Gamestop Preorders Get Extended Madden 10 Demo

Gamestop has just updated their Madden 10 product pages to include information on an exclusive demo being offered to those who preorder the game. Basically it sounds as though people who don’t preorder will still be getting a demo, but it will offer abbreviated quarters or be something similar to the “Madden Moment” that made up the demo last year. And actually that is what will happen as the public demo will be Cowboys vs Giants with two minute quarters.

Reserve Madden NFL 10 and receive the GameStop exclusive Super Bowl XLIII rematch demo with full length quarters. The demo will feature four 5-minute quarters between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals. Available for online and in-store customers while supplies last.

This continues to be a disturbing trend having demos linked to preorders. At least in this case it appears that everyone will have access to some form of a demo at the same time unlike Fight Night Round 4 which withheld it from everyone else for several weeks. According to the info the demo will be out in late July.

NCAA Football 10 Demo This Week

A handful of postings on Twitter confirm that the NCAA Football 10 demo is expected to be out later this week. In all likelihood that means on Thursday we’ll be getting the demo on the 360 in the early AM and on the PS3 in the afternoon.

I suspect that this demo will do little to change the negativity surrounding the game right now. Most of the improvements are subtle and overall the game feels an awful lot like 09. In a demo with abbreviated quarters those improvements will be less likely noticed. The good news is that it has been mentioned the difficulty levels will be adjustable. No word on the teams yet though it seems a safe bet that it’ll be a rematch of the National Championship with Oklahoma vs Florida.

Madden 10 Player Ratings

Update: EA has requested I take the ratings down.

After responding to a ton of Madden NFL 10 player ratings requests in the previous posting I took on the task of putting them all together in a document. Included are the full rosters, overall ratings, and at many positions the speed and acceleration ratings.

I am really looking forward to seeing how the spread out ratings affect the game. It makes the strengths and weaknesses of each team apparent and depth becomes more important. Users will have to strategically consider each team’s personnel. It should really open things up with the games better resembling what would be seen in the NFL.

NCAA Football 10 Charging for Dynasty Boosts

Brian Ekberg of Gamespot has received a beta copy of NCAA Football 10 and is posting content as well as answering questions about the game. You can visit here and add questions of your own. Alarmingly he had this to say earlier today which is gone into more detail in this posting:

I haven’t dipped that far into dynasty mode yet but it looks very simliar to previous years. That said, there is one significant change: You can add an additional pipeline state by paying for it. With real money (MS Points or cash on PSN). In fact, that’s not the only so-called “dynasty accelerators” you can apparently purchase: there’s also recruiting advisor, coaching seminar, toughest places to play boost, school pitches improvements, maximum player training, and recruiting reports as well. According to the game, these boosts will affect every team you control in offline and online dynasty modes. I need to investigate these more to see what they actually do for you…

I’ve never taken issue with offering DLC “cheats” if they could only be utilized offline. If it increases someone’s enjoyment of the game and they see the value in it then that is their decision to make. However any time it factors into online it creates an imbalance and unfair playing field. When I first read about this I was taken aback by the comment about it applying to both offline and online dynasties.

If there is nothing to prevent these being used in Online Dynasty that will be a crushing blow to the legitimacy of the dynasties. Hopefully either these are not permitted or there is a way to block them. It doesn’t sound good though from the way he phrased it coming straight from the game.

Also now comes news that apparently you will only get Teambuilder slots by purchasing the game new. Previously EA inferred that everyone with the game would get 12 slots but Gamestop would offer 13 additional to their preorders. It turns out that you’ll only get the 12 initial slots if the game is bought new, otherwise a code would have to be purchased. Basically buy the game new or else pay to use Teambuilder. This method of offering an incentive for buying new is something that we’ve seen before it’s just unfortunate in this situation because they didn’t make it clear from the start.

For NCAA which is dealing with enough bad buzz right now these are disappointing developments. Coming off NCAA 09 which was my favorite sports game last year due to Online Dynasty it is rough to see it in this state.

Extended Madden 10 Gameplay Videos

Last week I was able to offer up a bunch of Madden 10 videos from E3. Now lead developer Ian Cummings has posted up a full quarter video of the game captured in HD featuring the Falcons @ Chiefs on All-Pro difficulty.

He has since posted up a full game’s worth of videos on the Inside EA Blog which you can check out here. Continue on to watch the video and leave your thoughts in the comments.

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E3: Backbreaker Preview

Originally announced back in August of 2007 Backbreaker wowed with early displays of its tackling engine known as Euphoria. Since then it has pretty much been in hibernation. Now though the game appears to be gearing up and intends to prove that it is still around to make an impact.

While at E3 I had the chance to sit down with Rob Donald and Torstein Reil of Backbreaker for a look at the game and to talk about some of the thinking behind it. The meeting actually went for nearly an hour and a half so the time commitment was appreciated.

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Update on NCAA Football 10 Rosters

EA has finally made a statement in regards to the rosters for NCAA Football 10 (as viewed through Teambuilder) that have been found to have serious issues. Those include teams with no or few freshman and players who have graduated that remain on the rosters.

Hey guys… so we are aware of the issue with no (or few) freshmen on some teams in TeamBuilder and yes the same issues are found on the NCAA 10 disc. Over the past few days, one of our top priorities has been investigating solutions.

The TeamBuilder teams require some data on the disc to set Depth Charts for every team created before they can be used in a game. For example if you use the Cupcake roster as a starting point, NCAA 10 will give you a default Depth Chart for the Cupcakes for your TeamBuilder team (which you can edit in game). This means any changes we make could cause some problems with teams already created using TeamBuilder. So we need to ensure we are taking to proper steps to correct the issues.

We understand the concerns with how this can affect Dynasty mode and Online Games, so we are working hard to have a solution in place before launch on July 14th.

So it sounds like this caught the NCAA developers by surprise and wasn’t a messy roster by design. How it could get by to the final version of the game without being noticed though is frustrating.

I certainly understand not wanting to lose the tens of thousands of teams that have been created since Teambuilder launched. Those represent hours of work that people have put in. At the same time the rosters in their current state could damage the experience for many.

Hopefully they find a resolution that keeps the created teams in tact while fixing the issues with the base roster. On a positive note having Teambuilder brought this problem to light six weeks in advance of the game’s release rather than finding out about it on July 14th and having to wait over a month to see a patch correct it.

Madden 10 Online Franchise Q&A

The latest blog posting for Madden 10 offers an Online Franchise Q&A. Questions were submitted via forums and Twitter in regard to the mode. Given that this is a brand new endeavor this is a good opportunity to find out some additional info on it and get a better understanding of why certain decisions were made. Read through the full posting here.

So this week we wanted to take the opportunity to answer some of the most common questions that we’ve been seeing from the community and from the gaming media. Not everyone has a 100% clear idea of what all is included in the mode, and we have also noticed that some folks have expressed frustration over missing features. With that being the case, we felt it imperative to explain a.) why we made the decisions that we did and b.) our plan for the future developing on this new platform.

It looks like a lot is going to fall on having a strong trustworthy commish. That does allow for many of us to get the full experience out of the mode. I still hold a lot of concern for people joining public leagues or with ones that will die out due to an unreliable commish. In its first year Online Dynasty for NCAA Football did incredibly well due in part to being invite only which took out much of that uncertainty by limiting the chances people would run into poor experiences.

NCAA Football Heading Down Generic Path

Player names and how they are dealt with in EA Sports NCAA Football series has always been a sensitive subject. While there has been discussion over the years to reach agreement with the NCAA to allow names in that has not come to fruition. The last couple versions of NCAA Football have brought about some new community based features such as the EA Locker for roster sharing and Teambuilder. The Sam Keller lawsuit may or may not directly affect what happens with NCAA Football but it does seem to coincide with a move towards a more generic-rostered game. This especially considering the rosters found on Teambuilder that apparently are the final rosters shipping with the game.

While at E3 I asked whether the rosters from Teambuilder were final and was told that they were. Not realizing what a disaster they were at the time that was the answer I expected to get. So when I got back and tweeted about them being final I was surprised at the community reaction which was of frustration and disbelief. These rosters are hugely flawed with instances of teams that have no freshman or have players still on the team that graduated within the last few years. While I attempted to get double-verification that the rosters were final there has been no update on that which further solidifies the likelihood that they are.

It may be purely coincidental that this comes shortly after the Keller lawsuit was filed. However regardless of what happens with that it looks as though less effort is being put into making rosters accurate and more is being placed on the community to do it on their own.

The NCAA license expires after next year. Could EA be planning on letting the exclusive expire and then pick up the license for less money? If they have to go more generic with the players that would surely affect sales and the value of that license. They may be thinking that no one else will be able to compete in this market by introducing another college game anyway. That is what happened with NCAA Basketball where 2K dropped out because they couldn’t afford the license leaving EA in a position to have the only college basketball game without having to pay the cost of tying it up exclusively. It would be a huge undertaking to create a new college football game from scratch. The question around how closely rosters can replicate real life will continue to have a big affect on these college games and it is something to continue monitoring.

Madden 10 Team and Player Ratings

While at E3 I was able to grab the team overall ratings for Madden 10. I also have access to the player ratings. These may not necessarily be final however they will provide at the very least a good idea of what to expect. A while back Donny Moore stated that the Pats, Steelers, and Eagles were the top three teams however in this build the Giants have overtaken the Eagles.

Continue on to check out the team ratings. Leave any requests for specific player ratings in the comments and I’ll reply there. Please limit it to no more than two players per comment. Users with Intense Debate comment accounts or utilizing Facebook Connect will receive priority in response.

Update: EA has requested I take the ratings down.

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