Look, it’s a video of me playing a couple of one-minute periods in my first ever game of Madden NFL 11. We noticed that our original video content has been severely lacking recently and we’re going to try to do something about that. Starting with what we hope might become a new little feature.
I’ll capture the first few minutes of me playing anything interesting and throw a video up for you all to watch while I’m getting down to the serious business of reviewing (or while someone else is!). If this turns out to be popular and there’s enough demand I’ll increase the length of the videos and try to do even more of them.
I chose the two New York teams for this little experiment. I’m playing as the Jets (in green), at home to the Giants (in white/blue). The period length is set to it’s minimum of one minute and this is just the first half. In the second half I was brilliant, honest.
Let us know what you think of the gameplay, and of this potential new feature, in the comments below.
bunimomike
Sorry for the random aside but what are you using to capture the footage?
It strikes me that a few of us could do this in the forum and add some voice-over too. Ok, not to be taken seriously but as a bit of fun.
Which brings me to the next bit. Did you do any voice-over? I couldn’t hear any. If not, I’d definitely recommend it. Otherwise it just feels like another in-game video to be found elsewhere online.
colossalblue
I use an HD capture card and a RAID hdd array. The entire set-up cost me around £300 (plus the cost of having a decent PC to start with).
No voice over on this. I toyed with the idea but didn’t really know what to say about it and doing voice would make the process take twice as long. The aim with this was to get short snappy videos up more regularly.
For reference, it takes about ten minutes to set everything up to record. Capturing footage takes a couple of minutes for simple stuff like this up to an hour or two for stuff I’m going to cut up and edit. The edit for simple stuff takes ten minutes but for complex stuff it can take hours. Recording voice overs means writing a script, doing multiple takes to get it right and then editing that audio.
Then the encode takes more than four times as long as the video lasts – so a five minute video takes around twenty – thirty mins to encode. Then it takes anything up to two hours to upload (plus processing time) to YouTube.
Video is incredibly time consuming ;)
bunimomike
Aye. I had a horrid feeling it was going to multiply the time taken. I might look into the HD capture card as I have an SSD drive that may well bypass the need for RAID HDD although capturing sound at the same time might be tricky! Sod the script. I was thinking of ad-libbing! :-)
Regarding the editing/encoding: All too familiar with that part but thankfully second-hand. Clients and colleagues have always done the editing and the air often turns blue when it’s time for such shenanigans.
Whenever you’ve put together an episode of TSATV I’ve always had the utmost respect as it’s a black hole for time.
JesseDeya
Presumably you have a dev unit with no HDCP? For the rest of us, capture cards aren’t really an option. :(
homerjnick
The way you can go through a crows of players, bound off them and carry on looks very strange…great graphics though!
aranalas
I like the feature, it certainly gives a better impression than the stuff I can find. About the game itself, the gameplay seems slightly improved by the way players push through the walls of players, but that’s about it, to me it seems like they haven’t really tried to improve it.
spooferbarnabas
I think this is a great feature, especially with Madden 11 :D
Did you win the game in the end or did the Giants from New York (madagascar reference) beat you? XD
colossalblue
I won! Just… one minute periods make scoring pretty difficult!
spooferbarnabas
yeah, i imagine you only get about one possesion each which limits scoring. Nice one on the win :)
JesseDeya
When you kicked at 3rd down 2 seconds before the half, was that your choice or did the game suggest that play? If it did suggest it, then the play calling seems a little improved compared to Madden 10, which should help new comers to the game. Personally from that range I would have just looked for a short play to burn the clock safely to the half, but each to their own :).
Every year I say I won’t buy a new Madden, and every year I cave.
colossalblue
that was the suggested play from the new feature that feeds you advice based on real-life NFL tactics. That feature is awesome with a headset, you get coach instructions in your ear like the QB would in his helmet.
You can bypass all that stuff and select your own plays though, I was just letting the AI choose for speed and ease of use in my first game!
bajere
Can i add my own play book, and still get plays called out to me? I play for Bristol Aztecs and it would be great if i could add our play book to madden. may even help me learn the play book inside out! lol
slates16
I think I read some where that you can make your own game plan and that it suggests plays basesed opn that so I assume you make your own plays and put them in your game plan
bajere
ah kl. cheers mate. think i might pick this up soon!
hazelam
i think the last american football game i played was probably on the master system.
if you ran the ball down one of the wings you were guaranteed a touchdown.
it might have been a megadrive game though.
colossalblue
That would be Madden 91 on the Mega Drive I think, the short throw out to the left always resulted in a TD.
Defense was easy too, you just ran a man to the end of the line and ran around the offense to sack the QB :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tBKNXEEQ9w 5:55 in this video ;)
Awesome.
cc_star
This is what I want to see an NFL game
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_138p6uzhUk
They were the days
cc_star
I’m really liking the demo, the simplification of the game has bought me back in. for about the past decade ‘feature creep’ and added ‘realism’ has turned me off
Gaztee
I’ve had a quick go of the Demo, but having hardly played the last 2 editions (thought the trophies were crap last year!) I’m probably gonna pass this year! Especially as Backbreaker feels a lot fresher than any Madden title has done this gen!