underdawg's Full Review: Madden NFL 2010 for Xbox 360
The Madden franchise is under new leadership, and there were a lot of promised pages. The EA blog pretty much admitted that Maddens 06-09 were crap, and they were. The franchise has been overhauled and the difference between 09 and 10 is the biggest since....well, ever.
Passing O/D The passing game in the old Maddens were pretty shallow. Depending on the difficulty setting, it was insanely hard, or it was pretty easy to throw the deep ball. Get a 96-99 speed WR one-on-one and just chuck it deep. It got to the point that, for me, having a WR like Boldin was useless. I would just pick up scrub WR's that were fast and my passing game would rock. In M10, QB's have attributes for accuracy short, medium, and deep. Yes, you can actually miss wide open receivers now, and the deep ball is particularly tough (few QB's have deep accuracy in the 90's), which makes it realistic. Every QB misses a few throws each game even when there's no pressure. QB's in the NFL often try to throw the deep ball so that it's either incomplete or a completion (but not a pick) and you can do that now in this game. It's particularly hard to throw a deep ball so that the WR catches it in stride. EA also got rid of the ridiculous receiver animation where the WR turns around to catch a deep ball. Instead, there's an over-the-shoulder animation. The kinks need to be worked out, but it's a start. There are some cool animations that show the WR adjusting to balls and sort of running a little wobbly after the reception. Receivers hardly ever slide their feet though. In fact, I've never seen it, but EA insists it's in the game. The O-line blocks much better in the passing game too. There's more of a pocket than before. I still haven't gotten used to it, but you can actually avoid sacks by moving up in the pocket. Free O-linemen pick up extra rushers. You're penalized more than ever before for just drifting with your QB to one side as you look for a receiver (which no one does in the NFL, but happens all the time in Madden). There's also a throw-on-the-run attribute, which was sorely needed for realism's sake. The CPU is still not that great at passing, so I have to turn up the AI up to about 14 (15 is "All-Madden"). This leads to QB's often shredding my D's, but largely because this difficulty setting leads to by DB's having hands of stone.
But you can pass while getting hit now (leading to wounded duck passes)! Sweet.
Running O/D The running game has been overhauled too, but I don't see too much of a difference. Truth be told, I'm probably just not that great in the ground game in Madden though. There are some cool new running back animations where the running back breaks a tackle but loses his balance, and shoestring tackles look cool and are exciting when they barely stop a RB who has nothing but daylight in front of him. There are gang tackles now, but that needs to be refined too. Up to 9 tacklers can join in, but sometimes if you go up to the group, your controlled D player just kind of flops. Which sucks because RB's can break out of those gang tackles (way too often in higher difficulty settings). The CPU still can't run for crap though. In my franchise mode, I had to turn the AI for running all the way up to 20, which now results in ridiculous tackle breaking by the CPU, and the CPU also hardly ever fumbles either. When I had it at 10, my franchise was shutting down every single running game in the NFL (just like in Maddens 04-09). So clearly the CPU doesn't even now how to run all that great besides ridiculous tackle breaking. So clearly it's not been worked out.
There hasn't been much of an overhaul to defense besides gang tackling. What's a pain is that "swat ball" is assigned to the left bumper even though there are unassigned face buttons. Does the game let you change it? No. Sometimes the catch button on defense doesn't respond all that well too, which has been an issue before.
So the AI needs to continue to be improved so that the CPU can beat you on offense without resorting to weird tackle-breaking and my CB's dropping about 4 picks each a game. Still, moving the sliders lets you make your games competitive at least even if it's a bit cheesy.
Oh and I think I read this Madden plays more slowly than other ones. Make no mistake, speed still kills. But what is neat is that even slower receivers like Brandon Marshall can't be easily caught from behind. Which means that the Boldins of the world can still make big plays and are still worth having on your team. This is a first, for me, in Madden. Nice.
Franchise Mode Franchise mode is fun again, largely because the draft is a lot more fun than before. It becomes way too easy though. Each player has a "potential" meter, and if it's high enough, they will become a great player. Sometimes their ratings start in the 50's though, so they're just a project player. Still, the last draft I had, I just drafted based on potential usually, traded down for extra picks, etc, and now I have 6 future starters/stars for an extremely low price. Why doesn't the CPU take some of these "sleepers?" If you want to be super cheesy, sign ALL of those dudes to 7 year contracts and your franchise will be set year after year. Before I discovered this though, the draft was pretty fun. EA needs to have "potential" be WAY more unreliable (as far as I can tell, it's pretty accurate). You only need to think of Ryan Leaf, Jamarcus Russell, and some other high "potential" guys to realize that this would be much more realistic.
Things That Annoy Me There are still a thousand things that bug me about Madden 10. For example, "roughing the passer" penalties are pretty much random, because you usually don't get penalized for hitting the QB after he's thrown the ball. CPU players often just drift out of bounds short of the marker, even when it's 4th down. If CPU players get turned around (say, after a broken tackle), they will run backwards for a while. This affects me too on screen passes; right after the WR catches it, if I hut UP on the joystick, they will sort of try to go backwards and then turn around going the right direction, which mucks up the play. The game needs separate ratings for 3-4 DE's and LB's, as obviously Dwight Freeney would make a horrible 3-4 DE and a Cover-2 type OLB won't make an effective 3-4 OLB. Half sacks show up in stats, but I've yet to see that happen in one of MY games. If you use an "Ask Madden" play (hey I know it's cheesy but I use it so I don't end up using the same plays over and over), sometimes Madden gives us his sage advice while Collinsworth is giving his commentary. The ensuing medley of these two annoying voices makes me want to tear my hair out. Fin Still, this is the best Madden in a long time. It's the only next-gen Madden I've ever got past season one in a franchise (I'm on year 7 or so and facing some salary cap problems), which is the biggest testament to how improved it is. I don't need any more bells and whistles (the graphics are pretty nice as they are). I want the draft to be harder and for the CPU AI to be better. Obviously the AI is going to be very difficult to work on and won't result in any flashy new features that can be hyped up, but if those things are fixed, this could be a game that has me playing franchies into 20 years or so. I hope EA is done patting themselves on the back and is getting back to work!
I now officially am done complaining about the demise of the 2K football games.
Experience first-hand what it's like to Fight for Every Yard in Madden NFL 10. With the Pro-Tak animation technology, players have more control over t...More at Dell
Video Games. A video game staple for two decades, EA's best-selling football series rumbles onward with Madden NFL 10. Headlining the new features in ...More at DeepDiscount.com
Epinions.com periodically updates pricing and product information from third-party sources, so some information may be slightly out-of-date. You should confirm all information before relying on it.
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.