Digital Sportspage Blog

Madden IQ seems to be one of those EA/Tiburon examples of a good idea that is executed iffily. Testing how good a Madden player is, and then setting difficulty levels based on that? Great idea! I’m excited. But the first “test” is running ability, where you run behind blockers and have to press different move buttons (spin, juke) to pass defenders. However, most of the time you don’t need to use the moves, as the best strategy is to simply run side to side, letting your stud blockers wipe out everyone in your way. Success in this mode has nothing to do with your actual running ability. It would have been so much better to set something up where you have three blockers and three defenders, and see how well you hit a hole, find space, juke when necessary, etc. But instead, we get something that doesn’t really judge your skill. Madden IQ is supposed to also carry over in the game, so maybe it does a good job of judging your abilities while you play. At least, that’s what I’m hoping.

I ended up getting an IQ score around 620-630, either high All-Pro or All-Madden in every category. As for the gameplay, I can definitely say that it is better than NCAA. In fact, I had to find myself getting out of bad habits from NCAA (keying on one receiver on a crossing route, ignoring the blitz, etc). The primary issue I have is user QB accuracy. I experimented with some “cheesy” QB play (run backwards 10-15 yards and chuck the ball in a spinning motion), and found that on many plays, the throw would be right on the money. In normal QB play, I didn’t see much by way of inerrant throws except when under pressure and on the run. This is a welcomed change to NCAA, though I need more time with gameplay to see how well this is executed. And, of course, the conspiracy theorist wonders why the user can’t play as the New England defense in the demo. Are there problems with the CPU offense? Bill Abner is reporting robo-QBs, and there are no CPU sliders…so this is cause for worry.

Oh, and Facebreaker? Simple, boring button masher, specifically catering to the ADD child market.