Well since there's no general thread for Madden, I'll post my Wal-Mart tournament experience here.
I went to the same store as last year, 16 players this year, an increase of 6 players. I was the second person there, with the first being last year's champ. The lady running electronics then wants to setup the tournament with the order in which people show up and I put up a slight protest as I don't want to face last year's champ, who took me out but I gave him his toughest game, in round 1.
She obliges and over the next 30 minutes we get up to 16, perfect bracket size. Of the 16 there, there were probably 6 hardcore Madden players, 6 mid-range Madden players (this is the group I associate myself as) and 4 players who obviously don't play much (including someone who only play on the Wii.)
When we get there, myself and the defending champ see that they have 1 360 system and 1 PS3 system. I bring up again that it should probably both use the same systems, especially with the strategy pad controls, the PS3 players would have a bit of an advantage. Also it would be annoying to switch systems throughout the tourney.
I suggest waiting until the players are there to vote on which system, but the lady in charge just unboxes another 360 Arcade. They had to unbox new systems because an employee stole the systems they used last year from the back of the store.
This caused some disappointment among the players as among the 16 there, only 3-4 said they wanted 360 over PS3, myself, and the 3 players who ended up in the top 3.
The first 2 games are played on Pro difficulty, but the rest of the players have a gentleman's agreement to turn it up to All-Madden for the later games. Once the first 2 games in Round 1 start something really surprises me. You'd think there's never been a football game with a 3-click meter system because in the first 2 games, there are 3 kickoffs sent out of bounds and 2 XP's are missed, and this is on Pro, not All-Madden.
Lots of people hating the new kicking system, the strategy pad system, and the gameflow system. Both system have Gameflow turned off by midway through the tourney. Wii guy gets obiterated by the eventual champ 63-14.
Not trusting how well I could do with the Bears given their ratings drops from last year and being very familiar with the Colts from the demo, I use the Colts. I get matched up with another mid-level player using the Jets that plays Madden more seriously than me, and I wish I had drawn some of the weaker players that were around in round 1.
It's a back-and-forth game until late in the 3rd quarter I throw a pick-6 while in the red zone and I'm down 21 points going into the 4th quarter. I then proceed to score 21 unanswered points, including the tying touchdown with about 20 seconds left, and kick the PAT for the tie.
He gets the ball first in OT (and it does have the new OT rules) and I hold him on the first two plays to force a 3rd and 5. Given my troubles stopping him during the game, I decide to take a chance and call a dual DB Zone Blitz play (forgot the exact name but both DB's and the DE's blitz, the OLB's go out to the sidelines, and the DT's drop back to the LB's original position.) The backside DB hits Sanchez as he throws and my DT picks the ball out of the air for the INT and I have the ball at the Jets 23. 2 plays later I score the TD to win it.
Round 2 I play the eventual second-place player (and roommate of the champ) who is a Packer fan. We go back-and-forth until the 4th quarter, but 2 late INT's by me lead to a 14 point loss.
Things I discovered in my 2 games and watching other games with live humans that probably need to be looked at by EA:
In my 2 games I had over 360 yards receiving with Dallas Clark. Any good TE is going to be a beast in this game unless you have a LB corps like the Ravens because most LB's cannot cover the elite TE's.
Related to the last point, but deep slant and deep in routes on this game are crazy easy to exploit. If you have a good TE or slot receiver, you're going to gets crazy amounts of yardage over the middle of the field.
HB receiving routes in the flat can be exploited still. The guy who beat me played someone using the Bears in the semi-final and had 200 yards receiving with Ryan Grant. I'm not sure if the Bears player just wasn't calling the right D's, but it looks like that is exploitable unless you manually cover the flats.
The Vikings are going to be the team to use online unless Favre retires. AP is a beast in this game unless you hit stick him to cause a fumble he's just going to run over 1-2 defenders on every run. The guy who won it was the only one using the Vikings and in 4 games he never fumbled with AP once. Also he got such big leads that everyone, except the Wii guy, just surrendered when they got down by 21 or 28, including last year's champ. Plus the Vikings have weapons in the receiving corp and Favre can still be pretty accurate with his throws.
If you can stop people on D, the Colts are really good with Peyton Manning lighting teams up with his laser pinpoint accuracy.
1st place was a free copy of the game, 2nd place a $25 gift card, and 3rd place a $15 gift card. The guy who lost in the first semi-final to the eventual champ left in disgust after quitting when down by 28 and lost out on his chance to play for 3rd place.
Wal-Mart ended up selling the Arcade systems used in the tournament for 25% off (remember they were just opened today) so I bought one as a Christmas present for my first cousin who only has a Wii and laments there's no "cool" games on it.
I don't remember the exact team breakdown, but it was something like this:
1 Bears (3rd place)
1 Lions
1 Packers (2nd place)
1 Vikings (1st place)
1 Jets
1 Raiders
1 Cowboys
1 Saints
1 Ravens/Colts (played first 2 games with Ravens, switched to Colts after watching me and a preteen kid wearing a Manning jersey dominating with Dallas Clark and couldn't repeat our success.)
3 Colts
3 Ravens
1 I can't remember
your offensive gimmicks....we havent had a update for the defense in 7 years other than the over powered virtually broken hit stick. I have to form my own opinion when I get the game but I have no reason to doubt the defense is as crappy as always.