Breaking down some of the Madden NFL 16 footage out of E3 (Part Three)

In the third run through of Madden NFL 16 footage that was captured the week of E3, the trend continues of identifiable improvements accompanied by moments that create some cause for concern. For those who may have missed them, make sure to check out part one and part two of the video breakdowns as well. 

Here’s a completion but a flag is thrown. Antonio Brown is caught for a block in the back, a totally unnecessary one at that. I can see penalties like this growing tiresome because that right there was totally unnecessary and just random bad luck, what would hopefully be avoided in the implementation of penalties, and no fault of the user.

Improvements have been made to gang tackling and you see some of that here, as a second player comes in to help take down the receiver, and a third and fourth player arrive with the idea of taking out his legs. Unfortunately the last dive in was definitely reckless and looks like it could have torn his teammate’s ACL.

After getting knocked backwards but shaking a would-be tackler (the third one), LeVeon Bell runs into Antonio Brown who had given up on the play. It’s one thing for a player to do that – it happens in the real games. But when Bell broke loose Brown should have not only gotten out of the way but looked to block someone.

This is one of the hits in Madden that looks especially unrealistic. The runner has forward momentum, and a defender who’s practically standing still “hits” him with extreme force and knocks him on his back. The ball comes loose but would eventually be overturned on review.

While the post-play stuff in general looks a lot better this year it’s been notable that after turnovers the player who intercepted the ball or recovered the fumble end up celebrating by themselves. These should be much more team-oriented moments, whether they’re joined by teammates or congratulated on the way off the field and on the sidelines. It’s nice though to see the transition of the units walking on and off the field.

The first thing here that stands out is the user dropped Ben Roethlisberger back too far and that should have made the throw more difficult to complete. That it didn’t can probably be chalked up to a low difficulty level. The pass is on point, and the defender makes a great looking attempt on the ball trying to get his hand through to knock it loose, and even pull the receiver’s arm in the hope that it would cause him to lose control on the way down.

This dropped interception looks a lot like what has caused so much frustration over the years. It’s underthrown, hits the cornerback right in the hands, the receiver offers no resistance, and the user isn’t rewarded for forcing the CPU to make a bad throw with a strong pass rush. That’s a possible pick-six off the board.

There have only been a few inaccurate passes seen in the gameplay videos and here’s one of them. Josh McCown misses on a timing route despite being settled in the pocket.

The deep throw in the middle of the field is dangerous and it costs the user here. Joe Haden makes a fantastic play knocking the ball into the air and a teammate is in position to intercept it. The aggressive catch, which has seem somewhat overpowered through all the footage so far, doesn’t work out here. Dynamic, “wow” type moments like this one, while they should be somewhat rare, are key to making Madden more fun.

Unlike the earlier dropped interception, this example is something that can be lived with. It looks more like a dropped potential pick you’d see in a real game.

I looked at this play over and over and couldn’t figure out whether it was actually a catch or not. Maybe a second foot didn’t get down before the receiver hit out of bounds. The officials don’t give a signal either, but the Browns are celebrating, suggesting it’s been determined incomplete. Regardless pass interference is called, and though it’s tough to tell, Haden may have gotten his hands on the receiver before the ball got there.

In general so far, what we’ve seen through the gameplay footage are some exciting, dynamic moments, but areas of general sloppiness along with them. Hopefully those can be cleaned up in the weeks remaining before the game goes final or with the bigger window available for a day one patch. The footage today was pulled from SimFballCritic’s videos (part one – part two).