This applies in particular to their sports titles.
In most games, when players bring up the guide, it pauses.
In EA games, it keeps rolling. This is annoying in most games, but since it’s in sports games, often ones where fingers slip and hit said button, it’s egregious. Fight Night Round 4 is the latest game with this problem, a game where rapid flicks of the stick are the entire game. Guide buttons are hit often. It’s one thing online, to prevent cheating that way. But in a local game, especially against the CPU, it’s a “fuck you, player!” Two seconds is all it takes to go from winning to on the ground with a clean haymaker gash. Factor in guide lag and players can be defenseless for five seconds, easily.
There isn’t a good reason for this. It can be used to burn the clock in a two-player game, it causes losses in a single player game, and just leads to frustration ultimately. When most companies have figured this out, why hasn’t EA? Didn’t we make it clear enough after Fight Night 3, Madden 08, NHL 08, Madden 09, and NHL 09? Five games is enough time to make the change. Really, it is.
