Madden NFL 13 - Season Ticket & Retail Impressions

[Rudy]

Something is wrong with the sliders. I've been in touch with Markus Frieske to have them look into the pass reactions slider. Others are claiming the cpu running game was nerfed on retail and a lot better on the demo. Sliders aren't helping. Josh Looman seems to have acknowledged there is a problem with offline CCM. But other guys are saying sliders in CCM are screwed up no matter what.

I've also read that the cpu runs WAY too much on retail. Brady threw 11 passes vs 39 runs in one Patriot game. Anyone with season ticket seeing this nonsense? I thought they said they focused on teams running the right plays in the right situations? Brady or Brees throwing less than 20 times a game is brutal.

[JeffHCross]

If they pay is decent

You're a lawyer. Your hourly might be more than their salary

[jaymo76]

Something is wrong with the sliders. I've been in touch with Markus Frieske to have them look into the pass reactions slider. Others are claiming the cpu running game was nerfed on retail and a lot better on the demo. Sliders aren't helping. Josh Looman seems to have acknowledged there is a problem with offline CCM. But other guys are saying sliders in CCM are screwed up no matter what.

I've also read that the cpu runs WAY too much on retail. Brady threw 11 passes vs 39 runs in one Patriot game. Anyone with season ticket seeing this nonsense? I thought they said they focused on teams running the right plays in the right situations? Brady or Brees throwing less than 20 times a game is brutal.

Yeah I have an offline dynasty and a player online dynasty and the sliders DO NOTHING!!! The running game is actually too easy on retail.. McFADDEN AVGS 8.1 YPC, WHILE MY 3RD STRINGER JONES AVERAGES 10.3 YPC. As for cpu running, as I said earlier, unless they are trailing it is run, run, pass for a typical drive . The cpu AI in this game is dreadful!

[JeffHCross]

Not this year. No stacking the line? No scrambling around like a retard with the QB? No quick throws before the receiver turns around? Receivers that actually beat man press? I've played 2 top 200 guys already and blown them both the hell out. These guys don't know what to do now that their horse shit offenses and defenses don't work.

IP Flood. Nuff said.

[Rudy]

I took a quick look at some of the Madden ratings in the huge spreadsheet EA put out. DTs still have very high accelerations - upper 70s. Why? They have the same ratings as TEs and FBs in that category and far too many positions all have accelerations in the upper 70s to 90. Not enough of a spread imo.

It's very clear Donny Moore just picks numbers based on opinion for most categories and most players. I'm not saying they are wrong but the bell curve does not exist. Sometimes the mean or median rating in a category has the lowest observations. You'll see 59 get a ton of ratings in one category while 60 will be almost nothing. Kind of weird. Doesn't make anything wrong overall but I will say the Dolphins initial rosters wasn't very good from guys being in the wrong position (Charles Clay) and poorly rated. Makes it much worse when you aren't allowed to fix any of it yourself due to locked rosters. I'm still going to see if I can use the Live 10 trick to swap out data under the same profile name.

[Rudy]

Yeah I have an offline dynasty and a player online dynasty and the sliders DO NOTHING!!! The running game is actually too easy on retail.. McFADDEN AVGS 8.1 YPC, WHILE MY 3RD STRINGER JONES AVERAGES 10.3 YPC. As for cpu running, as I said earlier, unless they are trailing it is run, run, pass for a typical drive . The cpu AI in this game is dreadful!

Something has to be broken. I don't know how the devs can't spot this stuff. I'm already getting hesitant over my pre-order.

EA seriously needs to add a Game Changer/tester whose sole job is to test sliders. Bring them in and test them all! It's embarrassing how poorly they work at times. The fact some are broken is terrible.

[jaymo76]

Just read over at OS that EA has indicated that sliders do NOT work properly in offline CCMs and that everyone should play their CCM online. Not a biggie for me I suppose but WTF? Perhaps, I'm just over-angry recently but the shit that slips past EA just amazes me. I honestly wonder wtf QA people do. If they pay is decent sign me up to just play video games w/o having to worry if things work properly.

No you're not overreacting. I am beginning to feel the same way. This is our hard earned money and due to the patch system there seems to be no sense of urgency is making sure a fully functional game is provided on release date. Where is the accountability???

[jaymo76]

Something has to be broken. I don't know how the devs can't spot this stuff. I'm already getting hesitant over my pre-order.

EA seriously needs to add a Game Changer/tester whose sole job is to test sliders. Bring them in and test them all! It's embarrassing how poorly they work at times. The fact some are broken is terrible.

I totally and completely agree with you Rudy but EA is moving to the 100% online direction and I think they would love to see no such thing as offline. Then they would not need to develop sliders and they could turn the servers off after a year forcing people to re-up for a new game. The future is in front of us and I fear "offline" may go the way of the dinosaur. I hate to sound negative but that is really the way I feel. Madden 13 has such much positive to it but at the same time it feels like a slap in the face to LOYAL OFFLINE CUSTOMERS such as myself.

[Rudy]

No you're not overreacting. I am beginning to feel the same way. This is our hard earned money and due to the patch system there seems to be no sense of urgency is making sure a fully functional game is provided on release date. Where is the accountability???

The accountability has really been lacking in NCAA. I thought M12 released very polished but this sounds like a debacle for the Madden team. I'm going to hope I can find fixes for things are all this crap is fixed with the first patch out in mid September. As a slider guy I'm very upset with what I'm reading about the sliders. I have also harped on NCAA for not utilizing their personel properly and now Madden seems to call plays with the IQ of a 2 year old. I can't even cancel my pre-order as I traded games in on special Madden offer.

It does seem like the offline gamer is getting bent over completely now. So sick of taking a back seat to the online crowd.

Skip, someone, talk me down from the Madden 13 disappointment ledge!

[Rudy]

Here is a breakdown of the disc rosters and the ratings. You can see how high the DT acceleration ratings are.

[JeffHCross]

I took a quick look at some of the Madden ratings in the huge spreadsheet EA put out. DTs still have very high accelerations - upper 70s. Why? They have the same ratings as TEs and FBs in that category and far too many positions all have accelerations in the upper 70s to 90. Not enough of a spread imo.

Speaking personally, D-linemen are very good at reaching their max speed quickly. Partially because their max speed is so low

Makes it much worse when you aren't allowed to fix any of it yourself due to locked rosters.

I've heard/read that you can still change the offline rosters for an offline CCM. Not sure about it though.

EA seriously needs to add a Game Changer/tester whose sole job is to test sliders.

A Game Changer could never do that job. Brought in at the wrong times, with unstable builds, and too much that could change from one day to the next. I agree it needs to be more thoroughly tested, but a GC could never be responsible for that (not to mention GCs couldn't be responsible for anything).

[CLW]

You're a lawyer. Your hourly might be more than their salary

That's probably a slight exaggeration but your probably closer to right than I want to admit. EA is getting what it is paying for. Sure they might save $X by hiring really unprofessional QAs but they pay for it in the back end when people like me are thinking about making a purchase play the demo/season ticket and notice in a few hours how truly F'd up Y is and decline spending $60 for the game.

No you're not overreacting. I am beginning to feel the same way. This is our hard earned money and due to the patch system there seems to be no sense of urgency is making sure a fully functional game is provided on release date. Where is the accountability???

Well as a free market capitalist I can tell you no competition leads to this. Look the NFL is free to do what it wants with its property (i.e. officially licensed product). However, when you only have one company in town it tends to lead to lesser quality/innovation and the consumer pays for it. The only "accountability" is for people to stop buying the product. It probably won't register on EA's radar until its too late but death by a 1000 paper cuts will eventually happen if EA doesn't get its act together.

[Rudy]

I've heard/read that you can still change the offline rosters for an offline CCM. Not sure about it though.

This is incorrect. You can only use edited rosters for Play Now games. Online AND offline CCM cannot use them. It sucks but what can we do?

I think if someone was brought in to test sliders it would have to be fairly late. But I'm actually interested in the logic behind them. What attributes are tied to sliders? Are these boosts tied to player ratings or do they affect AI or game programming separately? Example - you adjust pass coverage. Does this just adjust all the defensive players man and zone coverage ratings or what else does it do? QB accuracy - does this adjust player ratings or does it affect the size of the target windows or anything else? Interceptions - some guys claim this isn't just for defensive players hands and that it also affects DB aggressiveness. Does a higher tackle slider promote more big hits while a lower tackle slider promote more wrap tackles? I've seen guys claim certain settings on the pass rush slider will change the difference between DE and DT pass rush. I would just love to see the logic under the hood. That more than anything needs to be examined.

Either way if you have a true 100 point system like Madden has then the sliders should be a lot more powerful. We aren't stuck with 5 click intervals which is really a 20 point system. With a 100 point system there should be a massive difference between 0 and 100. If I can't tell the difference between the two when playing with the pass reaction slider then it's broken imo.

[JeffHCross]

That's probably a slight exaggeration but your probably closer to right than I want to admit. EA is getting what it is paying for. Sure they might save $X by hiring really unprofessional QAs but they pay for it in the back end when people like me are thinking about making a purchase play the demo/season ticket and notice in a few hours how truly F'd up Y is and decline spending $60 for the game.

It's less about EA -- I don't know the first thing about what they pay. The entire game industry pays very low for testers/QA. It's viewed as an entry level starting position for a reason.

This is incorrect. You can only use edited rosters for Play Now games. Online AND offline CCM cannot use them. It sucks but what can we do?

Fair enough. I cant' remember where I saw that.

Are these boosts tied to player ratings or do they affect AI or game programming separately?

My experience with NCAA has suggested to me that it ties in with the ratings. That is to say, if something normally triggers at 90 at a certain rating, with sliders it might trigger at 88 or 92.

I would just love to see the logic under the hood. That more than anything needs to be examined.

Agreed. For a lot more than sliders!

[CLW]

It's less about EA -- I don't know the first thing about what they pay. The entire game industry pays very low for testers/QA. It's viewed as an entry level starting position for a reason.

Perhaps but it seems EA has more of these issues than other companies do with their titles. Perhaps its the 1 year cycle for a game but that doesn't explain "legacy issues" that remain year after year. In any event for some reason it really has me steamed right now that these issues can be found within 24 hours by "the community" but somehow manages to slip past the company that is making the actual product.

EDIT: I must just be grouchy this week or on crack b/c literally every review claims this is the best football game eva! Meh what do I know GameFly has me covered and I'll try CCM but it just looked like a big hassle to me with all the XP.

[jaymo76]

I thought it was just me but I guess it's not. Every couple games my depth chart is slightly changed but I wasn't doing it. Now other have reported this issue as well. It seems as though the cpu may adjust depth chart ranfomly. There doesn't seem to be a pattern I ahve seen as of yet though. Also, my 2nd string FB was missing when I went to sub him in the game. Turns out he was cut.... when??? by whom??? I never cut him...???? Weird.

[JeffHCross]

Perhaps but it seems EA has more of these issues than other companies do with their titles. Perhaps its the 1 year cycle for a game but that doesn't explain "legacy issues" that remain year after year.

Plenty of competing sports titles have/had "legacy" issues. MLB 2k was nothing but legacy issues. Yes, the year cycle has a lot to do with it.

Plus, EA, the company, has plenty of quality titles under their umbrella. Which further suggests that it's not pay or hiring, but something else.

[CLW]

Yeah I won't be buying this game its just play BNR coverage use the commit feature and then "ball hawk" (translation just mash triangle during the entire play) and hope for picks then make sure you pick a team with a scrambling QB and roll out immediately regardless of whether there is pressure or not and scramble for 50+ yards if its a man-to-man D to avoid the "ball hawk".

Seriously who the fuck tested this POS excuse for a game before it was released?

[SmoothPancakes]

Well it's always nice to get a full honest review.

It's funny, here I sit waiting for Tuesday, not sure if it's Tuesday or Wednesday when the game comes out...I guess Tuesday at 12:01AM? Either way...I seriously think I'll be up at that hour to drive to Gamestop, probably not until they open on Tuesday morning...anyways...I'm going back and forth between Madden 10 and 12 playing around with playbooks, then back to NCAA 13 trying out different PBs on the practice field, then I come in here to read reviews on Madden 13, this is a hoot.

I read a few and think, ok cool this game sounds good, then I read a few others and I'm like, oh my did I waste my money on the pre-order....I guess only time will tell, but it's fun to read everyone reviews and impressions of the game.

The only thing I can see from the game is the Walmart commercial they keep playing on TV where they guys buddy is playing Marshall Faulk.

Oh yeah and smooth, would your score be a neg on a scale of 1-10?

Now that I've cooled off, there are positives and negatives to the game. Some parts I did enjoy playing it, and maybe it would be a fun game to have, but only if I bought it for less than $20 or $30. I can't in any way justify spending $60 on it.

I'll admit, I'm not the one to take into consideration when making your own decision, I already had cancelled my Madden pre-order back in July before the demo ever even came out. Right now, for me personally, the game on the surface, I'd give it a 5. CCM I still don't care for, just because of everything that was taken out, everything that you can't do or find anymore, and how much worse it is to find out stuff or do stuff in "franchise" anymore.

Infinity Engine, I don't care for. Some stuff with it is alright, there are a couple things I do like and feel are improved about it, but there are many things that just piss me off while playing a game with it and ruin it for me. I played through an entire season of CCM. After that season and getting pissed off all to hell, I never played another game, just simmed each game for a couple more seasons as I tried to build my team into a Super Bowl contender.

If I got the game for that, simmed my seasons and did the moves and everything else, running the mode like a GM or something, I would probably give Madden a fair shake. But playing the actual games, I just can't do it. I could barely even make it through a full season.

The total game overall, I give it a 5. CCM, with everything that was completely taken out or made inaccessible to the user, I give a 4. Infinity Engine, I give a 2.

While my offense has been on fire, I'm pleasantly surprised at how well my defense is doing. I gave up 28 in my first game, 21 in the second, 14 in the 3rd, and then 7 in my last one, all against increasingly better opponents. I had one guy disconnect on me who had 0 early in the 3rd and then of course the douche who IP flooded me who had 7 midway through the 2nd.

The most recent guy ran an offense that would've easily scored 40 on me in last year's Madden(Strong Close...what a *and I hate this word* cheesy formation) and I had little problem completely shutting him down. He was even using the Chiefs, which was everyone's favorite team to roll with when they planned on abusing Strong Close. I can't get any pressure whatsoever, but my run D has been amazing and I've got several really nice coverage plays that people seem to have trouble finding open receivers against.

Anyway, after 6 online games and several hours messing around in practice, I'm still standing by my initial statement. From a game play standpoint, Madden '13 is far ahead of any other EA football game released this generation. It's got that balance that I'm always talking about. For the first time in a long time, people are having to run legitimate defenses and they're having to attempt to read defenses. I've enjoyed every second of it so far.

I will give Madden that. The defense has been much better than what I've seen in Madden. Still see some bullshit now then, especially leaping players on the defense to knock down passes they shouldn't (seen it from LBs and CBs), as well as the corners being able to completely fuck up the wide receivers at will. Any pass play, I can find at least one CB that just almost sucks the WR into them and they sit there running like one jumbled mess for 10 yards downfield. And if that receiver is making an inside cut, don't even bother fucking passing to him. The CB will make the cut ahead of him (looks almost exactly like route mirroring to me) and he's gonna be a wasted receiver and just clutter downfield.

However, on the flip side, when the CPU wants to score, it will score. My entire defense will turn into a bunch of retards if the CPU is determined to score a touchdown. My guys just ignore the ball carrier, they dive instead of jumping to contest a ball in the air, they flop and fall down, or the ball carrier is able to just break right through my entire fucking defense and score a touchdown from 50 yards out.

Line play also pisses me off. I would love to know, how blitzing 7 defenders up against only 5 blockers (it was a pass play so I was trying to overload and get a sack or rushed pass), every single fucking defender ends up as a giant fucking blob of players, looking like a bunch of retards trying to hump the same door knob, and the QB has all. fucking. day. to pass the ball as not a single player can get past the line of scrimmage. I know I would love to have an offensive line on my team where all 5 linemen can completely stop 7 blitzing defenders (2 ends, 2 DTs, 2 LBs and a safety) and not let a single defender get beyond the line of scrimmage nor outside of the inner shoulder of the tackles. That team would score touchdowns every drive with linemen like that in real life.

A couple of little things that are starting to annoy me.

1. In CCM every game starts with gameflow. You cannot change it... you have to start with gameflow and then change before the kickoff.
2. You cannot see the teams players played for in past year, only the dates they have played.
3. the replays... please just stop. Bring back the Madden 12 replays.
4. Phil Simms saying about how my player is coming back but the team might be upset because he is playing awful.
5. no changing the cpu uniform.

Since it has pretty much been confirmed that CCM is quasi scripted it does take the fun out of it a little bit. McNabb goes to the Browns; TO gets cut in week 2 of preseason, etc. This type of mode must be dynamicin order to be immersive. With T iburon trying to control all the dynamics at the expense of customization I think this will backfire on them from their customer base.

Number 2 really pisses me off. There was a player that I thought I had resigned at the end of season one, but come season 2, he wasn't there. I couldn't quite remember his name (it was a generic, everyday, doesn't stand out kind of name), but when I went searching every other team to see if maybe I could trade to get him back, yeah, I found out you can't find out who has played where in the past. They'll show you all their stats from past seasons, but if you want to know what teams they played for, well, you're fucked.

And yes, at least the first season of CCM is scripted. TO cut in preseason week 2, McNabb ended up with the Browns, I saw all of that myself. I'm sorry, but when I play a game, at least a sports game, I want completely unscripted gameplay. I don't want this shit with certain players getting cut, certain players ending up on certain teams, each and every time I create a new dynasty/franchise/CCM. Seriously, what kind of shit is that? What else is scripted in the mode? Is the draft scripted? Are ensuing seasons scripted? Are games, the playoffs and the Super Bowl scripted? When it comes to playing a sports game, besides the commentary, NOTHING should ever be scripted to happen every time any one starts playing a certain mode.

I decided to create a player CCM for 1 person online just to see what it was like. I created myself as a speed back and my back story was a non-draft player AND SIGNED WITH THE SEAHAWKS. Long story short, in the preseason I rush for 57 yards and am named the teams starting RB, punt returner, and kickoff returner. I was only a 66 ovr. This makes no sense whatsoever!!! Lynch should be the starter and I should be 3rd or 4th string.

Well I played five of the games on the schedule and ended the season with 1100+ yards rushing which game me 10000xp. I was voted to the pro bowl and then found out that apparently you cannot play the pro bowl??? Denver beat SF 20-13 to win the SB. The shock of the season... INDIANAPOLIS went 11-5 and made it to the conference finals.

At the end of the year London Fletcher, Ray Lewis, T.O., Chad Johnson, and Brian Urlacher retired.
New coaches hired for: Chicago, New Orleans, Detroit, Benglas,
Brian Billick returns to coach in the NFL... only thing is nobody hired him??? Weird.
Matt Moore picked up as a key F/A for.... Miami... the team that cut him in preseason???
Seahawks tweets... desperately need a QB...???

YOU CANNOT DO ANY OFFSEASON STUFF IN PLAYER CCM. HOWEVER, YOU CAN WATCH THE DRAFT. Speaking of the draft:

1. top ten picks: LE, QB,MLB,CB,HB,WR,WR,FS,WR,ROLB
2. TWO TRADES IN THE TOP 10
*** frustrating... you cannot find out who is traded for who/what
3. the draft goes super quick in this mode... 2 mins max per cpu pick
4. the draft commentary and stories are an excellent addition!!!
5. Seahawks pick up a RT (Dwayne Carter). RT was rated a C in the needs section so I guess it's a good pick.
6. 13 trades in the first round. IMO that's too many (Colts traded for the 31st and 32nd pick???)
7. 9 teams who traded picks had no selections in the first round (Raiders and Colts had three each)
8. Best tweets: "if Todd McShay is baffled by your pick, that is usually a bad sign." "49ers GM trying to be in movie, dumb, dumber, & dumbest"

It sucks that as a player you can only watch the draft. I so badly wanted to participate. THE DRAFT IS AWESOME THIS YEAR... BEST FEATURE OF THE GAME!!!!! Outside of that though playing as a player in CCM is dreadfully boring and will NOT have lasting appeal IMO.

Just a few other little things: Urlacher and Lewis went into the Hall and it was mentioned that Fletcher, Harrison, and T.O. were snubbed.

After my stellar season my new ovr... 67 (started at 66???). CCM PLAYER in my opinion fails as an interesting and enjoyable mode but to each his own I guess.

Lol, my season as a coach was fucked up. Eagles ended with the worst record at 3-12-1. Bengals and Eagles were both tied for worst at one point at 1-9 before the Bengals won 4 in a row, still ended 5-11. The Bills won the AFC East both in season one and season two, the Patriots were never better than 6-10 in three seasons of CCM. One year, Green Bay went to the Super Bowl with a 13-3 record, the next year they end up 3-13.

Yeah, I found out about the Pro Bowl. Thanks EA. What the hell is the goddamn point of even having the Pro Bowl in the game if all you can do is simulate past the entire week without doing anything? Yet another thing removed from the game or taken out of the hands of gamers "in the name of the almighty savior" CCM.

For the draft, is it just me or is there an ungodly number of WRs or CBs that go undrafted? I get to round 7, and there are always about 15 WRs and CBs listed at the top of the draft board, all still on the board with draft projections of 3rd and 4th rounds. Christ, I was able to draft one guy projected to go in the middle 2nd round, with my pick in the middle of the 6th round. I know players fall and some plummet in the draft every year, but a projected 2nd round player falling all the way to middle of the 6th round, yeah, SOMEONE is going to take him as a "why not" draft pick in the 4th or even 5th rounds.

I hate the trade shit in the draft. You never know a trade is about to happen until either the clock runs out or you simulate to the next pick, and then afterwards, you have no damn clue what happened in the trade. I think someone else said this earlier, but thanks for removing any hint of a trade block. I'd rather just see who is on the trade block around the league instead of waiting for someone to show up in my checklist or waiting for a tweet to show up. Thanks EA, yet another thing completely removed and taken out of the gamer's hands, that does nothing but impede on the experience and ruin the mode.

The draft picks are 2 minutes for both CPU and Users. I only had two minutes to pick playing as a coach. Better have your shit in order in regards to who you want to pick. By the time you actually get into the draft board menus and change it from scouted to un-scouted, you already have 15-20 seconds left to choose and pick.

I did like the draft commentary. It did add a nice bit of depth to the draft instead of just sitting there simming picks and making your picks.

The tweets are alright, but much like the tweets on the main CCM menus, the tweets during the draft get repetitive and you start seeing the same damn ones about every 10-15 picks. If they are going to keep that Twitter stuff in there, for the love of god, flesh that bitch out like there's no tomorrow. I shouldn't see McShay or someone else saying the same goddamn thing every 5 minutes, ESPECIALLY with a Twitter emulation. McShay is not going to sit there on Twitter repeating the same shit just with a different team or player name listed.

Just read over at OS that EA has indicated that sliders do NOT work properly in offline CCMs and that everyone should play their CCM online. Not a biggie for me I suppose but WTF? Perhaps, I'm just over-angry recently but the shit that slips past EA just amazes me. I honestly wonder wtf QA people do. If they pay is decent sign me up to just play video games w/o having to worry if things work properly.

No wonder my defense was like a bunch of retards trying to fuck a single doorknob during the brief time I was actually willing to play each individual game.

Something is wrong with the sliders. I've been in touch with Markus Frieske to have them look into the pass reactions slider. Others are claiming the cpu running game was nerfed on retail and a lot better on the demo. Sliders aren't helping. Josh Looman seems to have acknowledged there is a problem with offline CCM. But other guys are saying sliders in CCM are screwed up no matter what.

I've also read that the cpu runs WAY too much on retail. Brady threw 11 passes vs 39 runs in one Patriot game. Anyone with season ticket seeing this nonsense? I thought they said they focused on teams running the right plays in the right situations? Brady or Brees throwing less than 20 times a game is brutal.

Yeah, the CPU was always happy to run it over and over on my defense. And of course because my defense played like they had their heads up their ass, running was usually all the offense had to do to move the ball.

Yeah I have an offline dynasty and a player online dynasty and the sliders DO NOTHING!!! The running game is actually too easy on retail.. McFADDEN AVGS 8.1 YPC, WHILE MY 3RD STRINGER JONES AVERAGES 10.3 YPC. As for cpu running, as I said earlier, unless they are trailing it is run, run, pass for a typical drive . The cpu AI in this game is dreadful!

Yeah, both User and CPU rushing is almost too easy. CPU rushing was all most impossible to defend, whether I let my CPU defenders try to tackle, or tried to do it myself. And of course, because of that glorious addition called Infinity Engine, good luck trying to make a good tackle when your player would rather flop on the ground like a fucking idiot.

The accountability has really been lacking in NCAA. I thought M12 released very polished but this sounds like a debacle for the Madden team. I'm going to hope I can find fixes for things are all this crap is fixed with the first patch out in mid September. As a slider guy I'm very upset with what I'm reading about the sliders. I have also harped on NCAA for not utilizing their personel properly and now Madden seems to call plays with the IQ of a 2 year old. I can't even cancel my pre-order as I traded games in on special Madden offer.

It does seem like the offline gamer is getting bent over completely now. So sick of taking a back seat to the online crowd.

Skip, someone, talk me down from the Madden 13 disappointment ledge!

Yeah, it's only going to be a matter of time before there is no more offline mode. Honestly, I believe by Madden 15 or Madden 16, there won't be options for an offline CCM. You're going to have no choice but to create an online CCM.

I'd try to talk you down from the ledge, but I'm probably the last person to do that. It's no secret I am not even remotely thrilled with Madden 13 and have no intentions of buying or renting it or even considering doing so before next spring at the earliest, so I could get it for cheap as hell.

[ram29jackson]

anyone get a hard copy of game tonight ?

I get it tomorrow