Yeah, I play FPSes online... I'm familiar with the term "cheese," I just didn't know how it applied in this situation. Stacking the line or not punting on 4th down on your own 20 just sound unwise... for the first situation, you can audible to some sort of quick pass play where everyone's just running streaks (straight downfield), and for the second situation, if they make it, well, good gamble for them, and if not, good field position for you.

A friend of mine would almost ALWAYS go for 2 pt conversions, and it was really frustrating because he would almost always get them. By your definition, probably cheesy, but if he had the "skillz to pay the billz," more power to him.

all those examples i'd still consider cheese since it makes for a completely unrealistic game. i actually just got done beating a guy who never punted and went for it on 4th down deep in his own territory...it felt nice beating him but the game was still full of cheese....it was nice to win but it was lame at the same time since the game wasnt very realistic at all

I played a few demo games last night. One was disconnected, but I'm not sure if the guy I was playing got bored or what. I don't think I was winning at the time. I had a couple of ties and one or two wins.

It was refreshing to play someone who actually punted on 4th down. Considering that you only get 1 minutes quarters in the demo, I thought it was nice for him to let me get the ball on offense. Even with the full game, I'd rather see realistic football than people going for it on 4th and 15 from their own 15.

I'm used to NCAA 2003 and my initial impression was that the game seemed kind of sluggish. I don't think this is related to online lag though. It just seems slower than NCAA, which is weird because I would expect it to be the other way around.

I'm impressed with online play. Even against a 56k person, I didn't really experience any lag.

My pings with ISDN are fairly good, they should be around what DSL/cable users get (around 100 ms). I noticed a lot of people rejected my challenge offers though. Like I noticed with Medal of Honor for the PC, my ISDN router never adds the 2nd channel. It uses 1 64k channel because it doesn't need any more bandwidth. Like with every other online game, pings are critical. I guess 56k people don't always get good pings. I usually have 4 out of 5 green dots in the room screen.

Anyway, after playing the demo, I'm going to get Madden today. I don't care much for NFL football, but the online aspect makes Madden a 'must have' for me. Now I just have to figure out which team to use.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game. It's EA's fault for not tweaking it so that cheese moves aren't effective.

how is it even possible for any software company to tweak out the cheese?

I was assuming that the "cheese" in question was much more effective in the game than in real life, in which case the play balance is screwed up. If that's not the case, then I see your point but I'm not as much a stickler for realism as you.

Cheese moves ARE ineffective, though. Going for it on 4th and 15 on your own 15 is an inherently risky play. Stacking the line and not covering your opponents WRs is also risky. I guess I wouldn't mind playing against someone like that, because I think (at least in theory) I'd know how to beat them.

lemme know when you wanna play me and i'll be the falcons with michael vick and scramble and run sweeps almost every play and run circles around your defense since he's one of the fastest people in the game and we'll see how ineffective it is

i like this idea.

on a side note, if you can't stop the cheese, that sucks for you. but the game does have its cheese - there's no denying that ... every version has its flaws and plays which seem to work 90%+ of the time. and to me, it does detract from the game's supposed "realism"

to try to get around this, my brother and i who have owned and played every single madden since genesis, have the following rules. it makes the game a little bit more real, and tons more fun.

if greater than 4th and 5, you must kick.
- exception 1: 2 mins left in the 2nd quarter
- exception 2: anytime in the 4th quarter
- exception 3: you are down by 15 or more points

you are allowed only ONE fg block and ONE punt block per game
(some of the maddens you could block everytime with a decent line ... madden 2002 punts could be blocked everytime, even against a punt block formation)

the "house rules" actually work well, and some of my other friends now only play like this as well (unless against the cpu of course ... a franchise is a franchise)

not saying i will only play people in this manner - just giving food for thought

I noticed the following in one of the games I played last night: When I came to the line on offense, my opponent took control of one of his corner backs and moved him to the middle of the field, on the other side of the middle linebacker. Now I'm no video game football guru, but it didn't take long to figure out where I was going to throw the ball.

In that case, I didn't mind playing someone who was doing 'cheesy' stuff. Actually, this guy wasn't that bad. I can't help but wonder if he thought he had selected a safety or something from a double coverage set.

I picked up the full version of Madden at lunch today. Already have a game scheduled for tonight. Time to learn the subtle differences between NCAA and NFL football.