| 16 August 2011
In the past, the Madden demo was just a quarter or a couple minutes. This year, the demo was a full game with 5-minute quarters. While the demo was very enjoyable, having more time to play the game was essential in understanding what EA Sports did to this year's version.
I'll talk about a few things that caught my attention as I played the demo.
Running: My bread and butter in Madden is the running game, and I can tell it is going to be a real strong point this year. The right analog stick skills, implemented into this game, will allow for some great innovation. We'll see what happens when players get into practice mode and try out some open-field running skills.
Passing: I am terrible at passing and will probably continue to be. The game's pace has picked up, so initial and secondary reads will be even more important. For one game, I decided to do nothing but passing and try to improve. It's all about precision and understanding the defensive setups. The Packers playbook is really good in providing different options for those trying to get better in passing. It also helps that Aaron Rodgers is quarterback.
Kickoffs: I have yet to have a kickoff returned. No, not for a touchdown, but just returned out of the endzone! And this is something we're going to see in real life. There's going to be a lot more touchbacks. This is not EA Sports' fault, but the NFL competition committee, who moved up the kickoff line. It was done for safety reasons in the real game, but for Madden, it creates no excitement.
Other special teams: I'm not sure if EA Sports got heat for its kicking game the past few years, but they changed it again, and now it's much easier to go high powered on kicks. I do not like the view of field goal kicks, and when a kick is blocked, the camera does not pan back to normal view.
Dynamic Player Performance: I thought this feature might not provide much, but it turns out it does. In one session, I intentionally ran only one Packers play on defense (Nickel 2-4-5 Sugar 3 Seam) just to see how the Bears' AI would react as the game progressed. It had no clue in the beginning (the Cutler effect? ha ha), and then it started to figure it out with short passes. It won't take a big play to get back in the game. You'll need to make a slow progression back to the median and then go over.
Aesthetics: I actually watched the player introductions. It gives a really good feel to what you're about to witness. In the past, I'd press "A" a billion times just to get to the coin toss. I do not like the late-game shadows. The ball disappears on a pass. I can only imagine what it would be in the old stadiums, where shadows really dominate in fourth quarters. The players also look like the players (wow, concept) instead of the same six molds. Great work by EA Sports to make that change.
