I eagerly made the trip out to the game store after work yesterday to pick up my copy of Madden 11. After I got home it was almost 30 minutes before I was able to actually play the game. It’s getting sort of ridiculous, I had to enter 2 different 12 character codes before I could even get started, the preorder bonus, and EA’s online pass. On top of that, there is the typical day 1 patch to install. Anyway, this isn’t really a gripe about Madden itself since this short of thing happens for almost every game at this point, but I seriously miss the days of the most time complicated part of playing a game the first time was getting into the packaging.

Anyway, when you get to the main menu, you are punched in the face with ads… Ads as menu items themselves, in fact the default menu items when the game finishes loading are ads. There is also an ad ticker at the bottom of the screen talking about EA DLC for other games (EA’s MMA in this case). I find it disheartening that a game that sells millions of copies annually, feels the need to bolster their revenue by this degree of advertising. I fully understand some product placement, particularly the in game stat stuff that does make things a little closer to the broadcasts, but there is just so much invasive advertising in this game it makes me a little angry.

Take it to the field! I played a few games with the GameFlow turned on, fully understanding that it’s more or less the Ask Madden system with a few out of game functions to give it some customization. This is not as big an innovation as people are making it out to be, in my limited experience thus far, it does seem like it would work well for the people who aren’t well versed in football strategy, or are playing as an unfamiliar playbook. However, when I say go for it on 4th and goal on the 2, I don’t want to see the wildcat formation, ever, worst part is in that scenario you can’t even audible out of the play because you don’t have the right personal on the field. And as an Eagles fan (a team that makes no qualms about being a very pass heavy team), I could tell that the default settings for my team were wrong. GameFlow had me running primarily, and 20 or so plays out of the wildcat, for the course of both games.

I think that leads well into my biggest complaint about the game, it lacks polish. Sure, there are lots of production values, and things going on in the course of the game that are good, when I think of polish, I’m talking about the extra effort that goes into the game to make each and every one of those things works flawlessly, that doesn’t exist here. There are obvious problems with the audio stitching in all areas of the game (ingame, pregame, postgame), which is understandable to a degree because of the volume dialog that exists but the frequency of it is nearly unacceptable. Also, hearing Cris Colinsworth goin on about the importance the first preseason game, and the experience of the 2 quarterbacks despite the fact that one of them is going into his first season as a starter and simply doesn’t have the experience he’s talking about. I don’t think this was nearly as bad in seasons past.

Also, the game crashed twice on me last night requiring a hard restart of the playstation. It happened once trying to load a Madden Moment (returning from last year, basically some game scenarios from last season that you try to recreate, or overturn, in the time remaining), they are decent if you don’t have time to play a whole game. And once while I was playing in the ‘be a superstar’ mode, which you basically play as a rookie and try run the plays that are called and win games. Because your player isn’t on the field at all times, you have the ability to simulate the game until the next time your player is on the field, that’s when the game crashed on me. It’s disappointing too because I was into my second game, and I forgot to save between them, so I may have to start over entirely, can I get an auto-save system please? Playing this mode was really fun though, I even liked running routes as a receiver, and even blocking on sweeps is fun.

I really think all of these could be resolved with the polish I mentioned above, I truly believe that this game is a victim of an annual, ridged release schedule, and will never ever be the perfect game it has had the potential to be as they continue to add features or outright change functionally. Because once you get into the games, most of those complaints are nullified by an excellent game of football. I’ve been loving the offense in this year’s offering. The line-aware receivers is incredible, I’ve yet to see a receiver take it out of bounds (I’m sure it will happen occasionally though), and the running game without the turbo button is great, i’m really liking the light tilts on the analog while the blocks set up, it really does feel like a burst when you push it down all the way to change direction, or hit the hole… this is easily the most fun I’ve had with the madden running game.  Defense feels the same as always, but they added a defense assist, while, holding ‘X’ your player will execute the play like he should until you let go, I find it handy when I’m playing off the line, so the player stays on him man when he makes cuts in man-to-man or gets to his zone in zone coverage, hopefully it’ll have me controlling something other than a lineman or a blitzer every play.

They changed the pre-snap controls, so it’s taking a while to adjust to the new system, but it appears to work, however it feels like there is less time to use it before the snap than in previous years.

It’s sort of annoying though when they say, we’re trying to make it a faster experience and have the games take less time, but there is all these “broadcast-like” things before during and after the game, that take more time than anything else. Anyway, its’ still fun, and I’ll be playing the hell out of it, and you shouldn’t let all these gripes effect your decision, since the football part of the football game really is excellent.

If you’ve been keeping up, you’ll remember that I had some concerns about the holiday season line up this year. Since then, both The Last Guardian (at no surprise to me), and Crysis 2 have been pushed back to 2011. So to recap (loosely) what is still coming that I’m at least moderately interested in.

We’ve got the hardware battle to think about, the girlfriend has been sold on Kinect, and specifically Dance Central, so that’ll be around, but to be honest, I may not be able to play that game due to pride constraints. I think move is interesting, I could play some of that, however… I have no interest in the launch titles at this point, on top of that, like all new tech, it’s going to take a while (I’d say almost a year), for developers to be able to deal with the hardware, while Move has an advantage here because one could assume that Wii developers have some experience here and would be able to get a head start on the learning curve, the disheartening part is that most of the good games on the Wii were made by Nintendo, I think the only exception is going to be Red Steel, a game I felt was limited only by the technical short comings of the Wii hardware. When this team makes a game for the Move I’ll pay attention, and perhaps some credit to Team Ninja for the upcoming work with “The Other M”.

Consoles

We’ve got the EA sports 11 line up, Football and Hockey are going to be bought for certain, that’s great because the franchise modes there can be a huge time sink if I can get into them. A few no brainers, Gran Turismo 5, Fallout: New Vegas, RockBand 3 (I still play RockBand or Guitar Hero a couple times a week). Vanquish won me over with the media bust about a month ago, and while I assumed I was going to pass on the upcoming Call of Duty offering, I don’t think I’ll be able to resist when the time comes. The upcoming Spiderman game has some potential, but I’ve got major concerns, that I’ll share in a focused post in the near future. Little Big Planet 2 will make an appearance. Maybe Max Payne 3 if it does actually make it out this year (I assume this one will be the next to be pushed into next year).

A couple Wii games worth thinking about, but it’s hard for me to get excited for a Wii game at this point, Metroid: The Other M, and Kirby Epic Yarn are on that list.

PC

Civ 5 should be a good time, and I’ll try Final Fantasy XIV when it comes out. Truthfully I’ll probably end up with fallout for PC in the end.

It sounds like a lot of games to play, but when I think of last year’s holiday season, there were games every week starting in September that were must buys, and then a couple more in the months that were compelling enough to consider buying. This is going to be a slow holiday for the hobbyist gamer like me. The kind of gamer who really gets into the single player of an experience and then moves on.

Red Dead Demption

I was going to pass on this title, I had had my fill of sandbox games after Assassin’s Creed 2, and Just Cause 2, but after reading a lot of reviews that put this in the 5 star and high 90 scores I figured I would be doing myself a disservice to pass up a game that is so highly regarded. Was I fooled by the media? or is this game really that good?

The story is told in much the same way as in Grand Theft Auto, through dialog while enroute to some form of blood bath, with the occasional cut scene (more so early on while they set the stage). Rockstar is truly the master of story telling in sandbox games… the atmosphere in this game is extraordinarily convincing the characters feel authentic even the most ridiculous of them (more on that in a bit), are believable in their design, mannerisms and voice work (mostly). In this sense, and as the reviews scores from the major outlets suggest, this game should be a benchmark for those who follow them. They also do some interesting things towards the end… honestly, I felt like I was at the end 3 distinct times, only to be presented with more quest markers which sort of frustrated me at the time, but I do understand why they did it this way, it was pretty well executed at the end too… (hard to talk about without spoiling so I won’t, suffice to say it’s worth playing it out if you’re like me and were thinking of quiting there).

You travel between US and Mexico but not a whole lot changes environmentally between the two, aside from one little snow area at the top of the map. I was definitely tired of the scenery by the time I was finished. It was sort of neat seeing the technology creeping into the world as would have been the case in that era, it was a subtle but nice touch. I still could have done with a lot more variety given the size of the map.

There are some crazy folk in Rockstar’s interpretation of the old west… the delusional, cannibals, necrophiliacs, as well as run of the mill swindlers, all make an appearance here (amongst others)… It clearly adds some color to the drab dull palatte of the western setting. Over the top is a bit of an understatement, but each of the people you meet are clearly unique and everyone seems to have some dirt on them, if not the kind that comes off with soap then some other brand of filth. The odd part is that the ‘hero’ is compelled to help these folks regardless…what is interesting about helping these folks who can be considered little more than fiends is that Marston’s patience for them does eventually grow thin and it’s evident in the voice work and dialog. The people you meet are also served with a thick thick helping of cliché for instance, a drunk named Irish, and a poor fella (perhaps feller would be more appropriate here?) with tourettes called shaky, I won’t spoil them all but even with the cliché they are still charming in their own way, and you actually build the semblance of a relationship with them in a sense. In my eyes this is the greatest strength of this game, big kudos to Rockstar in this regard. The unfortunate part is that it really feels like you’re introduced to people and you help them along their own little sub-plot, while they entice you with their carrot on a stick to progress your own story, which inevitably leads too someone new and a new sub-plot. Again it doesn’t suit Marston’s character to play around with these folks who are clearly leading him on when he is so swift to plug a random guy for putting the beat down on a hooker. I’m reminded of a Rev Rant (this one specifically) when playing this game.

There is always something going on, someone who needs help, for instance, someones wagon, horse, or wife has been stolen, or perhaps it’s just a whore (literally) trying to steal your horse that requires some immediate and swift retribution. I am an easily distracted player, so the amount of spontaneous quests that come up is a bit overwhelming, and my tendency to react to any blip on the map, or critter crossing my path, is getting to me and the animations to go through the motions of getting on and off the horse, skinning and looting kills and hogtying folks is all starting to feel too slow and tedious. I learned in the end that most of these blips should be ignored entirely, it pains me to do it… it’s just less painful than actually doing the task.

There are “Ambient Challenges” in Sharpshooting, Hunting, Survivalist (finding herbs), and treasure hunting. All of which are pretty self explanatory, the highlight for me was treasure hunting… with genuine treasure maps that gives you clues as to where the shallow pile of rocks that has some sweet loot hiding within. This made me laugh, you literally move 2 rocks and there is treasure inside. Its actually challenging and kind of neat. It’s the first time I ever whipped out the map that came with a game to try to figure some stuff out (PS it worked!). The rest of it felt more like make busy work because I was actively seeking them out as opposed to getting them passively as their title suggests… my bad I guess.

Combat feels good with snap targeting (your cross-hairs lock to targets chest when you pull up your weapon, from there it is a simple nudge to get a head shot), and dead-eye (bullet-time meets mark & execute) mechanics work well, and you need them when you’re being swarmed with baddies. The only thing that I’d probably change is that the dead-eye meter refills so quickly, that it almost feels infinite. I might have died 5 times in the 30 or so hours I spent with the game. The horse riding is tedious at first (rhythmically pressing ‘x’ to spur your horse to move forward), but then it gets to be second nature, and you don’t notice it so much. You also have fast travel from a camp you can build from your inventory nearly anywhere on the map, odd that you can’t do that from safe houses but whatever.

All you really need to know about this game I guess is that if you can get into a sandbox game like GTA, and that formula works for you then there is a lot to enjoy here. Personally I was hoping this game had been some kind of departure from the traditional sandbox formula, and it simply doesn’t, and overall was disappointed with it because of it. Apart from that however, this is a very, very good game and certainly something for the folks at Rockstar to build on, and something for competitors to try to copy.