by Joe Gandolfo- jgand@pcfootball.net
09-25-02

Finally, BigDaddy has come back to write his column! (Apologies to Duane Johnson, aka "The Rock")

Well it looks like David Branda has an advocate on this site after all.

Mark Nordstrom has been burning up the forums ever since his arrival here, and he has succeeded in pissing a lot of people off in the process.

I disagree with a lot of what Mark has to say about David and how he treats posters and how the forums are private. But the man is a brick wall and we all know what it is like talking to one of those. As it is his latest post involves whether or not the forums at MM are indeed a private club. He even goes so far as to compare the situation at MM with the Augusta National Golf Club which is currently involved in a controversy over admitting women to their club.

Big mistake Mark because there is no comparison.

First of all, you have to be invited to join Augusta. You do not need an invitation to register for MM.

There are membership dues to be paid at Augusta as with any private club. I never scratched out a check to one David Branda before and I have never heard of anyone forking over their hard earned caysh to him either.

Bottom line Mark: you are making a fool out of yourself with this line of so-called reasoning. Take my advice and quit while you're behind. You'll find that you will be unable to bully people into being silent here, unlike David tries to do at MM. So far you haven't said anything that can be construed as racist, but you came close to making a sexist post not too long ago. Be careful not to insult our enforcer - hell hath no fury my friend.

That said, on with the column!

Well, Madden 2003 has been out for a month now. We have all had the opportunity to find out the little quirks in the game, as well as some of the stuff that drives us crazy. I have been taking a look at some of the threads in our forums again pertaining to these issues. And these seem to be the most popular "cool things" in the game:

• The Passing game is soooooo much better now. We don't see receivers dropping as many balls over the middle now as we did last year. They seemed to have screwed up their courage and lost their fear about getting hit. There are not so many of those spectacular one-handed catches as there were in 2002, and you can now call a slant as a hot route.
• Minicamp is a hit! This one surprises me the most! I didn't think that PC gamers would like the minicamp feature because it seemed like it was a diversion from the actual game and that it wouldn't matter in gameplay anyway; and I thought it was just a console time-waster that we just didn't need. I was wrong; it does go towards your skill as a Madden baller as it offers drills that will help you play better in the game. I keep using the kicking drill over and over again as I'm sure some of you have.
• Everybody thinks that the graphic additions are pretty cool. Grass in the facemasks, mouthguards, sleeves and field shadows are just some of the new things that have been spotted.
• More options when we are creating a custom team. We can now create our own stadium, and we don't have to create the team all over again when we want to change something.
• Having the music is a nice feature. Although in my case the music gets choppy when I'm in the player editor. Oh well.
• The 46 defense seems to be a hit, as does the Quarters formation.
• ALLELULAH! ALLELULAH! The accelerated clock is back and it works like a dream.
• Gameplay was much improved in general as it plays very well out of the box without adjusting sliders.
• New animations look great, like running over the chain gang on an out of bounds play.

But as we all know there are things in this game that a lot of us don't like. These are the top pet peeves in order of most complaints:

• The Roster Editor. Yeah, big surprise there. There are so many things wrong with the editor that is almost sad instead of maddening (pun not intended). From not being able to change numbers of established players, to having to create your custom teams one player at a time the editor has to be the biggest headache for both gamers and EA. I have decided to wait to fill in the real names of the classic and all-time teams until EA fixes the editor. Either that or until someone breaks the codes and comes up with a third-party editor. It just feels strange to see the HB on the All-Rams team with a "29" where the name "Dickerson" should be on the back of his jersey.
• Everyone seems to agree that the kicking game sucks. The kicking meter it turns out looks to move at about 1 million m.p.h. thereby assuring that your 35-yard FG will slice wide right thus ensuring a loss for your team in the last seconds. Plus kickoffs go out of bounds thus incurring a penalty, and punts are also difficult to control.
• Saving franchise games in progress has also been a problem, but now that someone has figured out the trick it is less of an issue. Saving online games however is still a big problem.

Personally I like that the passing AI has improved, but EA still needs to work on the running game. I played one game where the computer called only 5 running plays the entire game compared to 75 pass plays. What is this, Arena Ball?

I have found out one way to make the kicking game a bit easier: turn the sliders up and don't try to overpower your kicks every time. I've noticed that the more the kicking meter goes into the red, the faster the return and the chances on getting it to stop in the accuracy range is diminished. Try to get it just before it hits the red zone and you should be able to nail that 35-yarder in the last second. Plus if you crank up the FG length and FG accuracy slider it will help you a lot. Having a kicker with an accuracy rating of 94 or higher doesn't hurt either.

I have been playing around with the sliders like most of you have and I couldn't really find a set that would work to my satisfaction. So I've decided to start over with the offensive and defensive sets by setting them back to the default settings. However I'm leaving the Special Teams setting as is as they help the kicking game. I'm going to experiment with one set of sliders at a time and see what happens, starting with run blocking. I noticed that both teams had trouble running the ball at default, so I'll try giving them some better blocking first. And if I can't find sliders that I'm happy with on the offensive side of the ball, I'll just turn on the Pass Assist, Catch Assist and Run Assist features and see if that works. Also it helps if you only play five minute quarters when you are trying to do this. It has the feel of a scrimmage at a mini or training camp if you use the right stadium.

Now I know there are those of you out there who are wondering if there are any special tricks you can use to get an advantage while playing the game. You might be saying to yourself "Hey Joe, what play can I use to burn this guy I play online with? He's been kicking my ass with one play and I want to do the same thing to him. Any ideas?" Well all I can say to that question is "No, I know of no cheese plays you can use in Madden 2003." Seeing as I am Lactose intolerant I don't go near cheese in any case, unless I am carrying my Lactaid around with me.

But if you are getting burned by cheese (ouch! that must hurt) there are some things you can use to enhance your defensive sets. I won't say flat-out what they are, but I can tell you where to find them. You can find them in the Virtual Playbook for Madden 2003 at VG Sports' website. It is an eBook that you can buy from them for $16.95 that can be downloaded to your computer and opened at anytime. You will need their eBook viewer in order to take advantage of this playbook, but I believe that is included with the cost of the order.

The new guide has all of the offensive and defensive playbooks printed out in diagram form so that they will be easier to follow. Last year only the defensive plays were printed out, and each offensive play was written out in longhand describing what each play did and who was the best receiver to throw to. That's the bad news, the good news is that the same plays that were in Madden 2002 are also in Madden 2003. So if you have last year's version of the playbook (as I do) you have a lot of information at your fingertips.

The most welcome addition to this year's edition is the breakdown on the 46 defense. There are several tips and diagrams in the guide which will help you learn how to use this new defense effectively and who you will need to shift in order to enhance its chances of containing your opponent. They also give you tips on how to contain sweeps, how to defend against slants, and how to defend everybody's favorite cheese formation: the 5WR set. Included in the book are films of how some of the plays work. All of this is over 7mb in size, and trust me, it is well worth it.

The only complaint that I have about the book is that it doesn't appear to go into detail about the Quarters formation, and how you can enhance those defenses to make them more effective. I know that Paul Gleason over at VG Sports looks at this site every once in awhile, and I hope he takes this into account for future releases. I myself am unfamiliar with the Quarters formation and I will be experimenting with it while trying out one slider set or another.

All in all I am very happy with the game so far. Now if I can just give Jack Youngblood the #85 on my All-Rams team I will be really happy.

IF YA SMELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL….

Nah, too easy.

Until next time…