Madden demo is out

I believe playing on the "my skills" skill level is what causes the computer to adjust to you.  I'd assume that the other skill levels are the same.  I'm gleaning that from Bill Abner's blog - I obviously don't have the game myself.

I tend to play these games on defaults, but the ruckus has been very entertaining.

Not completely correct for this thread, but seems to fit...I saw some comments both here and at DigitalSportsPage about pre-release complaints on the game...

If you guys see stuff you don't like -- no CPU sliders, etc. -- vote with your money and time and don't buy the new versions of the game this year or ever.  If the hardcores abandon the game completely, it will eventually lead to better quality.  At least rent it first, then decide.

Despite being a die-hard sports fan, and loving sports video games my whole life, I haven'tpersonally  purchased an EA Sports product since NCAA 2003.  And even that I knew was a probable-mistake at the time.  Before that, probably the '98 versions or so.  And before that, the '93 versions for Sega Genesis (which I actually got for free because I worked at EA at the time).   And though I wish I had some great new video games to play, I'm so much happier playing High Heat 2004 and occasionally Winning Eleven 6, or just watching super-random stuff on ESPNU or CBSC or whatever than I ever could be wasting time and money on products I know will disappoint me and not be fun! :-)


And just for grins, and way off-topic, my NCAA 2003 experience: First game.  Having a terrible time learning and executing the controls.  BC (me) leads UConn, 10-9, late in the game.  I somehow intercept a pass at about my own 1 yard line and end up in my own endzone  thanks to momentum, where I'm tackled.  Safety called; it should have been a touchback by rule, but of course the game didn't call it correctly.  Lose the game 11-10.  The amazing part: I had seen the same exact bug in the series 5 years earlier, despite playing probably 5 games max.  Albeit a small issue, it hadn't been fixed in 5 iterations of the game!  That told me that they didn't care about gameplay details, which to me personally matter a ton.  By contrast, I worked on a football game that was never released (likely the inspiration for the NFL Street series); the day we first saw that same bug in the office playing/testing the game it was fixed.  If you care, vote with your pocketbooks.

The way I look at it, I buy a game to have fun.  If it's not perfect, I have to weigh what I like vs. what I don't like about a game.  Before both Grid and NCAA were released, there were people saying that there were glitches which made the game unplayable.  On both counts, I either didn't notice the glitch, or it wasn't that important to me.  The complaints I see about Madden don't really bother me so far.  I am a sub-average gamer, so the "perfections" don't usually affect me for the most part.  I did not buy Madden last year (nor did I buy NCAA last year as well), but I like the symmetry of both games enough to buy them every other year - the symmetry being the ability to draft college players you have in NCAA into Madden.

The other thing I was attracted to was the collector's edition since I fully intended to buy Head Coach anyway.  I have only purchased one other CE so far for the 360 because the extras are not usually worth it, but this one seems fun.

To me, no game will ever be 100% perfect, but if I get a game and feel I play it enough to get my money's worth, then I am content.  I am hoping Madden is that game.  Oh, and I want to see the Pats kick the Giants ass!

Mike,

I was a die hard Wayne Gretzky Hockey player on the Amiga for several years.  I even used the companion product Hockey League Manager which allowed you to do all the management stuff and then save it as a file.  Then you would load the file in WGH and play the game and save the file.  Then load it back into HLM and manage some more.  It was very very deep and very cool.

It took a lot of years to find a hockey game that I felt surpassed WGH in fun and realism and that was NHL 2k2 on the Dreamcast.  WGH had the advantage of being 2D so that all of the play looked realistic and had statistical fidelity.