Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

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CharlieR
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby CharlieR » August 31st, 2018, 8:29 am

My fins crushed it last night in preseason, 34-7 against the Falcons. They can win the games that don't matter, plus it was the final preseason game, which is the least meaningful.

They did make a bit of a change to the uniforms, with no more blue stripes and bolder orange, so it looks more like the classics.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby VideoGameCritic » September 3rd, 2018, 1:45 pm

So I began my season and was glad that I could download the latest rosters.

So I begin the first game and rookie Lamar Jackson is the QB! That is totally wrong! He is #3 on the Ravens depth chart. So not only am I stuck with a QB who throws interceptions left and right, but I couldn't substitute him with Flacco!

Looks like another disappointing year of Madden. I can't stand EA. And I hate the NFL for doing business with them.

Herschie
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby Herschie » September 5th, 2018, 12:35 am

VideoGameCritic wrote:So I began my season and was glad that I could download the latest rosters.

So I begin the first game and rookie Lamar Jackson is the QB! That is totally wrong! He is #3 on the Ravens depth chart. So not only am I stuck with a QB who throws interceptions left and right, but I couldn't substitute him with Flacco!

Looks like another disappointing year of Madden. I can't stand EA. And I hate the NFL for doing business with them.


I take it you didn't make yourself the coach? I had similar issues with Road to the Show, terrible managerial decisions.

This is a cool game, but the luster has worn off a bit. Notice how much 16-bit football I've been posting about lately?

jon
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby jon » September 5th, 2018, 5:20 pm

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Marino,Dan51[1].JPG (22.75 KiB) Viewed 1268 times


These are my favorite Dolphins jerseys, from the '85 Bears game at the Orange Bowl. I guess it mightbe one of the old stadiums in Madden by now.

Herschie
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby Herschie » September 6th, 2018, 2:21 am

jon wrote:
These are my favorite Dolphins jerseys, from the '85 Bears game at the Orange Bowl. I guess it mightbe one of the old stadiums in Madden by now.


Those are in Madden. Not that it'll make much of a difference to me anymore.

Ok, so this is a nice catch, right?

Image

Ummm....
Image

Wha?

Image

No...freakin...way!!!

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Welp, I'm just about done with this game! Lucky for me the 16-bit era was quite kind to football.

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Matchstick
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby Matchstick » September 6th, 2018, 9:37 pm

My "holy trinity" of football games will always be Tecmo Super Bowl, Madden '92, and the original NFL Blitz. If I had to stretch it to a top five, I would bump Mutant League Football and one of the 2K games (probably 2K5, maybe 2K2) in there. Not that I haven't played more football games than that, but those are the ones I always come back to.

I quit Madden for good after the 07 version, the one with Shawn Alexander on the cover. I was pretty dedicated to the game, and it helped that I lived on my own, and that it was the dead of an unusually harsh Winter in Louisville, KY. I played on All-Madden (even with that stupid "passing cone" - what a terrible idea!) with the Bears, and started Franchise mode from the ground up.

It started off well enough. I traded Rex Grossman to the Vikings for a first round draft pick (ha!) and gave Kyle Orton all of the reps in training camp. By the time the season started, he was bumped up to a respectable 84 overall rating, and the defense was so stout that most games came down to just controlling the clock, running small-yardage plays, and not turning the ball over.

I did well through the season, finished 14-2, and went all the way to the Super Bowl against... the Buffalo Bills, with their "stud" QB JP Losman. Whatever! I was clinging to a 3-0 lead at the end of the fourth quarter, and punted the ball back to the Bills with three seconds left. They started on their own 15, and had time for one play.

My girlfriend at the time happened to be over that night, and I turned to her and said, jokingly, "How much you want to bet that they win this game on the last play?" Sure enough, they snapped the ball, and Losman hit one of their guys (Lee Evans? Peerless Price?) for a fifteen yard gainer, in double coverage, no less. He then managed to take off running, and break *seven* tackles on his way to the end zone. Game over, Bills win the Super Bowl 6-3.

(That's how you know it must be a video game, amirite??)

I couldn't believe it. I distinctly remember shouting at the top of my lungs, "OH... MY... F******... GAWD..." as I watched the receiver dance his way downfield. I played the replay over and over again, in total disbelief that guys like Lance Briggs and Brian Urlacher couldn't bring this guy down on the biggest stage of their tiny digital careers.

As I was watching the replay, though, I noticed many instances similar to what Hershie pointed out in his previous post:

- The ball that the receiver "caught" actually passed right through the Bears defender's back
- The receiver managed to break tackles by passing clean through several defender's arms
- As he was breaking one tackle, another defender dove in and passed straight through him like a ghost

At that point, it hit me - as unfair as it was, the CPU had just made up its mind that it wasn't going to lose. Sure, I was used to this in Blitz and Tecmo SB, as those games always seemed to make you fumble at inopportune times, but in a "sim" game like Madden, there was just no excuse. I felt cheated, totally gutted, and while I knew I could just restart the game and play again, I had a feeling the outcome was going to be the same. No matter how much I played or practiced, if the CPU decided it wasn't going to lose, then I wasn't going to win.

Oddly enough, me quitting Madden also led to me being less and less interested in the NFL, in general. Of course, the Bears stinking up the joint year in and year out didn't help either, but once Winter hits, it's the same story every year - I'm all in on hockey. And I don't even play EA's NHL games any more, save for NHL '96 on the Genesis, which gets popped in at least once a month. I just can't justify spending $60 on hardly anything, let alone a sports game that I know will cost practically nothing if I just wait a few months to buy it. And if that game is going to cheat its way to victory, in my opinion, it's not a game worth playing, and not a game worth my time.

Good for you, Hershie, for giving the 16-bit titles some love lately. After writing this, I think it's time to go fire up the Genesis and crack some skulls with Chris Chelios and Bob Probert. LET'S GO HAWKS!!

Herschie
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby Herschie » September 6th, 2018, 10:45 pm

Wow, that was absolutely crazy, and in the Super Bowl, no less! Hey, if it makes you feel better, you did just as well as the real Bears that year! I'm curious at to which system you played on?

But I get what you mean, I actually really liked Madden 04 and 05. Ever since the debut on the 360, the game has been trash in some way, shape, or form. I doubt it's much of a coincidence that that was the first year Madden has no competition. That exclusive deal was arguably one of the worst things to ever happen to video games. And The Show has been heading that direction too with these crazy glitches we've seen in the last few games.

I know I praised this game at first, but often the problems aren't apparent until you have played for awhile. You're certainly not going to see them in the YouTube videos leading up to launch. This game looks mighty pretty, but the issues really kill it.

It is really...freakin...hard to run this year! And I hate that.

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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby djc » September 7th, 2018, 12:21 am

For me, my favorites are Madden '92 (Genesis) as it is close to the fun of the original Madden where you could really run up the score but has all of the teams (for the time). After that, I'd go with Madden 3DO, NFL 2K1 (Dreamcast) and NFL 2K5 (XBox) in no particular order. I especially like the presentation in 2K5. I wasn't really a fan of the 8-bit football games except for Joe Montana on the Master System which I used to play all the time.

I find modern football games too complicated which is kind of the way I feel about most modern games now. I probably sound like a grizzled old-timer but I recently tried a modern-warfare type game and was shocked to find that important functions were mapped to every imaginable button on the game controller. I'm sorry but I just don't have the dexterity to make those kinds of maneuvers in the heat of battle and I am a pianist so that is saying something.

jon
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby jon » September 7th, 2018, 1:58 pm

When I think of the best football games I've ever played Madden '92 for the Genesis takes the cake. The early Genesis Maddens were amazing. Of course I actually played the very first Madden, released in 1988 only for computer, which was amazing by the way. NFL 2k5, while great, suffers from an identity crisis. It was heavy on off the field management stuff, but not nearly as much as computer games were from a decade earlier. The gameplay was great. But there's no identity. It's not purely a management game (which FPSFP smokes). It's not purely about on the field action with franchise mode. It's stuck, and not sure how many people still play it. College Hoops 2k8 though, nailed the dynasty mode, which is probably the only dynasty mode that ever held a candle to the computer games.

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Matchstick
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Re: Madden 19 (Playstation 4)

Postby Matchstick » September 8th, 2018, 11:59 pm

Herschie wrote:Wow, that was absolutely crazy, and in the Super Bowl, no less! Hey, if it makes you feel better, you did just as well as the real Bears that year! I'm curious at to which system you played on?


First things first, that Super Bowl. I had my Madden franchise collapse while the real NFL playoffs were still going on, and I did get a kick out of the fact that the digital Bears were doing just as well as the real life ones. Although I had a bad feeling about any possible Super Bowl matchup, as I just had no faith in Rex Grossman. Was't that also the year that the Bears got whalloped by the Packers on New Year's Eve, and Sexy Rexy's QB rating was 0.0?

As far as the Super Bowl, itself, at halftime, it might as well have been the happiest moment of my life. Chicago was winning, I got to watch Devin Hester make history and run back the opening kickoff for a score, and Prince was doing the effin' halftime show, literally playing Purple Rain in the pouring rain. I mean, Lord, you can take me now, I've seen it all! Then, of course, the second half played out in the only way it possibly could, but for that one moment, watching Prince crank it out with the Bears winning, man, I was on cloud nine :D

To answer your question, Herschie, I was playing Madden 07 on the Wii. Don't laugh, it was a great experience for me. I had trouble adjusting to EA's first generation 360 / PS3 Madden games, and the controls and overall feeling of the gameplay just wasn't right for me. 06, in particular, struck me as pretty half-assed, especially the "EA Sports Radio" announcer calling each game. 07 didn't really do it for me, either, especially since I thought the OG Xbox / PS2 versions were solid as a rock.

I was drawn to the Wii version as it was essentially the OG Xbox version, with a fresh coat of paint and some motion controls that, gasp, actually worked well. They worked so well, in fact, EA decided to totally revamp them and throw them out the window for the 08 version, claiming the newer game was easier to play as a result. I assure you, it was not.

The kicking / punting game in 07 was the best I've ever experienced. You motioned the Wiimote similar to the bowling in Wii Sports, with the speed you raised up the remote determining the power of the kick. The straighter you raised the Wiimote, the straighter the kick, and if you curved it just right, you could arc the kick perfectly to the left or right, and nail the coffin corner when punting every time.

While running, you could drum the controllers up and down to break tackles, and stiffarm moves worked by just slinging the Wiimote off to one side. Passing worked well, too, as each receiver was assigned to a direction of the D-Pad, and you would hold the direction and flick the remote to pass. The faster you swung it, the faster the pass. I had such an easy time lobbing rainbow passes downfield as well as cranking spirals through a tight window, that I never wanted to play any other way. Seriously. You could even use the pointer controls to navigate the menus, which came in real handy when flipping through the binder full of Madden cards.

I honestly don't think EA could have done a better job bringing that generation's Madden to the Wii than they did with 07. Of course, they had to go and meddle with it for 08 and 09, and by the time 10 came around, they had completely revamped the game with a cartoony, exaggerated graphical style and one-remote gameplay that didn't even use the Nunchuck. Such a shame.

For anyone out there that never tried Madden 07 on the Wii, I highly recommend it. Just don't expect much out of any of the followup games. EA also knocked it out of the park with the arcade-style NHL Slapshot, and 2K did well with the more realistic NHL 2K11 and MLB 2K8, but for my money, Madden 07 was the best sports sim on the system - and it was also the very first one. Go figure!


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