Wii impressions: Madden NFL 07

had2comment,

Who cares about the graphics, I certainly don't, GCN level is fine by me

"Look at these Madden Wii pics and tell me that those don't look like shit. Cause they do."

Yeah! Where's the ass sweat? I will NOT play a football game without realistic ass sweat!

#49

Sure, that's also possible.

And we don't have to guess either. 1 week after the close of E3 06, when all is digested and the dust settles, a consensus will emerge.

If that consensus is not favorable, most Nintendo fans (75% of Joystiq's readership) will still be in denial.

Seems to me the consensus has already emerged, with most saying the games are okay to great with some tweaking needed of the controls, but I have yet to hear outside of Joystiq, that they hated the game.

Avinash_Tyagi,

The Wii's gamble is that its remote will enhance gameplay to a level where graphics don't matter. Nintendo is hoping the consumer will move towards the graphically inferior but theoretically gameplay superior Wii over the graphically superior but theoretically gameplay inferior PS3 and Xbox 360.

The greater the discrepancy in graphics, the greater the gameplay enhancement Wii's remote must provide.

If the graphics were close in quality, then the remote wouldn't have to be the greatest invention since the mute button on HBO Boxing. Wii's remote would just have to be a little more fun than a regular remote to justify its lacking graphics.

However, there is a big discrepancy between the graphics of the Wii vs. Xbox 360. Arguably, the Wii can't even stand to the original Xbox's graphics in Madden's instance.

This means the Wii's remote must be truly great in order to justify the Wii's lacking graphics. Right now, I don't see the remote as being as great as it needs to be. But like I said, time will tell.

I dont trust IGN much. They said Zelda on the Wii looked good when it's as clear as day from looking at the latest gameplay video at http://www.gametrailers.com/ that graphics lie inbetween N64 and GC quality. Gamespot said it looked good too. I can't believe how bad they are to be honest. I cna't even believe they would release soemthing looking as bad as Twilight Princess on the GC.

there is no way the ign article is completely unbiased. the first sentence shows me that pretty clearly- most anticipated game on any system... not even close.
Cheers!

this is the end of nintendo! copy that to your notepad and tell me I'm right ina couple of years. my email is tmrabanus@cinci.rr.com so you can tell me I'm right there.

First off wii is way behind in the technical capablities of the 360 and PS3. You can see how the Gamecube failed in this aspect.

Second from I've read on numerous sites the consesous is that the wii controller is not working all that great on alot of the E3 demos. Nintendo is stuck in the Power Glove age and technology hasn't caught up. I've been concerned about this since the news of the wii remote. how will it work with sports games? Someone before me mentioned that playing a few games will get you tired. hell yeah it will!!!

And how will this technology work over online play?
It seems to me that online play will be very choppy and pingy with this control scheme.

Just my thoughts but isn't it funny that the controls are terrible with all of the E3 demos?

P.S. are they using the same GPU as the gamcube with the same memory?

had 2 comment

You are also comparing a finished product with somethin that has up to 6 months of dev time to complete. And I honestly can't see how the Xbox version is better...the 360 sure, but it's not even arguable about the Xbox version.

Time will indeed tell.

@ Todd Rabanus

What are you talking about?? GC was second only to the Xbox in terms of graphical power.

Todd,

I don't believe this the end of Nintendo as far as games or even peripherals go, but i do believe that this is the last console from Nintendo we will ever see.

I would of preered to see Nintendo release games for the 360 and PS3 instead.

Well what has been said is the controller has moments where it fails to respond to your movements, possibly a hardware issue with the display models

Ok, I already thought player1 was pretty retarded but a comment like this "They said Zelda on the Wii looked good when it's as clear as day from looking at the latest gameplay video at http://www.gametrailers.com/ that graphics lie inbetween N64 and GC quality." just makes it blatantly obvious that you're a troll.

I bet James Ransom-Wiley is a tubby bitch who is too lazy to be bothered with actually having to move his hands to play a game, or do anything besides mash buttons on a controller/keyboard.

It's sad that someone with this much influence (a video game journalist from a 'respected' page) would say something as asinine as "most mainstream sports titles, motion-controlled functions can't compete with good looks" -- that's just retarded to me. Given, I haven't played it, but I can bet that EA will be fine-tuning the game before launch, and I personally could care less how it looks -- ESPECIALLY comparing it to the competing consoles ("it sucks cause it's not in HD like Xbox360/PS3") -- as long as the damn game is fun to play.

To the people who think their arms will get tired: you must be fat-bastards. To say if you have to move your arm, you might as well go outside and play is totally ridiculous.

Have you ever played real basketball? You have to dribble constantly. Your arms don't get tired, it's your legs that get tired from running and jumping.

Seriously - get a life. You people are probably so fat that you rest your arms and the controller on your stomach.

The Wii-mote probably weighs about 8oz. Seriously - get a job before you complain about getting tired from a video game.

To the graphics whores:
I have Madden '05 on my GC running in 16:9 progressive scan. The game looks great. The Xbox version is slightly better. From the demo video I saw, the animations were fluid and it seems the anti-aliasing was turned way up (good thing). I would say it's slightly better looking than the Xbox (not 360) version. And that's exactly what developers have called the Wii: a souped up Xbox with a neat new way to play games.

It seems that Nintendo didn't just go for 10x polygon count like Sony and MS. They added better particle effects and anti-aliasing. Those are the graphical improvements that really matter. If anyone has played the Star Wars:Rouge Squadrom games on the GC, you know the GC could already pump out amazing visuals. Once you see those games in 480p, you will realize that they actually have better graphics than Resident Evil 4. Same with Metroid Prime 1 & 2 - amazing.

Haters will hate, that's what they do.

My only criticism of Wii right now is that the word's still out on true digital audio. Other than that - what was anyone seriously expecting? From all the videos I've seen that didn't involve the "pick up and play" simple games, but were truly "hard-core" games, they looked slightly better than Xbox 1. And that's what we have been told all along...

And you know what, that's good enough for me and I have a 50" DLP 720p/1080i capable TV with a SONY 6.1 digial receiver. Oh and at work, I'm a MICROSOFT Visual Studio.Net programmer.

the last time I saw a similar phenomena was with Halo 2. All of the major sites raved about the single player, gave it scores in the high 9's. But a couple of smaller places saw some flaws, and called 'em out, scoring the game considerably lower than the majors did. Boy did the hardcore fans go nuts.

But as it turned out, the complaints were legit. I'm personally in the "halo 2 = the shit" camp, but a lot of people disagree and I can understand why.

Thanks for speaking for all of us. I guess I'll just stop playing video games altogether. Thanks again.

#56

I request permission to quote your words, as your analysis rang absolutely true to me.

Please let me know if that's OK.

People. The graphics are Gamecube quailty for one reason, the developers only had gamecube SDKs for reference! Look here at the gamecube version of Madden 06: http://media.cube.ign.com/media/698/698630/img_2807340.html

And here is Gamecube version of 07: http://media.cube.ign.com/media/811/811800/img_3573195.html (much much better looking, so good in fact, i think they are not gamecube pics)

Looking at the 06 Madden pics for the GC and 07 for the Wii. They look exactly the same. The 07 GC version looks like the 360 version lol (which is why they probably arnt from the GC). The point is, these games are not polished graphically (and probably not control wise either since the remote was only release a few months ago to devs). The developers will finally get the FULL Wii hardware (more than just the darn remote) after E3. Then they have 6-8 months to tweak and add better textures. Its actually going to be good for nintendo. They will shock everyone with the graphics upgrade.

Sheesh. Get a grip people! Nothing to see here! Keep up the reporting Joystiq!

I've been thinking about this since I last posted (Number 28) and I can see how this would make Madden work better. The way it seems they implemented it is dumb (in my opinion) but they could do alot to make the passing game work better. In Madden 06 they came out with the passing come. Great idea, terrible implementation. With the Wii you could use the thumbstick on the nunchuck to move the passing cone, point to the receiver you want to pass to with the remote and press a button to pass the ball. You could move the quarteback by pressing the trigger on the nunchuck and moving the thumbstick. However, I don't see this working well for the running game or defense but who am I kidding this is Madden - everyone just throws bombs the whole time.

That said, in sports sims graphic DO matter much more than other types of games. Sports sims can't rely on storytelling to be immersive so they need to use graphics to draw the gamer into the game.

I think for one bad review to come out about the wii in the myriad of other reviews and everyone to jump on one side of the fence either way is terribly ignorant. Not everyone is going to like controlling the wii way. That makes perfect sense to me. Bottom line is nothing is done yet and the overwhelming sense I'm getting from reviews is it's not perfect.....yet. Meaning the promise being shown is great. I don't expect nintendo releasing anything that isn't polished and from the sounds of it the polishing isn't done yet. I will buy the wii for the price and virtual console alone.

James was supposed to be more subtle about smearing Sony's competition. In my informed opinion he's not worth what Sony paid him.

The most ignorant thing about this article is the reference to the Ps3 controller being able to emulate the motions of the wii controller the motion sensing capabilities of the ps3 controller are nothing compared to wii. You won't be able to do anything like the things you'll be doing on the wii. I don't hate playstation and I'm not mad at them for copying nintendo. When you see a good idea you copy it. It's a sign nintendo did something right. But if this guy is under the illusion that the ps3 controller's motion sensing is anywhere near the wii it just kind of shows that perhaps there is a bit of a bias there.

yes the xbox 360 and ps3 have far better graphics than the wii no one denies that. But anyone that thinks this will kill the wii is not looking at the evidence. The DS is outselling the psp. The Psp looks great it is diverse in what it can do. but as far as games go it just doesn't hold a candle to the unique experience DS offers. I still own and love my SNES I think this is a fairly common setiment. Graphics alone will no kill the wii. I'm going to listen to the hundreds of good reports and take the few bad ones with a grain of salt.

It's not like Nintendo is claiming to be more powerful. We know that the graphics suck in most cases...but that isn't the point.

The games (at least in Nintendo's mind) should be rated on the FUN FACTOR and nothing else. If you are having fun playing the game then graphics shouldn't matter that much.

Personally I don't think the Wii will be a stand alone system. It will be a complimetary one. So if you are sick of playing Wii Madden then you can go to the PS3/360 versions.

Every thing is a gimmick. Arcades are a great example of this. Games like Gundam, Safari, Daytona all have "non traditional" play mechcanics and people will gravitate towards them...while others will feel it's too much.

I am buying a Wii to complement my 360...which should be cheaper than me buying the PS3 (even though I'm buying that too). I'll be able to play both innovative games and graphical powerhouses. It's the best of both worlds.

OK, if there's any chance in hell anyone reads this far down . . .

Madden changed to Wii's controls LAST SECOND. Every kid that's ever thrown a football KNOWS what the Wiimote control should be for a football game. As soon as they do it right, I'm going to get a Nerf and cut out a section hold my Wiimote =P

F*** Joystig obiously u cant tell the difference between 2 games, find another job editors

Knightendo,

What are you talking about?

unless this guy had the press showing that IGN and CNET had, he's bound to give a bad review. Waiting four hours in line just to play a video game, no game can live up to that. IGN and C|NET probably had the right credentials so they could skip the line (while I was standing at the exit peering in, I saw a lot of people with green badges walking right in. the badge the joystiq guys showed in their pass wouldn't let them skip the line...)

No doubt. the 360 version is gonna rock.Period. But there's no denying, that if your homie has madden wii, you're gonna play it, and you're gonna tell someone else you've played it. Next thing you know, Wii madden is a hit! Two things to ponder. 1. You might still get that classic control style with the classic controller, there's enough buttons on that bitch, and two analogs, don't you think madden is gonna offer that control option? 2. There's still 6 months left for them to jazz up the graphics on a new development kit or finalized hardware!!! 360 madden is releasing in two months! Its supposed to look like that!

Make Mine Nintendo! Wii

This is funny... I don't have a problem with the controlls though they always been this jacked up. I would think they would let you use a two wand set up... yes you will loose the analog stick but you could just hike with both wands and point to your reciever with your left hand and throw the ball with your right hand... But maybe just maybe we need to see what actual good players can do with this system... I mean Alot of these reviewers seem to suck...LOL Becuase it sounds like a few of these games will actualy make you get good at them rather than pressing buttons to win.

I didn't play Madden at E3. But I do think the controls sound great, and I did read an interview where the Madden guys say they haven't even really touched the graphics yet and have a "laundry list" of things they want to improve in that regard.