The Official Madden 11 Thread (PS3/360) RD: August 10, 2010 *Pics, Vids*

[rwpolvent6]

This is by FAR the best Madden I have ever played. Got the full game for xbox 360 two days ago. It is unreal in my opinion. The running is so much smoother and you actually can wait for your holes to make a cut. Cant really explain it but it is awesome. The AI for blocking is very good. If you run a screen play the O-Line doesnt just stand there like a bunch of ******s they go and find somebody to block. The deep passing in this game is on a whole different level than 2010. Everything about the game is amazing.

 

[rwpolvent6]

This is by FAR the best Madden I have ever played. Got the full game for xbox 360 two days ago. It is unreal in my opinion. The running is so much smoother and you actually can wait for your holes to make a cut. Cant really explain it but it is awesome. The AI for blocking is very good. If you run a screen play the O-Line doesnt just stand there like a bunch of ******s they go and find somebody to block. The deep passing in this game is on a whole different level than 2010. Everything about the game is amazing.

 

[sonoftony]

Originally Posted by TennHouse2

vince young should at least be an 80



Chris Johnson- 99spd

99acc

once VY starts stylin on cats this season, they gonna have to boost his ratings

 

[sonoftony]

Originally Posted by TennHouse2

vince young should at least be an 80



Chris Johnson- 99spd

99acc

once VY starts stylin on cats this season, they gonna have to boost his ratings

 

[T0INE]

 

[T0INE]

 

[T0INE]

 @ EA still leaving out the Chargers Powder Blue Alternates (the current ones not the AFL or Throwbacks).

 

[T0INE]

 @ EA still leaving out the Chargers Powder Blue Alternates (the current ones not the AFL or Throwbacks).

 

[birdsiview]

This game is pure TRASH.

First they make the presnap adjustments take 10x longer with the "stategypad" and then the kicking meter doesn't even work properly! I press once to get it started, press a second time for power and when I press a third time for accuracy half the time it won't work and my kicks will sail off to the left or right. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I press A like crazy on that last part and it still won't work, BS.

But really the presnap adjustments are the main thing that piss me off. It's like EA tries to change anything they can whether it's a good change or not just to say "hey look what we did over the last 12 months!"

 

[birdsiview]

This game is pure TRASH.

First they make the presnap adjustments take 10x longer with the "stategypad" and then the kicking meter doesn't even work properly! I press once to get it started, press a second time for power and when I press a third time for accuracy half the time it won't work and my kicks will sail off to the left or right. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I press A like crazy on that last part and it still won't work, BS.

But really the presnap adjustments are the main thing that piss me off. It's like EA tries to change anything they can whether it's a good change or not just to say "hey look what we did over the last 12 months!"

 

[T0INE]

Due to complaints about the strategy pad EA will release a patch with the old pre-snap controls something in September.


[h1]

[h1]GameFlow and The Strategy Pad[/h1][h3]by Ian Cummings  07/30/10 5:01 PM [/h3]

ShareThis

Hello folks,

Ian Cummings here, taking some quick time out to talk to the community after the demo has been out for a few days. First off, one great bit of info has been the positive response around GameFlow. Based on our telemetry, 95% of games played have had GameFlow as the default style of playcalling. We do realize it is the default option, which can obviously help inflate those numbers, so more telling is that of every single play called in the demo, 80% of the offensive plays and 86% of defensive plays were chosen via GameFlow vs. the conventional way. This is very positive stuff for us, as we obviously weren't quite sure how the general public would react to such a drastic change to the way the game was played.

Secondly, I wanted to talk about the primary hot-button issue in the community with the release of our demo, the Strategy Pad. As we expected, this feature has caused quite a stir lately, so we wanted to provide some context as to why we tried to unify our pre-play controls to one location.

We realize that the Madden veterans have been using the old pre-play system for years, to the point where it had become second nature. Any longtime Madden gamer could probably change the route of 2 receivers, pinch slide protection, and keep a back into block within a second. Despite the comfort with the way things were, it often caused major confusion for someone new to the Madden franchise or really any gamer who isn't familiar with the controls. I've heard a few comments on Twitter to the effect of "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" Well, when we started looking at data, it was in fact broke. Based on the playtests we ran and more importantly telemetry we gathered from the online connected consoles, we saw some pretty major areas that needed improvement:

1.     A gamer on defense would often hit A (360) or X (PS3) to button through play call or pre-play, and in doing so, would get locked into the "hot route" state. Seeing that you are reading this blog, you probably are pretty experienced with Madden, and you're saying "well, that never happened to me". I'm with you...it didn't happen to me either. Well take this into account...did you know that over 2 BILLION defensive hot route context states were entered in Madden NFL 10? That's an average of more than 5 million per day. We discovered that of this number, more than 50% never called an actual hot route. So on more than 1 BILLION occasions, a gamer accidentally went into a pre-play contextual state that they didn't mean to. As a game designer, you just can't choose to ignore that..it's staggering. To be clear, it's not that we wanted to make pre-play controls easy enough for a caveman to use them, it's that we wanted to fix a system that punished gamers for just accidentally hitting the primary button on the controller.

The top level menu that shows up in Madden NFL 10 when you first hit A (360) or X (PS3) on defense.

2.     Along with the accidental defensive hot route was getting trapped in states without a consistent way of exiting. A gamer, again presumably looking to skip through play call and preplay would hit the A button, and end up in the "defensive hot route" state. Nearly 100% of everyone's first instinct would be to hit B / Circle to exit out of this intimidating new menu. Unfortunately, in this state, the B button didn't exit, it actually picked a different receiver to assign man coverage to, which dug you deeper into this context. At this point, still the only way to cancel is RB / R1, and B / Circle doesn't do anything different. Worse yet, moving the left stick in any direction would change the assignment of your player, typically with the gamer often having no idea what was happening.

3.     Another common experience was getting stuck in a state on offense that didn't allow you to snap the ball. This could be any state from hot routes to slide protection. We tracked well over 2 million instances of delay of game penalties being called while a pre-play menu was up. Assuming that even half of these were because the gamer was "lost" and couldn't snap (and not actually trying to rush out an extra adjustment), we've still got a major problem there.

4.     Lastly, there was no way to easily communicate that A/X would bring up your hot routes, Y/Triangle would bring up coverage audibles, etc without a big piece of intrusive UI that had to always be displayed. Furthermore, there was no structure to the button commands in the pre-play controls, which made it harder for a newcomer to memorize which hot route, shift or audible uses a face button, versus a trigger, bumper, or directional pad command.

So the decision was made to relocate our controls to the directional pad in order to unify the commands. We moved them to this one consistent location where the B button was (nearly always) a consistent way to exit, and to a location that couldn't accidentally be pressed by an inexperienced gamer. This change was not made to alienate you, the hardcore fan. As you can see above, the data was staggering and forced us to consider major changes, and we knew all year that getting fans to re-train their brain would definitely take some time. With all that being said though, we gave our hardcore fans the benefit of the doubt thinking that it would be easy for them to learn this new system with a little practice.

We do believe that this change is for the better, and that in the long run it delivers a much more positive experience to the gamers that are willing to try and adapt. Due to the overwhelming feedback however, we will be providing the old-style button commands as an option that can be enabled. We are currently targeting this change to be released around the first week of the NFL season as it will take some time to get through third party approvals. So now that it's out of the way, let's all try to sit back and have some fun with Madden NFL 11...after all, football season is almost here!

- Ian Cummings
Creative Director
www.twitter.com/ian_cummings

[/h1]

[url=http://maddennfl.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=GameFlowandStrategyPad]http://maddennfl.easports...d=GameFlowandStrategyPad[/url]

 

[T0INE]

Due to complaints about the strategy pad EA will release a patch with the old pre-snap controls something in September.


[h1]

[h1]GameFlow and The Strategy Pad[/h1][h3]by Ian Cummings  07/30/10 5:01 PM [/h3]

ShareThis

Hello folks,

Ian Cummings here, taking some quick time out to talk to the community after the demo has been out for a few days. First off, one great bit of info has been the positive response around GameFlow. Based on our telemetry, 95% of games played have had GameFlow as the default style of playcalling. We do realize it is the default option, which can obviously help inflate those numbers, so more telling is that of every single play called in the demo, 80% of the offensive plays and 86% of defensive plays were chosen via GameFlow vs. the conventional way. This is very positive stuff for us, as we obviously weren't quite sure how the general public would react to such a drastic change to the way the game was played.

Secondly, I wanted to talk about the primary hot-button issue in the community with the release of our demo, the Strategy Pad. As we expected, this feature has caused quite a stir lately, so we wanted to provide some context as to why we tried to unify our pre-play controls to one location.

We realize that the Madden veterans have been using the old pre-play system for years, to the point where it had become second nature. Any longtime Madden gamer could probably change the route of 2 receivers, pinch slide protection, and keep a back into block within a second. Despite the comfort with the way things were, it often caused major confusion for someone new to the Madden franchise or really any gamer who isn't familiar with the controls. I've heard a few comments on Twitter to the effect of "if it ain't broke, why fix it?" Well, when we started looking at data, it was in fact broke. Based on the playtests we ran and more importantly telemetry we gathered from the online connected consoles, we saw some pretty major areas that needed improvement:

1.     A gamer on defense would often hit A (360) or X (PS3) to button through play call or pre-play, and in doing so, would get locked into the "hot route" state. Seeing that you are reading this blog, you probably are pretty experienced with Madden, and you're saying "well, that never happened to me". I'm with you...it didn't happen to me either. Well take this into account...did you know that over 2 BILLION defensive hot route context states were entered in Madden NFL 10? That's an average of more than 5 million per day. We discovered that of this number, more than 50% never called an actual hot route. So on more than 1 BILLION occasions, a gamer accidentally went into a pre-play contextual state that they didn't mean to. As a game designer, you just can't choose to ignore that..it's staggering. To be clear, it's not that we wanted to make pre-play controls easy enough for a caveman to use them, it's that we wanted to fix a system that punished gamers for just accidentally hitting the primary button on the controller.

The top level menu that shows up in Madden NFL 10 when you first hit A (360) or X (PS3) on defense.

2.     Along with the accidental defensive hot route was getting trapped in states without a consistent way of exiting. A gamer, again presumably looking to skip through play call and preplay would hit the A button, and end up in the "defensive hot route" state. Nearly 100% of everyone's first instinct would be to hit B / Circle to exit out of this intimidating new menu. Unfortunately, in this state, the B button didn't exit, it actually picked a different receiver to assign man coverage to, which dug you deeper into this context. At this point, still the only way to cancel is RB / R1, and B / Circle doesn't do anything different. Worse yet, moving the left stick in any direction would change the assignment of your player, typically with the gamer often having no idea what was happening.

3.     Another common experience was getting stuck in a state on offense that didn't allow you to snap the ball. This could be any state from hot routes to slide protection. We tracked well over 2 million instances of delay of game penalties being called while a pre-play menu was up. Assuming that even half of these were because the gamer was "lost" and couldn't snap (and not actually trying to rush out an extra adjustment), we've still got a major problem there.

4.     Lastly, there was no way to easily communicate that A/X would bring up your hot routes, Y/Triangle would bring up coverage audibles, etc without a big piece of intrusive UI that had to always be displayed. Furthermore, there was no structure to the button commands in the pre-play controls, which made it harder for a newcomer to memorize which hot route, shift or audible uses a face button, versus a trigger, bumper, or directional pad command.

So the decision was made to relocate our controls to the directional pad in order to unify the commands. We moved them to this one consistent location where the B button was (nearly always) a consistent way to exit, and to a location that couldn't accidentally be pressed by an inexperienced gamer. This change was not made to alienate you, the hardcore fan. As you can see above, the data was staggering and forced us to consider major changes, and we knew all year that getting fans to re-train their brain would definitely take some time. With all that being said though, we gave our hardcore fans the benefit of the doubt thinking that it would be easy for them to learn this new system with a little practice.

We do believe that this change is for the better, and that in the long run it delivers a much more positive experience to the gamers that are willing to try and adapt. Due to the overwhelming feedback however, we will be providing the old-style button commands as an option that can be enabled. We are currently targeting this change to be released around the first week of the NFL season as it will take some time to get through third party approvals. So now that it's out of the way, let's all try to sit back and have some fun with Madden NFL 11...after all, football season is almost here!

- Ian Cummings
Creative Director
www.twitter.com/ian_cummings

[/h1]

[url=http://maddennfl.easports.com/blog.action?blogId=GameFlowandStrategyPad]http://maddennfl.easports...d=GameFlowandStrategyPad[/url]

 

[venom lyrix]

glad the strat pad will be optional...I've been playing Madden too long to get use to the strat pad like I was the normal audibles. I'm 100% switching it back to the old way

 

[venom lyrix]

glad the strat pad will be optional...I've been playing Madden too long to get use to the strat pad like I was the normal audibles. I'm 100% switching it back to the old way

 

[T0INE]

 

[T0INE]

 

[6 Rings G.O.A.T.]

Originally Posted by JrizzyJay

Originally Posted by AdobeCS4

Originally Posted by dc2K02

Hopefully it still comes out on ps2...

  

 

[6 Rings G.O.A.T.]

Originally Posted by JrizzyJay

Originally Posted by AdobeCS4

Originally Posted by dc2K02

Hopefully it still comes out on ps2...

  

 

[windycity7]

Originally Posted by Bootleg Benny

I always say @*+% Madden and end up getting it first week.

@*+% Madden.

i do the exact same thing im trying to hold out this yr for a price drop or a stain

 

[windycity7]

Originally Posted by Bootleg Benny

I always say @*+% Madden and end up getting it first week.

@*+% Madden.

i do the exact same thing im trying to hold out this yr for a price drop or a stain

 

[T0INE]

[h1]

[h1]Madden NFL 11: My Final Impressions[/h1][h2]The game is done and it's about to be in your hands. Here's why you should be excited.[/h2][h2]July 30, 2010[/h2]

by Nate Ahearn
/media.ign.com/ign/stp/img/add-to-my-ign_button/follow_btn.png)">http://media.ign.com/ign/...n_button/follow_btn.png) no-repeat" class=addToIGN jQuery1280599559171="9">


LATEST IMAGES

View all 99 images »
LATEST VIDEO

View all 35 videos »

The release of Madden is a momentous occasion each and every year. Not just because it's the only NFL-branded game of pigskin available, but also because -- for many of us -- it signals the beginning of the NFL season. I've spent the last two weeks playing the finished review build of Madden NFL 11 and I can say that those looking for a great game of football needn't look any further once August 10th rolls around.

There's a lot to like in Madden NFL 11, especially if you skipped out on this year's NCAA Football game. The amount of gameplay changes is impressive and permeates just about every aspect of the game. From the new strategy pad that houses your hot routes, coverage audibles and other abilities to the new dual analog stick control that lets you pivot your player's upper body to glance off hits and gain extra yardage, there's a lot of nuances that weren't in Madden NFL 10.

I have no doubt that some gamers will complain about some of these changes (such as the aforementioned strategy pad, which requires an extra button press to change an assignment), but the bulk of these additions do a great job of adding extra layers of depth to the gameplay.


Madden Intro Video

Probably my favorite and most-used new feature is the improved blocking. It's great to be able to trust your pulling guard or surging fullback to lay the proper blocks when you expect them to do so. Talented defensive linemen are still going to be able to shed blocks every now and again, as they should, but all in all you're going to have a much easier time trusting your lead blockers than you have in the past.

Of course, according to EA Sports marketing, it isn't the blocking that should excite you. Instead, it's the new GameFlow playcalling feature. This enables the artificial intelligence (AI) to handle all of your playcalling on both sides of the ball. You can use a feature called Gameplanning to organize a set of plays that the AI will pull from, but at the end of the day GameFlow is going to be calling your plays unless you elect to go the full list of plays as you've done in past years.

Using GameFlow means that games essentially fly by. You can finish a game in 20 minutes where before it would've taken 40. I still found flaws in the default GameFlow settings as the AI routinely called long-bomb streak plays even when I was in the red zone, but all I had to do to fix it was organize my own playbook (and yes, you can have multiple playbooks) within the Gameplanning feature to remedy the situation.

The other big new addition is Online Team Play that's actually fun. This one I really love. I wrote a preview on it yesterday, so check that out for information and videos. Just know that it's great and works better than you could've imagined.

All that said, there are still moments of frustration that creep into Madden's design. First of all, ball physics could've been better. Watching the ball bounce around the field and on different parts of a player model looks very artificial. All too often the ball will get caught on a piece of a player's body and will bounce around unrealistically. Also, as I've experienced in just about every Madden game in history, defensive backs are pretty incompetent when it comes to making interceptions. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen (I've thrown plenty of picks myself), but there are certainly too many situations when one of my professional, NFL-quality defensive backs would have an interception right in his hands, only to have the ball drop to the ground. If I make a mistake in the passing game, I should be punished and the same goes for the CPU.


NFC Pro Bowl Offense Video

Another fact that's certainly going to enrage Madden diehards out there is that the Online Franchise, Offline Franchise, and Superstar modes are all untouched from last year's game. In fact, the Franchise Mode even had the NFL Network's weekly show and halftime presentation removed from this year's game (or at least I haven't been able to find how to turn them on). I understand that the main goal was to streamline the experience, but I think some will miss the presentation element.

Thankfully there are quite a few new presentation touches to talk about. Close-up shots of enthused crowd members are great to see and Gus Johnson brings a lot of excitement to the commentary, even if it technically is as fragmented as ever. I'd really like to see EA Sports develop some new technology to deliver commentary, as this has been a problem for some time. You still get enthused remarks coupled with subdued statements that just don't fit together properly.

I think those people concerned with a better gameplay experience above all else will be pleased with what Madden NFL 11 brings to the table. GameFlow coupled with all of the gameplay refinements that NCAA Football enjoyed make this year's title a real treat to play, but if you want a bunch of added features to Online or Offline Franchise mode, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Keep an eye out for our review on IGN.com as we inch closer to Madden NFL 11's August 10th release date on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP and iPhone.

[/h1]

 

[T0INE]

[h1]

[h1]Madden NFL 11: My Final Impressions[/h1][h2]The game is done and it's about to be in your hands. Here's why you should be excited.[/h2][h2]July 30, 2010[/h2]

by Nate Ahearn
/media.ign.com/ign/stp/img/add-to-my-ign_button/follow_btn.png)">http://media.ign.com/ign/...n_button/follow_btn.png) no-repeat" class=addToIGN jQuery1280599559171="9">


LATEST IMAGES

View all 99 images »
LATEST VIDEO

View all 35 videos »

The release of Madden is a momentous occasion each and every year. Not just because it's the only NFL-branded game of pigskin available, but also because -- for many of us -- it signals the beginning of the NFL season. I've spent the last two weeks playing the finished review build of Madden NFL 11 and I can say that those looking for a great game of football needn't look any further once August 10th rolls around.

There's a lot to like in Madden NFL 11, especially if you skipped out on this year's NCAA Football game. The amount of gameplay changes is impressive and permeates just about every aspect of the game. From the new strategy pad that houses your hot routes, coverage audibles and other abilities to the new dual analog stick control that lets you pivot your player's upper body to glance off hits and gain extra yardage, there's a lot of nuances that weren't in Madden NFL 10.

I have no doubt that some gamers will complain about some of these changes (such as the aforementioned strategy pad, which requires an extra button press to change an assignment), but the bulk of these additions do a great job of adding extra layers of depth to the gameplay.


Madden Intro Video

Probably my favorite and most-used new feature is the improved blocking. It's great to be able to trust your pulling guard or surging fullback to lay the proper blocks when you expect them to do so. Talented defensive linemen are still going to be able to shed blocks every now and again, as they should, but all in all you're going to have a much easier time trusting your lead blockers than you have in the past.

Of course, according to EA Sports marketing, it isn't the blocking that should excite you. Instead, it's the new GameFlow playcalling feature. This enables the artificial intelligence (AI) to handle all of your playcalling on both sides of the ball. You can use a feature called Gameplanning to organize a set of plays that the AI will pull from, but at the end of the day GameFlow is going to be calling your plays unless you elect to go the full list of plays as you've done in past years.

Using GameFlow means that games essentially fly by. You can finish a game in 20 minutes where before it would've taken 40. I still found flaws in the default GameFlow settings as the AI routinely called long-bomb streak plays even when I was in the red zone, but all I had to do to fix it was organize my own playbook (and yes, you can have multiple playbooks) within the Gameplanning feature to remedy the situation.

The other big new addition is Online Team Play that's actually fun. This one I really love. I wrote a preview on it yesterday, so check that out for information and videos. Just know that it's great and works better than you could've imagined.

All that said, there are still moments of frustration that creep into Madden's design. First of all, ball physics could've been better. Watching the ball bounce around the field and on different parts of a player model looks very artificial. All too often the ball will get caught on a piece of a player's body and will bounce around unrealistically. Also, as I've experienced in just about every Madden game in history, defensive backs are pretty incompetent when it comes to making interceptions. I'm not saying that it doesn't happen (I've thrown plenty of picks myself), but there are certainly too many situations when one of my professional, NFL-quality defensive backs would have an interception right in his hands, only to have the ball drop to the ground. If I make a mistake in the passing game, I should be punished and the same goes for the CPU.


NFC Pro Bowl Offense Video

Another fact that's certainly going to enrage Madden diehards out there is that the Online Franchise, Offline Franchise, and Superstar modes are all untouched from last year's game. In fact, the Franchise Mode even had the NFL Network's weekly show and halftime presentation removed from this year's game (or at least I haven't been able to find how to turn them on). I understand that the main goal was to streamline the experience, but I think some will miss the presentation element.

Thankfully there are quite a few new presentation touches to talk about. Close-up shots of enthused crowd members are great to see and Gus Johnson brings a lot of excitement to the commentary, even if it technically is as fragmented as ever. I'd really like to see EA Sports develop some new technology to deliver commentary, as this has been a problem for some time. You still get enthused remarks coupled with subdued statements that just don't fit together properly.

I think those people concerned with a better gameplay experience above all else will be pleased with what Madden NFL 11 brings to the table. GameFlow coupled with all of the gameplay refinements that NCAA Football enjoyed make this year's title a real treat to play, but if you want a bunch of added features to Online or Offline Franchise mode, you're going to be sorely disappointed.

Keep an eye out for our review on IGN.com as we inch closer to Madden NFL 11's August 10th release date on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, PlayStation 2, PSP and iPhone.

[/h1]

 

[certifiedsw]

Originally Posted by BirdsIView

This game is pure TRASH.

First they make the presnap adjustments take 10x longer with the "stategypad" and then the kicking meter doesn't even work properly! I press once to get it started, press a second time for power and when I press a third time for accuracy half the time it won't work and my kicks will sail off to the left or right. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I press A like crazy on that last part and it still won't work, BS.

But really the presnap adjustments are the main thing that piss me off. It's like EA tries to change anything they can whether it's a good change or not just to say "hey look what we did over the last 12 months!"

You might want to buy a new controller cause the kicking works perfectly fine for me. But I'm liking this game a lot. The throws are smoother and the release is much much quicker. And the auto-sprint thing is good because it forces you to look for the holes instead of just holding the turbo button and sprinting to the outside. I have to agree with you on the strategy pad though, @#$# is so annoying. Glad to hear they're adding a feature to make that optional.
  

 

[certifiedsw]

Originally Posted by BirdsIView

This game is pure TRASH.

First they make the presnap adjustments take 10x longer with the "stategypad" and then the kicking meter doesn't even work properly! I press once to get it started, press a second time for power and when I press a third time for accuracy half the time it won't work and my kicks will sail off to the left or right. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I press A like crazy on that last part and it still won't work, BS.

But really the presnap adjustments are the main thing that piss me off. It's like EA tries to change anything they can whether it's a good change or not just to say "hey look what we did over the last 12 months!"

You might want to buy a new controller cause the kicking works perfectly fine for me. But I'm liking this game a lot. The throws are smoother and the release is much much quicker. And the auto-sprint thing is good because it forces you to look for the holes instead of just holding the turbo button and sprinting to the outside. I have to agree with you on the strategy pad though, @#$# is so annoying. Glad to hear they're adding a feature to make that optional.
  

 

[that wave]

Originally Posted by CertifiedSW

Originally Posted by BirdsIView

This game is pure TRASH.

First they make the presnap adjustments take 10x longer with the "stategypad" and then the kicking meter doesn't even work properly! I press once to get it started, press a second time for power and when I press a third time for accuracy half the time it won't work and my kicks will sail off to the left or right. I don't know if I'm doing something wrong but I press A like crazy on that last part and it still won't work, BS.

But really the presnap adjustments are the main thing that piss me off. It's like EA tries to change anything they can whether it's a good change or not just to say "hey look what we did over the last 12 months!"

You might want to buy a new controller cause the kicking works perfectly fine for me. But I'm liking this game a lot. The throws are smoother and the release is much much quicker. And the auto-sprint thing is good because it forces you to look for the holes instead of just holding the turbo button and sprinting to the outside. I have to agree with you on the strategy pad though, @#$# is so annoying. Glad to hear they're adding a feature to make that optional.
  

Thats only if you weren't patient enough to know not to overly use the turbo in previous games
I planned on getting a new ps3 for this but I'm 50/50 rt now