Nurture Your Wealth

  You might be wondering where I’ve gone to the past month and words cannot express the enjoyment I have been having that football season in the United States has started again. The big three that have been keeping me away from NYW are: Madden 11 for PS3 (same as Madden 11 for XBOX and Madden 11 for Wii), followed by Fantasy football, and lastly by the watching the actual games. Aside from going to work and school full time football still has an enormous part in my life when the season hits .
  What’s so good and what’s bad with the new NFL Madden 11? See Below

“Madden NFL 11 redefines the way you experience the game of football. Simpler: from 350 plays down to 1, the all-new GameFlow system puts you in the helmet of an NFL quarterback, to execute an authentic, situational game plan, one play at a time. Quicker: with 60-minute game times reduced to 30, spend more time on the field and less in the playbook. Same drama, half the time. Deeper: Madden NFL 11 is feature-rich, with improved animations and control options, enhanced online functionality, and new broadcast and audio presentation that delivers the NFL experience fans have come to expect.” by Madden 11 Official Website The Official Madden site even offers new and old users alike some edgy Madden 11 tips and tricks for their new release – check them out here.

  ”This review was created a few hours after I got Madden 11 for the sake of getting crucial info out to consumers as quickly as possible. It will be edited and maintained as the game changes and more information becomes clear as I increase my familiarity with the product.

****ORIGINAL REVIEW BEGINS HERE: As a professional software tester and avid (read: hardcore) Madden gamer, I feel that there are some things that Amazon customers should be aware of before making the purchase. This will focus only on gameplay (especially as pertains to online), not commentary or other add-ons that can enhance or take away from the experience.

This edition of Madden is great for new players, but it will leave the old-timers like myself somewhat confused and angry that our old controls are gone. The new Gameflow playcalling is utterly useless to experienced Madden players (it is optional, thankfully), but casual gamers will find the game immediately more accessible.

The biggest difference is the Strategy Pad. Hot routes, audibles, defensive assignments, etc are now accessed through a top level menu by hitting the cross pad. This is a huge problem for hardcore Maddenites because it means that we have to press more buttons to do the same amount of adjustments that we did in Madden 10. More time spent adjusting means less ability for preplay setup, and those precious fractions of a second mean the difference between running a complicated scheme and a vanilla defense.

The good news is that the old controls are being patched in, hopefully by September, to appease those of us carrying pitchforks and torches.

The turbo button has been taken away (default setting, can be changed) in favor of encouraging a two-stick control method for runners. The right stick controls the upper body, the left stick controls the lower body. It isn’t as intuitive as EA would have you think, but it isn’t terrible, either. The old button controls also exist. The runner is easier to control now and running is very smooth.

OFFENSE:
The offense has a lot of power in comparison to last year’s installation. Defenses, due to less adjustment time and a few tweaks to offensive performance (that needed to be made — more on this in a second), are on their heels from the get-go. There is an exception to this, and that will be mentioned later as well in the DEFENSE section of this review. In any case, Wide Receiver performance is greatly improved. No longer does the wideout run uncontrollably in the wrong direction after catching a comeback or screen pass. Rocket Catches are also laughably easy (casual gamer note — Rocket Catches are when the receiver spins, jumps, and catches the ball in an earlier point of its trajectory than he would by default). The running game is also harder to defend, it seems, especially against “stud” backs like Peterson and Johnson.

DEFENSE:
Harder to play, softer coverages in every way than Madden 10 (especially zone), unless the following is taken advantage of. This is a glitch, and will almost certainly be patched because it is a gaping hole in the AI. The offensive line does not “see” spies. If the defense manually puts someone on QB spy and blitzes with them, interior linemen do not pick them up. Executed properly, QBs cannot get out of their auto-drop before being slammed to the ground. Even max-protect with RBs does not work to counter this if the defensive player knows a certain trick (that will remain unmentioned here — I don’t want to contribute to more abuse of the glitch). This version of Madden is made to shift the balance of power to the offense, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is comparatively harder to play great defense in 11 than it was in 10.

Overall: Once the game is patched, I think it will be good for everyone and may earn another star or even two. As-is, there are some severe issues that remove some of the depth that hardcore Madden fans enjoy. Madden 11 is checkers instead of chess, but I do hold out some hope that the desired depth will be added via patch.

EDITS:

(8/26 note: Edits will be posted at the top of the EDITS section now to keep the relevant information closer to the top. In addition, if anyone does not find this review helpful, please leave me a quick note in the comments section and I will address the issue ASAP).

***9/27***
Ladies and gentlemen, I’m done. I’ve played enough after patch 1.03 to make me think that this will never be fixed or even equal M10. I strongly suggest you stay away from this game if you are interested in improved gameplay over M10. It ain’t there, and probably never will be. Zones are busted and defense is just generally broken. I’m trading in to get $ toward Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Best of luck to those of you who decide to stick it out.

***9/23***
A quick note about 1.03. This patch seems to have increased the efficiency of the defense. In my first game after the patch playing the same defense (mainly 4-6 speed package cover 2 man as a base using a safety and both DE’s in a variety of different ways) I forced 6 turnovers against someone with a .600 win pct online. The big difference was that interceptions weren’t almost always dropped. Zone still seemed unplayable, though. I haven’t seen any other differences yet, but I’ll post back here when I do.

***9/9***
Patch 1.02 was released a couple of days ago, patching in Madden 10 preplay controls in addition to some unidentified gameplay “tweaks”. The addition of the preplay controls is nice, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that defense in the game is broken. The hit stick is worse than useless — if you use it, you will miss the tackle at least 70% of the time (remember, I’m a hardcore Madden fan — it’s not like I’m just bad at using it). Man coverage gets beaten badly by many routes, and zone gets beaten worse. Deep passes are a 50/50 prospect (far too offensively powered). Receivers often drop the easiest passes when wide open unless user-caught. Rocket Catching, which I originally reviewed as laughably easy, is only laughably easy with certain receivers on certain routes (outs and C-routes). Unlike Madden 10, lesser teams (like the Raiders) are not really playable unless the user is ready to have silly, uncontrollable things happen (like dropping multiple passes, having the QB inexplicably throw 20 yards off-target, etc). Maybe the second patch with fix things, but I hesitate to suggest that anyone buy this product due to the severe play imbalances that exist. I’m strongly considering trading in. I’ve given it a month, and I’m at the end of my rope. As someone with a better than .800 win pct online who is saying this, I implore you to consider the average Madden gamer. The frustration just simply is not worth it. In Madden 10, two people who knew what they were doing could adjust and stop the other person. There was an answer for everything. In M11, an excellent defender will always be beaten by a pretty good offense.

***8/26 Edit 3***
Run blocking, especially out of I, Strong, and Weak formations, needs to be patched but has not been addressed in any press release by EA. The lead blocker (a fullback, usually) will often get through the first level of defenders on interior running plays and simply stop without attempting to block anyone. As a note to players, interior runs are far more effective unless your opponent has no idea how to stop sweeps, and this is probably as it should be.

***Second Edit***
EA has released an announcement that they will be patching the QB spy glitch, tweaking pass defense to make it stronger, and improving Play Action blocking. If they do this, the game will be significantly improved (8/23/2010)

***FIRST EDIT***
Another major issue is the required auto-dropback for QB’s in Shotgun formations. You cannot control the QB for about one second after he has the ball in his hands. I assume this is to discourage what may have been considered (by EA) “abuse of QB scrambling.” It’s very difficult to see how this adds to the gameplay, however, as it severely limits quick throws/WR screen effectiveness and causes the QB to be a sitting duck. ” Posted by spire star
Check out more Madden NFL 11 Customer Reviews here!

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