I can't remember which, but it all started on the Sega Genesis; I had bought myself a Madden game because it was super cheap and I had never played a Madden in my life, at that point. So I popped the game in and was blown away by how it was more complex than Tecmo's Bowl series, but it wasn't hard to grasp the concept and play easily. I remember all the times I would pit the best team against the worst and see how many times I could score before they could, which usually ended up with me scoring ten touchdowns to their one the whole game.
When it came to handheld versions of Madden it was just an updated roster plastered on a 16-bit version of the game, ported to the Gameboy Advance, nothing more. When I got my first Xbox I quickly grew intrigued as to what Madden looked like on the new generation consoles. Luckily for me with EA's penchant to simply change the rosters from year to year and introduce something minuscule and meaningless the outdated versions were readily available and super cheap!
The graphics were nice, it was good to see fully rendered, 3 dimensional figures, each with their own physique and correct race, although all the faces looked the same. It was this new generation of Madden games that brought in a completely new aspect to the game that distanced my interest in the game. And from what I can tell, hasn't changed from it's implement until at least the Madden 09 All-Play.
Almost anyone who has played at least one Madden game will know John Madden, quite often, states the obvious and sometime even a flat out lie about the game. For example: I was playing a game where the CPU hadn't scored at all the entire first half, upon making a miraculous Hail Mary to the end zone Madden chimed in with something about how this quarterback could make any pass anywhere. Clearly this wasn't true, because this was the same quarterback who had a scored of zero, up until the game decided to cheat.
Which is another issue I have with the new Madden game play, the game will rectify itself with some of the most blatantly asinine calls and plays. As I stated before, on the Sega Genesis, I would overpower a team and see how many times I could scored prior to them scoring, if they did at all, I've rarely found this possible in the new Maddens. When I dominate the first half, if the CPU hasn't scored at all by half time, in the second half I can't make a single catch, my team that was once at its height of discipline now jump offsides, snag face masks like kids in a candy store and can't hold on to the ball if it were super glued to their hands! -STICK EM!-
Perhaps thats all well and good for someone looking for a challenge, but its extremely unrealistic. Much like John's dialog, it hasn't changed from 2002 to 2009 either! Its still the same old insert number/name here has run insert number here for how many yards today here.
I don't hate the new Madden games, but I'm not buying them up each year either, if I see one at the outlet store I'll pick it up and usually don't play it, but I must confess I do own quite a few. They did add some cool features to Madden 09 All-Play based purely on the fact that this is the Nintendo Wii, but much like the console these features get boring really fast! The issue isn't with the console, or Madden 09 All-Play, its the fact that I think Nintendo told everyone developing for the Nintendo Wii they had to toss in something to their game that made full use of the Wii controller and nunchuck, which really just messes up a really good game!
I'm not new to the Nintendo Wii, I've played one before, quite often. But each game seems to be plagued by the same thing, what feels to me like a looming Nintendo, shadowing game developers and forcing them to change up a perfectly good game to work in a silly gimmick. Sure the controllers were interesting, innovative and work really well, but they get old really quick as many people who want to play a game only want to do that, not waggle their arms about like a ninny to make something happen that on every other console is simply up and the right shoulder button.
No comments:
Post a Comment