Madden 09 Demo Released, Impressions Here

[Mikocop]

Quote: Originally Posted by MaxMan1000

This is weird... don't know if this has happened to anyone else... but I'm driving down field. I complete a pass with Eli Manning. But on the next play, David Carr is at QB. So I call a timeout and go to the replay (I hate that I can't still get replays from the pause menu, because doing in the PIP can lose you a few critical seconds or two in a tight game...). Manning is never hit and isn't injured. I have no idea how/why Carr got into the game. Strange stuff.

If you push down on the right stick when accessing the replay...I think it goes into the regular replay mode.

[MaxMan1000]

Quote: Originally Posted by countryboy

On PS3 you get the ability to view a replay. Thats weird.

Yeah, that is weird. Hmmmmm...

Hopefully it's in the 360 retail version. Won't be a game killer if it's not, but I'm a big replay guy. I can already see myself winding up blowing a game with 2 seconds left trying to cycle over to click the replay in PIP, lol.

[MaxMan1000]

Quote: Originally Posted by NYjetsdynasty

Did you do a formation sub for Carr. I did it for Shock for a couple of formations to get Doss in and Shock on the other side. When I failed and restarted Doss was still in that formation.

It's possible that I may have done something unknowingly to sub in Carr. But it seemed funny because I had a normal play, completed the pass, called the first play I saw, and then boom... Hello David Carr.

[GQman2121]

Quote: Originally Posted by MaxMan1000

Yeah, that is weird. Hmmmmm... Hopefully it's in the 360 retail version. Won't be a game killer if it's not, but I'm a big replay guy. I can already see myself winding up blowing a game with 2 seconds left trying to cycle over to click the replay in PIP, lol.

You have to wait until the play is dead and you're back in the huddle to view a replay from the pause screen.

I sure wish I could press R1 - L1 to go right into the replay like last gen when a play is over...........so sad.

[MaxMan1000]

^^^ You can't on the 360 demo. The pause menu doesn't have a replay card to select. All you get is:

Resume game

Call timeout

Settings

Quit game

Kinda weird, but I'm sure they had a good reason for not adding it in the demo.

[LAKE4742]

OMG!!!! As far as graphics go, the proof is in the replay. I have NEVER seen ANY characters with such real lookin' veins like in this demo. The helmets, varied player models, skin texture, facial animations, lighting, and razor sharpness of it all is incredible!!!! Best lookin' football game ever, period!

[mrsinister11]

here's a bunch of impressions i have of the demo as well as some news about the game that i've heard. i'm just posting them maybe to get some reactions/convos going.

1) i don't understand why so many people are complaining about what you can do in this demo, i really don't, the whole point of the demo is to give you a very basic feel of what the game actuallly looks/plays like, your not supposed to be able to do a fantasy draft, play online, pick any team you want and play two players, i mean come on. you want to know what defense is like? play any madden for the last 5 years or ncaa this year, any changes will be subtle at best. i was very happy with what you could do. you could essentially run any play you wanted in a whole playbook (possibly, if we are lucky these aren't the exact playbooks that will be in full version) as many times as you wanted over and over.


2) i honestly for the life of me cannot comprehend anybody on here thinking this iq thing is a good idea at all. i think this is one of the worst gimmicky madden ideas to come along in a while. take that back, i think it is a decent idea for a bunch of casual gamers who have no idea what a slider is who usually play on rookie all season and beat the computer 86 - 10 on a regular basis. but for most of the people on here that i think are somewhat like me and want at least a little bit of a sim experience, this is trash.

even if ea sports somehow stumbled upon the greatest artificial intelligence ever in the history of video games and actually could give me a game that plays perfectly to my level, who the hell says i want that? who the hell says i don't want to be the dolphins and after giving up 250 rushing yard in week one against the bills and losing 36 - 3 that in week two i DON'T want the game automatically getting easier for me, but i want to struggle through the better part of a season and eventually get better through experience that season, and drafting/ personell moves in later seasons.

now i understand this can be turned off, but at what price? less control for me, somehow almost 10 years after sliders first came out and i thought they were the greatest thing (though obviously flawed) and i could only look forward to the future of madden games and think about all the customization i would have in the future, nearly a decade later there is somehow LESS CUSTOMIZATION. are you kidding me? i know t he slider thing and the lack of customization thing has been harped on over and over on these message boards so i will stop that right here, but back to this madden iq, personalize a.i. travesty:

all that i said so far was talking about how bad i think this system is even if somehow they did it right,but do they do it right? umm... let's see, how does running against two defenders and simply having to press the corresponding face button as it appears on screen have anything to do with while i am in the middle of week 4 facing a third and 2 late in the game? excuse me? this is a better representation of how you would do in a game of britney's dance beat than it has anything to do with how good i am actually at running the ball. so i press these buttons at the appropriate time and all it gets me is worse offensive lineman, less running back ability and a computer that pretty much knows every time i call a running play and stacks the box on me. that is adaptive a.i.?

or how about if i do real good on the passing portion of the madden i.q. ok so let's say i get all-madden on that part, does that mean that the computer will get better at maybe double teaming my go to reciever? maybe cutting off my underneath routes if i've already burned them that way a couple times, maybe doing a good job of disguising whether they are in a man to man or a zone confusing me and forcing me into poor decisions? umm... no. how about this. how about it turns my recievers into stonehands, how about a wide open jeremy shockey drops the ball half the time because i have a high madden i.q. or how about it just makes there defenders jump ten yards into the air to pick off passes that would get through if i had a lower madden i.q. ummm, no thank you.

the reason i bring this up is because i am shocked anybody has thought this is a good idea, i can't believe how many people i am seeing on here thinking this is decent idea, actually talking over and over about what there score is, what they've done in the demo on the madden i.q. who gives a crap? i'm not trying to be mean here, i just truly was schocked at how much of that i read.

but the real reason is concerns me is because imaginea how much time it took them to implement that, and then imagine if they would just scrap that b.s. and work on stuff that actually concerned the gameplay. how about using that time to give us better presentation, how about taking that time to give us pregame shows, the espn licence, how about more emotion from the players, how about working on more animations (could more animations actually hurt?) how about working on the sidelines, how about using that time to make a computer that actually gets SMARTER not just gets a ratings boost.


i got a lot more points but this post is long enough, so ill continue it in a seperate, oh, and please don't get on me too bad, there's lots i like about the demo but it's coming later, i just want to get some convos started. thanks.

[mrsinister11]

3. a couple of things that really stuck out to me that i surprisingly haven't really heard talked about on here to much:

A) one of the few awesome things about ncaa this year is if you throw a sideline route(which i do a lot of) almost every single time whether you are controlling the reciever or not if the reciever is near out of bounds it will go into an animation where he drags his feet, or at least makes an effort to stay in bounds, but not in madden.

i'm not sure i've even seen one of these animations in the demo one time, rather every time i throw a sideline out (which you might want to do pretty regularily with a minute to go and only one timeout in the super bowl needing a touchdown) it goes into some generic animation and half the time the catch will be made out of bounds, when it would have been an easy reception in ncaa. now i'm not going to get all upset over losing a game in the demo because of this, but if this is something that isn't fixed in the retail version (which i highly doubt it will be) this is a huge deal to me, a huge deal that i see nobody bringing up. i wouldn't say game killer exactly but it bothers me as much as robo qb does and i see that on here all the time.

i mean this essentialy negates a huge strategical chunk of playcalling, and what makes it all the more frustrating IS THAT ITS NOT ONLY IN NCAA BUT DONE BEAUTIFULLY IN NCAA. say you throw i don't know 12 sideline outs in a game, let's just say half of them will be incomplete for whatever reason (dropped, errant throw, intercepted, batted down, what have you) that still leaves 6 plays during the course of the game that you just essentialy don't have in madden due to a stupid oversight, i mean these are important plays for picking up key mid range first downs, stopping the clock, pretty important things.

nobody else has noticed this?? if you haven't i urge you to try the demo again you will see what i'm talking about, i spent about an hour just throwing them, after i started to notice my guys jumping out of bounds due to some stupid animation for no reason.