Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Madden 11 Notes

First off, I tested special teams this morning and these are final settings:
FG Power 30
FG Accuracy 68
Punt Power 62
Punt Accuracy 100
Kickoff Power 30

Like I said yesterday, slider development should be much easier this year because we're not starting from scratch.

Here are a few random notes, based on early observation:
--the two-minute A.I., which was very weak last year (far too passive), has seemingly received a major upgrade. I saw a team that was ahead by 20+ points get the ball at their own 20 yard line with less than two minutes in the first half--and come out in the shotgun. Hell and yes, because that's exactly what an NFL team would do--go for the kill shot. I also saw Aaron Rodgers throw a bomb from inside his own 15 in the last two minutes of the first half--and the Packers were ahead.

This was my #1 complaint about the game last year, and based on my initial observations, it's been addressed. Well done.

--more A.I. goodness: I've seen teams running the hurry-up in appropriate situations outside the two-minute window. Outstanding.

--they've changed the arc of long passes, and it looks great. Downside: medium passes may float a little too much.

--slider settings (like last year) make substantive changes in how the game plays. Again, well done, because this lets the community improve the realism level.

--the game is very impressive visually. It's not Backbreaker, but nothing is (except Backbreaker, obviously).

--There are an egregious number of cut shots in between plays. At least, that's true for a CPU vs. CPU game, which is what I'm using first to develop initial slider settings. Way too many cut shots and way too many replay "fragments".

Obviously, this is still very early in the evaluation process, but so far, the game is looking very solid.

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