I don't usually like to jump right on and review a game within 24 hours of purchasing it. I usually give myself a little time to form a more accurate opinion, but Madden NFL 11 really left a lot on the field from my perspective. EA Sports' Madden slogan is, "If it's in the game, it's in the game". practice squads, bundling and trading draft picks from next year's crop (or the year after),I don't usually like to jump right on and review a game within 24 hours of purchasing it. I usually give myself a little time to form a more accurate opinion, but Madden NFL 11 really left a lot on the field from my perspective. EA Sports' Madden slogan is, "If it's in the game, it's in the game". practice squads, bundling and trading draft picks from next year's crop (or the year after), fully customizable playbooks, plays, and uniforms, and 45 man game-day rosters are all things that are "in the game" but still no where near the madden franchise. I may be in the sad minority here, but I don't give a crap about online play, especially online team-play. What I tend to focus on the most is franchise mode.
Playing the franchise mode on Madden 11 is a serviceable experience at best, but very disappointing if you were hoping for any upgrades. It is basically the EXACT SAME interface as Madden 10. With the exception of mid-day lighting/shadow contrasts, the In-game presentation has been polished visually (but they still get some minor uniform details wrong), but the actual game-play is frustrating. The new "strategy pad" is certainly subtraction by addition. EA has had the same format for YEARS for pre-snap adjustments with the trigger buttons. This "strategy pad" changes that for no good reason at all and actually involves more button pushes and more time than the old format. This is the opposite of what they were going for in their efforts to "streamline" the game-play. Also, they decide that after 6 or 7 years of the analogue stick kicking interface, that they would go back the X button double-tap timing system. A curious move at best. Most of these changes seem like they were made for the sake of making them, with no real thought toward overall gameplay efficiency or accuracy. The new "gameflo" system is only commendable for the effort made. It is misguided and inaccurate, but i do agree with them that coaches/offensive coordinators don't come into a game with 300 plays to choose from. It seems to me that there's better ways of going about this, like selecting from your playbook a choice of 20 plays or so, and carrying them into a game with you, and that's all you have that you can call, and you select those plays based on what works well against your opponent's commonly called plays. That would also alleviate the burden of having to hear some jacknut OC tell me why he's calling a ridiculously useless play (i know, i can just turn it off. i did.).
As for the in-game commentary, once again, i'm probably in the vast minority, but i haven't listened to that in years on any sports game, so i'm no authority there. For the sake of being fair, I'm sure it's earth-shatteringly amazing. It's probably the one thing that would change my whole outlook on this game, because it's the one thing I turn off immediately every year. I just don't think NFL football players have the TV commentary presentation playing in their helmets while they're playing the game.
Considering I was one of the midnight release people that had had this game reserved and completely paid for a full month in advance it pains me to say, but overall, this game is a $60 roster update. In summary: meh...… Expand