Tiger Woods Out...Until August!
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| | | Posted by Brett Todd on Tuesday September 02, 2008 - 08:00 AM |
| 2 User Comment(s) • 2 root comment(s) |
 Bjorn (17)  Oct 06, 2008 - 07:40 am | Edited on Oct 06, 2008 - 07:41 am
| » Does not compare well to older versions
I played on a XBox 360, in 720p. Your experience might not match mine if you used different gear. Also, while I am a big fan of both football and my Xbox, I was not a fan of previous Xbox/Xbox 360 football games, highly preferring the game play on my PC.
I have been played every version of madden since it first started. "Back in the day", I highly preferred other PC Football games to console ones. But, I am a football junkie, so I bought every version of every one until there was only Madden left on the PC. I still bought every version of Madden. I also bought a couple of different ones for my XBox Sega 2k2 and 2k5, Madden 03 and 05. They all suffered by comparison to Madden on the PC, Front Page Sports.
Football is a combination of violent athleticism and strategy. The current Madden 09 on the Xbox 360 is “ok” at modeling the first part, but is lacking on the 2nd. Coach-mode is gone, removing the ability to play this game as a strategy game making it little more then an arcade game. I am not belittling arcade games. I prefer arcade racing games to SIM ones. With Madden 08 on the PC (and older versions of Madden on the Xbox(or so I recall), you had a choice of arcade or simulation/strategy. Even those who could live with it becoming an arcade game are gonna notice that the franchise mode is not as good as on the PC version. Teams draft STUPID. Teams trade stupid. A team might cut 4 players for old age, or what have you. You can sign them and trade them back to the same team and steal draft picks. You can trade a team a 4th string QB, 5th string HB, and 3rd string SS for a starter in some other position. Teams will draft the same position over and over ignoring that this was the position that they were set at. In the same draft a team with 3 decent to very good QBs, a team drafted 3 new ones with their top 3 picks. Huh??
Some of the other issues persist. For example, Madden 08 on the PC cheats. It bases the defense to be called in large part on what offense you called. This is also true in the Madden 360 version. You can test this quite simply. Use a single formation. Call a run play, see how the defense will often be stacked, even if you have passed repeatedly? Now do the opposite. You can use this if a game against an AI is close. Always have two plays. The one you call and the one you are actually gonna run. Having them be opposites from the same formation will dramatically influence your success. I am not recommending this, as goofy scoring can result (130 points using 10minute qtrs against all pro difficulty level).
Graphically Madden 360 is just aweful. It is WAY too dark, over saturated and overly contrasted. The detailing is very nice. Some of the added touches are good. Better stadiums. Better camera angles. Some animations are much better, Some are worse. Most are unchanged.
Audibly it is a let down. Sure Cris C. is there telling me what I did wrong. But I missed hearing maddens comments.
UI… the madden IQ thing is just retarded. Does not work well. It just gets in the way. The menu system was not as simple and well laid out as the PC version. Nor the last Xbox version I saw (I have not seen the 08 version on the Xbox, only the PC). It took me longer to get from place to place. It took me longer to call plays. This was not just a new UI, it simply is clunkier. They spent time making sure it was flashy, and forgot useability.
Over all, it was a decent if not great arcade game. I would not recommend it to any fans of the game but rather to those who are looking for a casual evening with their friends
Plus:
Better background graphics
Minus:
No coach mode
Poor AI (over all)
Extremely poor franchise mode.
Poor graphics
Poor layout
Over all 6 (+1 for arcade fans -1 for strategy fans)» Login to reply to this |
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