I know this is gonna be like preaching to satan worshippers but here it goes.
I know most of you will bring up the yearly roster update thing, but before xbox360, every Madden game from 02 to 06 made great improvements and became much more realistic. 360 was a step back and of course ps2 has literally become roster updates, but this year Madden has gotten back on track (except for ps3). If you guys have ever played organized football you would realize that there isn't much more they can offer football wise. Call of duty, call of duty 2, and call of duty 3 were all based in world war II and every game only added a couple of gimmicks or vehicles and greater ambiance (similar to the talking on the field, roster updates, and 3d crowds and sidelines in madden).
The point im trying to make is that if pokemon or Street fighter became yearly titles id probably by them every year and im pretty sure most of you would too.
So is it just a non-mainstream/non-jock thing that makes you hate madden and madden gamers or something else?
Also if its specifically about 06+07 on the 360 and ps3 than join me in coming up with some kind of SAW III like plan involving broken 06 and 07 disk for the ea sports developers
Also,Also online leagues better be in next years game
thats understandable but some gamers just think that playing madden makes you a fratjocknoob creature. I got disrespected at a gaming tourney at school because I WON a madden tourney. So I said all right mother fuckers and put up the entry fee for smash bros and starcraft and kicked their "l33t" asses
I don't like professional sports, I find them boring. Therefore, most sports sims are boring to me. The only sports titles I enjoy are usually ones that go the NBA Jam or Blitz route, and make it more fast paced and arcadey.
I also think if publishers were less greedy, they could spend more time in development and put out a new version of Madden every 2 or 3 years and offer free roster updates in the interim. Ha, like that'll ever happen.
The only EA Sports titles that have actually changed the way you play are those on the Wii. Those actually offer some decent fun, but I'm sure after a few iterations of them, it will become just as redundant as the 360/ps3.
I am one of those rare breeds of "nerd-jock" if you will (wrestling, football, MMA, lifting, to name a few)...and I still think these games are boring. Idunno...if I want a realistic football experience I'll go play REAL goddam football with a few guys. I mean...you can go to any crowded park and get a flag/touch/tackle pickup game going (even if it's just 4 on 4) with total strangers no problem. As far as the "ever-improving AI" that these games tout, I still have no problems jacking up my whole teams' stats well beyond 'realistic' stats. Plus the repetitive announcer tracks annoy the shit out of me.
I'll take my Super Techmo Bowl or Blitz now thank you.
Note - I didn't want to single out EA as the reason these games don't tickle my interest anymore because I quite enjoyed the 'Street' games.
Ditto on the just not liking football angle. Don't like football, thereby I don't like football games, thereby I make fun of people that do like football games. What nerds they are!
Of course, I say that about all the other sequential games I don't play. Like I did with Halo 3. And naturally I take great offense to being picked on for liking my sequential games. Like they did with Oblivion.
Besides online leagues what more could they add or change. Football is Football. If they make owner mode a little bit deeper and take out some of the glitches people abuse in this years madden, Im satisfied. This probably the closest im gonna be to football any more, so its my only choice
I'm fully aware that many a female can play football and some can even outperform many of their guy friends...but I personally usually just play with guys because the girls around just don't want to play.
Look jdub, it really all boils down to this: You are at Destructoid.com, not IGN or Gamespot. Nothing against those guys, but this site is for the REAL gamers. Not the mainstream casual types who only play sports games and the occasional shooter. We're talking JRPGs, FPS, Quirky Japanese shit, you get the point. Destructoid is for the hardcore.
we still play touch/tackle but it just isn't the same as playing on Friday/Saturday. The games are too friendly and when i try to talk trash/make them competitive, suddenly im a jackass. Its much easier to get a thrill out of a close online game
Thats the shit im talking about. Because I play madden im not a "real gamer"? I enjoy my fair share of power leveling, headshots and Katamari...-rolling? too.
it just sucks that knowing a game so much you basically read it in 1's and 0's gets you made fun of in most hardcore gaming circles if its madden, HL:CS, or Halo; but you get respect if its soul calibur, smash bros, or starcraft etc.
I stopped buying Madden after 06 b/c every year it's the same thing. You have the same exact core gameplay mechanics with a few new tricks that may or may not help the game. Whatever the case, they hype it like it's the greatest thing ever. However, along with these new bells comes brand new glitches that year in and year out rear its ugly head and make this game damn near unplayable. Of course these glitches could be avoided if the development team got more than a year to actually properly test this game.
For example, from 06 xbox, the last iteration I bought...there were a couple of glaring bugs.
1-When you scan the field pre snap, the icons of your runningback and fullback switched depending on what type of play you called (pass/run). This allowed your opponent to know exactly what type of play you're running.
2-On draw plays, the vision cone ALWAYS was on the center. This rendered draw plays useless.
3- The fatigue glitch in which EA's response was to just turn off fatigue option when playing online.
Stuff like this could be easily picked out from Beta testing which EA doesn't do simply b/c they KNOW that whatever quality of game they release, people will buy.
My views have nothing to do with the elitism some of the others seem to be adopting. Simply put...Madden is a force-feeding money-making machine. It exists ONLY for EA's profitable exploitation of USA's fascination with pro football. You like these game because you like football.
As far as the online play with this game...that's what made me give up all together on the series. Observe:
-Kalvin starts game with opponent.
-Kalvin stops opponent's first drive.
-Kalvin scores touchdown.
-Kalvin has to mute headset.
-Opponent quits one minute-thirty into the game.
Ya, I didnt buy 06 for all those reasons, I did buy 07 when it dropped to $20, but 08 fixed all of those glitches
EA does need to do a better job with glitches but how much can they change the game play. 1st: its football not much can be added 2nd: Id rather they not completley change everything about the game mechanics. The new branching animation things are to sports what ragdol is to fps's so thats a big upgrade
The online thing is kind of why I posted. I was gonna start off asking if any of you guys play madden so icould actually have nonretarded competition online, but then i thought most people would probably call me a mainstream, jeep driving, frat whore and tell me to gtfo
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play... There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." -- EA's CEO, John Riccitiello. Good enough? Find me a Madden game that's more fun to play than Tecmo Bowl.
Lethal, don't attack a game because "the company exploits interest in the game in order to make money." We wouldn't have ANY games if we boycotted games with that motive. Hell, we wouldn't have civilization if we didn't accept things which were created by people who wanted to make money.
thats another thing
"maddens to haaarrrrrrrrd"
seriously it took me like 20 mins to learn to play on xbox 360 from ps2 (the controls and nuances arent similar at all)
I remeber trying to play street fighter at the arcade. Stand in line all day, then get beat down by someone with enough quarters to buy peoples spots in line. Or learning to play counter-Strike and Unreal online
I think I got killed a million times before I contributed anything to my team
Personally I wouldn't know how hard it is, I haven't played a Madden seriously since Madden NFL '94 for SNES. After that it hasn't been able to keep my attention for more than a game or two. I played some football game on Dreamcast a good bit, but that's because everyone played it at the place where I would hang out... And I hate to pass up a chance to win at a competitive game against friends.
That's the point Jdubb...They fixed last years glitches but then along with all the new bells and whistles, they introduced a whole slew of brand new glitches. The core gameplay mechanic has not changed. You said that there isn't much they can improve on in this game. I beg to differ. The one aspect that Madden continues to not touch is the use of canned animations, pinball physics and suction blocking. Seriously, by redoing the physics, you completely change the game. But they won't put the money/time/effort in it because roster updates sell like hot cakes.
Also, I don't know if it's true or not, but when EA first came out with online Madden, they made it so that you HAD to buy the new Madden each year to continue playing online. I don't know if that's still going on.
I don't hate madden, i just dont like it over the 2k games football. and i do have the 06 madden and it is defence impossible. i play madden but id rather play espn 2k5 if it was backwards compatible i would be playing it.
jdub, I'm sure many of the Dtoid members out there play madden, however, they would never admit it because they know those who consider themselves 'hardcore' would never let them live it down.
Personally, I don't give a fuck what those people think. They need to rethink their definition of hardcore. If I had madden on your platform, I would totally play.
I will admit, I have had loads of fun playing NBA Live 08 for the Wii for the past week. It actually takes a little bit of practice rather than just getting used to the button timing on your jump shot.
Just give me my damn Mutant League Football, on the WiiVC or in current-gen form. Madden doesn't capture the actual brutality of football enough for me.
Also, the rest of the game play is staler than the French bread I left out last night, but I think I'm gonna make Frech toast out of it, so there IS hope!
I have nothing against sports games in general, but how many football games do you need on one system, from the same company? You gave the example of fighting games, and I actually tend to agree with you there in a limited sense. Capcom was certainly guilty of this with Street Fighter II (and apparently still is with the Virtual Console.) One thing about fighting games, though, is that when they make "roster updates" it tends to have an impact on the actual gameplay, since the five new recruits play significantly different than the existing roster. How much of a difference does having a new center for the Chiefs affect the game?
Kudos to EA for trying a few new things in each game, but as you said yourself, how much can they change football? And when they do implement changes into how the game is played, not all of them are for the better.
I'd actually like another NFL game in my collection, because the only one I have is Super Play Action Football on the SNES, and it's less than stellar. But I know I can wait for the dust to settle and find the version with the list of features that I like most, which is most likely not the most recent iteration. And I can get it for much much much cheaper than $50-60.
Another point: look at the Tiger Woods games that EA puts out annually. You can sort of justify that because, if nothing else, they add new courses, which does change the game. It's like buying Super Mario Bros. and then buying Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels.) The game remains essentially the same, but presents significant new challenges and experiences. But even the TW games could benefit from more time in development, as evidenced by less courses being in the more recent iterations than their previous generation counterparts.
I have Tiger Woods 2004, which I picked up last year after reading reviews for all the TW games on Gamecube and determining it had the courses I want and didn't have the superfluos features like "Tiger Vision" that didn't seem to improve the game.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, but one more point relating to gaming elitism. Yes, some of that is in play, much of it unjustified. However, think about what being a gamer means. If all someone ever played was Madden and Halo, would you call them a gamer? I can see some people saying yes based on the almighty STFUAJPG argument, but for me I can't really refer to that person as a gamer in the same sense that I am. Likewise, I enjoy watching football on TV or occasionally other sports, but I wouldn't ever refer to myself as a sports fan in the way many sports fans would refer to themselves. I don't play any sports or follow stats or rosters beyond the two or three football teams I watch regularly, and then only what the announcers tend to comment on or if someone is about to break a record. I'd be lost if I walked into a conversation in a sports bar, and many Madden fans would be lost if I started talking about that time I woke the Windfish and found out Koholint Island was just a dream.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying a Madden game, and it doesn't make you personally less of a gamer. But if you look at the sales numbers for Beyond Good & Evil against those for Madden, you can kind of see where the generalizations about who is playing Madden come from. Sports fans buy and play Madden, not gamers. That isn't to say that if you're a sports fan you're not a gamer, hell no. But whatever is leading you to buy and enjoy yearly editions of Madden is different than why you bought and played Pikmin.
I actually agree with just about all of your points, but if thats the case why dont Wrestling fans and anime fans get flamed for liking anime and wrestling games etc. I cant tell the diffrence between any of the smackdown games, and i dont think adding 3 more versions of Goku/Naruto constitutes the making of a new anime game
also, the adding new fighting characters thing. Its probably the sports fan in me but i get excited to play as the new rookies. Playing as Vince Young and Reggie bush for the first time was great last year and Pat white and steve slaton will be great next year
Hmm, good point about wrestling games. I don't know. Maybe the elitism expresses itself a different way there. As big as those games may be they aren't as heavily marketed- I haven't seen a local news story about the impending release of Smackdown vs. Raw 2008. Could be most just ignore the wrestling games completely. Going with the roster update issue, maybe most can reconcile the roster changes in new wrestling games as significant, as wrestler personas change. There's a level of individuality to each new face that gets put in the game that. You were excited to play as certain rookies in Madden, but besides the new jersey number how does it change the game to make it worth another $50? I kind of tacitly revealed my bias there, as I've played a couple wrestling games (in the N64 days, not since) and haven't played many recent football games, but it is a perception people have, fair or not. Bah, this argument is horrible, you could still levy the same claims against the wrestling games these days most likely. Okay, I still don't know, but I'll go with they aren't as big of a target, and not many of us know anyone who bought a system just to play Wrestlemania games.
I think the same thing applies to anime games, they just aren't as big of a target as the only NFL game available that is produced by the second biggest game publisher. As bottled dark noted, there are other series that get abused. Madden is seen as the trendsetter, though, the proof that the same thing every year can be profitable, and immensely so. I think in a lot of our minds if yearly $50 releases of Madden stopped that would be a victory for quality and care in game design. It's not that Madden is total garbage, it's that with more time it could imaginably be much better. As much has been said by others already.
Some of the hate is justified, some of it not. I don't think hating on someone for liking Madden is necessarily justified, but I hope I'm helping uncover the answer to the "why" question. And I'll definitely link back if I clean this up for my blog :)
I have not played Madden before. I think I may have looked at one of its earlier titles but I haven't truly experienced it. I'll play a Madden title someday :D.
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about me
I like games. I have owned a nes snes genesis n64 psone dreamcast ps2 cube xbo360 wii
I like sports games fps rpgs and all nintendo games that arent a series of minigames
Destructoid is an independently-run publication forged by our love of video games and the gaming community's need of accountable enthusiast press living the dream since March 16, 2006
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I just don't like football. :(
thats understandable but some gamers just think that playing madden makes you a fratjocknoob creature. I got disrespected at a gaming tourney at school because I WON a madden tourney. So I said all right mother fuckers and put up the entry fee for smash bros and starcraft and kicked their "l33t" asses
I have nothing against Madden, although I wish EA didn't own the NFL rights exclusively. The 2K games were great football games.
Can't say I blame EA though. They are trying to run a business after all.
I don't like professional sports, I find them boring. Therefore, most sports sims are boring to me. The only sports titles I enjoy are usually ones that go the NBA Jam or Blitz route, and make it more fast paced and arcadey.
I also think if publishers were less greedy, they could spend more time in development and put out a new version of Madden every 2 or 3 years and offer free roster updates in the interim. Ha, like that'll ever happen.
ya ea buying the liscense was an emotional kick in the balls. Especially when 2k started sellin their games for 20$
It's the same stuff, every year. And they always cut the good things out.
Plus Madden is pretty glitchy.
The only EA Sports titles that have actually changed the way you play are those on the Wii. Those actually offer some decent fun, but I'm sure after a few iterations of them, it will become just as redundant as the 360/ps3.
I am one of those rare breeds of "nerd-jock" if you will (wrestling, football, MMA, lifting, to name a few)...and I still think these games are boring. Idunno...if I want a realistic football experience I'll go play REAL goddam football with a few guys. I mean...you can go to any crowded park and get a flag/touch/tackle pickup game going (even if it's just 4 on 4) with total strangers no problem. As far as the "ever-improving AI" that these games tout, I still have no problems jacking up my whole teams' stats well beyond 'realistic' stats. Plus the repetitive announcer tracks annoy the shit out of me.
I'll take my Super Techmo Bowl or Blitz now thank you.
Note - I didn't want to single out EA as the reason these games don't tickle my interest anymore because I quite enjoyed the 'Street' games.
Ditto on the just not liking football angle. Don't like football, thereby I don't like football games, thereby I make fun of people that do like football games. What nerds they are!
Of course, I say that about all the other sequential games I don't play. Like I did with Halo 3. And naturally I take great offense to being picked on for liking my sequential games. Like they did with Oblivion.
Besides online leagues what more could they add or change. Football is Football. If they make owner mode a little bit deeper and take out some of the glitches people abuse in this years madden, Im satisfied. This probably the closest im gonna be to football any more, so its my only choice
*in regards to my "with a few guys":
I'm fully aware that many a female can play football and some can even outperform many of their guy friends...but I personally usually just play with guys because the girls around just don't want to play.
Look jdub, it really all boils down to this: You are at Destructoid.com, not IGN or Gamespot. Nothing against those guys, but this site is for the REAL gamers. Not the mainstream casual types who only play sports games and the occasional shooter. We're talking JRPGs, FPS, Quirky Japanese shit, you get the point. Destructoid is for the hardcore.
@whiteboy0869: I dunno, I really like Spider Solitare.
we still play touch/tackle but it just isn't the same as playing on Friday/Saturday. The games are too friendly and when i try to talk trash/make them competitive, suddenly im a jackass. Its much easier to get a thrill out of a close online game
Madden is the ultimate casual gamer game. We hate it because we are the diamonds of hard-core.
I play hockey games, because I'm a Canadian so it's the law.
Thats the shit im talking about. Because I play madden im not a "real gamer"? I enjoy my fair share of power leveling, headshots and Katamari...-rolling? too.
@bluemeep
spider solitare would be much greater with bloom, and havoc physics
I didn't say it was justified or rational!
The last sentence of your comment made me lawl.
Sorry if I misrepresented Dtoid. I just mean that Dtoid itself caters to the hardcore. I did say that I enjoy sports games.
it just sucks that knowing a game so much you basically read it in 1's and 0's gets you made fun of in most hardcore gaming circles if its madden, HL:CS, or Halo; but you get respect if its soul calibur, smash bros, or starcraft etc.
I don't hate Madden players. I hate EA for cashing in on the license and not offering a polished product.
http://www.consumeraffairs.com/news04/2007/09/ea_games.html
I stopped buying Madden after 06 b/c every year it's the same thing. You have the same exact core gameplay mechanics with a few new tricks that may or may not help the game. Whatever the case, they hype it like it's the greatest thing ever. However, along with these new bells comes brand new glitches that year in and year out rear its ugly head and make this game damn near unplayable. Of course these glitches could be avoided if the development team got more than a year to actually properly test this game.
For example, from 06 xbox, the last iteration I bought...there were a couple of glaring bugs.
1-When you scan the field pre snap, the icons of your runningback and fullback switched depending on what type of play you called (pass/run). This allowed your opponent to know exactly what type of play you're running.
2-On draw plays, the vision cone ALWAYS was on the center. This rendered draw plays useless.
3- The fatigue glitch in which EA's response was to just turn off fatigue option when playing online.
Stuff like this could be easily picked out from Beta testing which EA doesn't do simply b/c they KNOW that whatever quality of game they release, people will buy.
My views have nothing to do with the elitism some of the others seem to be adopting. Simply put...Madden is a force-feeding money-making machine. It exists ONLY for EA's profitable exploitation of USA's fascination with pro football. You like these game because you like football.
As far as the online play with this game...that's what made me give up all together on the series. Observe:
-Kalvin starts game with opponent.
-Kalvin stops opponent's first drive.
-Kalvin scores touchdown.
-Kalvin has to mute headset.
-Opponent quits one minute-thirty into the game.
Ya, I didnt buy 06 for all those reasons, I did buy 07 when it dropped to $20, but 08 fixed all of those glitches
EA does need to do a better job with glitches but how much can they change the game play. 1st: its football not much can be added 2nd: Id rather they not completley change everything about the game mechanics. The new branching animation things are to sports what ragdol is to fps's so thats a big upgrade
@ LethalHairdo
The online thing is kind of why I posted. I was gonna start off asking if any of you guys play madden so icould actually have nonretarded competition online, but then i thought most people would probably call me a mainstream, jeep driving, frat whore and tell me to gtfo
"We're boring people to death and making games that are harder and harder to play... There's been lots of product that looked like last year's product, that looked a lot like the year before." -- EA's CEO, John Riccitiello. Good enough? Find me a Madden game that's more fun to play than Tecmo Bowl.
Lethal, don't attack a game because "the company exploits interest in the game in order to make money." We wouldn't have ANY games if we boycotted games with that motive. Hell, we wouldn't have civilization if we didn't accept things which were created by people who wanted to make money.
thats another thing
"maddens to haaarrrrrrrrd"
seriously it took me like 20 mins to learn to play on xbox 360 from ps2 (the controls and nuances arent similar at all)
I remeber trying to play street fighter at the arcade. Stand in line all day, then get beat down by someone with enough quarters to buy peoples spots in line. Or learning to play counter-Strike and Unreal online
I think I got killed a million times before I contributed anything to my team
Personally I wouldn't know how hard it is, I haven't played a Madden seriously since Madden NFL '94 for SNES. After that it hasn't been able to keep my attention for more than a game or two. I played some football game on Dreamcast a good bit, but that's because everyone played it at the place where I would hang out... And I hate to pass up a chance to win at a competitive game against friends.
The only sports game I've ever enjoyed was Mega Man's Soccer.
That's the point Jdubb...They fixed last years glitches but then along with all the new bells and whistles, they introduced a whole slew of brand new glitches. The core gameplay mechanic has not changed. You said that there isn't much they can improve on in this game. I beg to differ. The one aspect that Madden continues to not touch is the use of canned animations, pinball physics and suction blocking. Seriously, by redoing the physics, you completely change the game. But they won't put the money/time/effort in it because roster updates sell like hot cakes.
Also, I don't know if it's true or not, but when EA first came out with online Madden, they made it so that you HAD to buy the new Madden each year to continue playing online. I don't know if that's still going on.
I don't hate madden, i just dont like it over the 2k games football. and i do have the 06 madden and it is defence impossible. i play madden but id rather play espn 2k5 if it was backwards compatible i would be playing it.
jdub, I'm sure many of the Dtoid members out there play madden, however, they would never admit it because they know those who consider themselves 'hardcore' would never let them live it down.
Personally, I don't give a fuck what those people think. They need to rethink their definition of hardcore. If I had madden on your platform, I would totally play.
I will admit, I have had loads of fun playing NBA Live 08 for the Wii for the past week. It actually takes a little bit of practice rather than just getting used to the button timing on your jump shot.
Just give me my damn Mutant League Football, on the WiiVC or in current-gen form. Madden doesn't capture the actual brutality of football enough for me.
Also, the rest of the game play is staler than the French bread I left out last night, but I think I'm gonna make Frech toast out of it, so there IS hope!
I love sports games.
Love them.
Rockvillian, speaking of the brutallity of football, Did you hapen to see the LSU at KY game yesterday?
I have nothing against sports games in general, but how many football games do you need on one system, from the same company? You gave the example of fighting games, and I actually tend to agree with you there in a limited sense. Capcom was certainly guilty of this with Street Fighter II (and apparently still is with the Virtual Console.) One thing about fighting games, though, is that when they make "roster updates" it tends to have an impact on the actual gameplay, since the five new recruits play significantly different than the existing roster. How much of a difference does having a new center for the Chiefs affect the game?
Kudos to EA for trying a few new things in each game, but as you said yourself, how much can they change football? And when they do implement changes into how the game is played, not all of them are for the better.
I'd actually like another NFL game in my collection, because the only one I have is Super Play Action Football on the SNES, and it's less than stellar. But I know I can wait for the dust to settle and find the version with the list of features that I like most, which is most likely not the most recent iteration. And I can get it for much much much cheaper than $50-60.
Another point: look at the Tiger Woods games that EA puts out annually. You can sort of justify that because, if nothing else, they add new courses, which does change the game. It's like buying Super Mario Bros. and then buying Super Mario Bros. 2 (The Lost Levels.) The game remains essentially the same, but presents significant new challenges and experiences. But even the TW games could benefit from more time in development, as evidenced by less courses being in the more recent iterations than their previous generation counterparts.
I have Tiger Woods 2004, which I picked up last year after reading reviews for all the TW games on Gamecube and determining it had the courses I want and didn't have the superfluos features like "Tiger Vision" that didn't seem to improve the game.
Anyway, I'm rambling now, but one more point relating to gaming elitism. Yes, some of that is in play, much of it unjustified. However, think about what being a gamer means. If all someone ever played was Madden and Halo, would you call them a gamer? I can see some people saying yes based on the almighty STFUAJPG argument, but for me I can't really refer to that person as a gamer in the same sense that I am. Likewise, I enjoy watching football on TV or occasionally other sports, but I wouldn't ever refer to myself as a sports fan in the way many sports fans would refer to themselves. I don't play any sports or follow stats or rosters beyond the two or three football teams I watch regularly, and then only what the announcers tend to comment on or if someone is about to break a record. I'd be lost if I walked into a conversation in a sports bar, and many Madden fans would be lost if I started talking about that time I woke the Windfish and found out Koholint Island was just a dream.
There's nothing wrong with enjoying a Madden game, and it doesn't make you personally less of a gamer. But if you look at the sales numbers for Beyond Good & Evil against those for Madden, you can kind of see where the generalizations about who is playing Madden come from. Sports fans buy and play Madden, not gamers. That isn't to say that if you're a sports fan you're not a gamer, hell no. But whatever is leading you to buy and enjoy yearly editions of Madden is different than why you bought and played Pikmin.
I can't believe I just typed all of that out with the Wii remote. I'm copy/pasting that into a cblog later.
I actually agree with just about all of your points, but if thats the case why dont Wrestling fans and anime fans get flamed for liking anime and wrestling games etc. I cant tell the diffrence between any of the smackdown games, and i dont think adding 3 more versions of Goku/Naruto constitutes the making of a new anime game
p.s. just give me a link in that COPYPASTA cblog
/ShamlessSelfAdvertising
also, the adding new fighting characters thing. Its probably the sports fan in me but i get excited to play as the new rookies. Playing as Vince Young and Reggie bush for the first time was great last year and Pat white and steve slaton will be great next year
it's a lot like saying
why do you guys hate dynasty warriors so much?
@Jdub:
Hmm, good point about wrestling games. I don't know. Maybe the elitism expresses itself a different way there. As big as those games may be they aren't as heavily marketed- I haven't seen a local news story about the impending release of Smackdown vs. Raw 2008. Could be most just ignore the wrestling games completely. Going with the roster update issue, maybe most can reconcile the roster changes in new wrestling games as significant, as wrestler personas change. There's a level of individuality to each new face that gets put in the game that. You were excited to play as certain rookies in Madden, but besides the new jersey number how does it change the game to make it worth another $50? I kind of tacitly revealed my bias there, as I've played a couple wrestling games (in the N64 days, not since) and haven't played many recent football games, but it is a perception people have, fair or not. Bah, this argument is horrible, you could still levy the same claims against the wrestling games these days most likely. Okay, I still don't know, but I'll go with they aren't as big of a target, and not many of us know anyone who bought a system just to play Wrestlemania games.
I think the same thing applies to anime games, they just aren't as big of a target as the only NFL game available that is produced by the second biggest game publisher. As bottled dark noted, there are other series that get abused. Madden is seen as the trendsetter, though, the proof that the same thing every year can be profitable, and immensely so. I think in a lot of our minds if yearly $50 releases of Madden stopped that would be a victory for quality and care in game design. It's not that Madden is total garbage, it's that with more time it could imaginably be much better. As much has been said by others already.
Some of the hate is justified, some of it not. I don't think hating on someone for liking Madden is necessarily justified, but I hope I'm helping uncover the answer to the "why" question. And I'll definitely link back if I clean this up for my blog :)
Damn fine arguing New Challenger, Damn fine
I have not played Madden before. I think I may have looked at one of its earlier titles but I haven't truly experienced it. I'll play a Madden title someday :D.