Played a fair amount on the preview... Sure, only 6 hours worth, but so far the game feels really improved and a lot of big and small improvements.
Off the bat, I bumped the game down to "Slow" for gamespeed, which I always prefer. I'm playing on all pro. On All Pro with "Normal" gamespeed, it felt too fast for me... but that's just a preference.
First of all, the gameplay feels right. Players have a weight to them and a fast nimble back feels that way, while a lumbering back has more weight and momentum. Players just feel like they move how they should and your movements make a difference.
More on gameplay, for the first time that I can remember there are actually realistic overthrows and incompletions. In Madden years past, we all know that Qb's would go 25 / 35 and all 10 incompletions would be either dropped passes, batted balls, dropped interceptions, or interceptions. When, halelujah, you actually have poorly thrown balls in this year that go beyond the WR or out of bounds or short, or are just off. Getting a 3rd down stop and having the ball just sail over the head of the WR and fall harmlessly to the ground felt a lot better than having my safety drop an easy interception, even though the result of the play is the game. Seems great.
New playcalling: Actually improved. Madden has tried to speed up the game in the past few years with the playcalling changes, but there's always been a sacrifice of choice for speed and often times, the coaches suggestions are very limited and just lousy plays that you don't want to run. The new enhanced suggestions play calling works and having 6 coaches suggestions, then 3 strategy suggestions,a nd then 6 community suggestions gives enough choice and balance while also keeping the focus on gameplay and less on menus. Though, when I do go back to the traditional playcalling which I do occassionally, I find the "expand / collapse" animation takes a little too long when you're trying to whip through plays and formations. But it hasn't gotten in the way at all and it's only when I go to traditional play calling that I run into this which is usually 1 - 3 plays a game.
Oh and FINALLY with the no huddle has been dramatically improved on offense. First, you can run a no huddle tempo if you want to.. this is similar to NCAA's tempo settings, but tweaked. No huddle tempo actually gives you full playcall screen but gets you to the line without dropping any time off the playclock and it's a quick tempo. Kill clock, or whatever, is like NCAA's where you take 30 seconds off the playclock every time. BUt, when calling an impromptu no huddle, you get full access to your playbook... not the limited 4 or 5 audibles like in year's past. Thank god for this, it's a hell of a lot more realistic and makes the no huddle valuable.
New quick camera changes are a significant improvement to Madden. being able to change on the fly depending on the type of playcall you have is awesome.
Defensive camera is good, it's better than NCAA's old player lock option, but I don't use it for long. I just don't find it as effective so I usually switch back. I use it mostly on the D-Line or when blitzing a line backer. It provides no advantage, but it mixes it up sometimes... and the benefit of being able to toggle it preplay on the field makes it useful. If I had to go into a menu to toggle that I'd never ever use it.
The game looks incredible. If you don't think that these graphics are improved you're insane. You can't tell that much with the gameplay camera when it's pulled back, but there are improvements there... but when it's close up, especially during the opening kickoff, right after touchdowns, and other ingame cinematic times, it's great.
The crowd noise and reaction is great.
Commentary is still pretty bad, mostly the same. It's improved but still mostly sucks. The pregame commentary from the guy in the studio when it goes into the game is natural and feels right... It surprises me that it flows so naturally. I can't tell if maybe they recorded every potential game scenario, but when I played the Bears vs. the Cardinals (which isn't really that "likely" of a matchup), the pregame commentary was relevant and stitched really well, he mentioned it would be a measure of two wide receivers, Larry Fitz and Brandon Marshall, and had both guys compared side by side on the screen with their season stats. Felt really good and normal, something you'd expect to see.
There's one very subtle improvement that I never thought I'd ask for but it's an improvement. There is no opening coin toss really... The coin toss is just simulated before the game, which makes a lot of sense. As a coach, before the game, you have coin toss options... "Receive first," "Defend first," "Take wind," "against wind," this is all on the controller select screen. And then the game loads right into the kickoff after the pre-game commentary. Some people might not like this and might like the coin toss for some weird reason but I never thought that this would be an improvement until actually noticing it and realizing that loading straight into the opening kickoff is way more realistic and TV-like. It's pretty rare that you're watching an NFL game and it shows the opening coin toss like how it's always shown in Madden years past, UNLESS it's a noteworthy game like the Super Bowl. And, FWIW, there IS still a coin toss if you go to Over time, that has not been removed.
The halftime show is pretty good, good to see those highlights and most of them are important plays. In game replays are great and quick. New injury timeouts look good. I like that they made a more TV-like timeout when you call timeout but it can get annoying late in games when you're calling TO just to stop the clock, instead it sort of goes into a TV-style cut of "Let's take a break for this timeout..." type thing. It's fine and not a big deal but I'd like to see that tuned down in late games when you're obviously calling timeout just to stop the clock.
At half time and quarters, I like how it has the pull away for "this game is brought to you by Head and Shoulders, the shampoo of the NFL.." or whatever it is. SOme people might think this is in game advertising, which sure, it is, but it's realistic too and happens similar to real games. Of course, you can "A" through them if you want to and they will never appear. But if you let the presentation take over between quarters you'll see it. They have a few of them, I've seen Verizon and H&S so far.
On the play types... I did the training camp which was fine. The gauntlet mode is fine but I didn't thnk it was amazing or anything. The other drills, some repeats from the past, bu a bunch of new ones with new descriptions and setup seemed good. A whole new area for "Strategy" which teaches you the strategy of specific plays and playcalling. This is something that Madden should have done a long time ago and I think it's a great addition.
I also played MUT for about 10 mins. I've never been an MUT guy and I likely won't this year, but I like how they had a bunch of video tutorials and overlays when you start MUT, like a guided experience.. "Do this, now do this, now do this..." felt like a tutorial in Civ 5,which I need because I don't get MUT at all. But, this helped me understand it a bit more and I liked it. I still probably won't play MUT in any meaningful way, but I liked the improvements.
Did not go into CCM at all, just leaving that for retail.
Overall I think Madden vets will really like this year's game from what I've played of it. Gameplay seems really strong and the graphics at certain points look really, really good... especially on those opening kickoffs. New presentation layers are appreciated, especially the small ones. People who hate Madden every year should probably still pass on it... It's a ton of improvements, but it's still a Madden game and if you live to hate Madden then you won't like this one any more than any other Madden game in the last 10 years. But, if you're open minded and haven't bought Madden in a while, this is the version to get.
-edit-
Just quickly, I did run into a few bugs/issues but nothing really crazy:
- Punt return, if you switch to defensive camera, then switch back to regular cam, and use the "jump snap" as the punt returner, I was unable to get the punt returner to move... he just locked up and let the ball bounce pass him. Only experienced it once, all of the others were normal.
- No-huddle is a little too fast when you're on defense. The cam zooms in on the QB doing preplay reads and it doesn't giv you enough time as a defender to make adjustments.
- Some visual bugs, like Geno smith came out at the beginning of the game and his face flicker and disappeared. Also on no huddle pass while I had the defensive game the game got overly contrasted visually and produced some field flickering post-play. None of these made any impact on the game while playing it, but both were weird. Haven't seen it since that first game against the Jets.
