Another week brings a look at one of the new features or improvements to Madden 09 in the Gamestop Madden Monday blog. This week the focus is on the “ActionCam” which is the new camera angle that adjusts to display all of the players on the field.

Madden NFL 09 will feature a camera system that dynamically adjusts to keep all of your players in view, eliminating the need to blindly pass off of the edge of your screen and hope for the best. When you run a pass play, the ActionCam automatically pans out, zooms in, and adjust angles to keep all of your receivers on the screen.

Once you complete that pass, if the ball carrier happens to break away from his defenders, the ActionCam will rock back and forth, zoom in and follow the ball carrier, giving you that intense feeling that you’re sprinting alongside him. And if a defender happens to really lay into the ball carrier, the Big Hit Camera will rattle the screen with the force of the crunch. It’s like having a tiny producer in your console that constantly assigns the best camera angles.

A camera changed has been needed for a long time. I know personally I’ve tended to shy away from throwing to receivers on the outside, or gone to plays that had them coming into the middle of the field, because I couldn’t see them and it was too risky otherwise. From the videos that have been released and the two new screenshots it doesn’t seem to be a drastic change so it shouldn’t take long to get comfortable with it. The classic camera will remain in as an option however I doubt many will prefer that over this new camera.

A producer blog has been posted for Madden 09 which goes over the new play call screen in what it displays as well as the options within it. Included in that is replays and challenges, displayed stats, return of formation subs, and bluff mode when choosing plays.

It is always great to shoot for the stars when designing, but usually reality sets in at some point and the design ends up getting pared back due to technical limitations.  In this case however a combination of creative thinking and hard work got us to a point of over delivering on this feature.  I am very proud of our team for beating the tech issues that we were facing and helping give us a play call that screams Next Generation! Take a look- I think you’ll love this!

You can read the full blog and view several new screenshots of the play call screen here.

EA Sports has released a new short trailer for Madden 09. This one features Brett Favre and the Packers playing in the snow, mentions the over 85 new features and enhancements, and claims the 20th anniversary edition will redefine the franchise.

I suspect this was originally intended to be the first look at the game in action. This trailer differs from the debut video in that it is more of a traditional trailer whereas the first one showed off extensive gameplay along with enhancements to the presentation.

Continue on to view the trailer.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s Gamestop Madden Monday focuses on the ability to return missed field goals and includes two new screenshots of Devin Hester in position to do so.

One of these Madden NFL 09 innovations is the ability to return missed field goals. Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen in the real-world NFL how a seemingly insignificant field-goal attempt can be turned into a momentum-changing, or even game-deciding, touchdown return.

It will be a nice change to force people into considering the risk of attempting a long field goal. However if kicking is overpowered (as has been the case seemingly forever) it may not really matter. Hopefully kickoffs aren’t going through the back of the end zone and long distance FG attempts actually have the potential of coming up short enough that they can be returned.

Gametrailers has posted the first truly representative footage from Madden 09. Unlike the usual first trailers for games this one focuses on displaying gameplay and some of the new elements that surround it. Just recently it was IGN that put out a short clip showing off Madden 09 which came from an especially early build of the game (didn’t include commentators and or even show off the play call screen or any presentation enhancements). About the only thing to get out of it was the snow visuals and new score/info bar. Obviously that was not the first look that EA had expected everyone would get to see of the game. So they’ve answered with a new video that, per producer Phil Frazier, spotlights:

- New Game Intro with Stadium Fly-In
- Major Graphical upgrades- from grass to players to lighting
- New Play Call with On-Demand Options including Stats and Instant Replay
- New Banners including Starting Line-Ups
- Smoother looking tackles and animations
- New QB movements
- Break-away camera
- User Controlled Celebrations

Overall the video looks fantastic with the atmosphere and presentation having received huge lifts. Everything noted above appear as though they’ll be very positive additions.

I would like to see the camera flashes toned down or removed during regular gameplay. I have never noticed flashes during the course of a game let alone constantly throughout (although I can understand having them at kickoff or on the final snap of a victory at home). They’re more distracting than anything during standard play. The user controlled celebration squares of light in the end zone detract from the realistic feel as well and they’d be better off without them. I’m not a big fan of the kickoff cinematic either considering in 08 it meant you could avoid kicking to a dangerous returner such as Devin Hester. If it would just cut off immediately after the kick, or if they had the option to have one returner handle it instead of two back deep, that wouldn’t be the case.

Continue on to view the video.

Read the rest of this entry »

In his latest forum posting, Madden 09 lead producer Phil Frazier notes a couple of things relating to the game including a statement that they are likely going to be able to get variable weather into online unranked games. In the course of one week it has gone from no online weather, to talking about the possibility of it, to it being a 95% certainty that it’ll be included. Hopefully that will include online league games which are in essence unranked games as well and would add to the experience that comes from playing a real season.

In speaking with Phil Frazier at the NCAA event last week I was able to express the frustration of the community around the general neglect that online play has received in the past several years. Admittedly it was somewhat of an overreaction on my part to lay it all on the lack of weather online but it came from that place of overall frustration and that it could possibly be a sign of the neglect continuing. He addressed the issue of online performance issues by mentioning that they have four engineers dedicated solely to getting the online games running well. That is a significant commitment being made. The discussion took place shortly before hearing about the inclusion of online leagues which appear to be well thought out (as long as they have playoffs). So clearly online play is getting some focus this year.

I didn’t limit it to just online weather and increasing the options in unranked games. I also brought up the desire to have stats and records tracked in them. Essentially the idea should be that unranked games offer pretty much every option there is offline to be selected (that is why they’re unranked) but at the same time they shouldn’t be treated as if they didn’t exist. It has always bothered me that I can’t look back upon what I’ve done throughout the year because the games were unranked. He seemed open and understanding of those thoughts so we’ll see where that goes in the future.

So I feel much better about the online prospects this year and encouraged that the community’s thoughts are really being heard. Hopefully at a minimum the online performance is up to par and the online leagues function as expected. Along with the focus on those areas adding in options such as variable weather is a sign of good things in the coming years.

Well I was wrong about nothing significant coming out in an effort to avoid getting swallowed up by GTA IV on its release day. IGN has the full details on Madden 09’s online leagues via an interview with two of the Madden developers which you can read in its entirety here. It focuses on the league aspect but later in the interview shifts to discussion on the Virtual Training Center. They’ve also posted up the first gameplay footage. You can watch that video by clicking here (make sure to watch in hi-res).

Flex scheduling is cool for a multitude of reasons. First off, flex scheduling is what we refer to as an ‘open schedule’ with no set order. What this means is that if you log online and ten members of your twenty member league are online, you can play any of your opponents that you have remaining games with. The nice thing about this is that it doesn’t allow for leagues to get stale or held up waiting for others to play. If the stars align, and you have all of your opponents online, you can, in theory, knock out your entire league in one day.

Leagues are always difficult to see through to the end. You need a good group of owners and a wide array of options for the commissioner. I like the idea of offering open schedules and providing the ability to have the same team controlled by different owners. Those are the type of options that are helpful and assist in making them more likely to succeed.

It sounds as though they’ve thought them through pretty well and aren’t the glorified tournaments recently touted as leagues for titles such as NBA Live 08 and NHL 08. Those didn’t even include playoffs which essentially made them worthless. I’m going to assume that playoffs are included in Madden’s leagues, although not hearing them mention it within the interview was noticeable. Hopefully there is some sort of confirmation soon that there will be playoffs in the leagues.

Continuing with their “Madden Mondays” blog feature for the third week in a row Gamestop has posted details on the picture-in-picture play call window. You can read the posting in full here.

To keep the game moving, the Options OnDemand PIP Play-call Window will streamline the flow of important information, like player and team stats, instant replay and even Madden Tips, which suggests a feature you haven’t used yet with a video tip explaining it. Think of it as the animated paper-clip thing from Microsoft Office, except it’s MADDEN! You’ll also be able to make substitutions right from the play-call screen or challenge a call with Coach Picture-in Picture.

The less time spent in a pause menu the better. It’ll be interesting to see it in action and how natural everything fits but it sounds like a positive addition. The overall presentation and game flow seem as though they have been heavily focused on for 09.

With the 2008 NFL Draft now complete it is time to look at which teams improved their rosters the most for Madden 09. Continue on to view my breakdown of each team’s potential instant impact picks for this year. Be sure to vote in the poll at the end for which team had the best Madden Draft.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll be around throughout the first round updating on a regular basis. Keep refreshing for new things that have been added such as draft thoughts and rookie Madden screenshots coming out of EA’s Madden 09 draft page (which will include “trading cards” with the rookies). I’ll also try to respond questions posed in the comments just keep in mind I can only give my thoughts on items surrounding Madden and NCAA that are public knowledge and not hands-on specific until 5/2.

1145: If the draft goes as they’re slating it right now (Long-Long-Ryan-McFadden) where does Dorsey end up? The Chiefs already have a ton of picks but I’d imagine someone like the Bengals or Saints looking to move up to grab him.

1204: As big as Jake Long is described I didn’t think he looked that huge in person.

1211: Chris Long is the better pick than Dorsey for the Rams. Already feeling the benefit of shortening the time between picks.

1214: Last year the Madden rookie screenshots lagged behind where the draft was at and I expect that to happen again especially with less time between picks. Apparently it is a pretty time consuming process to get those done on the spot like that.

Read the rest of this entry »