Madden News

[MuC Diabolic]

High-pass - This has been totally nullified. No more just throwing high curl passes or slant routes and having a guy in front that will not jump high enough. You can still percision pass it high, but if there is a defender in front you will be in trouble as it will be knocked down or picked off almost every time. Even if he was by himself, I saw a lot of overthrown balls if you have a bad QB and a WR that can't jump. And a WR with little jump do not get that high off the ground as I tested it with a number of WR.


R1/L1 Glitch - The glitch is fixed. Now guys don't have to worry about using I-Form and can run the ball without the fear of their opponent knowing what they were going to run. Now its just random R1 and L1 for the running back. I just hope its not a pattern that can be picked up on.


Throw the ball away - So now while you are in the pocket and the rush is breathing down your neck, you can throw the ball away without getting the 15 yard penalty for intentional grounding. Just press L2 and you will throw it at the closest receivers feet. This does not mean that you will not be intercepted, you can still throw a pick while throwing it away, especially if you are not set. I think this is a cool idea.


Special Teams ... oh my - Special Teams blocking has been an outcry in the community for a while and EA has really done a number in that aspect. They hold blocks longer, knock down more people and open up lanes for your Returner. I'm glad EA fixed the special teams.


The vision cone is off by default in all difficulty settings except for All Madden. For All Madden you must play with the vision cone on at all times. For the other modes, you have the option to toggle it on or off at will, similar to next gen. For online this means that for regular ranked games you have the option to use the cone, but if you're playing hardcore ranked it will always be on for both players. (taken form madden nation)


There has been a lot of debate on the forums about whether or not the vision cone improves the accuracy for QBs. Some people think it's an advantage to use it, some don't. I was told that there is a small ratings bump as far as accuracy for the QBs when the vision cone is being used, and you also get a small catch increase in the ratings for WRs when you use it. I guess that settles that. (taken form madden nation)


Percision passing can be done with or withought the cone this year. I know a couple of friends who are going to be excited about that.


Fatigue - I asked D-Cas while we were at dinner if fatigue was tweaked a little and he said yes. He said what happens is that throughout the game, players get tired more based on how much action they have been getting. Meaning a defense that been on the field for most of the game will tire in the 4th. Its the same with RB and the amount of carries they have that it takes a toll on them. What I would like to see and me and Dan discussed this to some extent is the fact that there should be player ratings dropped in accordance with fatigue. Meaning if you blitz a MLB 2 straight downs, on that 3rd down, his SPD rating should be dropped a little because of all the energy he spent trying to get to the QB 2 straight downs. That would be realistic.


Run/Pass Committ - On defense not only can you still do the run/pass committ feature but you can select which way on the run committ. Meaning if you know the player is going to toss to the left, you can press down and to the left at the time of the snap to have your defense flow to that side and stop them. Great news.


Play-action happy - Now you have the ability to turn any pass play in to a play action. Before you if you came out and picked a TE Cross and press audible and left it would turn into a playaction play from that formation, now if you do it, you turn the TE Cross into a play-action. Man that just sounds great.

THANKS MADDENWARS FOR THE INFO

[MuC Diabolic]

PS2 Features - #1 Lead Blocker Control

Everyone loves when a good running play works to perfection. You know when the the line blocks, defenses fall down before they get to you, and you go through the right hole for a 40 yard scamper. But if you played this game long enough you know that those perfect runs don't come too often. We also know that there have been too many times where we see linemen whiff the other guy in front of him, or the FB goes outside when the run play is inside. No more. EA's new feature of Lead Blocker Control takes care of all that. Lets dig deep into it now as we get ready to take back the running game in a pass happy environment.


Ok, so the first thing you need to know is that you can take control of any player on the field for the Lead Blocker Control. Any offensive lineman, WR, FB, and even the QB are available to use to crush the opposing player. The one thing that I did was use the WR to crack back on the DE on sweeps and it was pretty cool depending on how you you blocked the defensive end. Taking control of your guards on pulls and counters were very fun to do. .

With the Lead Blocker Control you can cut block the blocker by pressing down on the R3 (Right Analog). This will throw yourself at the dfenders feet and cause the defender to hurdle you and lose valuable space or you will cut the players legs right out in front. You can also flatten defenders by pressing up on the R3 stick. I learned that using the above techniques and the effectiveness depends on the players that you are using to block. If you are a WR trying to crack back on the DE you don't want to press up, because you will be the one flattened. You want to throw yourself at the DE's feet so you can slow them down. The other things you can do on the PS2 that you can not do on Nex Gen. Other things you can do on the PS2 version are that you can turn the defender that you are engaged with either left or right using the L1 and R1 buttons. This is very useful when running dive plays and the RB is supposed to go through a specific gap. Before the snap, select the offensive lineman, engage the lineman, and press L1 to move the defender out of the hole and seal and open the hole for your RB. No more arm tackles. The other cool thing you can do is actually hold the defender by pressing L2. This has some cool animations that go along with this. The thing is 105 of the time the refs don't even see it so you get away with it. I really don't know an instant you could use the hold techniques but its a cool animation.

Ok so now that you know how to pave the way for your runner, the question I had was; "Does the computer run better than me or should I switch back and run him myself. Well first let me say the transition from the blocker back to the RB is so smooth and was so fun to do. I think EA did a great, great job at tweaking this so that you feel like this is a mini-game within the game. You can change the settings just for the lead blocker control. You can set it so that once you engage it automatically switches back to your RB without you pressing the O button, or you can change the speed of the way it switches back to your RB. The default settings are perfect for me. Sometimes you want to stay with the blocker to clear more room after you flatten the first defender. Also the default setting are set so that when you press the O button you the game slows down so you can actually see where your running back is and make the right decision. If you take the slight pause off you will switch back immediately and what happens is you really don't have time to adjust to the where the RB is. So if your blocker is 7-10 yards down the field by the time you get back to your RB, you may have already run into a tackler thats why I like the pause transition.

Now I know what you are saying, if I choose a lineman then they are going to know I'm running the ball and are going to use the Run Commit feature. Well what I did was select the FB or a lineman and even a WR when I selected a passing play and when I snapped the ball it went stright to the QB. So you can now even fake like you are rubbubg and pass the ball.


So that's the Lead Block Control as I played it and if mastered can be a very effective with the highlight stick to take your Running Game to a whole new level.

THANKS MADDENWARS

[MuC Diabolic]

This section of the review will deal with the defense and special teams gameplay.

The previous articles looked at the graphics and animations and the offensive gameplay. Read on for the defensive gameplay and please check back soon for an overall impressions article and a summary of Q&A with the developers and producers that was held on Thursday July 27, 2006.



Ok - I have covered the graphics and offensive gameplay so far, so let's look at the D for a while...

What works really well?

For starters the hit-stick is back and it works about the same with a very important distinction - it is realistic as hell now. The physics and angles matter much more and are protrayed very well and realistically. The control is responsive as ever, but the results are far more ratings and context dependent than before. If you take a CB and try to hitstick a Power back you are getting run over, simple as that. Likewise, if you have a somewhat slow LB or a DL-man trying to wail on Reggie Bush, he is gonna get juked or ducked and look pretty d**n foolish in the process a good number of times. You won't see any more Ty Law knocking the snot out of Jamaal Lewis (head-up one-on-one) type hits. On the flipside of that, if you are able to get a hitstick on a guy who is juking (that is as long as a CPU controlled defender did not engage the animation), then you can and will cause fumbles. the entire feature seems to be fine tuned this year and works very well IMO.

How about pursuit angles?

Thankfully they looked really good. I was taken aback by some of the retard angles of the DB's in NCAA on the All-American level and that is not the case with Madden at all. Not once did I see anything that made me cringe when a Db had to come up to make a tackle or chase a runner. It was very smooth and very well done. The Db's seem to react well to their assignments most of the time, but lets be honest, there are some major AI deficiencies still as well (I'll get to that in a bit).

Another nice touch on the defensive side was the ability to get QBs to throw bad passes under pressure.

We have all seen for years the case where a QB is hit as he throws and ends up throwing a bad pass (usually short), but now you can see more bad passes thrown high and past receivers if you get good heat on the QB, force him to throw off-balance or rush the throw to avoid the sack. It could be a limited number of animations, but when it happened it looked pretty cool and was nice to feel that sense of accomplishment on defense as well. This is also essential, getting heat on the Qb, because if the D lets the Qb sit back in the pocket you are gonna get burned bad and often. It seems a bit difficult to sit back in a bend-but-don't break mode, but I must admit that such a play style is not something I am use to doing so it is entirely possible that I am waaaay more the problem on D than the game itself in that respect.

DL-play is fun as hell now.

With the jump-the-snap feature (also seen in NCAA 2007) there is a mini-chess match at the snap now. You can attempt to pres ["y"] at the snap to beat the OL off the ball and if timed right you blow up the play; however, just like in NCAA, a fake snap count will get you for encroahment every time if you guessed wrong. It is another example of much more "risk-versus-reward" in the game and is something I love to see making its way into the gameplay. The DL moves are also more fun now because they can be used n a better fashion. Previously, the game would only allow those animations and moves to be used AFTER engaging an OL-man. Now, it is again about timing the moves and setting up the OL-man before engaging them. For example, Dwight Freeny's spin is lethal when you do it right (but it is very hard to get down at first). The swim move on the interior can open up big opportunities to stuff runs - but it also requires the user to do it, to make the play. You can get into the backfield but if you miss the tacle the runner can still get out of the backfield and head upfield. It adds a definite element of skill to using the Dl and also makes for a lot of fun.

QB contain plays are very good at stopping the mobile / scrambling QBs - the Mike Vick rules.

It seems that its probably only a matter of time before some of the tourney style players devise ways to use the lead blocking and a guy like Vick to do some work on your defense and make it really tough to stop; but the days of a non-skilled hack using Mike Vick rolling out all day and throwing crap passes is containable and beatable with the QB contain plays. I know most of the players I play with either choose not to do that anyway or are simply str8 ballers who are philosophically opposed to it anyway. It is also worth noting here that D-playmaker would have made this even better. As it is, the specific plays can stop a guy from abusing Vick, but it also limits your options on D and makes you run a bunch of similar defenses to keep those spies on. very sad to see NO D-PLAYMAKER for individual players.

So, what did not work so well?

Problem number one relates to the absence of gang tackles. In some situations, a CPU controlled defender may be getting juked or ducked or trucked (or in any way engaged with a runner in a "highlight Stick" animation), but a manually controlled defender near the play will NOT be able to make the tackle until the animation is done. You may pass through the player you are trying to tackle (looks like poor collison detection but it is really animation driven), but you will NOT make the play. Is that annoying? Yes, of course it is. Do the producers know about it? Yes, they do now. Are they happy about it? Well of course not, but they have to make the best game they can given the tools in that existing engine. It does happen a lot until players adjust to the fact that it is safer to give up the 2-3 yards that the animation will get, and THEN make the play manually, than it is to attempt a gang tackle (which is not possible anyway) and run yourself out of the play, as well as the CPU defender who was getting juked. It is something that is in the game, and the player needs to be aware of the consequences of trying to use the hit-stick or make a tackle on a guy who is engaged with a CPU defender while juking (or trucking or "Highlight Sticking").

To be completely fair, I am not 100% sure it will happen EVERY time, but I do know it happens more than once in a while and it blatantly obvious when it does happen. Regardless of how frequently it does occur, the fact is that this is going to drive a bunch of guys completely nuts and off the deep end. Does it totally ruin the gameplay? Not at all. Are there going to be hundreds of people b1tching a blue streak about it? Yup, I would bet large money on that. There will be a fair share of people who complain forever that this is NOT next-gen and they expect more, but the fact is that this is not a problem isolated to the next-gen; there have been collison detection problems in other games as well on both generations. Does that totally excuse it? No, but it certainly gives the developers an opportunity to improve the gameplay next year.

Problem number two relates to everyone's favorite = the DB AI. In the offensive section I detailed a sitauation with pump fakes affecting safeties and causing them to abandon their zones. Not on every pump fake, but when it happens the offense has a huge play for sure. Hopefully it won't develop into an exploit that we see morons pump faking on every single play, but once they see that it works you know there are people who will stop at nothing short of finding a way to exploit the AI with it at will. Another issue is with the way DBs react (or don't react) to a thrown ball at times. It has been around for years, and drives guys nuts every year = the CB is behind a receiver with the ball in the air and heading right at him and does....NOTHING! Just stands there and watches as the WR leaps up and makes the catch. It is not a case of a blown coverage or a bad animation. It is not a case of the defensive player being out of position or having called the wrong defense. It is a case of having the AI controlled man in the area to make a play on the ball do NOTHING!

Here is a screen shot taken from Practice Mode on All-Madden level:



What needs to be explained here is what happened to get to this shot and why the CB is essentially doing nothing while Kevin Curtis catches the ball in back of him. The play was a corner route that the DB had Cover 3 responsibility for in the deep right third. He had been turned around but was squared up to the play and as the ball came in and before Curtis started his jump to catch the ball. In this case, the DB did not do anything other than stay in a squat position and watch as the pass was caught before making the tackle as Curtis fell into the endzone. For the folks hoping that DB AI would be majorly upgraded to prevent such thigns, they will be disappointed to learn it is still in the game. But the situation is not completely without potential explanations - again relating to player ratings and their impact on gameplay - or possible ways to prevent it - such as taking control of the DB yourself and making a swat on the ball or a hit on the receiver.

Now, some of the people out there will again raise holy hell about this being "not next-gen" and a bunch of other things we have all seen before. I agree that it is something I would love to see addressed in future games and it does dtract from an otherwise exceptional title. However, these two things on the defensive side of the ball did not kill the game for me, they merely keep the game from approaching perfection and leave some issues for the developers and producers to work on next year. Madden 2007 on the 360 is so much better than 2006 on the 360 that it is almost unfair to compare them directly. That improvement bar has been set pretty high this year, and fixing these defensive issues in future games would go a long way towards clearing that expectations bar next year.

Special Teams?
Blocked kicks are there, more than before in Madden yet not quite as frequently as on NCAA 2007. Ray (ShopMaster) and I were playing on Friday and he not only got a blocked FG, he also was able to scoop up the ball after a questionable "fumble" by my holder (who had initially recovered the blocked kick) and take it to the house for 6 on me. That was a first for me - having a blocked FG returned for a TD was not something I had previously experienced in Madden play.

The kick meter on all kicks is nearly identical to NCAA and works very well.
There are no special return camera angleson the 360.

Kick return and punt return blocking is much improved and blocks can be set-up and returns can go a lot further than the past (especially on punts) - better work on angling your punts to the sidelines, because booming it straight down the middle is goiong to be a really bad idea this year.

There is still no illegal block in the back penalties

All in all, the kicking game received a whole new look and a whole new gameplay and for the most part those changes have been very well done and add some to the general gameplay.

THANKS MADDENWARS

[MuC Diabolic]

when i get more i'll post it

[PebTo]

why don't u just specifically give muc members the password to this?? or is it newsletters??

[mucpunishu]

good stuff diabolic, where did u come from ?

[MuC Diabolic]

i was ofr then i was no remorse4u