Second-String Fullback

I purchased Madden 11 the day it came out, and was debating whether or not I would write anything about it here. After realizing that preseason football wasn’t really giving me great stuff to work with, I’m deciding to write a very loosely formed review of the game, in case you’re fixing for some football before the NFL season starts.

A quick history of my run-ins with Madden games: I owned Madden 2005 and 2006 for the Nintendo Gamecube, which were really good. After my Gamecube broke and I sold all my games and stuff, I found an old copy of Madden 2004 for the PC (with Michael Vick on the cover!) that came with a video card I bought a while back. I decided to get back into Madden and install it. After about six months of playing with my Drew Brees-led Cleveland Browns (and in the middle of my third unbeaten season, too!) I came home from work one night to find the CD had been snapped in two (most likely my sister not looking where she was walking, but she never admitted it). After that, I got Madden 10 for the Nintendo Wii, which was alright, but didn’t really have any depth that I was looking for. Later in this review, when I talk about the franchise mode, keep in mind that the last one I played was Madden 2004, because the Wii version didn’t have an actual franchise mode.

Here’s where we end up. I now have Madden 11 for Xbox 360. I paid attention to a couple reviews, but they didn’t really influence my decision that much. I would have bought Madden 10, but I legitimately wanted the new rosters, with all the new drafted players, really badly. I know people complain about how Madden seems to put out the same game with new rosters every year, but if you really care about the new players on your favorite team that much, it’s worth it to you.

I started a franchise with the Cleveland Browns, doing a fantasy draft. I paid attention to drafting until I had all the required players, then let the simulation fill in the extra guys. In total, it took about 20-30 minutes to draft the full team, and it was easy to find the player I wanted. Everything was categorized really well.

The franchise mode is very deep, and everything’s accessible from the franchise menu. You can re-sign players quickly, release them, look at news and even scout the upcoming draft class, which I found neat. I’m not sure if that was a new feature this season, but I’ll just say it was.

I decided to actually play the preseason games so I could get a feel for any changes in the controls. By the way, since I did a fantasy draft, almost all the players weren’t on their actual teams, so don’t get confused if I mention Matt Stafford in a Packers jersey.

There were a lot of damn cinematic scenes. Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth (who are really entertaining to listen to while playing) were talking about the game and teams while I pressed through what seemed like endless different scenes of the stadium, teams warming up, and fans cheering. It’s cool, but I don’t want to wear out my A button in games.

This clusterfuck of scenes seems to happen after every quarter too, showing big plays from that respective quarter. It would probably be much cooler if you want to brag while you’re playing a friend, but I really didn’t care for them.

I started on offense and found that while you still have the full playbook, the game really pushes for you to use GameFlow, which is sort of like Ask Madden but deeper. Every time you use it, some guy tells you whether you’ll run it or pass it (not saying the actual name of the play though) and explains why. It’s really interesting and I found myself using it about 95% of the time, because I’m sort of a lazy asshole. GameFlow still lets you call audibles if you want, but I normally stuck with whatever it called. One time, however, GameFlow called a post play on 4th and inches, which led me to believe that Andy Reid had some input in the game.

The defense was a little less fun. Very few people like playing defense in football games (unless it’s NFL Blitz for the N64, I could do that all day) and I used GameFlow 100% of the time so that I wouldn’t get burned by calling prevent plays when they were running a counter. The problem was, at times, GameFlow was as stupid as me. Maybe it’s only because I’ve played about five total games, or the fact that I drafted too many great offensive players and not many defensive players for the Browns, but I’ve been finding it abnormally hard to stop the offense. And I’m playing on Pro mode (Difficulties go like this: Amateur, Pro, All-Pro, All-Madden). With practice it’s getting better, and hopefully I won’t have games that just consist of chucking the ball as hard as I can in shotgun formation with streaks.

With video games, I’m not a big visual guy, but Madden 11 looks great. I don’t have an HDMI cable, so I was just playing in standard definition, and it was still really nice to look at. The coaches look very similar, and so do the players. I could tell that was Donovan McNabb without looking at his jersey or anything.

The soundtrack’s really good, mainly because it’s all songs that make sense. No AFI, no A Day To Remember. Almost all of it is songs you would hear at an arena, like Queen, Ozzy Osbourne, and Blur, and I really didn’t mind it.

I don’t regret buying Madden 11 at all. I really doubt, however, that I’ll buy another one for a while. I can probably convince myself to not get it despite updated rosters, but I feel like this is a solid game I can enjoy in franchise mode and for quick pick-up games with my friends at any time. Yes, the Madden series seems to release the same game every year with only minor tweaks, but I don’t see that as a bad thing.