No Madden Saturday + Sliders

Yesterday was a busy day with Ashley-stuff and also it was game night at our friend's house. Board games til 2 AM sorta thing.

Yes, we live life in the fast lane.

I did get to play Small World, which I will definitely be bringing over to Todd's place on this fall's pilgrimage to Indy. Really fun game. Agricola nearly put me to sleep, though.

As for Madden, the impressions will likely slow down now that the game is out and places are starting to publish reviews.

My own review will go live tomorrow at GameShark in the afternoon when the embargo lifts.

My final analysis is basically this:

It's the best version of Madden I have ever played -- for a variety of reasons but this series has finally started to go down a road that I completely support. What the dev team has done in one cycle is very impressive.

Now, because of that I may be giving it a bit more leeway than I normally would because you are going to see things that frustrate you -- the wonky blocking assignment logic, the less than stellar CPU run game, the sketchy CPU 2-minute offense AI, the fact that receivers still tend to run out of bounds on pass patterns at times, and so on.

I have detailed what I can in this here blog about what you can expect when you get the game. I really do hope it helped--if not about making a buying decision but about what to expect when you pop the game in. I appreciate all of the overwhelming email feedback, both the good and even from the guys who are now convinced I am on the EA payroll.

In the end I absolutely feel the positives outweigh the negatives, and going back to my #1 general rule of thumb: I am willing to live with what the game doesn't do well in order to get to the stuff that works. I was that way with High Heat Baseball, the Show, NHL 09, NFL 2K5, etc.

As for sliders -- here's a very general idea of what I am using:

Human:

Accuracy: Human 14 or 15 (basically All Madden level) Anything higher and QB accuracy is TOO bad. I put it on 20 and it was hilariously awful. This is GOOD, though. Finally, the sliders are on extreme ends. This is how it should be. Play with the Browns and use Derek Anderson and put this to 20. Sit back and crack up.

Running: 8 -- Your mileage may vary but I was really struggling running the ball on default due to the weird blocking. Also -- and I think this is important but make sure to assign block modes before the snap. (Hold LT and choose). If running a dive, have the line fire off (Aggressive), If running a counter have them flow left/right. It might be my imagination but I think it helped a lot.

Pass Defense: 12 --

Run Defense: 15 to 20. Again your mileage may vary but I strongly suggest making run d more difficult to give the CPU a chance at establishing a ground game.

CPU:

Running: (boost these if you still have CPU run issues)

Break Block 65
Run Block 65

Passing:

Pass Block: 40 (helps pass rush a bit)

Pass Defense:

Reaction time: 65
INT: 40 (All madden passing level means a lot of picks unless you change this imo)

Run Defense:

Reaction: 43
Shedding: 43
Tackling 60 to 65 (counters the huge YAC you get otherwise)


Field Goal STR: 70 (Otherwise Phil Dawson can hit a 50 yd fg. It's 5 yds short every time..)

Penalties:

No need to do much, really. Don't take holding over 52. Trust me.

Boost PI a bit -- 60 range. Everything else is ok.

I play on 13 minute quarters, accelerated clock and get around 110 plays.