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Even as a Madden fan, I have to admit, these ESPN NFL shots look amazing.

shpankey

not an idiot
nfl2k5_ff1_22.jpg
nfl2k5_ff1_23.jpg
nfl2k5_ff1_10.jpg
nfl2k5_ff1_16.jpg
nfl2k5_ff1_17.jpg


Wow!
 

Fifty

Member
Wow. Especially the third shot. If it was a movie and not a game, I'd buy ESPN for sure :D As it stands, ESPN needs more than (very) pretty graphics.
 
holy crap!

are those xbox shots? apparently this year, they are making it for xbox ground up instead of porting the PS2 version and slightly upgrading it...

apparently at e3, everyone was impressed by ESPN 05, and even some EA sports guys were talking about it...

i loved NFL 2k, 2k1, and 2k2, but 2k3 was "meh" to me... I never played ESPN 2K4, but ill probably get 2k5... will be a hard choice now that both are on LIVE, madden 05 or espn 05...
 

Alcibiades

Member
If that's the way the game looks and looks good in motion, I'll make it my first XBox game (when I get one), just for the purpose of showing it off and wowing all the Madden casuals that roam the residence halls at my college...

THOSE ARE SWEET...

GO SEGA!
 

segasonic

Member
Xbox is the lead platform now, hence the improvement in the graphics department.

This was a good decision by Sega, now that NFL Fever is gone. Too bad even on Xbox most people will buy Madden since it's on Live for the first time :(
 

shpankey

not an idiot
I was just reading about this game. Apparently they are using "Normal Mapping" (also seen in Riddick and Doom 3) which accounts for the low polygon counts (look closely and you can see some of the models have really low polygons) but insanely awesome lighting.

It looks amazing, but honestly, ESPN NFL 2k4 sucked soooo much ass in the gameplay dept. They need to also rewrite the gameplay code.

It is jaw dropping graphics though!
 

Fifty

Member
shpankey said:
I was just reading about this game. Apparently they are using "Normal Mapping" (also seen in Riddick and Doom 3) which accounts for the low polygon counts (look closely and you can see some of the models have really low polygons) but insanely awesome lighting.

It looks amazing, but honestly, ESPN NFL 2k4 sucked soooo much ass in the gameplay dept. They need to also rewrite the gameplay code.

It is jaw dropping graphics though!


Yeah, and abou the "plastic" comment, much like Riddick the lighting and movement will make them look much more realistic. Hell....even if they looked like blow up dolls, at this quality I'd take 'em. Looks like they're working their butts off ( though perhaps on the wrong aspect)
 

XS+

Banned
Normal mapping > you and your whole family. Surprised that ESPN hoops looks really bad by comparison.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
I'd like the pictures a lot more if Priest Holmes and LT weren't captured at the exact same point in the same animation :p

Like last year, I imagine I'll end up getting NCAA and ESPN. These shots do look great, but I hope they tweaked the running game.
 

olimario

Banned
That really is quite impressive.
Send some applause Sega's way, they deserve it for raising the bar significantly.
 

shpankey

not an idiot
^^^ lol

Man, if I could have the NCAA Football gameplay with the ESPN NFL 2k5 graphics... talk about a wet dream!
 

XS+

Banned
FoneBone said:
Looks damn good.

Anyway, what exactly is "normal mapping," as opposed to bump mapping?
Layman's terms, a detailed, high-quality model with top-notch lighting is made, then its image is mapped onto a much lower-quality model, keeping all the lighting properties such as clothing folds and etc., making a model look just as detailed using far less processing power.

I'm sure Panajev or some other techie will correct what I said wrong or didn't explain well enough, but that's the gist of NM.
 
fellas, we've all read this book before. it was called espn football. everyone got hyped up, everyone gave the cubs speech and said "this is VC's year!" and then it came out and it was still the same unpolished BS pulling it down to the ground.

bottom line is this. you fellas know that i buy every football game every year, so im not brainwashing you with madden prop, but bottom line is over the long haul madden is clearly the better game. espn's graphics will wow you, but once you get to the meat and potatoes, you will find little incosistencies, little inaccuracies, little bugs here and there, gameplay problems still coming to the surface from years past, and guess what? they all add up to a sour taste in your mouth. nothing i saw @ e3 and nothing i've heard from VC's design team themselves (on their boards and dave z's site) has led me to believe they are fixing the things that are truly wrong with the game.

these graphics do look delicious, all i'm saying is let the cards fall where they may, and come sept. 9 (another GENIUS move by VC) we'll see if VC put their money where their mouth is. i have serious doubts though
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
Those pics are nice, but people don't judge a finished game on how good it takes screenshots-- how it looks in motion is what matters in the final analysis. ESPN 2k4 looks better in motion than Madden 2004, which is pretty cartoonish when compared with ESPN. If that gap increases significantly this year, at some point casual gamers may start to take notice and not simply dismiss purchasing ESPN out of hand like they do now.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
FrenchMovieTheme said:
fellas, we've all read this book before. it was called espn football. everyone got hyped up, everyone gave the cubs speech and said "this is VC's year!" and then it came out and it was still the same unpolished BS pulling it down to the ground.

bottom line is this. you fellas know that i buy every football game every year, so im not brainwashing you with madden prop, but bottom line is over the long haul madden is clearly the better game. espn's graphics will wow you, but once you get to the meat and potatoes, you will find little incosistencies, little inaccuracies, little bugs here and there, gameplay problems still coming to the surface from years past, and guess what? they all add up to a sour taste in your mouth. nothing i saw @ e3 and nothing i've heard from VC's design team themselves (on their boards and dave z's site) has led me to believe they are fixing the things that are truly wrong with the game.

these graphics do look delicious, all i'm saying is let the cards fall where they may, and come sept. 9 (another GENIUS move by VC) we'll see if VC put their money where their mouth is. i have serious doubts though


Madden was the weaker game last year. Madden was the weaker game the year before. Madden will likely be the weaker game this year. Much like the 9ers, Madden is second-rate at best these days.
 
Madden has always been weaker, but there is always just that one problem that REALLY drags down ESPN. Last year it was the horrible tackling in the running game. But whatever, I've decided to get both this year.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
FrenchMovieTheme said:
i have a 3,000 yard per season running back agreeing with you that espn was better. go team!


And I've got a rookie QB that threw for 5500 yards and 51 touchdowns with a running back who had 2000 yards rushing and 1500 receiving that says Madden's passing game was just as broken as ESPN's running game.

Neither game was perfect, I just think that ESPN was less flawed of the two.
 

Fifty

Member
The fact that Jerome Bettis was the best running back in ESPN last year was proof that the game was broken. I'm sure Biff can elaborate. :(
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
Madden's passing game is indeed broken, in that it encourages you to drop back 20 yards and run around like a chicken with his head cut off until somebody gets open, which always happen when you have essentially as long as you need to throw. Suction blocking is the main culprit, but they also need to decrease the QB dropback speed.

It boggles my mind how VC could develop an otherwise great game with something as obvious as the Super RB flaw, which is compounded by the poor pursuit angles that safeties take to the ballcarrier. I do think ESPN is a better multiplayer game because there are fewer loopholes for cheesers to exploit.
 

Fifty

Member
Cerebral Palsy said:
Fucking Bettis


I used to play with Biff (Ura on old GA) and he would break about 30 tackles with Bettis each play. The guy would toss to Bettis, and The Bus would just run all the way down the fucking field. All the while he wasn't even their #1 back in real life. Fucking Bettis indeed.
 
Fifty said:
I used to play with Biff (Ura on old GA) and he would break about 30 tackles with Bettis each play. The guy would toss to Bettis, and The Bus would just run all the way down the fucking field. All the while he wasn't even their #1 back in real life. Fucking Bettis indeed.

Yar. Ramirez was the Steelers in the GA ESPN league. Fucking Bettis.
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
At least Bettis at one time could run people over. Hell, I saw Warrick Freaking Dunn stiffarm Ray Lewis like he was a cardboard cutout of himself on his way to a 75 yard TD run.
 
here's the thing though: i can shut a QB down easily who isn't named vick and drops back 20 yards. you can't even shut down trung fucking canidate in ESPN. both games are flawed no one is debating that. but i swear to god you could NEVER drop back *20* yards (from midfield back to the 30) on a decent player and have consistent success. i would bet you a million dollars you couldn't put up those supposed rookie numbers you had against a league of human opponents. but take a look at our GA espn league arch. faulk with over 3,000 yards rushing AGAINST HUMAN PLAYERS! that is complete garbage.

you want to say the passing game is broken, fine. but if you call maddens passing game broken, then i call ESPN's running game obliterated, cause they are in 2 different leagues in regards to dirtiness. i fully expect the running game to be fixed in ESPN (although it wasn't @ e3...) but i also expect another game-crippling problem to pop up. prove me wrong, VC, prove me wrong!
 

Fifty

Member
And this year there is no real reason to believe the PS2 Madden will be superior. It's going to be a tough decision, but I guess I'll go where GA goes.
 
Fifty said:
I used to play with Biff (Ura on old GA) and he would break about 30 tackles with Bettis each play. The guy would toss to Bettis, and The Bus would just run all the way down the fucking field. All the while he wasn't even their #1 back in real life. Fucking Bettis indeed.

As much as I like to pride myself on being a good player, Fifty is right. Bettis was Earl Campbell on some type of experimental super steroids in ESPN. I think my average ypc was around 10.5. I was shut down in a few games, but for the most part I won and won big. I enjoyed using the Steelers with 70's uni's, otherwise I may never have seen Jerome Campbell do his thing.

The problem/good with playing online is that your exposed to a games flaws quickly. It doesn't matter what type of game. Tribes 2 the problem is spam, Fight Night the problem is people using buttons VS stick, football games seem to have all sorts of money plays and glitches.

One thing I hated in ESPN was playing against McNabb. When I played against someone using them, they'd drop back 30 yards. If no one was open they'd run for a gain, and because there was so little momentum, he'd cut on a dime and leave pursuing defenders in his dust. It was frustrating and unfun.

I don't like the "light" feeling of the game, the ability to turn on a dime (more or less)...it feels like hockey at time.

Despite all that, ESPN was a good game last year. I had some very close games at times, despite the overpowered QB's and RB's, overall it was an immersive experience.

Madden was my least played football game last year. I was dissapointed from the get go, the running seemed worse then NCAA's and the QB protection was non existant. Actually, I was very dissapointed in Madden. Its true, I didn't invest much time in it because I had NCAA...but my initial impressions were very poor. I quickly put it on the back burner, and went back to playing NCAA (which I consider the best football game of last season and before).

Another gripe I have with Madden is they still haven't put in the classic Steelers uniforms. Is there some reason for this? Or is it just laziness? I will say that classic teams were handled far better in Madden though, giving you the ability to fully edit the names and numbers of players (Compared to only being able to edit the last name of players in ESPN). Also, correct me if I'm wrong but Early Campbell was white in last years ESPN (I know for sure he was a whiteboy in the year previous, come on...that's just terrible).

Even though I love NCAA, it isn't without its flaws. Toss plays did not exist. In over 70 games I never did one successfully. This year I've seen video of them, and they looked to be fixed. That's reassuring. Still, I heard there were other flaws and exploits. Thankfully, I never came across them and just enjoyed the best single player sports video game experience I ever had.

Based on my time with all three games, no game delivers a better single player experience then NCAA. The dynasty mode with SI coverage is so damn fun, to get your star player on the cover, to win the heisman, to break school records...its all great fun. Then there's the whole feeling of school spirit that is non existant in the pro games. This year, it looks to be even more powerful with a packed Dynasty mode, homefield advantage, better SI...ecd.

This year, I'll buy NCAA first and make my decision on the pro game later. Madden has me more interested, with the PS2 collecters edition. But, I won't count ESPN out.
 

Guileless

Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I couldn't shut down an above average player who could competently exploit the passing offense loopholes on anything lower than All-Madden. It is harder to exploit Madden on the higher levels because the AI cheats. The safeties make superhuman breaks on the ball to knock down throws, which is pretty frustrating. Hopefully it will be a new story this year with all the defensive changes they've made.
 

Gunstar77

GAF Madden 2006 Season 1 NFC Champ
Well here is some disappointing news about ESPN Football 2005:

The scaling between beefy linemen and small defensive backs is also a bit rough at this point. As it stands now, it's a bit difficult to tell that 375lb defensive tackle Ted Washington really does weigh twice as much as the cornerbacks who play alongside him. Hopefully, these issues will be addressed in the next few months before the game ships.

One thing we did notice is that tackle-breaking seems a little too easy in this early build, so just about any ball carrier with a head of steam can power through or slip from the grasp of at least one tackler. However, with months left in the development cycle, it's assured that this factor will be tweaked back and forth.

http://www.gamespot.com/xbox/sports/espnnflfootball2005/preview_6100052.html

The tackle-breaking is a big problem from last year and it should have been one of the first things fixed. I have my concerns with ESPN Football 2005, but Madden still hasn't made an offical announcement about Online Leagues yet either. So far I think Madden is in the lead for my money for 2005 football game.
 

DMczaf

Member
One thing we did notice is that tackle-breaking seems a little too easy in this early build, so just about any ball carrier with a head of steam can power through or slip from the grasp of at least one tackler. However, with months left in the development cycle, it's assured that this factor will be tweaked back and forth.

I guess FMT was right. :(

Madden 2005!
 
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