Only NFL Game This Year Gets Lukewarm Response

aendeuryu writes "The first reviews are in for Madden '06, and the reception is underwhelming -- it's scoring an average rating of 79% on gamerankings.com (at the time of this submission). The reviewers on Gamespot (7.8) and 1up.com (9.0) have different takes on the game, but the readership of both sites doesn't (7.4 and 7.8 respectively). Gamespot's criticisms put the game in a less-than-exciting light: the new QB-vision feature adds realism but takes away from basic fun, and (perhaps most damning) the graphics rate a 7 out of 10 on what was supposed to be a next-generation title. Normally, a mediocre game release isn't a big deal, except that, because of EA's negotiated exclusivity deal with the NFL, this is the only NFL title you'll get to play this year. So, what are the players to do?"

Comments

Madden

[mfh]

I happen to love football, the actual game, not really most of the video games (for a number of reasons). Before we get a slew of comments making fun of Madden's often repetitive commentary, I wanted to add my 2 cents. NFL football is a game that does not change every year... the rules are pretty much the same from one year to the next, and the real life games themselves were far more interesting in the seventies and mid-eighties than they are today, barring of course some of the big plays (and big win streaks) you see from time to time. New players and annual player turnover only makes the competition slightly more interesting, but the actual systemic variance between each year is minimal.

Systemic differences and improvements are what drive the typical gamer's series purchases. Video games, for the most part, try to deliver a REVOLUTION on each upgrade. About the only revolution you could get with a series like Madden is having the guy come up with something original to say (hasn't happened yet), improving the UI, and making the players look more realistic. But there is a time when this effort stalls, because the game of football itself doesn't change enough to keep fans as interested in purchasing an upgrade to a game that they already own.

Any football fan here would agree that there is very little difference between each new Madden release, except for possibly the player names, stats and some minor UI changes, and Madden saying something slightly different from time to time. But most of his old bricks stay in the game.

Someone could easily reskin and redevelop the game using Madden's engine to make it far more interesting. Like how about a game of medieval football where you have to slit the guy's tendons with your sock-knife, like they used to do back in the day? Seriously... there are a lot of different avenues game developers could be taking to add some spice to these types of games.

If you break it down and see Madden 04 and Madden 05 sitting in either the week rental or the 2 night rental, you'll pick 04 so you can have it a few more days... or at least I would.

My point is that they have to really do something different if they want to improve their ratings and this has to be one of the hardest challenges facing any game designer in the world right now. How do you take a regular sport and make a game out of it that will release a new title each year, without boring the hell out of your fans? It's hard.

Re:Madden

[aiken_d]

You're right that football involves a lot of standing around. However, if you think that's the sport, you're seriously missing the point.

The *reason* there's so much standing around in football is that the 4-10 seconds when a play is happening is a pretty serious exercise in complexity. You have 11 people on offense and 11 on defense, all dynamically reacting to each other.

In a basic play where things go pretty much right on both offense and defense, there are probably about 100 human interactions in 5 seconds. In more complex plays, and plays where something doesn't go right, that number is much higher. Between planned blocking assignments, adjustments to blocking by the QB, center, or defensive captain (often a linebacker), then the defensive backs who are trying to 1) cover a receiver, but 2) come back in to help if it's a running game, but 3) not get tricked by play action, and 4) either block the reciever or not be blocked themselves... the permutations can get pretty enormous.

It takes some time to reset and get ready to go again, because if you didn't stop, you'd have something more like rugby, basketball, or (everywhere else in the world) football. All of them great sports, mind you, but all of them too fluid to allow for highly compelx plays, let alone highly complex gamesmanship by coaches.

The reason Americans like football is that sense of stop/start. Everyone lines up, and other than what players are on the field (it's different each play), nobody knows what's going to happen in the next few seconds. But *something* involving about 5,500 pounds of human flesh is going to go down.

Because football has those stops and starts, coaches have time to play a mental game with each play. It's 3rd and 2; will they go for the (relatively likely) run play, or will they bet that the defense is heavily stacking against the run and therefore more vulnerable to play action or a pass?

As you might guess, I'm a huge football fan. I hate TV timeouts (commercials), and there are certainly times when the game grinds to a halt. But you're dead wrong in thinking that 1) not a lot happens in football, and 2) football fans like it that way.

Now, baseball I can't explain the appeal of.

Cheers
-b