NBA 2K10 full game video posted at Pastapadre

Pastapadre has uploaded a full game video of NBA 2K10 between the Utah Jazz and San Antonio Spurs over at his site: www.pastapadre.com.

I watched the whole game and was impressed by a lot of things. Right now I can’t tell everything obviously but I’m curious how the game will feel because it looks pretty nice.

First thing that jumps out is the CPU AI and how like the real players they play. The CPU was controlling the Spurs and all of the tendencies were right on. The players were all in spots they would normally be in on the court.

The CPU was very good in this game as they always are with the Spurs. They ran the break better than in past versions I think and found the open man a lot too. There was a lot of kicking out and quick shots by the Spurs and I liked that.

The CPU will really take advantage of user mistakes just like in recent versions of the game. A lot of times they hit a cutter if you are a little out of position guarding your man.

On offense it seemed like Pastapadre wasn’t very experienced playing this game yet which of course no one is yet. He didn’t show off a lot of dribble moves and as a result had a hard time getting by defenders even with Deron Williams. It seems like the learning curve involving learning the dribble moves will be of vital importance to be able to effectively execute in 1-on-1 situations.

The same goes for moves in the post. I have heard that there are a ton of new button combinations to score from inside. I didn’t see a lot of it in this game but again I think that is something that the user should get better at with time playing the game.

It seems that once again passing to cutters in transition or off pick and rolls is the easiest way to score on offense. The CPU defense didn’t do too good of a job defending against this but Pastapadre didn’t try to exploit it either all game.

The play calling system is deeper on the fly. You can select between five plays for each position it looks like to set up different players. I could see this adding another dimension to the game that was lacking in years past. I usually don’t like to call plays and rather just go based on wherever players line up.

That style is also going to be greatly improved this year. The spacing is 100 percent better from last year. This will make it much less frustrating when trying to freelance in the open floor and even in the half court.

A few more things that I noticed: Sometimes the CPU is in great defensive position in the passing lanes so passes just aren’t there and they will intercept it pretty easily.

There were hardly any fouls on default sliders. Once again it will take time to figure out where to put the foul sliders which is always annoying.

Based on the Draft Combine I didn’t think that the feel way that great but if it is any better and adding what I saw from this game I think this could be a very good game. It seemed like Pastapadre could really move around without any problem excessive signature animations and he executed most of what he attempted.

Now I’m just waiting for the demo so I can give my take on what it feels like to play the game.

Why did I ever stop playing NCAA 2004?

I was the excited less than I can ever remember for the release of NCAA 10 this year. It used to be a huge deal when the EA football games would start coming out. Now, I just don’t want to put in the energy to get excited only to get let down.

I will admit that NCAA 10 is far better than any other next-gen version of the franchise but that’s not saying much, especially when the peak of the franchise can still be played in the form of NCAA Football 2004.

This is one of the only sports franchises where it is basically unanimous as to which game is the best ever.

With Madden, you hear a lot of different things, including this year’s game. NBA games really have never been that great and there are so many different things that players look for in those games so it’s hard to say anyway.

But it seems that everyone agrees NCAA 2004 was the best of the best.

And after popping it in my PS3 during the opening weekend of college football season this year, I have to say it still sits atop the mantle.

I cannot recall any other sports game that you can play and get realistic results without even touching the sliders from the start.

The game utilizes sliders in the way they were first intended to be utilized. The sliders don’t really have to be moved to make the game more real, instead they are just there to make it either easier or more difficult for the user.

Basically I’ve had enough of the next-gen football for now. I agree that both NCAA 10 and Madden 10 made some nice strides this year but they are still not where they once were back in 2004.

I can still remember running a dynasty past the first two seasons for the first time ever back with NCAA 2004.

I took the Florida Gators for 11 seasons and this was before I became a dynasty nut that played every single game and prayed for realistic results.

I can still remember my free safety Junior French setting an NCAA record with 26 career interceptions. And my created option quarterback with dreads, James Thomas, racking up a Florida school record worth of rushing yards.

And the game was never pissing me off like they do now. I can remember breaking the disc of NCAA 2005. Not because the game was that bad, only because the version from the previous year was so much better.

That’s enough talk, I’m going to start a dynasty now and think what could have been with players like Maurice Clarett and Mike Williams.

Franchise Quarterly: I’ve turned it around with the Fins

As of right now I’m trying to stay in a good mood about the realism in my franchise. I also am hoping that this emerging flaw in the CPU defensive play calling logic isn’t going to ruin this ‘chise.

As of right now I’ve won seven games in a row with the Dolphins after a troubling 0-3 start. Granted I did play some tough teams at the beginning of the season (Atlanta, San Diego, Indianapolis) but this is starting to get too easy without any major change in the sliders.

My offense has really started to take off because I’m starting to burn the CPU defense when they bring the all-out blitz, which is happening a lot more than it should.

It’s going to be impossible for me to allow them to sack me or something to adjust for this so it seems a patch may be the only fix.

But for now, I’m not going to stop with this franchise because other than that, it is really getting fun.

I’ve had some very good games to the end with the Patriots and Carolina. I beat New England on a last-second field goal after blowing a 20-point lead from earlier in the game in large part due to turnovers.

The Pats simply could not run the ball and that is another thing I am noticing. A major focal point of the Madden 10 creators this year was to have you really see a difference between the best players in the league and the “average Joe’s.”

Well Sammy Morris isn’t exactly L.T. and that dimension of the offense was completely eliminated for the New England game allowing me to completely focus on stopping the pass which I was able to contain to hang on to the win.

I have played against two rookie quarterbacks (Mark Sanchez and Josh Freeman) so far and they are a huge step down from guys like Brady and Manning and I think it is mainly due to low awareness ratings.

Before my last game against Carolina, those two quarterbacks were the only ones I sacked at all this season in the three games I played them.

Somehow, in an effort to improve the passing game slightly for the CPU, when I raised the pass blocking sliders for the CPU I ended up sacking Jake Delhomme five times in my Thursday night win on the road.

In that game I surrendered 196 rush yards to the Panthers mainly because of multiple long runs from Deangelo Williams.

So I’m feeling a little shaky with the sliders of this franchise though. I’m going to have to change a few things from this point on to get the games to be a little more competitive.

I’m playing the Bills next who have only one win on the season so I can probably chalk up win number eight for me.


Until next time, thank you, my name is Andrew.

Franchise Quarterly: 2009 Dolphins (1-3)

In the first day of the release of the new Madden roster including Michael Vick and Brett Favre, I began my annual Miami Dolphins franchise and played the first four games of the season.

Last year when I did this, I ended up with the exact record the real Dolphins had (11-5) in my first season and also dropped my first two games of the season as well.

The slow start last year didn’t last long though as I easily adjusted to the game and started reeling off wins like nothing. I think it may be a little different this year.

The start to the season was tough and it showed as I lost the first three games before finally winning the fourth when I hosted Buffalo.

The first game may have been the worst as Atlanta beat me 31-10 despite Matt Ryan just completing three passes. Michael Turner had no problem carrying the load though and the Falcons scored on two defensive touchdowns as well.

I just couldn’t get anything going with the ground game and the passing game was rusty as well.

The second game of the season was against Indianapolis and Peyton Manning played unstoppable from the start completing 25 of 30 passes for 286 yards and a touchdown.

I did dominate time of possession however so I kept it close and came back in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 23 before falling victim to a time-expiring field goal by Adam Vinatieri to win the game.

Next up was a trip to San Diego where my heart would be broken once again in the final seconds of the game. In the fourth I came back to take a 31-27 lead with 1:56 left in the game.

This was too much time to leave the Chargers who had no trouble marching downfield and scoring off a 1-yard pass from Phillip Rivers to Vincent Jackson.

Despite opening the season 0-3, I still felt confident that these sliders were working well and a lot of the reason for losing fell on my own shoulders with some dumb decisions. It felt very much like last year that I would be able to make a run midseason to end up with a decent record.

Week four was a crazy one with the Buffalo game ending with a 38-35 score favoring my Miami Dolphins. There was an instance for each team where they would score defensive touchdowns on consecutive plays.

For me it was Jason Allen returning two fumbles for touchdowns in the third quarter. This gave me a commanding lead which I almost blew when Buffalo scored on two defensive touchdowns in the fourth.

The win has brought some new confidence to the team and it looks like this season might turn around somewhat after all.

Around the league the Jets and Patriots are leading the division with 3-1 records. I play New York next week.

The Colts are undefeated and the Chiefs are the surprise team of the AFC with a 3-1 record.

Carolina is the only other undefeated team in the league at 3-0. Green Bay, Dallas, Minnesota and New Orleans all follow closely with 3-1 records.

Brett Favre has started all four games for the Vikings throwing for 868 yards, nine touchdowns and six picks.

Mike Vick has yet to see the field in this franchise, not sure but I think he was injured for the first four weeks, he is healthy now.

The stats are a little weird. There haven’t been a lot of rushing touchdowns by the best running backs and the yards are pretty high. Thomas Jones leads the league with 560 yards but has no touchdowns. Brandon Jacobs and Adrian Peterson are second and third in yards but each has only one touchdown as well.

There are five quarterbacks with ratings over 100. Tom Brady is leading the way averaging 345 yards passing per game with 10 touchdowns.

The receiving stats seem pretty realistic, just maybe a few more touchdowns than normal.

The only other thing I have done so far is a bit of scouting with the NCAA draft class. I don’t plan on using this feature much I just figured I’d do it for fun this first season.

Tim Tebow, Sam Bradford and Colt McCoy are all projected pretty highly but Tim Hiller of Western Michigan is the top QB prospect. It does look like with the new draft logic this year a lot of non-quarterbacks will be going early in the first round this year, including some fullbacks. Not much else to say on this.

Until next time, thank you, my name is Andrew.

IGN NBA 2K10 Preview is up

IGN.com just posted their NBA 2K10 preview. The reviewer didn't get the complete build of the game yet but some of his impressions are interesting.

A lot of the focus was again centers on the realism of the player's movements as well as signature moves. This was a big problem with last year's game although most would say a step int he right direction. Hopefully the user will still have control over the players without the signature animations getting in the way.

One of the things he mentioned that sounds like a relief is that they decided to simplify Isomotion dribbling for this year. I've always found this much to difficult especially if you like playing with the game speed up.

Apparently the left trigger will be used more often than year's past and turbo usage is being encouraged to drop. I really wish there was at least an option to go to the dribbling controls that are in College Hoops 2K8.

Turbo has plagued NBA games in online play for some time now but I have always been against players getting too tired by the end of the games. I guess it does make sense though to have this be a point of emphasis to trying and get the game a little more realistic.

The other main focus is with a new feature called My Player. Much like the feature in MLB The Show you create your own player and play out his career, starting at the draft combine where you can compete in workouts prior to the draft.

This seems like it could be very cool and I'll definitely check it out, but I'm not sure it will work as good in a basketball game like it does in baseball. If it does this can defeinitely make the game last a lot longer than last year's.

The other focus is with the online play which I don't care much about with NBA games because of all the cheese. Here is the link to the Full Review.

Thank you, my name is Andrew.

It's Franchise Time

If anyone thought the wait leading up to the release of Madden 10 was tough, try waiting another five days for updated rosters including Michael Vick and Brett Favre.

Because that’s what any true franchise game did, you know who you are. Today there will be more franchises started than probably any other day this year. If we’re lucky, maybe 5-10 of them will last for more than a month or two.

It can be one of the most exciting things when getting a football game and the biggest letdown.

For those who don’t like to venture online, franchises make Madden what it is today. But getting a good, competitive and realistic franchise to be enjoyed for a year is not that easy, in fact it’s nearly impossible.

There are, however, some key steps that can be taken to maximize your franchising experience.

Under the username “crusaderhoops10,” I ran franchises and dynasties at the MaddenMania boards pretty successfully since 2006. It wasn’t easy and it took a lot of hard work but I do feel I did a decent job of it.

The first hurdle to overcome is getting realism. It would be pointless if I was writing this article and didn’t think that this could be achieved with this year’s version of Madden, but that is not the case.

This is by far the most realistic Madden since the launch of next-gen gaming and thus has the potential for some nice franchises.

Last year the sliders were screwy, the CPU couldn’t run and the logic of the CPU-controlled teams was completely flawed. This is all almost fixed completely this year, with maybe the exception of the CPU still struggling to move the rock on the ground, but sliders are able to fix that this year.

This first step to take in starting your franchise is to get a good, tough slider set you are confident can yield realistic results. This isn’t going to happen overnight either. Go on the message boards and trial and error some of the sets people have posted, then add your own modifications to mold your playing level.

You should play almost an entire season of games against the CPU before playing the first game of your real season.

Use a lot of teams too and make sure you control the favorites and underdogs in different games to make sure you can get a feel for how certain games should flow with your sliders.

Once you’re ready with your sliders, it’s time to pick a team. I strongly recommend not picking one of the better teams in the game because early success is the leading cause in disinteresting franchises.

Once you select your team take some time to sit down and think about what type of year you expect for this team in real life. You have to then decide if your sliders can make this happen.

Don’t underestimate how fun and rewarding losing early in a franchise can be. It makes winning later so much better and gives you a chance to get some solid rookies when the draft comes around without making cheesy trades to move up in the draft.

Once you’re ready, begin your first game and get ready to start changing your sliders again because it always happens like this the first game. If you think you have perfect sliders, you’ll probably end up in a shootout in your first game.

That’s okay because this is a video game and there are a few things that only happen in video games that you have to put up with for your franchise to last.

You’ll probably have to keep changing your sliders during and after most games in that first season. There’s nothing wrong with ending up with inconsistent stats as long as by the end of the season everything looks reasonable.

To mention a few things that you must put up with: your team will probably always be in the top 5 in scoring in the league, your pass defense will likely be the worst every year, your offensive linemen should never make the Pro Bowl because they won’t get enough pancakes, the player you control on defense will probably be going to Hawaii every year regardless of who he is, and your kicker will make over 90 percent of his kicks every year.

This are just some of the things you will most likely always have to bear in mind when analyzing the realism of your stats. It’s better to have the worst pass defense in the league and go .500 than going undefeated with a middle of the road pass defense.

The most important thing is to have fun and enjoy the franchise. Do it for yourself. If you are sharing a franchise on the message boards, do it for you and not just to try and get a lot of readers.

Aim to win a Super Bowl in your eighth or ninth season, not you second or third, it’s more fun that way.

With that said, it is now time. Everyone get out your Madden disc, go online, get the roster with Vick and Favre and crank up that franchise engine. Hopefully it will last because this year it should.

Thank you, my name is Andrew.

Madden 10 Review: The Little Things

I’m going to have to start this review off in a negative fashion since that is the tone Cris Collinsworth sets for every single play of every single game.

Seriously, does he really have to be such a “Negative Nancy?” All I ever hear is him sort of chuckling when I have a bad play, even if I’m winning, followed by a backhanded comment at one of my guys.

Ok, the first annoying thing: How come when I went to change my favorite team from the Steelers a screen popped up preventing me from doing this quickly that asked me if I was sure? Is it really that hard to believe that the Super Bowl winner isn’t someone’s favorite team?

Well, that isn’t really a big deal so let’s move on.

I cannot stand how, after each play, when I am pressing “X” to continue on to the play calling screen for the next play, there is a delay and about one out of every five times I end up calling play “X” without knowing what it is.

We don’t really need this delay especially when NCAA doesn’t have it; I hate those little differences between the games it makes the transition rougher than it needs to be.

If I have a bad play I want nothing more than to get on to the next one, why can’t the game respond immediately to me pressing X? Instead it has to screw with my mind.

Believe it or not, one thing I do love is the new speed. Now I can finally actually make a play on passes while on defense without having to be worried about a 150 MPH pass blazing through my player’s body after the delayed animation.

It reminds me a lot of the PS2 games which in a lot of ways are still better than the next-gen versions. It gives the more talented user a chance to prove he is better.

The other new feature is the dumb “Fight for the Fumble.” Why do I have to suddenly feel like I am playing WWE Legends of Wrestling and trying to execute a People’s Elbow with The Rock when my back loses the ball? I actually prefer from this the old way when you would see random linemen scoop up the ball in a pile and start rumbling their way downfield.

I see that this year in both Madden and NCAA came the return of defensive backs possessing psychic abilities.

Good, everyone hates this.

How in the hell is it that I have a receiver running a 10-yard in and the corner covering him has his back turned and breaks on the route before my receiver? Was the passing game really that bad last year? I enjoyed it last year and it was still difficult at times to pass efficiently especially with an inaccurate signal-caller.

When are the Madden makers ever going to get it through their heads that the answer to a tougher passing game is not defensive backs knowing the routes better than the receivers? It’s actually not having every quarterback be so accurate.

I know they tried to make strides in this department this year, but they are still way too accurate. Isn’t it kind of an eye opener when every decent slider set usually has QB Accuracy lowered to around 10 or 15?

Now that we’re talking sliders, how about the interception slider? Every year we have to move this one down to zero otherwise every quarterback will throw 30 picks a year. Not every bad throw or tipped ball at the line finds its way into defenders’ hands.

What’s with the fluttering ducks from quarterbacks when they are hit? Maybe every once in a while but I also see a lot of balls hitting the dirt right away when I watch a football game. When a quarterback gets hit they don’t all just look to the heavens and toss the ball up 25 feet in the air and five yards downfield hoping one of the players strays under it.

All of this aside, I really like the game. Once again, I was just in this mood because Collinsworth made me, I promise.

The player movements are amazing this year and there are no huge game-killers like last year with the CPU being completely incapable when running the rock.

Franchise also has a million improvements. And the presentation is both very cool and extremely hilarious. I don’t mind it not being perfect and enjoy the little things that are stupid, like when the lady broadcaster notes only the number of plays for each team and then the score at halftime.

This game has potential to be played for 15-20 years in franchise mode and you can tell this after just an hour of putting it in your system.

I’ll end with a funny story of something I do with every Madden game once I get it.
First, I simulated a season with the Dolphins (my favorite team, and I’m sure) and then traded up for the first pick just to make sure I got Tim Tebow.

I then made Tebow a halfback, jacked up the running tendency of the team to 100 and took off injuries.

One more year of simulating and you have one of the funniest stat lines you can get from a video game if you are a “Tim Tebow fan-mocker.”

Tebow ran 582 times in the season for over 1,850 yards and just four touchdowns. The Dolphins went 4-12 averaging around 12 points per game but had one game that particularly stood out. They beat the Jets 30-27 with Tebow running 42 times for 78 yards.

How did this happen? I love Madden this year.

Thank you, my name is Andrew.