These should not be treated as definitive answers. The accuracy of them is based upon approximately 12 hours of gameplay by the 3 people who visited EA from this website.
Q. How does the overall game feel to you? Has Ea really improved the defense? Have you tried franchise/owner mode to see if that fix the offseason portions?
A. Overall, feels like a totally different game. Seriously... no kidding. Everything, animations, player appearance and movement has all been improved upon. I'll elaborate on that some more later on today....
Defense rocks, like I said before I enjoyed playing defense at least as much if not more than offense. There really is a strategy to be had on the D side of the ball and that is a really good thing.
Custom hot routes and packages :)
I didn't sadly get deep enough into franchise mode to be able to answer your question there but perhaps somebody else can....
By the way, I sampled the radio show and the newspaper parts which were honestly very neat and cool. Not gimmicky, yea they are a side issue to the game and of course people will call it gimmicky, but in my opinion it really added something.
I loved the way the radio show would play in the background while you surfed the menus and stat pages.
Q. How about the player models? In still shots they look hugely overdone muscle wise, how about in motion? The videos seemed to make it look much better but it did appear arcadey visual wise at times, did you get this sense at all? (Most models, i.e. Lewis, are bigger than their NFL Blitz counterparts).
A. I can understand why you would get that impression from some of the stills, but honestly, at real play speed they looked 40% better than last year. They move more realistically, they tackle more realistically, and the definition of both them and their uniforms are better. I think you'll like them especially on xbox.
Q. Did the blocking for both pass and run work better? More procifient pockets forming, smarter down field blocking? Generally, was the blocking noteably improved from 2004?
A. Blocking was good if you were passing and stayed in the pocket. The run blocking was improved in the sense you can now follow the lead blocker much better than before. I know Mark will have more to say on this one being a running guru so hopefully he can give you more of an answer.
Q. Have they pumped up the crowd atmosphere at all in game? for example does the crowd get involved in the game?
A. The crowd appearance is definitely improved and much better than previously. I didn't see the same kind of insane crowd that use to go wild over the home team giving up a touchdown as in previous years. As far as atmosphere this part is cool... the crowd were really into it. They jeered when a pick was thrown by the home team, they responded in a much more realistic way. And then you haev the closeup 3D guys who you can create and model yourself so altogether the atmosphere is definitely improved.
Q. Cool, so in your preliminary play time, would you say Madden 2005's "feel" is different enough from 2004 that someone (i.e. me) who got sick of 2004's gameplay could find relief in 2005? Or maybe that is a little to premature to tell? Basically, I don't want it to feel like i'm playing 2004 again.
A. Yea, I can honestly say I feel like this is the biggest leap in madden gameplay since the move to xbox and ps2. There is so much stuff in the area of gameplay and I honestly believe that to win you have to play x's aod O's football instead of the chuck-and-pray crap from previous times.
Not sure if I mentioned this earlier but I used hit stick a ton of times. Each game it may have produced one fumble, no more than that. That was nice as far as I was concerned because it isn't just a fumble-stick like some people were worried it might be. It certainly doesn't always produce a fumble at all even if executed properly. When you do pull it off, man the hits are awesome. I'll tell you what animation I thought was the coolest though - a DB diving at the legs of your running back trying to clip his ankles to bring him down. I had my RB brought down a few times like this and it was awesome, his ankles were clipped and he kinda stumbled for some additional yardage before losing his balance and falling over. Very cool indeed.....
I only started playing NCAA today, I must admit. With being away and not having the game delivered until late (thanks FedEx) I only just tried it today. I'll be able to make comparisons between the running game once i get down to playing some NCAA properly
Q. Can you still drop back 40 yds and throw a perfect pass of one hand, one foot, and your helmet turned around 360 degrees??
A. Nope..... you can't do that. Once you leave the pocket those Defensive guys really rush you and if you throw on the back foot... man you don't wanna do that. Playmaker is stil there so you can change the running before the snap left and right.... also the receiver thing is still there.
I love....
Custom hot routes and custom packages, I think I already mentioned that.
