Biggest gripes in Madden NFL 10 BLOG
A thoughtful commentary on some of the issues affecting Madden NFL 10, originally posted on our Madden Blog after Madden was released...
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Madden 2010 has been out for about a month and a half, and you'd be a nitwit to think that this isn’t the best Madden that this console generation has seen. That being said, there are still a host of glitches, bugs, and oversights in the game that really shine through the polish put on the rest of the title. I am presenting mine in no particular order. Please comment with your own down at the bottom. We’ll be compiling these and shipping them off to the developers in December for the development cycle of Madden 2011, so be sure to chime in. This isn’t really a “wishlist,” but rather, a “glitch list,” or “annoyance list.” I like to this of this as a list of things that really should be fixed, and aside from the blocking/tackling components, most of these can seemingly be pretty easy to fix.
* Weird camera cutouts. The camera and play videos end at odd times in Madden, probably because of the new referree animations or Pro-Tak… players are called down a fraction of an animation before actually being down, and you can never really get an accurate replay at the end of the play, because the play is considered over as soon as the player breaks the plane or the endzone, knee touches, and so on. It’s annoying to lose the “rest” of the play. It gives away the drama of a play for it to end immediately upon breaking the plane or going out of bounds.
* Referee huddles and “close” decisions. These are a welcome addition to the game, but it took all of two minutes to figure out that every time the offensive player jumps up and down pointing the first down, it’s not a first down, and every time the defense celebrates, it is not a defensive stop. They don’t appear too often in games, but when they do, they are annoying. These are the biggest nuisance in endzone animations, where players are stopped well short and you get the animation all the time. Sometimes, you just want a ref to point to the spot and that’s it, rather than huddling for 12 seconds. Coupled with the camera cutting out and plays ending too quickly, this is annoying.
* Clock issues. What’s with the clock running on obvious out-of-bounds plays? There are times when not only are you tackled out of bounds, but you will also run out of bounds without being touched and the clock will keep moving. What gives EA?
* The video review/instant replay bugs. These glitches have happened to me several times a week when playing the game and are most common when under 2minutes and with plays to the sideline. The game does not seem to have any mechanic to actually tell if a player is out of bounds or in bounds in terms of the location of his feet. There have been a host of times when the CPU opponent has made a pass to the sideline that is, obviously, out of bounds … no feet touching down anywhere in bounds, and then they will challenge the play and overturn it. The correct call is made and then overturned. This has also happened with outright dropped passes, where the CPU will challenge and overturn a play that wasn’t a reception… Not even some “Reception -> Fumble” animation, but rather, a ball that was never in the receivers hands.
* Voiceovers saying the opposite of what actually happens in a review situation. Again, coupled with the video review bugs, this one is tiresome. The referee regularly announces the wrong thing, and the in-game announcers respond accordingly. It’s odd and happens in about 25% of video replays.
* Odd clipping and holding penalties. Holding is a common penalty in the NFL, but it is most common when the CPU drops back to pass. Holding calls almost never get made 30-yards away from the play, which happens rather often in Madden. There have been several long touchdowns negated by the CPU and the player by an errant lineman making a hold 30+ yards away from where the ball is. Clipping responds the same.
* QB Time in the pocket. This is a major gameplay oversight and mostly has to do with CPU blocking, which is, at times, completely impenetrable. The major issue is with how players get locked into an animation, and the branching animations for defensive lineman just aren’t there yet. When the QB rolls out of the pocket, defensivelineman are very often locked into an animation with the right guards, and will usually juke into the pocket. It is nearly impossible to escape from these animations.
* Intentional Grounding/QB’s making flutter passes in the clutch. Coupled with the issue above is CPU QB’s (and human QB’s I guess) making miraculous “flutter” passes that float out of their hands. THis is an improvement over Madden 2009, when QB’s would make impeccable passes in the clutch — at least the balls flutter out of their hands, but if a QB is being sacked and he throws a dinky, fluttering pass while in the pocket, that doesn’t get back to the L.O.S., this is intentional grounding. Grounding is never called in Madden unless by mistake, in a drop back, throw the ball away kind of thing. Generally, this seems like the kind of thing where the game developers noted that there were far too many sacks, and replaced the mechanic with a very over-the-top, unrealistic pass from the QB.
* Blocking. Hands down, the blocking on most plays, especially runs, is terrible. Tight ends, full backs, and pulling linemen will have blocks lined up, only to run around in circles past the defenders. Again, this one seems like there may have been too many long plays, and so the remedy was to nerf blockers by making them completely miss their blocks. The remedy for this is to fix the suction/animation blocking system, so that a player can get blocked while not being completely taken out of the play. The way that it is now, if the blocker makes contact and succeeds in initiating a blocking animation, the defender is nullified. This isn’t how it is in football: most tackles are made by a player who is being blocked at the same time. In Madden, you are either making an open field tackle or you are locked in a blocking animation. The remedy that the developers saw for this was to make outside blockers completely unintelligent, often times turning around and running away from defenders only to block a defender who is at the line of scrimmage, when a play is 5+ yards down the field. The blocking is probably the biggest sore-spot in Madden 2010 gameplay.A sub field of this is run blocking in general. Run blocking seems pretty off, to the point where converting a 3rd and 1 is very low unless you do a play action pass to a back. The likelihood that the CPU shoots through the line seems to be a bit too high, but I’m not entirely sure… my statistics, with good backs and good running teams, generally work out pretty well, it just seems like I pick up too many of those yards on lonf 40+ runs. I actually find the running to be fun in Madden 2010, and I like the challenge… so while I could say the running blocking is quirked, I think I light it more rather than having it be too effective. The blocks ont he outside, though, by TEs, FBs, and lineman are still ridiculous.
* Effectiveness of passes to the flats/RBs: Passes to backs are simply too effective. Linebackers and safeties, either in zone or man-to-man, just don’t cover the play well enough.
* Computer time management and play selection: The CPU does not manage time very well and play calling is suspect. I’ve won many games only because the CPU prefers “fake spike pass” over “spike” 60% of the time. Fake spike pass is usually an ineffective play that relies entirely on luck, and so this usually breaks down and a crummy QB needs to rush out of the pocket, to get stopped for a four yard gain with the clock still ticking. Complicating this is that the CPU, very often, runs a no-huddle and then does the exact same thing.
* Computer play calling in the red zone: Endzone interceptions are very common in Madden, while red zone field goals by the CPU really aren’t. The computer seems to have a “do or die” mentality in the 20 yard line: if they don’t score a touchdown, especially when it’s first and goal, there is a sense of dire emergency that tends to cause a lot of turnovers in the endzone. I’d speculate that 50% of my interceptions, or more, happen in the endzone, which is something very rare especially for talented quarter backs. Watch guys like Brady and both Mannings, Qb’s who make good decisions, they often throw passes out of the endzone on third down when there’s nothing there. Why? 3 points is better than an interception.
* Give and take with difficulty and computer skill. I am not sure how to get around this, it seems like a steep challenge. I was playing on the “MySkill” option and after many games, the computer became effective perfect going through the air, regardless of the QB. I had to change the difficulty to a reduced setting to avoid the computer passing for 25-straight completions in almost every game. It’s worth saying, I still won many of these games simply because the CPU’s few incomplete passes (say, 3 or 4 a game) would be intercepted.
* “Restart Game” and “Exit Game” menu choices. Okay, this one has only burned me once but it’s something that should NEVER be in a game and it does not make sense why it would be… it’s one of those “what were the developers/menu-makers thinking!?” face-palm type moments. To end a game in Madden, like almost all EA games, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the menus after the game and click “Exit Game -> Exit Game,” the game then asks you if you are sure you want to quit and may lose your changes, or whatever. This is a bad system as it is and should be changed. The menus should make the top option “Finish Game” (not exit game), because it sounds like you are quitting the way that it is. But anyway, compounding this is the remarkably inconvenient placement of “Restart Game,” which is the default option in the “Exit Game” menu. These two options SHOULD NOT be next to each other AT ALL. “Restart Game” should be inconveniently hidden away in a weird menu somewhere on the final screen, because nobody should be restarting a game when it’s finished. If anything it should NOT be next to the option that finishes your game, they should be in totally different places.
* Weather in Franchise Mode. Okay, c’mon, we’ve got “Weather Channel” branding, but the weather is all out of whack… 60 degrees and sunny in New England in December? The coldest it gets seems to be about 37 degrees in cold weather stadiums and this just isn’t realistic, I’ve yet to see a snow game, but I’ve seen a host of 45 degree rainy games in New England. The average temperature for Foxborough, MA is 23 degrees in December according to the Weather Channel. The average temp in November is 33 degrees. Night games should probably not beat 40 after October for most cold weather stadiums… the occassional sunny, temperate day in November happens, but they are rare: trust me, I suffer through these every year.
So these are my gripes. I may add more as time goes by. Which ones in this list can you sympathize with, and can you add your own? Leave a comment and keep in mind, these will be bouncing over to the devs for Madden 2011 development, so try to be as constructive as possible. Posts about individual player ratings or snarky comments will just be ignored.
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