It's certainly been an interesting few weeks trying to review Madden 11. Before we sat down with the game, we'll be the first to admit we knew nothing about American football. We knew it existed, we knew it actually had little to do with a foot making contact with a ball, and we knew the basic concept, but as far as the technicalities went, we were all as good as clueless. So, when Madden 11 came into Everybody Plays towers, it was a bit of a nervous moment, as we put the disk in, and simply hoped for the best. Surely the game would have some sort of a tutorial, to explain the controls to novices, or the concept and rules to the unintiated like us.
Apparently not. The problem here is, for beginners like us (or, indeed, anyone who's never played a Madden game before, or only has a passing interest in American football), that Madden 11 makes absolutely no effort to help you find your way around the field, or to take you through the basics - instead, deciding it'd be much more fun to put you on the field, rugby shaped ball in your hand, with eleven burly Americans charging towards you. And, unsurprisingly, as your guy gets bent in half for the fourth time in as many "downs", it's about as much fun as it sounds.
Here's a down, being played in co-op. The red, yellow and blue circles are around the feet of the people you, and your friends are playing as. It's only in co-op that Madden is really any fun.
As we mentioned, we were complete novices when it came to American football, and we don't doubt that a lot of you are too, so for the purposes of this review, let's break things down from the beginning. The objective of American football is basically for one of your team of eleven guys to run from one end of the pitch to the other, with the ball nestled safely under your armpit, for a touchdown. In order to start off on your marathon trek, you face off against the other team in what are known as "downs" (which is the bit everyone has in their head when they think of American football, where the two teams square up to each other, and you attempt to either run with the ball, or throw it to another player). You have four downs in which to cover a total of ten yards - if you can do this, you'll start over from the first down, and have another four downs to cover another ten yards. If not, the posession switches to the other team.
Those are the basics of American football - but the basics of Madden are hidden under a web of confusion, with a dictionary of terms to learn that would rival a postgraduate course in Chemistry. And, with nothing to teach you the lingo, and some seemingly completely illogical meanings, it quickly becomes an impentrable mess that only a veteran can understand. Madden makes no effort to help you learn to play the game - there's nothing explaining the controls, nothing explaining the concepts, and nothing explaining the rules. It doesn't even really tell you what you've done wrong when you cause a penalty - instead, just telling you off, before giving you an instant replay of the last few seconds, which doesn't really help when you don't know what you've done wrong in the first place.
RRRRUUUUUNNNNNN!
After losing all of your first few matches, you'll find yourself starting to get to grips with basics of both American football, and the controls - but it's like hitting your head against a brick wall. If you've got the patience of Mother Teresa, you may manage to get your head around things, but it's a rather tough nut to crack.
But still, even though we only sort-of understood what was going on, the game still had several fun moments - which is kind of sad, when you think about it, because it's a reminder of how much fun the game could have been. When you've got to grips with the basics of the game, and you throw an incredibly long pass, for your guy receiving the ball to leap in the air, just about manage to grab it, and then run on with an open field ahead of him, it's incredibly rewarding, and you really feel like you've achieved something - especially with the rest of the game working against you.
"So, how do I catch the ball again?"
In fact, the most fun we had with the game was in the local co-operative mode. Pitting the entire Everybody Plays team against a computer controlled opponent (who we'd managed to turn onto easy), we actually felt like we stood a chance. The opponent would fumble the ball, or drop seemingly easy passes - just like we were, and against a fallible opponent, it wasn't frustrating. Manouvreing into position after a down, and calling for the pass from your friend is actually surprisingly fun - as is fighting through the opposition's lines, with your friends by your side, before throwing your full weight into a tackle, as your partners pile on, when the other team have possession - especially with the replays which show the full impact of the take down.
But at the end of the day, we only actually managed to win a game, as a team, and start to understand what was going on, after having spent several hours playing it, across several different game modes, with several different combinations of single and co-operative play. EA wrongly presume with Madden - as with the other sports titles on the 360 - that everyone who wants to play will be a hardcore fan of whatever sport the game's based on, and will already know all the rules - but that's simply not true. We know plenty of people - and, indeed, we'd be more than happy ourselves to play any sports game - but EA have to realise that people who don't follow the sport religiously will need something to a) explain the rules, and b) take them through the controls. But it's almost as if Madden doesn't want us to play. We actually had to spend a few evenings looking up the rules of American football online to try and work out what were meant to do, and where we were going wrong. When your game has that kind of a learning curve for new players, you know something's wrong.
For those who've already played, and enjoyed a previous Madden game, you'll undoubtedly like what's on offer here - but if you have a limited knowledge of the illogically named sport - or, like us, you know next to nothing before you start on your opus - you'd probably be best off just leaving it, because it feels like Madden doesn't want people like you playing it. Like other EA Sports titles on the Xbox 360, it seems accessibility doesn't just take a back seat - it gets ommited from the team entirely - a star player, forgotten, on the back bench.
At the end of the day, it just seems like Madden 11 aimed at, and is exclusively for the hardcore American football fan. Sadly, that means it's not for people like us.
Format Reviewed: Xbox 360
