Madden 08 – First Impressions
August 16, 2007
Okay, time for some first impressions on the new Madden 08 football video game for the Xbox 360. I have to admit that I have not been a fan of Madden over the years. In fact, I have been downright vocal against the series. In my opinion, EA has done what it can to ruin the video console football game. The NFL 2K series was far superior, however, EA fixed that by buying the exclusive rights to NFL games for many years. As usual, the consumer was screwed. Also, this year, I finally showed some prudence and rented the game instead of throwing my money away on a game I ended up not playing and selling back to a store.
I have played video football games for many, many years. The last few years with poor football video games has been tough as they have always been a staple of my video playing time. I can’t wait for the exclusive license to end.
All that out of the way, let’s move to my first impressions. I say first impressions because I have had the game rented for three days now and played many games. That said, I haven’t dug in depth into the game. I have only experienced single player mode against the computer AI. I haven’t played online or tried the owner mode. If the single player grabs me, I may do more rental or even purchase the game.
Game Pros
- The framerate is absolutely rock steady. No stuttering or graphics slowdowns
- The graphics are the best in a football game to date
- EA finally tightened up the controls so they are mostly responsive (see diving in cons)
- The defensive secondary AI finally is not super prone to getting burned
- Many, many pre snap options. Just be careful not to get delay of game penalties while thinking about the options
- The EA Trax music is much less annoying than usual – still not my favorite, but definitely an improvement
- Some hits are brutal and will make you shake or shutter while playing
- Game keeps your attention
- EA finally has fixed sideline animations to at least have players trying to be realistic trying to stay in bounds
Game Cons
- Controls – diving with a player is still very haphazard and almost seems random which direction he will dive
- The announcers and commentary are still extremely weak. At least it’s not annoying as you pretty much don’t even know its there after hearing a few things
- What is with all the fumbles and interceptions???? Every game seems to have 3or 4 of both – by each time. Not very realistic
- I hope you have a deep bench. In five games, each game I had four players gets injured and be out. Plus, I had a couple that were able to come back later in the game. Again, not very realistic. Hopefully, I can tweak the settings and turn down the injury rate
- How does a game ship with some of these obvious bugs?
- While the hell can’t you save a game in progress and come back later to finish??
- Why have a challenge capability and then have it greyed out for so many plays?
- Games are still way too high scoring. I guess folks get turned off by having to punt
- Michael Vick is still first string QB for the Falcons. I hear a roster update is coming soon
Again, these are some of my initial impressions after three days with the rental game. So what’s my verdict thus far? I will probably rent the game again, and continue to evaluate it. For me, it’s the best Madden to date, but still has some aggravating “features”. I still yearn for the NFL 2K series or better yet, something that comes close to the fun of the old Tecmo Bowl days.
I wish EA was really concerned about the consumer. They could really get something going here instead of these small incremental steps they make.
Okay, enough ranting against EA and Madden. This game is a step in the right direction and I need some more time with it before I decide if I want to buy it or not.
Weekend Fun
August 12, 2007
This past weekend was extremely busy, but very fun for us.
The weekend started Friday night with us enjoying the relatively new Blu-Ray player. We have been watching many old movies in high def. Some are simple upconverts and not a tremendous increase in resolution. Others have been remastered and are downright beautiful. This weekend we decided to watch a couple of John Wayne movies. We enjoyed The Cowboys and The Shootist. It was very nice to watch classic movies in 1080p and dolby digital sound. Both were again worth the watch.
Saturday morning, the local semi-pro football team held a football clinic for football teams in the area. Sean was very excited and thoroughly enjoyed the morning. He spent a great deal of time on agility drills and linebacker drills. He says he wants to focus on the linebacker position this year. Hopefully, the coaches will be thinking the same thing. Suzanne also held a cheerleading clinic for the local cheerleaders while the football clinic was going on.
Sean and I also had some quality time playing Xbox 360 this weekend. We downloaded a few new Xbox Live Arcade games and played them. The one that got the most time was Track and Field, the 80′s era coin up game. It’s a pure button masher, but kept us coming back. We also managed to play some 1st person shooter classics, Call of Duty and Halo 2 with other folks around the World on Xbox Live. It was midnight last night before we finally turned it.
After church today, while I was working out on the elliptical trainer, the kids surprised me and cleaned up the house. I need more workout sessions like that! As a reward, Savannah downloaded the music from Hair Spray to her Ipod. She really enjoyed watching the movie/musical. We also let Sean open up one of his birthday presents early. His birthday isn’t for another 9 days, but Suzanne and I also felt like playing one of the boardgames we had gotten him.
The present he opened early was Ticket To Ride. It was the 2004 game of the year. It’s a nice family strategy game. The board is a map of the United States with railroads connecting cities across the country. The object of the game is to “claim” as many of the routes as you can. Claiming routes gets you victory points. You also have destination cards which give you bonus victory points if you claim a route between the two cities listed.
The game was pretty simple to pick up though I am sure we will be working out the various strategies for some time to come. A game took us just over an hour to play. I managed to eek out a slim victory over Sean. The entire family enjoyed the game and it is certain to get plenty of play time in this boardgame playing family.
Sean will be getting a couple of other boardgames for his birthday, so I will have to report on those after we try them. The majority of his birthday presents will be redoing his bedroom in a New England Patriots theme. I still think he should have gone with the Lions.
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