Nanos: The Madden ‘10 Rocket Catch?

After playing Madden 10 for a couple weeks now, I can honestly say that while its not perfect, it has taken major strides towards forcing users to play a more realistic game. The RC is still there somewhat but a great deal riskier than it was in 09, mostly due to the QBs actually throwing inaccurate passes sometimes now(even the elite QBs). The QB accuracy in 09 was a joke, it made me sick watching people sprint backwards with Vince Young and continually throw PERFECT 30 yard posts.

There are a great deal of things that improved for Madden 10 like man coverage, user catch animations, the better ability to hit WRs in stride in the flats, touch passes being actual TOUCH passes now and not just lobs — but with all of these improvements, I cannot believe what has taken such a huge step backwards. Obviously its the offensive line.

Despite it being one of the things that “sim” guys complained about last year, nanos in Madden 09 were perfectly balanced. It was literally impossible to get nano heat on someone with less than 5 guys, and most times with a 5 man blitz, you had to fake blitz with a guy in coverage in order to fool the o-line. With some slide protect and HB power blocking you could easily pick up the blitz as long as you had an equal amount of blockers/blitzers. Not saying guys never came free with an equal block/blitz ratio, but it was so much better than this year.

Why is this? IMO…it is due to the dev team getting ahead of themselves with the offensive line A.I. They wanted a true pocket, but what they got are gaps in the middle of the o-line that the offense has to WAAAAYYY overcompensate for in order to get proper blocking. If someone is coming at you with a tough 5-6 man nano, you have pretty much ZERO chance of stopping a free blitzer unless you have a +1, or most times a +2 blocker advantage compared to the blitz. Just as sick as I was watching Vince Young dot people in 09….it is even WORSE to watch a LB come through the A gap in a five man blitz when I have six or seven guys blocking.

These kind of game play mechanics have turned defense into…Step 1)Make the offense have to overcompensate for the bad o-line play by blocking 7 or 8 guys….Step2) Play Fag Defense…..Step 3) Repeat.

What makes all of this even worse is that the bad mid O-line A.I. might effect the running game even more!!! Shotgun HB draws are total ass compared to 09….even against defenses with the D-line in zones. A nano in the a and b-gaps pretty much forces you to run tosses or stretches, and then you set yourself up for the QB to be sacked before he even gets to hand the ball off. SMH…..

Even though I strongly considered returning the game after I was shown by my lab partner how bad it is….I have come to the conclusion that I love Madden too much to do so. I hope that the development team is beginning to pay more attention to the hardcore/tourney type of strategies, because they desperately need someone who they label a “cheeser” top be the one who tests things like the o-line A.I. They obviously tune the offensive line to handle blitzes that DO NOT involve things like manual placement and re-blitzing. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Catch Me if you Can”….you know that at the end of the movie, the FBI hires the criminal to work for them because he knows more about the crimes than they do. EA needs to follow this philosophy if they ever want a truly balanced game of   football.

Jon Deloz is a guest writer and fan favorite of AskMadden’s. You can always catch him on the AskMadden forums.