Madden NFL 12

[HipE]

I played one more game of Madden last night on All Pro default sliders, this time beating the Eagles 41-7. I had three bombs for TDs in the first half, all beating Asante Samuel, and all traveling 65 yards in the air. I don't think I ever completed one pass like this in NCAA 12 as almost every time I tried, the trailing DB would make a jumping over the shoulder interception due to the low ball trajectory. As you can see by the moon balls in these videos, that isn't a problem in Madden 12, at least with a good QB:

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/91351082

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/91351302

http://www.easports.com/media/play/video/91351476

I think rather than screw with sliders now that I'll just start a franchise with a weak team. Based on NCAA 12 I know I'm not a great football gamer, and since many of you are struggling on All Pro I'm just going to assume that the Steelers are overpowered in the game. I know now that if you build a great team you can beat anybody on All Pro (I've outscored the Ravens, Pats and Eagles 101-20 in the three games I've played), so hopefully that will keep me from getting frustrated if I struggle.

[Brando70]

If you like to run, try the Chiefs. Zeppo put up 250 yards on me last night with Jamal Charles --first play of the game was a 78-yard TD! I contained him fairly well between the tackles, but if he got outside he was really hard to stop and busted four long runs on me.

[Zeppo]

I played one more game of Madden last night on All Pro default sliders, this time beating the Eagles 41-7. I had three bombs for TDs in the first half, all beating Asante Samuel, and all traveling 65 yards in the air. I don't think I ever completed one pass like this in NCAA 12 as almost every time I tried, the trailing DB would make a jumping over the shoulder interception due to the low ball trajectory. As you can see by the moon balls in these videos, that isn't a problem in Madden 12, at least with a good QB:

I have completed tons of deep balls over the top in NCAA 12, but pretty much to really speedy, 93+ speed type guys. A really light tap, and pretty quickly even if the QB has a 99 throw power and I get that nice loft over the top. The receiver has to be behind the db though, or else it can be bad news.

As to Jamal Charles, I can see how someone might say the running game is broken after playing with that guy. He is insanely fast so that if you get a little bit of space, you can run away from everyone. Lots of fun to play with.

I think the faces and the expressions especially, combined with the excellent camera angles right after plays and as the offense walks up are huge improvements to the atmosphere and that 'presentation' we've all been biching about for ever. And the graphics impress me more and more the more I play.

Plus the game is just damn fun, full stop. There may be lots of issues and problems but I don't care what comes up (unless it's a game breaker like the old 'run/pass tell' from way back when), because it's just fun as hell. Playing against a human is awesomeness.

I discovered the issue causing my EA server disconnects: the game has a very hard time finding its save data on my crowded large HDD, so it tries to find the online rosters, can't and times out. So I copied the online roster file to a memory card and as long as I point it in the right direction by selecting that memory device in the load function, then voila, no more getting booted from EA servers when trying to connect to an online game. Hopefully they patch that issue because it's clearly also the cause to the really long hiccups all over the menu system, such as when looking at game options before an offline game.

[10spro]

If you like to run, try the Chiefs. Zeppo put up 250 yards on me last night with Jamal Charles --first play of the game was a 78-yard TD! I contained him fairly well between the tackles, but if he got outside he was really hard to stop and busted four long runs on me.

Considering that the Hawks struggled somehow with their ground game last season, I've been putting surprisingly good numbers with Lynch on my franchise so far.

[HipE]

I discovered the issue causing my EA server disconnects: the game has a very hard time finding its save data on my crowded large HDD, so it tries to find the online rosters, can't and times out. So I copied the online roster file to a memory card and as long as I point it in the right direction by selecting that memory device in the load function, then voila, no more getting booted from EA servers when trying to connect to an online game. Hopefully they patch that issue because it's clearly also the cause to the really long hiccups all over the menu system, such as when looking at game options before an offline game.

I had an issue last night with what I thought was my game freezing. I have the game installed to my 20gb hard drive, and when I loaded it and got to the start menu and pressed start, it froze for a couple of minutes before loading to the next menu. Then after I picked Play Now and selected my teams, it again seemed to freeze as it was stuck on the loading screen for about two minutes before the pregame stuff started. Would changing my game saves so my built in flash memory (I have the 360 arcade model) get rid of those pauses?

[TheTruth]

I discovered the issue causing my EA server disconnects: the game has a very hard time finding its save data on my crowded large HDD, so it tries to find the online rosters, can't and times out. So I copied the online roster file to a memory card and as long as I point it in the right direction by selecting that memory device in the load function, then voila, no more getting booted from EA servers when trying to connect to an online game. Hopefully they patch that issue because it's clearly also the cause to the really long hiccups all over the menu system, such as when looking at game options before an offline game.

I had an issue last night with what I thought was my game freezing. I have the game installed to my 20gb hard drive, and when I loaded it and got to the start menu and pressed start, it froze for a couple of minutes before loading to the next menu. Then after I picked Play Now and selected my teams, it again seemed to freeze as it was stuck on the loading screen for about two minutes before the pregame stuff started.

Same here...I had the pre-release version and the only pauses I noticed on it were the game options Zepp mentioned above. The retail version seems even worse...go figure.

[Danimal]

So do people think it is worth trying to do an online franchise? Will the cpu on all pro be a challenge enough? They made no changes to OF that i can see, but there is that League manager site that could help.

Just curious what people think before I commit to it.

[MizzouRah]

One thing that bugs the heck out of me is the franchise menu.. why when I'm on a screen and I want to back out just one screen it takes me back to the sim or play game screen?

[Brando70]

So do people think it is worth trying to do an online franchise? Will the cpu on all pro be a challenge enough? They made no changes to OF that i can see, but there is that League manager site that could help.

Just curious what people think before I commit to it.

I would be up for it if we could consolidate the human teams in order to minimize CPU teams. Maybe cap the league at 16 owners and restrict it to one conference.

[vader29]

I'd be up for a league. All pro has been challenging for me, I'm 1-4 versus the cpu exclusively using the Steelers, even got blown out at Buffalo.

[TCrouch]

One thing that bugs the heck out of me is the franchise menu.. why when I'm on a screen and I want to back out just one screen it takes me back to the sim or play game screen?

Not sure what you mean here. At first I thought you meant the main "Y" menu, but then the sim/play game screen isn't there, so I have no idea. What screen are you talking about? I haven't had any issues with navigation in it that I've really noticed.

[Danimal]

I have the same issue.

I'm at the franchise screen and it show my next game. I hit menu go into some choice and then want to back up one level and it puts me back on the main screen and I have to hit Y again.

Pain in the ass

[MizzouRah]

I have the same issue.

I'm at the franchise screen and it show my next game. I hit menu go into some choice and then want to back up one level and it puts me back on the main screen and I have to hit Y again.

Pain in the ass

THIS..

[XXXIV]

So do people think it is worth trying to do an online franchise? Will the cpu on all pro be a challenge enough? They made no changes to OF that i can see, but there is that League manager site that could help.

Just curious what people think before I commit to it.

I would be up for it if we could consolidate the human teams in order to minimize CPU teams. Maybe cap the league at 16 owners and restrict it to one conference.

I want to play in a league but sadly something has come up that will make me unavailable for the next three or so weeks. After that I am 100% in. Keep a spot warm if it kicks off before then.

[greggsand]

Is this a different camera than last year's default cam? It all feels slightly further back than I recall last year (might be my imagination).

[dbdynsty25]

Is this a different camera than last year's default cam? It all feels slightly further back than I recall last year (might be my imagination).

If you're using Gameflow...the camera is further back. If you use normal 3 box play calling, it's like you remember. At least that's how I see it.

[Aristo]

One thing that bugs the heck out of me is the franchise menu.. why when I'm on a screen and I want to back out just one screen it takes me back to the sim or play game screen?

Pretty much all of the menus act like this, and it i annoying as heck. There is no backing out one level. And I swear EA Sports have the slowest and laggiest menus around. I think they are seriously sending info back to the mothership for every button press. I wish I could sen them a message with it telling them that six button presses, separated by waits in-between, is ridiculous to just get to the Play Now screen. I have no idea why I have to tell it that I am saving to the hard drive every time. And on several menus, I have to tell it I really want to do that twice.

I do like that they seem to be piling up most of their poor design decisions into the menus instead of the gameplay, though.

[Zeppo]

Would changing my game saves so my built in flash memory (I have the 360 arcade model) get rid of those pauses?

Most likely. I'm hoping they patch this issue but if a patch comes down and it's not resolved, then I guess I'll move all my saves to a memory card.

As to an online franchise, I would love to but I just don't know how easy my upcoming schedule would make it for me to schedule human games. I'd like to be provisionally 'in' but I'll have to think about it.

[greggsand]

I like the game (much like I liked last year), but after this year's MLB2k and (especially) NBA2k, madden seems to be lacking a lot of polish (or something like that). The online franchise is def my fav.

[MizzouRah]

Pretty much all of the menus act like this, and it i annoying as heck. There is no backing out one level. And I swear EA Sports have the slowest and laggiest menus around. I think they are seriously sending info back to the mothership for every button press. I wish I could sen them a message with it telling them that six button presses, separated by waits in-between, is ridiculous to just get to the Play Now screen. I have no idea why I have to tell it that I am saving to the hard drive every time. And on several menus, I have to tell it I really want to do that twice.

I do like that they seem to be piling up most of their poor design decisions into the menus instead of the gameplay, though.

I agree.. sometimes I wonder if the people who make these games, actually play them?

[matthewk]

Glad to hear the menu lag isn't just a PS3 thing. You'd think that this many years into the current generation of hardware they would be able to eliminate it.

[Lancer]

I haven't started franchise but the PLAY NOW menu lag is crazy. It happens to me when trying to move the controller team select back and forth when picking teams. Glad it just isn't me experiencing this.

[JRod]

Pretty much all of the menus act like this, and it i annoying as heck. There is no backing out one level. And I swear EA Sports have the slowest and laggiest menus around. I think they are seriously sending info back to the mothership for every button press. I wish I could sen them a message with it telling them that six button presses, separated by waits in-between, is ridiculous to just get to the Play Now screen. I have no idea why I have to tell it that I am saving to the hard drive every time. And on several menus, I have to tell it I really want to do that twice.

I do like that they seem to be piling up most of their poor design decisions into the menus instead of the gameplay, though.

I agree.. sometimes I wonder if the people who make these games, actually play them?

I wonder if the UI teams are not part of the gameplay teams.

[MizzouRah]

If you could change the accelerated clock to 15 seconds, I believe 15 minute quarters would work just fine.

Wonder why you can't change that in franchise mode?

[Badgun]

I discovered the issue causing my EA server disconnects: the game has a very hard time finding its save data on my crowded large HDD, so it tries to find the online rosters, can't and times out. So I copied the online roster file to a memory card and as long as I point it in the right direction by selecting that memory device in the load function, then voila, no more getting booted from EA servers when trying to connect to an online game. Hopefully they patch that issue because it's clearly also the cause to the really long hiccups all over the menu system, such as when looking at game options before an offline game.

I had an issue last night with what I thought was my game freezing. I have the game installed to my 20gb hard drive, and when I loaded it and got to the start menu and pressed start, it froze for a couple of minutes before loading to the next menu. Then after I picked Play Now and selected my teams, it again seemed to freeze as it was stuck on the loading screen for about two minutes before the pregame stuff started. Would changing my game saves so my built in flash memory (I have the 360 arcade model) get rid of those pauses?

I actually have the same problems that both you and Zeppo have. I have a 250 gig hard drive with only 62 gb free. Unfortunately for me, I don't have a memory card so I guess I am screwed unless EA patches this problem. As for the game itself, I love it, but all the pauses and long waits are wearing on me. I wonder if I could use a non microsoft flash drive just for my rosters?