The Perfect Football Game

[CharioTitan]

Ever since ESPN NFL 2K5, my eyes have been opened to the capabilities of the PS2 and XBox video game systems. All this time, I thought Madden didn't have gang tackles and game highlights because the systems weren't capable. I guess I was foolish in thinking that because they obviously are capable of doing a lot of things.

Now that EA Sports has eliminated the competition in football video games, I have to focus my attention on the only game, Madden. In the past EA has only added minor features to each version of Madden. They've taken minor steps in improvement, but they have yet to take a giant stride in improving this game. I think that if EA took the best features of all of the best football games from last year, the Next Generation Madden could be the perfect game.

There haven't been many good games aside from Madden and ESPN 2K5, so the only other game I want to include is NCAA football. Each game has a great quality that one of the other games is lacking in. For Madden, the great quality is the gameplay. ESPN was great because it had so many realistic features. NCAA is great because each individual game has a feel to it and some games have a real intense atmosphere. So Madden needs to incorporate these elements into the next game.

I enjoy playing Madden, but let's face it, there is no noticeable difference between a preseason game, season game , playoff game or Super Bowl game. Players don't have composure ratings, so they perform the same in big games and games that don't count at all. Rivalry games on Madden don't really feel like rivalry games, either. If you could take the in-game excitement from NCAA with the crowd making the stadium shake and players losing composure, it would bring a much needed element of excitement to Madden. The Monday Night games, playoff games, rivalry games, playoff games, playoff contention games and of course, the Super Bowl need to have more excitement. The announcers need to be more excited and the crowd definitely needs to be louder. I wouldn't mind if the stadiums shook on Madden like they do in NCAA.

Secondly, Madden needs some more peripheral stuff. I mean what makes football so much fun? Do you only enjoy football on Sunday and Monday? No. You love football 24 hours a day during football season. WHy? Because it's everywhere. There are all of the sports shows showing football highlights, there are the football analysts talking about who's gonna beat who and then, there's fantasy football. ESPN was headed in the right direction with an actual highlight reel showing highlights from all of the games. The actually have Chris Berman on the screen talking. Have you ever seen Madden or Michaels or Summerall on the screen? ANd they had the preparation between weeks to prepare you for your upcoming opponent.
Between games, there should be lots of fun things to do. Right now, the only fun thing for me on Madden is playing an actual game. There should be highlight reels, preparation, opponent scouting and training drills between weeks. 2K5 was a little tedious because you had to select drills for every single group of players and make sure injured players were rehabbed. It was a great idea, but I think it needed to be done differently so it didn't get so annoying after a while. Mini camp drills during the season would be a good idea. The current feature where you practice plays is a great idea, but needs to be expanded. You should be able to pick what you want to prepare for and you shouldn't get the same plays every week( I swear I get the HB screen out of Shotgun at least once for every opponent). There should be offensive and defensive plays to prepare for. The CPU also has to do something on its own. A couple of minor trades here and there isn't a bad idea. In 2K5 , they traded, but they kind of overdid it. If it were toned down and there was like one big trade every season, it would be better.

The newspaper articles and emails in Madden are a sorry attempt at entertainment. The emails say the same thing the local newspapers say and they never really say much at all. They newspaper articles need to be more in depth. Give an opinion on something and list some actual stats instead of QB #15 threw for over 200 yards. And, by the way, fumbling the ball 50 times isn't a milestone. Neither is 100 pancake blocks. When was the last time you read a newspaper article about an offensive lineman's pancake blocks? And talk about the playoff race more. When the playoffs are near, that's all you hear about.

And finally the most important feature, gameplay. Madden is already the leader in gameplay in my opinion. But that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement. ESPN's gameplay is much more realistic, but much harder to play. It was a little hard for me to read defenses on 2K5 and it was hard to run the ball. The animations on 2k5 were realistic unlike Madden who still has players batting down passes they can't see. Madden's gameplay is more fun, but still way to unrealistic. I don't know how many times I've seen QBs get hit and just drop the ball without it being called a fumble. WRs never catch the ball near the sideline without going out of bounds.CB coverage is very questionable. Against the CPU, CB coverage is way too good and against human opponents it isn't good enough. WRs and DBs never fight for the ball, linebackers don't jam the TE and offensive linemen knock too many people down. Also, you can't really tell an elite player from a scrub. NCAA actually highlights the best players on game. I don't think Madden needs to go that far, but there should be a way to make great players really stand out. I can't tell the difference between Keith Bulluck who's rated 98 and a rookie I drafted at OLB who's rated 80.

If Madden ups the gameplay to a more realistic level, makes the games more exciting and provides fun, entertaining features between games, it would be perfect. With a new generation of consoles coming out, it is definitely within EA's capabilities to make the perfect game. Of course, there should be improvements in graphics and gamespeed and reduced loading time. But EA needs to go the extra mile to improve a game that is vastly in need of an overhaul.

Oh yeah, and I want to be able to change every players position to any other position. I don't understand why you can't do that now. In the real NFL, I've seen a WR moved to safety, a QB moved to WR,a LB moved to safety, a LB moved to DE,a TE moved to offensive lineman and vice versa, a CB moved to WR, then back to CB and a DE moved to OT. That says it all. If you run a team,you can do whatever you want with your personnel. I'll tell you why the game really needs this. Once, I was playing the CPU in franchise mode and a team had so many linemen injured that their kicker was starting at left guard. That's right, their KICKER. That's just ridiculous. On the old Madden when you could move guys anywhere, the next best player would have been plugged in (probably a TE,DT or FB). But with injuries on this new Madden and the inability to move players as you please, this kind of thing happens all the time. Once, all of my QBs got injured and they made my punter the QB. So, let us manage our personnel the way we want to.