by Joe Gandolfo- jgand@pcfootball.net
3-11-03

This is the time of year when it is generally slow in regards to football. Weather it is the action in the NFL or the in the College ranks, there is generally not much to talk about when it comes to America’s Pastime.

Sorry Baseball, you gave up that label when you took my World Series away from me in ’94.

For us gamers, weather we are on the PC or a console, this is the time of year when all eyes and ears turn to Redwood City, CA. That is the home base of EA Sports, and the place where the newest edition in the Madden series will come from, by way of their Tiburon partners in Florida. We probably won’t be hearing much about the new releases until we get closer to e3 in May. So unless you have G4 on your cable system or you have a spy on the inside at EA, we will all have to be patient for news about the new release.

I think we can all agree that this year’s version of Madden was the best one we have seen in a long time. With a few tweaks here and there we finally have a realistic simulation of football not seen since the untimely death of the Football Pro series. For the first time, we saw that a game actually had classic teams and All-Time teams for franchises ready and waiting to be played, or in some cases, altered with the real names of the players. No hoops to jump through, no challenges to have to beat, no codes to enter. Just the teams and nothing but the teams. Not only that, but the accelerated clock made a successful comeback ensuring that the game can be played with full 15 minute quarters and not take forever to get through. Hazzaaa, someone is finally listening to us and giving us what we want!

In that vein, our fearless leader, Bret, has shot off another letter to Madden producer Jeremy Strauser. In he, Bret detailed what we, the PC Football gamer, would like to see in Madden 2004. Here is the text of Bret’s letter:

Hello Mr. Strauser, Bret from pcfootball.net here again…

As I promised…what must be a couple months ago now, I am forwarding a synopsis of what our forum members feel about different issues with the game. I apologize for the delay in the second mail. This mail contains what our members would like to see in ’04, and future versions of Madden…our "wish list"

Franchise
• Bring back on-line franchise
• Trades offered to humans by the cpu and cpu to cpu trades
• Easier trade interface, example, put people on the block and see what they’re worth, instead of having to go team-by-team
• A GM mode where we can set ticket prices, concessions, etc
• More realistic super bowl winning ceremony
• Return the report button
• expanded trade abilities, like future picks, and more than three at a time
• more "impact players" out of the draft, ala Michael Vick in real life
• 53 man rosters with 46 active players, just like the real game
• Please, no more 100+ yard drives, and other impossible statistics, like a 149 yard average kick return
• Also, either a franchise feature for NFL Europe, or have that be simmed in the regular franchise mode
• Full integration of NFL Europe, meaning that in franchise mode we can send players to Europe to improve

Stadiums/Crowd noise
• Correct naming/licensing for each stadium
• Realistic crowd attendance. The cardinals should have a half-full stadium. And games that are a blowout should show people leaving in the middle of the fourth quarter
• More stadiums, like Fawcett Stadium for the hall of fame game
• More stadium-specific chants
• have more accurate crowd reaction to big plays, and not have them go wild at big plays for the away team

Gameplay
• A return of the ambulance that picks up injured players
• An in-game jukebox interface, so we can listen to mp3s while we play
• Being able to call two plays in the huddle for short-time situations
• Ability to allow the cpu to control the defense automatically
• Graphics representing the penalties called. No more "phantom facemask" calls
• We’d like some work done on the commentary…it is much better, but could still use some tweaking

Customization
• Uni’s are still listed as "home" and "away". We would like to see this changed to "whites" and "colors", as there are some teams who choose to wear their whites at home, Dallas Cowboys for example. Then, of course, the visiting team would wear opposite of what the home team chose to wear. Also, when creating a team, there should be a feature to choose what the team wears at home by default
• The roster editor needs work
• Better uniform customization utility
• A feature to change the name of a stadium if you cant get licensing for stadium names. Nothing illegal about letting us change the stadium names ourselves
• Return of the play editor
• Ability to import a face into the game
• Custom teams should get to have cheerleaders
• Return the auto-fill feature
• Fix the numbering situation
• Ability to edit existing uniforms, ala Madden 98
• Team-specific sliders

Players
• Correct naming of each historical player (ie, no more "RB No. 34" for Walter Payton)
• Stains on jerseys

other
• We as PC users would like all the features that console users get to enjoy
• Free on-line gameplay
• More consistency with the release date
• If there is indeed "comeback code", the please eliminate that

I think I speak for the entire pcfootball.net community when I say we really appreciate you taking the time to listen to our concerns, and our wishes for the future of the game. If you have any questions about this list or would like something clarified, please do not hesitate to write me back, or stop by our forums and ask there…I’m sure you’ll get all the answers you can handle there :)

Yours,

Bret Bednarz

Ok, now that Bret has put his two cents in, let me make a few comments on what this community is asking for.

• I think it’s a given that online franchising has been missed by the PC community. The console players don’t know what they’re missing out on. It would make running leagues so much easier, and we wouldn’t run the risk of having to spend money on a franchise utility and not have it delivered.
• I haven’t seen a cpu offer a trade since FBPro95! It would be great if they can make this happen. And if they can make a trading block feature, even better.
• The GM mode was tried by Sierra in FBPro99. I liked the idea then and I still do.
• 53 man rosters with 46 active players was a feature in the FBPro series. Again, another idea I would love to see come back.
• I liked in Madden 2002 where you could create franchises with different numbers of teams. That was another thing that Sierra did very well, and I too wish it would come back.
• Having the crowd thin out late in the game would only be realistic if people also arrive late for games for any franchise we may put in L.A. The pattern is always the same out here for sporting events: arrive late, leave early.
• I would love to see the ambulance out there again like it was for Madden 2000, or even those helmet cars that teams have to take less seriously injured players off the field. But you know what I want to see make a comeback? The chain gang!
• In addition to more uni’s, how about allowing custom teams to make a set of alternate uniforms for their teams if they so choose and have them available in franchise mode. I would love to have the Madden Blue uni’s available for the Instigators along with the Madden blue helmets with the fist on the side as an option for a throwback day.
• Cheerleaders for custom teams – YES!!!
• Roster editor – that’s a no-brainer.
• Cheerleaders for custom teams – YES, PLEASE!!!
• Just in case they don’t give us the real names on the historical teams, I’ve still got my Football Encyclopedia handy.
• Cheerleaders for custom teams – YES, PLEASE!!! JEREMY, I’M ON MY KNEES HERE!!!
• I can do without the "Madden Cards" featured in the console editions.

I am glad that we have a friend at EA who is willing to listen to our concerns and wants our input on how we can make a better game. I am also glad that there are three other developers out there who are creating football games for the PC. Unfortunately their names don't happen to be Sega, Microsoft or 989 Sports. Instead their names are Winter Valley Software, .400 Software Studios and the partners creating Division Rivals. Division Rivals and Maximum-Football (Winter Valley) are both going to be graphic-style games with some features that we have only dreamed about in a game, while Football.net is the working title for .400’s text-based game. It is good to see that in this age of mega-corporations and the profit line being more important than the line of scrimmage, there are still people out there who want to try to fight the dragon. Kudos to the men and women of these companies who are proving that there is room for the little guy in the gaming world.

Now it is true that these three games will probably not set any sales records as long as there is an EA out there. However, I am glad to see that someone out there is taking some initiative and making an effort to give the PC Football Gamer what they want. What is that? Someone to provide some competition for EA and to give them the push they need to make a better game. Just like WCW pushed the WWF in the mid-90’s, so EA needs someone to push them. When that happens, we all win – the gamers, the companies, the industry – all of us are better for it in the long run.

Which brings me to my final question that I will leave hanging up in the air for Sega, Microsoft and 989 Sports:

If these three small companies can take a chance and produce football games for the PC even though they know EA has most of the market, what is stopping you guys from taking the same chance with your millions of dollars in the bank?

Mr. Gates?

Mr. Moore?

Mr. Hirai?

Until next time….