I've bought so many of the Madden games at this point I want a competitor. I've gotten more playtime out of NFL 2k3 than Madden 08 and 09 combined. Madden retired and so am I......from the game that is. You still have to listen to me, unlike John.

I'm with you on that sentiment. I've hated EA because of what they did with monopolizing the NFL license and their relative lack of improvements year to year. They should allow other developers to create and work hard to make sure they offer the best NFL title. Competition drives progress and innovation and without EA can pretty much do what they want while the fans will continue to buy.

On the other hand, I purchased NBA 2k9 (PC) and a 360 controller and I love it. Best basketball game I've ever played.

I really like that they're putting in so much effort to get the movements, timing, animations, etc. correct for every player and every position. Also, they going back to a more minimal interface and control scheme and have pretty much mirrored the interface to resemble a real NFL game. Impressive all around!

I'm just hoping for fewer coverage/passing issues than last year

EDIT: Please update Drupal to fix the Youtube URL tag bug. Had to re-upload the vid multiple times until I got a URL that didn't have an underscore or hyphen.

that was my main complaint. I figured part of it was that we were used to APFB. But the passes were so quick, there was no taking control of D-backs to make plays. In APFB, you could take over the d-back, and make a play on the ball 90% of the time. In Madden, I was just waiting for a LB or DB shoot 12 feet into the air and snag an INT. I never felt like I was playing defense, but watching it play out.

I'm really hoping for a good game out of Madden this year, as I would really like to play some NFL ball. But I'm not going to if the gameplay is still woefully behind APFB. I want to have fun more than I want to play with current rosters.

I only buy Madden as a collector item that sits on the shelf now. I've played maybe 10 games in the last 2 years. Especially since a room mate and I played 10 seasons of franchise at one point. How I miss the good ole days. It just seems the game has regressed in quality and game play. Not to mention everything is a pain the ass to do from play calling, to audibling, to lining up players. It has become way to complicated. I also think there is no consistency on defense anymore. Players just always seem to be out of position. Anyways, maybe they will finally get another good product out that is worth playing.

You maybe right about regressing being the wrong word, but gameplay just doesn't seem as smooth to me. I know they have added a bunch of stuff, but why do I need to control the blocking while actually running the ball. Granted I just switched from PS2 to XBOX 360 and I found it very hard to switch defensive players and make a tackle. Not to mention I always seem to be running in straight lines only to miss the ball carrier. I know I haven't quite mastered the XBOX controller, but the buttons just seem to be in the wrong place for all practical purposes. It just seemed so convoluted, and not "user" friendly so to speak.

Yeah, that one's in the "pointless new feature that we added instead of spending more time on core gameplay" box.

Or worse, he's exactly where he's supposed to be, and doesn't react properly. Kind of like the passing video I posted above. Linebacker's right there in the zone, and simply ignores the ball until it is actually flying past him.

Older games dealt with the lack of advanced AI by being very mechanical. I mean, you can go back to Tecmo Bowl for the ancient example of this, and the games that came later gradually improved on that, but if you look closely, you can still see the highly scripted and mechanical movement. Games have gotten a lot more "free-flowing" with player movement, and AI has struggled to keep up with the less restricted and predictable way that players move through the field of play.

It was easier for AI to react to pass patterns when they were run exactly the same way every time. In fact, there was a bug in NFL2K5 where you could get easy sacks by calling a stunt, and then taking control of one of the stunting linemen and not actually run the stunt, but rather rush straight forward. The blocking actually reacted to the other team's play call, not the actual movement of the player they were to block! Old football games are full of these behind-the-scenes "tricks" to simulate AI. The more they get away from these tricks, the more demand is put on real AI, and Madden's AI has not been able to keep up.

There needs to be a lot less time spent on manually controlling fullbacks and a lot more on AI. The graphics are awesome, the presentation is all there. Get the AI caught up.

This is an interesting conundrum. We want the AI of different players to react differently. Lets say the LB in question as a low def awareness rating. While it obviously looks terrible, the game did do a good job of mimicking the result that would be likely if the LB had his eyes somewhere else. I don't want every player to make the obvious play, becasue on Sundays, that obviously doesn't happen. I have enough suspension of belief that I can ju8st live iwht a guy not making the play, even if it means a DB running in circles, or a LB sitting in place.

But it does get frustrating. I had a ply just like the clip you showed, but the QB was off the mark and drilled the LB in the facemask, and the ball bounced to ground without him ever making a move. But I still chalk that up to just bad animations and presentation, not poor AI.

What we would have to determine is if there is a difference in players with different ratings and how they play. If we were playing an old school football game that was just X's and O's on the screen, these breakdowns would be acceptable. But seeing how they play out in animations is harder to swallow. Kind of a take on the uncanny valley.

But we have to expect a system in which lesser players play poorly, and not get mad if the receiver runs the wrong route, the DB covers the wrong man, or a LB fails to make a tackle. The math added up to a failure on the player, but the animation makes it look like the game is just messed up.

I understand what you're saying about the discrepancy between AI/simulation behavior, and how something is presented in animation. This was a big one in 2K5's passing game. Rarely did defenders in tight coverage actually get their hands on passes - rather, what appeared to happen is the receiver dropping the pass. You essentially had to suspend disbelief and think of such drops as a defender succeeding in tight coverage.

If the play that I videoed was a once-off, I could buy that argument as the root cause of the behavior in Madden. But it wasn't - I pulled out my camera phone and taped it as an example of behavior I was repeatedly observing. (Not necessarily every time or always to the same degree, but repeatable beyond just freak occurrence).

I'm not sure how much I could buy the potential "Awareness rating" argument in this specific case. It's not even a play-action pass, so it's not like there's run action to confuse him. He drops in the zone, and the only things he could possibly have to look at are either the QB, or the receiver that's now running into his zone. He manages to completely ignore both. That's not having low Awareness. That would be complete loss of brain function.

(Though certainly, in other cases, Awareness no doubt provides some fuzziness to behavior that isn't transparent to us. That's why the only things that we can really put much stock into are repeatable tests).

I also think so much has been put into the animations in Madden that we've gotten beyond the point where a linebacker standing completely frozen and failing to react to a ball whizzing by his head can be argued away as simple animation failing.

There's a lot of "failures" that would make sense in the video above. We're talking a play that should be a sure-fire interception. Failures I can imagine are not getting sufficiently deep in the coverage drop, or drifting too much to one side or another and getting out of position. Or turning to react to the receiver entering his zone and not seeing the ball get released. Or swinging at the ball and missing, or getting hands on the ball but dropping the interception. I don't think dropping into the zone and then ignoring both the ball and the receiver is a valid, or even an intended, play "failure". I think it's purely an AI hole.

But again, the point isn't to highlight one play and ask, "how could this have happened?". The point is that this one play is an example of repeated breakdowns in coverage, particularly against certain routes. In Madden 09, the CPU simply did not know how to deal with slant patterns, at all. The tests I mentioned in my Madden 09 passing thread were all repeatable, and repeat I did, over and over and over.

Hah. I found a reason not to buy it already.

Check out this video:

http://xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/14270629/madden-nfl-2010/videos/madden10_trl_eaglescowboys552709.html

Especially at the 1.39 mark and what the blitzing CB is doing. Or rather, not doing.

I think that CB blew by him because he was user controlled which is why he had the red circle underneath. Looks to be a slight improvement, but at least from the video it seems to be 09 but shinier. I do like the immersion details - good for franchise mode.

Do you not watch and go to sporting events?

Really? How? Exactly how is a NFL game, a game trying to replicate the real-life NFL gameday experience supposed to not have in-game advertising? And I mean that honestly. It's been "taking a look at the Old Spice Redzone report now, after the Coors Light Chill commercial break, here from LucasOil Field in Indianapolis, and may we remind you today's game is sponsored by PepBoys" for as long as I can possibly remember.