Recently MGN Sports released some Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football 2020 gameplay in a Youtube video. In recent discussions with the development team, they talked about how the unity partnership will help improve the gameplay for not only the 2020 release of Doug Flutie’s Maximum Football but future releases as well. Today I’m here to bring you an honest review of what I’ve seen.
First things first, don’t let the textures shape your belief about the gameplay. Maximum Football 2020’s gameplay is an improvement from 2019, it’s overall much smoother. During the gameplay release from MGN Sports, it showed a quarterback throwing the ball while getting hit. The quarterback’s throwing arm was not impacted by the defender immediately and he was able to throw a pass because of it. I don’t like players getting locked into animations because that means that it is not a skill based game. Overall the game looks smooth but I have one major issue, sample size.
Tiny Sample Size
From what I can tell, there is no more than a minute of gameplay. I can see Maximum Football doing great things but I can’t make a fair judgement on the game without actually playing the game or seeing more than a minute of gameplay. From what I can tell, it does not seem as smooth as Madden’s gameplay in the past but at the same time there’s such a small sample size.
The Good
Putting the sample size issue aside, I love the different camera angles. The angles give a different feel for every game, whether you’re watching the game or playing it camera angles matter a lot. There are new catching animations and defensive backs turn to face the ball in jump ball situations. There’s honestly not much else I can say with such a small sample size. Also seeing a defensive linemen bullrush an offensive tackle, stay up and sack the quarterback was amazing. The spin move by the defensive tackle was a nice touch but not perfect.
The Bad
Look, there’s always going to be some bad. The first thing is the extremely small sample size which I’ve already talked about. The overall progression of the plays just seemed clunky and not as smooth as expected. Ball trajectory seemed off and it was near impossible to see the ball in the air when watching at regular playback speed. Also on a play where the quarterback was sacked the left guard had a weird scenario where the play isn’t over but he’s just standing there with a defender in his face as the defender uses a spin move. The spin move was great to see but didn’t look that smooth. It may not be fair to make a judgment based on a small sample size but since it was so small it’d be possible to try and exclude some of these issues.
Final Thoughts
Overall it’s promising but I’m not making any guarantees until I actually play the game. A small sample size does not sit well with me. No offense to MGN Sports but they’re flashy titles and effects took attention away from the game play.
