Wellington
BAAAALLLINNN'
Madden, how do I love thee, let me count the ways
In a few short hours Ive already played 11 games of Madden 2006 and I am proud to boast a 9-1-1 record.
First thing I wanted to try out on offense was the running game. Supposedly, Tiburon has tweaked the blocking to make linemen hit the guys in front of them, and its pretty clear that it does indeed work. It works a little too well as I had speculated before E3. Anyone worth his salt running the ball will be able to do massive damage on any given carry. First play from scrimmage? 66 yard touchdown scramble for Tiki Barber. Its awesome considering I didnt even have any blocking when playing as the Giants in 2005. (Giants are rated 72 total, 68 offense, 75 defense). Another point on the running game, with confirmation from an EA rep/Tiburon employee, the Mario running has been addressed with the tip-toe animation. It isnt triggerd all the time, but when it is its effective. Unfortunately, there still is a small amount of Mario running, but that was one play out of my 11 games. The offensive hit stick, known as the truck stick hasnt been much use to me, Ive used Tiki and Willis McGahee, and they have not been able to bowl anyone over. When I used Lamont Jordan well I didnt even get tackled.
Passing Im mixed about it really. On the one hand it definitely lends to the realism to have to track the receivers, but whats the friggen point if you can see the whole screen anyway? And on top of that, you can snap to whatever receiver you want to throw to with the press of two buttons so really, the cone vision just adds more of a time delay to the passing game. Ive thrown two ints, one was as a result of the cone. I dropped back with Eli and was looking at Plax down the field but I caught Tiki out of the corner of my eye and tried to just do a quick dumpoff and forgot about the cone. Needless to say the accuracy wasnt all there and a defender managed to nab it. Ive seen tons of sacks on even the good O-lines, Wasabi is saying that its a result of the low difficulty setting, but I think its more of the icon passing. Receiving is revamped as well, noticeably so. I kept going to plax to see what he could do and hands receivers really DO play like hands receivers, which is impressive. However, Wasabi did burn the crap out of me with Moss like that though. What sucks is that it seems like finesse guys play like that as well. I dont really recall Torry Holt winning a lot of jump balls in real life. -_-
A few other changes:
Boost and change character are the same on both offense and defense now.
Playmaker hotblocking is activated by holding in R3 and directing the dudes rather than just directing.
Kick return TDs seem to be a lot easier to pull off. I already have two.
Blockers are really sticky, even with Strahan.
Superstar mode and others are deactivated in the demo.
Anyway, i plan on about 40 games total by the end of the show and I got something set up for Friday to talk to a dev. We shall see!
First thing I wanted to try out on offense was the running game. Supposedly, Tiburon has tweaked the blocking to make linemen hit the guys in front of them, and its pretty clear that it does indeed work. It works a little too well as I had speculated before E3. Anyone worth his salt running the ball will be able to do massive damage on any given carry. First play from scrimmage? 66 yard touchdown scramble for Tiki Barber. Its awesome considering I didnt even have any blocking when playing as the Giants in 2005. (Giants are rated 72 total, 68 offense, 75 defense). Another point on the running game, with confirmation from an EA rep/Tiburon employee, the Mario running has been addressed with the tip-toe animation. It isnt triggerd all the time, but when it is its effective. Unfortunately, there still is a small amount of Mario running, but that was one play out of my 11 games. The offensive hit stick, known as the truck stick hasnt been much use to me, Ive used Tiki and Willis McGahee, and they have not been able to bowl anyone over. When I used Lamont Jordan well I didnt even get tackled.
Passing Im mixed about it really. On the one hand it definitely lends to the realism to have to track the receivers, but whats the friggen point if you can see the whole screen anyway? And on top of that, you can snap to whatever receiver you want to throw to with the press of two buttons so really, the cone vision just adds more of a time delay to the passing game. Ive thrown two ints, one was as a result of the cone. I dropped back with Eli and was looking at Plax down the field but I caught Tiki out of the corner of my eye and tried to just do a quick dumpoff and forgot about the cone. Needless to say the accuracy wasnt all there and a defender managed to nab it. Ive seen tons of sacks on even the good O-lines, Wasabi is saying that its a result of the low difficulty setting, but I think its more of the icon passing. Receiving is revamped as well, noticeably so. I kept going to plax to see what he could do and hands receivers really DO play like hands receivers, which is impressive. However, Wasabi did burn the crap out of me with Moss like that though. What sucks is that it seems like finesse guys play like that as well. I dont really recall Torry Holt winning a lot of jump balls in real life. -_-
A few other changes:
Boost and change character are the same on both offense and defense now.
Playmaker hotblocking is activated by holding in R3 and directing the dudes rather than just directing.
Kick return TDs seem to be a lot easier to pull off. I already have two.
Blockers are really sticky, even with Strahan.
Superstar mode and others are deactivated in the demo.
Anyway, i plan on about 40 games total by the end of the show and I got something set up for Friday to talk to a dev. We shall see!
