Madden NFL 12

[dbdynsty25]

Here's what was not cool: With 1:50 left and fourth and goal from my 8, they elected to kick the FG. One could argue that, with Campbell having a bad game, three TOs, and Janikowski, maybe you kick the FG and try the onside, but the CPU kicked off regularly. Very sketchy management.

That's the correct play with all three TOs and a horrible QB. Not even close to sketchy. Had they done it with no timeouts...sure, but they can three and out you in like 15 seconds.

[Brando70]

Here's what was not cool: With 1:50 left and fourth and goal from my 8, they elected to kick the FG. One could argue that, with Campbell having a bad game, three TOs, and Janikowski, maybe you kick the FG and try the onside, but the CPU kicked off regularly. Very sketchy management.

That's the correct play with all three TOs and a horrible QB. Not even close to sketchy. Had they done it with no timeouts...sure, but they can three and out you in like 15 seconds.

True, and they did get the ball back with a minute left. I still think most teams go for it in that situation, though -- inside the 10, down by six, under two minutes. If it was at the 15 or 20 and 4th and 8, I could see the kick, but that close to the endzone, I think they go for it, and then if they miss they can still play the three and out with the opposition deep in their own territory.

I will upgrade from Very Sketchy to Very Conservative.

[dbdynsty25]

Down by six the play is a FG. Down 7...sure, you go for it because you don't know if you'll get that close again and you HAVE to score a TD at some point, but down six, and having all three timeouts...you kick.

[greggsand]

Played a few online games with friends last night. All went very smooth. I noticed in the XBL menus there is an option to dload the latest Roster and the latest "tuner" file. I don't recall ever seeing that before. What it is?

[dbdynsty25]

Played a few online games with friends last night. All went very smooth. I noticed in the XBL menus there is an option to dload the latest Roster and the latest "tuner" file. I don't recall ever seeing that before. What it is?

On the fly patching that EA Sports can do without having to go through the entire patch procedure with MS or Sony. Just a way for them to fix things that are easy.

[Brando70]

Down by six the play is a FG.

Yeah, if you're a pu$$y.

I kid, that's a good argument and I was too critical, a lot of teams probably do play it the way the Raider AI did.

I will hand it to EA, they always find new and creative ways to annoy me with Madden, even when I enjoy the game. Some of the presentation decisions, while minor, are still irritating, such as:

--I like that they got rid of the instant injury X-ray cam, but now when guys get hurt, there's no immediate identification of who was hurt. Sometimes you can tell on the replay, but sometimes you can't. I have to stop the game and see who it is.

--I have seen some cool cut scenes after a score, but they got rid of the drive summary. Minor, but why take that out?

--A bigger one is wind information. I tried a couple of games in windy settings, and you can't get info on wind direction when you need it. On the kickoff, the wind arrow doesn't really give you a sense of how the wind is blowing on the field. When deciding to call a kick play, you also can't see the wind info (unless I'm missing it). This has been a long-standing issue.

--There are a welcome amount of stat updates during the game, but nothing at halftime. A quick ESPN News type of graphic summary with the leaders on both teams would be nice.

--The stat pages are just awful. First, the columns are way too wide and they waste so much available screen space. There is no reason you can't fit comp/att/comp%/yards/td/ints on one screen. Then they have the categories for each column separated from the stat by the player banner. I don't mind the banner, it's silly that the column category is above it.

Outside of the wind gripe, none of that affects gameplay, but they are things that make you wonder if EA even pays attention to what they are doing sometimes. It's like the first draft is what gets put in the game.

[JRod]

Not having the accelerated clock for under 2:00 means there are two many plays and you don't feel rushed. It's minor but allows for some two-minutes warnings to get in three scoring possessions by both teams trying to win in a close game.

[dbdynsty25]

Not having the accelerated clock for under 2:00 means there are two many plays and you don't feel rushed. It's minor but allows for some two-minutes warnings to get in three scoring possessions by both teams trying to win in a close game.

This makes no sense. They have to take out the accl clock under 2 so that you don't run down the play clock when you're trying to score. Yeah, it makes for a few more plays, but if you're the one trying to score, you're not gonna knock off 20 seconds during each play anyway. You're gonna get the ball and go.

[JRod]

Not having the accelerated clock for under 2:00 means there are two many plays and you don't feel rushed. It's minor but allows for some two-minutes warnings to get in three scoring possessions by both teams trying to win in a close game.

This makes no sense. They have to take out the accl clock under 2 so that you don't run down the play clock when you're trying to score. Yeah, it makes for a few more plays, but if you're the one trying to score, you're not gonna knock off 20 seconds during each play anyway. You're gonna get the ball and go.

No what it's like is the 2:00 minute warning is really like 3:30 in game time. There's way too much time to score. Unless there's :45 or less do I feel really rushed.

[greggsand]

I don't know how else you would handle the 2:00 drill. I guess they could make some teams or QB's "less organized" than others. So some teams take longer to huddle before you can call a play or something.

[Brando70]

Not having the accelerated clock for under 2:00 means there are two many plays and you don't feel rushed. It's minor but allows for some two-minutes warnings to get in three scoring possessions by both teams trying to win in a close game.

This makes no sense. They have to take out the accl clock under 2 so that you don't run down the play clock when you're trying to score. Yeah, it makes for a few more plays, but if you're the one trying to score, you're not gonna knock off 20 seconds during each play anyway. You're gonna get the ball and go.

The accelerated clock is there to simulate the time it takes to huddle, call plays in, etc., without having to sit there for 15-20 seconds watching some coordinator/substitution cut scenes. This shouldn't magically disappear just because there are fewer than two minutes.

JRod is right -- without the clock, you can take a lot more time to call plays than you would in a real game. If the accelerated clock ran throughout, you would really have to run a hurry up, use the spike clock option, and act like it was a real football game with time running down. As it is you can go from fully huddled playcall to snap in about 8-10 seconds, maybe sooner, and it bypasses the need for your guys to move down the field the way they do with a hurry up call.

Not a big issue by any means, but would be nice to have the option to keep the accelerated clock throughout the game.

[snaz16]

It's the coolest cover they've ever had.

And you know what happens next...

What ? Jason Kipnis get hurt?

[kevinpars]

--I like that they got rid of the instant injury X-ray cam, but now when guys get hurt, there's no immediate identification of who was hurt. Sometimes you can tell on the replay, but sometimes you can't. I have to stop the game and see who it is.

That has been a feature in NCAA for the past few years and I find myself doing the same thing and checking the injuries because the commentator just says someone got hurt but does not give a name or details so you have no idea who got hurt.

[dbdynsty25]

It's the coolest cover they've ever had.

And you know what happens next...

What ? Jason Kipnis get hurt?

Well, now that snaz has mentioned Hillis...he's got two things going against him. Madden cover jinx and the snaz dsp jinx. Hillis is f*cked.

[Zeppo]

After feeling pretty 'blah' after my first game Monday night, I am really starting to enjoy this game a lot a couple days later. One of the smaller presentation things I really like is how the players react immediately after the play, with a lot of emotion and with appopriate reactions. It always used to be that the players would snap into zombie mode right after the play and then you'd get a cut scene to show reactions. Now it really adds to the immersion as well as just the basic enjoyment of the game for me to see those realistic kind of immediate emotional reactions. it's a lot like how now in the last few versions of FIFA the ref giving a yellow card is smoothly part of the regular action, whereas it always used to be a jarring cut scene, or also the immediate reaction to a goal.

Another small thing is that essentially every play is replayed automatically and you can let those run in the background while you are looking for your next play. That's been a very long time coming and it's nice they finally have arrived in the 21st century. But then you have super lame stats layouts, which is trebly frustrating considering how nice and easy NCAA seems to do it. I hate having to jump around to different screens just to see how many offensive plays each team had. With NCAA you can see all the numbers right there on the team stats page. Brando's right, it's almost criminal how much space is wasted on madden's team stat screen.

As to gameplay, I haven't played enough to get alll nitty gritty about it but I have to say I am really enjoying it and haven't seen any recurring thing that makes me say 'wtf?' I will say the superstar mode is highly disappointing after the new and improved road to glory mode in NCAA. I only got through one game with my imported QB, but the camera made it almost unplayable as it was way zoomed out, like it is when you hold the r-trigger to look at the play art. Very hard go tell what is going on. What does make it completely unplayable is that the obnoxious and way too loud in the mix 'coordinator audio' cannot be turned off in superstar mode. Frankly that is pretty much a deal breaker for me. So incredibly annoying!

Also I can't seem to play online. It kicks me from the EA servers every time I try and the old clock reset trick we learned from FIFAs and NHLs past didn't seem to work. It kicks me from EA servers randomly in offline modes as well but never has a problem signing me in to EA servers when I try to go to online menus. Frustrating, because even though playing v CPU does seem to be holding my attention quite a bit more with this version, I desperately need to play some real games against human beings.

[Lancer]

Man EA is so cheap.

So you know about MUT, where you play with your team to earn points so you can buy packs of cards.

Well this year, you can also earn points playing online games.

So I've played about 4 online games today, and after each game, you get a rundown of points you've earned. what did EA add this year, a thing called 'GAMES COMPLETED PENALTY'. The game penalizes you for NOT QUITTING AND COMPLETING GAMES! I googled this and what it is is say I have played 4 online games, and my opponent has played 60. It takes the difference and Penalizes me the difference. So say I earn 200 points in my online game, I'll get 56 subtracted. that is total bs.

I've read some forums on it and the basic reason for this is that EA wants you to buy those points thru them with real $$$ than earn them in the game. pretty low imo.

That's really the only complaint I have about this game right now.

One thing I have to add is the faces of the players look fantastic this year. I love how when the play ends, and they zoom in on the players face thru the face mask cover, it just adds to the realism.

[fletcher21]

This game is pretty fun. It doesn't nail the sport in the same was as the Show 11, but it's all we have right now and I like it. The announcer is hilarious. I played a game as the Eagles, and after a Desean Jackson kick return, Chris commented about how he likes guys like that who go about their business without dancing or celebrating. Kind of funny since Jackson is maybe the most prone to celebrate on the field these days.

Brando you had me DYING over here with that Mr. Black reference hahah. I wonder if Gus Johnson is embarrassed, or if he only really cares about the $$$$ from EA. I know the problem is EA and not Gus, but it's embarrassing.





I assumed the default was all pro, so my first game was Vikings vs Bears. AP ran for 356 yards and 6 tds on something like 24 carries lol. Even on all pro, I can still get a run game going. Weird, since I've never been able to run in any previous Madden game.

[fletcher21]

Are there any known money plays this year? I heard there are some that were also in NCAA, but have never played NCAA. I may try to play online once the servers are running efficiently, but it seems like a bunch of bums who will cheese all game long and never punt or kick a field goal. Not my cup of tea.

[Brando70]

I assumed the default was all pro, so my first game was Vikings vs Bears. AP ran for 356 yards and 6 tds on something like 24 carries lol. Even on all pro, I can still get a run game going. Weird, since I've never been able to run in any previous Madden game.

Fletch, I think default is Pro.

Played another game tonight and also tried one of the Madden Moments (Bucs vs. Cards). I honestly think I'm sold as far as the game on the field goes. So far with no tweaking on All-Pro, I'm pretty happy with the results. I could see bumping up some of the CPU attributes for running and even pass accuracy, but for now I'm finding it a good challenge because I'm not very strong on offense.

Another thing I really like is that quite a lot of the offensive plays have the potential to work. There have been so many plays in Madden over the years I've ignored, like draws or running out of shotgun sets, that seem to work at the appropriate times. I broke a huge play on a WR screen and have had a couple of nice runs out of the gun. I feel like I can do a lot more on offense instead of falling into the pattern of ruling out half of my playbook.

[backbreaker]

After 3 days with this game, its going back to game stop. I used the holy grail sliders and it still just doesn't click with me. The Madden series for this generation, reminds me oh so much of Gameday coming from PS1 where it dominated and subsequently fell apart on the PS2. Madden dominated on the PS2 and has fell apart on the PS360. I just can't do mediocrity, the new car smell wore off very fast for me. Its just a very stale game too me, coma inducing stale.

[Danimal]

Welcome back

[JRod]

I assumed the default was all pro, so my first game was Vikings vs Bears. AP ran for 356 yards and 6 tds on something like 24 carries lol. Even on all pro, I can still get a run game going. Weird, since I've never been able to run in any previous Madden game.

Fletch, I think default is Pro.

Played another game tonight and also tried one of the Madden Moments (Bucs vs. Cards). I honestly think I'm sold as far as the game on the field goes. So far with no tweaking on All-Pro, I'm pretty happy with the results. I could see bumping up some of the CPU attributes for running and even pass accuracy, but for now I'm finding it a good challenge because I'm not very strong on offense.

Another thing I really like is that quite a lot of the offensive plays have the potential to work. There have been so many plays in Madden over the years I've ignored, like draws or running out of shotgun sets, that seem to work at the appropriate times. I broke a huge play on a WR screen and have had a couple of nice runs out of the gun. I feel like I can do a lot more on offense instead of falling into the pattern of ruling out half of my playbook.

I feel the same way. Screens are a little wonky at times. I still think lineman choose not to block people right in front of them.

Overall though more plays seem to work. There are still some running plays that don't — the one cutback one is pretty much dead each time.

[MizzouRah]

I'm still on AP defaults, 12 minute quarters.. damn does it take a LONG time to play a game. Really need a save game feature!!!

Beat the Titans 23-20 as Jackson had 176 yards at halftime.. broke an 88 yard TD where a LB couldn't bring him down and he scampered down the sidelines for 6.

I'm getting better at passing.. and it was odd to see the Titans pass and hardly use Chris Johnson.. it was preseason, maybe they were seeing what Hasselbeck has left. LOL

The halftime and end of game stuff sucks.. one thing I dearly miss from 2k5. Scoring a TD is great though and seeing the FG kicker warm up when the game is close and late in the game is a nice touch.

Game feels like they added a ton of stuff, but yet didn't finish certain things.

Not sure it's going to get a ton of playing time after the NCAA patch and NHL 12 drops though.. time will tell.

[snaz16]

Got my 1st game in on all-pro..Browns(me) v. the Rams with 10 min Q. Snuck out a 10-3 win. Glad I got Hillis 115 tough yds on 22 carries before the Db jinx sets in. I'm going to resist turning down the int slider after just 1 game. Picked off Bradford 4 times,(Haden had 3 alone),and I threw 2 (deserved..I suck at passing)and I took 7 sacks. The Browns left side of the line is supposed to be good,so it could be me,but I got hammered pretty quick on 4 or 5 of the sacks. Sure would like to see a more dynamic punt and kick off return game,as this plays a big part of what we see on Sundays. I gotta agree with most that this is the best game Madden has had out in awhile.

[snaz16]

Got my 1st game in on all-pro..Browns(me) v. the Rams with 10 min Q. Snuck out a 10-3 win. Glad I got Hillis 115 tough yds on 22 carries before the Db jinx sets in. I'm going to resist turning down the int slider after just 1 game. Picked off Bradford 4 times,(Haden had 3 alone),and I threw 2 (deserved..I suck at passing)and I took 7 sacks. The Browns left side of the line is supposed to be good,so it could be me,but I got hammered pretty quick on 4 or 5 of the sacks. Sure would like to see a more dynamic punt and kick off return game,as this plays a big part of what we see on Sundays. I gotta agree with most that this is the best game Madden has had out in awhile. Damn double post