August 14, 2011 @ 1:00 am

After spending ample time with the Madden 12 demo for Xbox 360 I’m still a little unsure of what the real game will be like. Like past years demos the commentary and music are stripped leaving the game feeling extremely lifeless. This is a hindrance toward selling the game because the player doesn’t get a clear picture of what the game will really be like.
Fortunately, EA Sports added some nice features that added to the gameplay of this years demo. For one, they added the ability to choose the AI difficulty. All too often you’ll see demos where you aren’t given a choice of difficulty and it affects your overall view of the game because it was too easy or too difficult. Another thing they added to this years demo was the length of the game. In this years demo you play a full game of 5 min quarters. This is actual a decent length of gameplay compared to 2 or 3 min quarters we’ve come to know in past years demos.
As far as the on-field action the game runs quite well. The offense this year seems to have gained an edge because of the speed of the game and the tackling isn’t as “suctiony” as last year. This means when a defensive player gets near the ball carrier they won’t automatically be sucked into a tackling animation like before. Also I had a much harder time turning my defensive players around when the play got behind them. I know this is due to the Agility rating but it’s really bad sometimes when your player can’t make a tackle because he had to make a large circle to turn around. Using the CPU assist A button really helps in these situations, but I hate using that button.
With the new tackling engine the hits look much better this year, breaking out of animations really makes the tackling look more realistic. However, I did notice sometimes your ball carrier would unintentionally lose a lot of yards because he kept getting pushed back while breaking tackles. I also feel like the defensive players are more inclined to make hits instead of wrapping up the ballcarrier for an actual tackle.
On All-Pro difficulty the pass rush seemed to come too fast on offense and on the defensive end it was too easy to get sacks. It also seems like the throwing animation is a bit slower so the quarterbacks take more sacks or throw bad balls. I hope the blocking is improved in the actual release. Shedding tackles seems to require using a right stick move which I don’t like. You should be able to disengage a little easier without getting into a swim animation.
Overall the demo is quite good and I’ve already played it a bunch of times. I wish the demo didn’t feel so dead though, they should have removed all the fluff like feature overviews and promotions towards trying to squeeze in some commentary and music. I’m confident to conclude Madden 12 will take more strides forward than Madden 11.