Originally Posted by
Paakaa10
After waiting all day at work and then through my workout to get home--and then spending an hour downloading the demo and installing it--finally got my first game in for the Madden NFL 12 demo as the Packers.
Final Score
:Green_Bay_Packers: 27 -- :Chicago_Bears: 14
Presentation, as expected, is a huge step up in terms of team entrances and general camerawork. You can tell that the NFL Films cameramen who took part in the "virtual film field" have had a great impact on how the shots reflect broadcast. The "imperfections" of handheld camerawork actually do a better job making you feel like you're watching a broadcast than "perfect" camerawork that doesn't miss anything or give a "bad" angle.
Even though I wasn't a huge fan of how commentary was implemented in Madden NFL 11--I don't mind Gus Johnson, actually like his play-by-play quite a bit in real life, but the timetable was poor for getting it done right last year--it's hard to deny the role that commentary plays in your enjoyment of the game after playing this year's demo and not having it there. That said, it helps you hear some of the more "subtle" sound effects like how the ball sounds when it is kicked by punters and kickers or swatted by a defensive player; it's such a small detail, but getting it right this year does so much to add to the realism. It's a shame--going back on myself a little here--that the commentary will cover it up in the final game; I guess I'm hard to please haha.
Gameplay, generally, seems like a smoother version of NCAA Football 12. I definitely agree with others here who are saying that you feel more "in control" of your player than you do at times in the college game. It's nice to have a more solid outside running game as well, as the outside linemen seem to hold their blocks more solidly than their NCAA Football 12 counterparts. Pass trajectory also seems to be better, though I'm curious to see how it'll be represented when I have access to more than just the two quarterbacks in the demo.
I've seen a lot of complaints about the speed and frequency of QB scrambles in the demo, and I agree to a certain degree. Rodgers and Cutler tend to scramble quite a bit in real life, however; I believe there were a few games last year where Cutler was the leading rusher for the Bears in a single game. I've yet to play the game on "Slow" game speed yet, so that'll be something to check in the future. I'd imagine that this sort of thing could be tuned in the final game anyway; or, if you're an online gamer, you could just use an "Online Communities" rule set which sets the game speed to something other than "Normal."
I don't know much about the Bears secondary in real life, but I know that in the demo today I torched them quite a bit. Had three long touchdown passes where I basically just let receivers get upfield and then bombed it out to them and the defensive backs couldn't make a play on the ball; and this was on All-Pro. A bit disconcerting, but this demo build is likely a few months old and it wouldn't surprise me to see the deep ball tightened up a little bit by the retail game. That said--and I guess I'm hard to please again--I don't want the coverage tightened up too much because I like seeing receivers outpace cover men and create big play potential.
For those who will be spending a lot of time with the demo, do note that you can tweak a good amount of settings in the game by simply accessing the in-game menu after the kickoff. Game speed can be tweaked, some of the sliders can be tweaked, you can go back to the Madden NFL 10 controls for pre-play adjustments, etc. It's definitely worth messing around with so that you can see if sliders can adjust any issues you might be seeing; good way to test things and see if anything you're seeing needs a "global code fix" or can be tweaked using the tools at your disposal.
I think that's everything I can think of to talk about right now; and that's just from a single game! Haha.