? It would simply be unfair for me to say one way or the other at this point, but the potential is there.
Online Franchise Mode
I know there are a lot of questions about this mode, so I want to do some quick hitters for this section.
-You cannot trade future draft picks in franchise mode (offline or online).
-There is no cross integration between the new co-op mode and the new online franchise mode.
-Online franchise mode goes for 10 years.
-You cannot import NCAA Football 10 draft classes into online franchise mode. There are only Madden-generated classes available for this mode. A quick note on this, though, Josh Looman (a developer who worked on NFL Head Coach) essentially brought over tweaked draft classes from the Head Coach title. That means that the draft classes should be quite good because they were very solid in NFL Head Coach.
-I'm still trying to hunt down a response to this question (and rest assured I will), but I get the impression that there may not be a salary cap for online franchise mode, at least not at launch. Now, it could be that there just is not a salary cap when it comes to the free agents, but if there is no salary cap, obviously some house rules will need to be created. Stay tuned for updates on this during the course of E3.
-You can do an online franchise with just one user. I guess the nice part about doing this is you can check your team online when not around the computer.
-There is always 32 teams in online franchise mode. If you're alone, you will still be competing against 31 AI-controlled teams.
-There is no Extra Point weekly recap show in online franchise.
-Otherwise, it seems like anything you can do in offline franchise mode, you can do in online franchise mode.
-One offline franchise note: Josh Looman pretty much took over offline franchise mode. He tweaked a ton of AI logic within the mode, and also dealt with draft logic and so on. While the franchise mode obviously won't be as in depth as the one found in Head Coach, I would suspect that the experience will at least be more fine-tuned and realistic this year.
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Operation Sports
06-03-2009, 03:10 AM
Linear Mode
