  MADDEN NFL 06
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Publisher : EA Sports | Developer : EA Tiburon | Released : Summer 2005 |
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As you guys know I had a chance to go to Redwood Shores, CA to visit EA and play Madden 06 along with a lot of other EA games. It was a fun trip with a lot to do everyday. The hospitality of EA as always was great. They schedule this Madden Community day around what they call “Hot Summer Nights”, an annual press event that lasts an entire day and is an opportunity to walk around from station to station playing each game and also getting to talk to the product managers of each game. The Madden Community day spanned two days this year so we had a lot more hands on time with the game. Because of this I tried to get to as many other games as I could during the time we had at Hot Summer Nights. I had a lot of hands on time with Tiger, NBA Live, and FIFA and did look at some other games. In this initial write-up I am only going to cover Madden though. For info on the other games be looking in the Other Games forum for write-ups on those. So on to the good stuff.. Impressions about Madden 06! I will cover each section of the game as I think of them and just update the story as I write more. If you have question ask away.
Vision and Precision
I choose this first because it will be the most important thing this year and most likely will be the most talked about when the game hits the shelves. It changes the passing game 80% in my opinion. So if you have a great passing game now don’t expect to pick up Madden 06 and be great in your first game or even your 3rd or 4th. It is going to take a little time and some patience to adjust. All I can ask is please don’t go directly into the options and turn it off – give it a chance and see what happens after taking the time to play for a while. I had played in March and thought at the end I started to get a hang of it. I found out on Wednesday that I hadn’t. We played a little tournament between the guys there. I threw eight interceptions in my first game. Yes you heard it right.. a big 8 in one game. I ended up loosing 14-6 which wasn’t bad for that many turnovers but not near as good as last year where I ended up making it far enough that I won signed football. This year they gave away a signed football by Terrel Davis to the winner. By Thursday I was getting a lot better with the cone and actually started to recognize that it’s going to make the game a ton better. Although definitely still frustrated at times! Some of the guys had moved to a power rushing game. I however decided to end the day on Wednesday and start the day on Thursday doing passing only so I could try to get some rhythm with the cone. Later on Thursday I moved to a mix of each and played a conservative game which is my normal play and I felt like I was back to being pretty good at the game again. I think everyone will be frustrated the first day but as the days go on from the initial release day the frustration will stop and people will have the hang of it. I will now give you some of the things to start thinking about when using vision and precision and also give you some tips on things that I noticed while playing that will help you to get a head start when you get the game.
First you are going to have to decide how you want to switch the cone around the field. The two options as most of you already know is to either scan the field with the cone using the right thumbstick or hold the trigger on the right side (Xbox) R2 (PS2) and hit the button corisponding to the receiver you want to switch the vision to. It may be a good idea to learn both as it seems that when rolling out it may be easy to use the Right Thumbstick. Other than that the quickest way is to use the button sequence. I suggest using this method when in the pocket. You will have to get used to switching the cone to the receiver that you plan to throw it to… especially with QB’s that don’t have a large cone. Dumping the ball off to a RB after reading a blitz from the Defense doesn’t seem to require a switch of the cone. I also threw some quick slants and didn’t have a problem not switching the cone. Also if you leave the cone on one receiver the entire time the defense will react much much better to the ball when it is thrown. Trust me smile.gif This is why it is great to use a great QB this year since the cone covers so much area there is almost always more than one receiver in his vision.
Here are some tips that will help you get started on Vision and Precision when Madden 06 comes out.
1. Look off DB’s and LB’s – you can change your primary (cone) receiver at the line of scrimmage. So I suggest if you have a QB will a small cone that you actually start it on someone other than your #1 choice then quickly switch it before you throw to that receiver if he is open. This will take away the problem that I was having where the DB’s and LB’s would react really fast to each of my throws. I was using Mark Bulger.
2. If you are using a great vision QB like Brady or Manning or even some others that have a medium cone. Try making your reads off receivers on the same side of the field. That way you have a good chance of another receiver you are looking at being in your cone of vision.
3. Have a quick route that you can switch to quickly encase of a big blitz. Since it takes more time at first to switch between receivers people are going to bring the heat and you need to have an option to go to quickly.
4. Break the habit early of dropping back farther to get more time. It will not work for you this year. Early on since I was slow getting my cone switched around I would try to buy time by dropping back farther. Lets just say I had some ver long 2nd and 3rd downs to deal with.
April 15th is here and it’s time to get excited about the upcoming football season, Madden football, and NCAA football. This day marks the start of the information that will be released over the coming months. This is a landmark year. It is the first year we have first hand impressions on the new features and even hands on time with the game very early.
Let’s start with Madden news. I think this will be a landmark year for Madden as well, as EA Tiburon is going to concentrate on the passing game play. Most Madden fans know that each year Tiburon takes a part of the NFL game and concentrates on making it better. This is the first year in about ten years that the passing portion of the game has had a significant change. With the passing numbers that were put up in the NFL, especially everything that Peyton Manning was able to do, it fits well. If you are worried that passing is going to take over Madden with this new feature please read on and you will find that is not the case. We will call the feature that has been added “Vision and Precision” or “QB Vision” as I am not sure yet of the official name just yet. First, I will tell you about how the feature is implemented and then I will get into my thoughts and impressions of using it.
What QB Vision does is add a virtual field of vision to represent the real life field of vision an NFL QB has. It does this on screen by adding a lighted cone starting from the QB and getting larger as the distance increases. Everything outside of the lighted cone is shaded darker and the passing icons are dimmer. Each QB’s rating affects how large or small the cone is. Manning, for instance, would have a large field of vision and Vick would have a smaller one. If you decide to scramble, the cone will get smaller as you run and then go back to normal size as you slow down and come to a stop. Your QB is set to look at your primary receiver (orange) upon the snap of the ball but that can be changed pre-snap by simply holding the R2 (PS2) and tapping the receivers assigned button. After the ball is snapped you have two ways you can change the QB’s vision to another area. 1. You can hold down R2 and push the button corresponding to the receiver you want to look at or 2. You can use the right thumb stick to manually move the cone across the field and back. Here is how the QB Vision affects the passing game. .
1. You can only use precision passing if the receiver you are throwing to is in your field of vision. Meaning, if you want to lead a receiver using the thumbstick as your throw that receiver has to be in the lighted cone projecting from your QB. Note: you can still throw to a receiver out of the cone but the pass is less likely to be accurate and you cannot use precision passing. Also note that you may be looking directly at receiver X who is dead center of your cone of vision but other receivers close to him may still be in your cone of vision.
2. The second rule to remember is that the receiver icons are now on a timer (the length of time on the timer was not final yet). What this means is if you decide to take off with your QB and scramble around and then bring back up your passing icons only receivers inside your cone of vision will have a passing icon above their head and the option to switch the cone by using the R2 selection is gone. You now have to use the right thumbstick to move the cone around. What this simulates is if you get flushed out of the pocket in the NFL and take off running you are going to lose site of your receivers and not know exactly where they are when you look downfield again. Note: You can still throw to any receiver without the icon above their head and not in the field of vision but the pass will most likely be a really bad pass. (I tried this and it was a really bad pass)
This feature also adds something to the defensive side of the ball. It will now be beneficial to play as a DB and try to read the QB’s eyes like a NFL DB; if he was playing a zone. Of course a good QB will look off a safety or corner to fool them. It will add a new strategy and hopefully get a lot of players off the Dline on defense.
The biggest thing to remember about this feature is in the NFL QB cannot throw where he can’t see. QB’s in the NFL do throw quick slants and such by looking one way and quickly turning and throwing another direction to the slant. That was something being decided while I was at Tiburon, so I assure you they have thought of everything when designing this new feature. What this feature adds to the game of Madden is that choosing a good pocket passing QB now has its advantages too. Before, those playing with a scrambling QB had the big advantage at the QB position. This evens the playing field.
In the first game or two you will be overwhelmed by the new control of passing, but you will get the hang of it quickly. . My hands on time with the game probably equaled about the time it would take to play two or three games and by the end I was catching on. I did spend some time in the practice mode just to get my fingers used to the new controls. If you are open to change and innovation you won’t have a problem adapting to this new system. It definitely makes the game more realistic.
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