The Minnesota Vikings were solid in 2000. With Daunte Culpepper in his first year, they managed a 7-0 start, and later went to the NFC Championship Game (which they lost 41-0, but I digress). It was a team that featured, among other things, Randy Moss in his prime.
Nevertheless, I wanted to make a change. Playing Madden '01, I opted to blow up the Vikings and start over from scratch in a fantasy draft. Out went Culpepper, Moss, and the rest, and in came Peyton Manning, Warren Sapp, and Marshall Faulk. My super team promptly went 16-0 on the way to crushing the surprising Bills in the Super Bowl.
As it turns out, I'm not the only one who has gotten it in her head to blow things up. Lots of Madden players like to run fantasy drafts so they can get Cam Newton or Aaron Rodgers in their team's colors. Until this year, anyway, when the fantasy draft was unceremoniously cut from the feature list, prompting howls in the Amazon reviews, and elsewhere.
When I originally reviewed Madden 13, I didn't remark on the omission, because I thought it was relatively inconsequential. If the ability to edit player ratings, the fantasy draft, and the ability to import NCAA draft classes were a casualty of the new, more sim-oriented experience offered by "Connected Careers," then I was all for it. These were features that I hardly ever used anyway (I occasionally edited existing players so that I could practice with my online team, but I'm also a psychopath).
As always though, the lesson is that even if I don't care much about a feature, somebody out there does. In this case, quite a few somebodies. They are the ones who want to use Cam Newton without having to play as the Panthers. And they are the ones who want to edit the stats to create crazy 99 OVR players to steamroll everyone. In other words, they're the power trip players, and there are a lot more of them out there than I realized.
In retrospect, this shouldn't be surprising. You know the MLB 12: The Show commercial with the Cubs? The one where they are all celebrating a World Series celebration, then we see it was in the game, and a Cubs fan is sitting there sniffling? That's sports games for a lot of fans. They care about realism to a degree, but they aren't really into the nitty gritty of simming an actual organization. They want to win a Super Bowl. Some fans can do that with the teams they have. Others resort to running a fantasy draft so they can have Aaron Rodgers throwing to Calvin Johnson on the Browns.
Thus, we get a reminder of the danger of not just cutting out features that have been around for a while, but features that allow people to fulfill their wildest sports fantasies. And really, why not allow users to start a CCM with different rosters than the default? Why not let them import their custom ratings? It's not technically a "sim" experience, but in the end, it's just a game.
With Madden having been on the market for a couple weeks now, EA Tiburon seems to have realized their mistake. There is tentative talk of bringing back player editing in a future patch. When Madden 14 is out this time next year, all of the features that were cut from this year's version will undoubtedly make their triumphant return.
Personally, I can take them or leave them. I'm in it because I want a semi-realistic sports game experience, and CCM is the best "franchise mode" that Madden has had in ages (yes, it is a franchise mode). But, of course, different people want different things out of Madden, and Tiburon would do well to remember that next time they decide a feature has to go.
As it turns out, I'm not the only one who has gotten it in her head to blow things up. Lots of Madden players like to run fantasy drafts so they can get Cam Newton or Aaron Rodgers in their team's colors. Until this year, anyway, when the fantasy draft was unceremoniously cut from the feature list, prompting howls in the Amazon reviews, and elsewhere.
When I originally reviewed Madden 13, I didn't remark on the omission, because I thought it was relatively inconsequential. If the ability to edit player ratings, the fantasy draft, and the ability to import NCAA draft classes were a casualty of the new, more sim-oriented experience offered by "Connected Careers," then I was all for it. These were features that I hardly ever used anyway (I occasionally edited existing players so that I could practice with my online team, but I'm also a psychopath).
As always though, the lesson is that even if I don't care much about a feature, somebody out there does. In this case, quite a few somebodies. They are the ones who want to use Cam Newton without having to play as the Panthers. And they are the ones who want to edit the stats to create crazy 99 OVR players to steamroll everyone. In other words, they're the power trip players, and there are a lot more of them out there than I realized.
In retrospect, this shouldn't be surprising. You know the MLB 12: The Show commercial with the Cubs? The one where they are all celebrating a World Series celebration, then we see it was in the game, and a Cubs fan is sitting there sniffling? That's sports games for a lot of fans. They care about realism to a degree, but they aren't really into the nitty gritty of simming an actual organization. They want to win a Super Bowl. Some fans can do that with the teams they have. Others resort to running a fantasy draft so they can have Aaron Rodgers throwing to Calvin Johnson on the Browns.
Thus, we get a reminder of the danger of not just cutting out features that have been around for a while, but features that allow people to fulfill their wildest sports fantasies. And really, why not allow users to start a CCM with different rosters than the default? Why not let them import their custom ratings? It's not technically a "sim" experience, but in the end, it's just a game.
With Madden having been on the market for a couple weeks now, EA Tiburon seems to have realized their mistake. There is tentative talk of bringing back player editing in a future patch. When Madden 14 is out this time next year, all of the features that were cut from this year's version will undoubtedly make their triumphant return.
Personally, I can take them or leave them. I'm in it because I want a semi-realistic sports game experience, and CCM is the best "franchise mode" that Madden has had in ages (yes, it is a franchise mode). But, of course, different people want different things out of Madden, and Tiburon would do well to remember that next time they decide a feature has to go.
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