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

[BlueStraggler]

Verging on flamebait, but I'd mod it as insightful...

Americans seem to love sports where nothing happens. Football has a lot of standing around while the clock is running. Baseball is even worse - football at least celebrates its moments of high action, but baseballs' great feats are all ones where nothing of interest to spectators happens. Imagine a sport where a "perfect game" is one that you could sleep through and not miss a damn thing. Even a home run involves precious little action--and yet it's guaranteed to make the evening highlights!

And it's not just Americans. The British are even worse! British football (okay, soccer) pretends to have more action since there is actually movement on the field for 90 whole minutes, but when you actually distill it down to the highlights, it's clear that almost nothing happens. And cricket - all the excitement of baseball, except the games last several days.

The French once had the right idea with fencing - a couple of guys having at it with swords seems like a good recipe for spectator fun, but for some reason that dropped off the radar. Now their idea of fun is the Tour de France - ie. waiting for hours on a god-forsaken country road for a glimpse of--oh shit! there they go!--and then fighting the crowds for hours trying to get home.

The Japanese, like the French, once had a thing for sports where two guys beat the tar out of each other. But with all the salt throwing and whatnot, specators there eventually turned to baseball for some action, so they clearly lost their way...

I give points to the Canadians for fast-paced, violent games like hockey and lacrosse. On the other hand, the dirty secret of Canadian sport is that the most popular game in the country is curling, so the broken noses and missing teeth is all just an elaborate charade. Ditto for the Aussies and their Aussie rules football--it's just a decoy for the fact that they're all actually playing cricket.

As for the big international events, you have the World Cup (but I've already dissed soccer), Formula 1 (will somebody please pass somebody else? Anyone? Please!???), and the Olympics (which is gradually being taken over by judged sports in which the competitors wear sequins).

Face, people around the world don't much like watching sports, so the successful spectator sports are ones that you don't really have to watch. The real point is to sit around with your buddies for a couple of hours, and drink a few beers. If sports were really that interesting to watch, you'd stay sober and tell your buddies to fuck off 'cuz you're busy.

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

Suggestion

[swordgeek]

"So, what are the players to do?"

Um...buy a football perhaps?

Re:Suggestion

[Mathonwy]

It's not a peripheral, silly!

It's a boot device!

*boot!*

Easter Egg

[PeeAitchPee]

Word has it there's a "hot cocoa" mod available showing hidden footage of a naked John Madden being dragged onto an airplane, lashed into a jumpseat and flown city-to-city over the course of the season. Decency advocates, NFL officials and Hillary Clinton are already threatening to sue . . . :-P

Don't Buy It

[BobPaul]

If sales drop, maybe the NFL will look to renegotiate their deal
--
Downloading in Firefox got you down? Cheer up

Hmmm, what to do? What to do?

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

> 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?"

Have a little pride and refuse to buy it? And thus punish both EA and the NFL?

Dave Swanson visted my class once

[DesiVideoGamer]

For computer graphics class , Dave Swanson, the Director of Madden, gave us a lecture about the "process" of making a new Madden game. I decided to joke around and ask him "Why do you need to do anything? Don't you have a monopoly?". He replied saying that he actually still works as hard as he did before the monopoly; and that his current aim is to get people who were not intrested in the Madden series before-hand into the game.
He also said that all the stories in the press are mostly an exaggeration of what is really going on.

Little Improvements that Matter

[jtwJGuevara]

I agree with your argument for the most. However, I own Madden 2005 and have recently rented '06. In doing so, I have noticed small little improvements that go a long way with the more meticulous football fan, such as myself.

For example, the article's aforementioned QB vision light, which is based on the QB awareness rating and determines the field of vision for a QB. You can control this yourself with the right analog stick or focus in on different receivers. Make a pass to someone not in your field of vision and you will make a duck pass. This feature will need some tweaking, but it is one step closer to making the game realistic and prevents previously awseome madden players from exploiting passing the ball all game.

Another small improvement has been in line play. The animations that determine positioning of linemen during the play are improved. Defensive lineman in a 4-3 now finally line up as they are supposed to (in gaps instead of headup), and the ability to slide your offensive line protection, while not perfect, definitely lets you control logic for your lineman that never existed in previous games.

The last one I'll mention are smart routes. In older games. WR's were restricted to predetermined routes based on the play you call, or you could hot route them, but the distance they run in the route is always the same. Now you can make their curl routes and in/out routes go all the way to first down marker. Again, a small improvement, but one that makes the play in this game a bit better.

In all honesty, I think people expect too much of this football game series. There are only so many things you can add each year and each year everyone wants something revolutionary. All I want is steady improvement so that when I play this game in 2015 (assuming it is still being produced) it should be much closer to the real thing. Just look at at how far it has advanced in 1995 to see what I mean.

Well then

[mcc]

If EA says their monopoly isn't harmful, then that's good enough for me.

After all, if you can't trust a multibillion dollar corporation with no accountability to anyone except their shareholders, who can you trust?

Re:Who's gonna pay

[Hellasboy]

EA was in serious danger of losing the football crown.
LINK

ESPN NFL FOOTBALL (2004)
216,000 units sold
$10.1 million in sales

MADDEN NFL 2004
3.4 million units sold
$167 million in sales

ESPN NFL 2K5
1.2 million units sold
$24.4 million in sales

MADDEN NFL 2005
2.3 million units sold
$111.4 million in sales

A 50 million dollar drop and 1/3 drop in numbers sold with sega's strategy of selling 2k5. Imagine if they had a 2k6, especially with the buzz they had with 2k5 (2k5 was/is so much better than madden 2005/2006). that's the general consensus.

Madden has "fixed" the same damn problems year after year. I mean, how many times can they fix a same passing game problem? or fix the same running game problem? Hopefully someone will release a 2006 roster update for NFL2K5 (basically what EA does with Madden, but charge an extra 40$ for).

Re:I'm shocked!

[TrappedByMyself]

The quality of a product dropped after it became a monopoly?

It did? Hmmmm, lets actually look at the Gamespot scores over the years.

Madden NFL 97 6.4
Madden NFL 98 8.1
Madden NFL 99 8.8
Madden NFL 2000 7.4
Madden NFL 2001 7.0
Madden NFL 2002 6.7
Madden NFL 2003 9.2
Madden NFL 2004 8.8
Madden NFL 2005 8.8
Madden NFL 06 7.8

Hmmm, seems pretty inline doesn't it? It's amazing what facts can do to FUD.