wow im lovin it so far! feels like a wonderful dream to be playing with dynamo steve again. they got his animation down pretty well too! although it's tough not to because he is probably the most famous south paw ever!
ive only played maybe 20 mins in practice trying things out and the animations are fantastic. a few things i noticed:
* they seem to have fixed the over powered scrambling qb's cause the D was on my ass when i left the pocket
* there are some awesome animations for the qb especially. this includes lame duck wobbly passes!
* the blocking develops nicely
was going to post more about practice but then ended up trying to play with dm, but his 360 died, so i played my first whole game and i am pretty impressed. here are some positives and negatives:
+ first thing... i love the kicking system! mother ****ing FINALLY there is some strategy/possibility to miss a kick in a football game. for those that dont know, it appears that they have somewhat mimicked NBA's ft system in that you hold back right stick then kind of go with the motion of the kick forward. i like it a lot better than maddens "hey everyone is a HOF kicker and cant miss!"
+ running game is very nice. on one play with rathman up the middle, it was a 2nd and inches. so i call a FB dive, get through the line and there is just a safety there, who is destroyed by my LT. so i score a TD and say "oh gee great AI..." but when i looked at the replay it was actually a very realistic play! first off my lg blocks outside giving the illusion of a run to the left, my LT runs TOWARDS the OLD but with no intention of blocking him, so the LB comes up to take on the block only to not be blocked. while the LB takes the long route to the middle of the play (outside of the guard who is occupying the DE), the play up the middle is developing. it should have been stopped for a gain of maybe 3, but my LT was now in the 2nd level ready to block the safety who had moved up and thereby clearing the path to the endzone. it was a combination of great blocking and wrong play/wrong time.
+ im loving the charge up meter for throws. gives a little strategy to your throwing. you want to make that great throw, but do you risk the D bringing big time pressure and ****ing up your rhythm because you have to get rid of it early? thats your choice!
+ speaking of passes, they look gorgeous in their imperfections. sometimes you will see nice spirals, other times you see average looking passes with a bit of wobble, and still other times you will see disgusting throws.
+ if you throw on the run you are in trouble. with steve i was able to stay SOMEWHAT on target on the run. but the AI's qb, who ran for his life all game, was erratic and inaccurate on the run.
+ i saw some incredible looking animations throughout. roger craigs high knees running after knocking out a CB, brent jones with a couple nice tip catches, some balls that were tipped a couple times and picked, the CB jumping the WR route with a great INT. i would tend to agree with 2k and say there are quite a bit of new animations, but also some old ones.
+ thankfully, "generic" players aren't useless. my safety opposite lott had 2 INT's and a few big hits and he was a nobody. also one of my defensive lineman was being disruptive. so it's not a total lost cause.
+ i like the different abilities for people. my o-line was getting manhandled by jim marshall 1 on 1 and they started to double team him (i have 3 bronze's on the o-line, all former niners!)
overall i love the gameplay and i feel it is a nice change of pace from madden/ncaa, but its not all good
- still some very questionable moments with the AI. take a screen pass i had with craig. 3rd and 8 or something, i hit the screen pass and get a big chunk. nothin wrong with that it happened all the time in the 80's! the problem is that im running down the sideline and it appears that CB coming over has a decent angle, but instead of cutting the angle towards where the runner is going he kind of cuts it to where he is at that time, then stops for a split second, and then he's in catchup mode behind me. result: 65 yard TD that should've been about a 20 yard gain.
- another instance, this time on a craig run. sweep to the outside. all defenders are accounted for except their OLB. he has me dead to rights if he just continues on but he strangely turns around and kind of runs in the direction that im headed as well. in other words, we are both running straight ahead, not side by side cause he's actually in front of me! :lol
- still some instances of CB's not breaking up or picking a play when they should, but nothing was so god awful that it made me want to throw my controller.
- Curt Warner broke a ronnie lot super hit that was charged up. GTFO of here! you would be dead! i also didn't check to see if they made sure to not render ronnie lotts pinkie. if it is there this game sucks ass.
oh also the post game thing was cool. they went over plays and that was nice. they still need to work on it cause while 90% of the plays they showed were relevent, one was like "and look at this 20 yard pass to gary clark. the play did not pan out for the whoevers" what!? why does that play matter? you missed my sweet bootleg TD to brent jones!
maybe my opinion changes for the better or worse but right now i am pretty excited about the game and feel that it is an improvement over 2k5. i know we are going to find bugs and glitches that suck ass but hopefully they can all be tolerated.
Best QB ever.