Madden 08 sideline catches video

Last week it was gang tackling that was given the spotlight. This week in his producer blog, Ian Cummings displays some of the sideline catches that are new to Madden 08 this year.

Some notes from Cummings:

You can see how we actually take awareness into account on these videos – a highly rated player like Gates is consistently getting his feet in, but then you can see a player like Vincent Jackson who’s rated lower than Gates still can play the catch but possibly not get his feet in.

The last catch actually has some parameters to make it endzone specific…and we have a number of those as well…This one in particular is also tagged with a minimum spectacular catch rating requirement

you can break out of catches early, and you rarely (if ever) will have it happen to you where a good player just runs right out of bounds without getting his feet in or cutting upfield (oh yeah – the ability to cut upfield is ratings-based as well so that’s pretty cool).

This is an area that has always been lacking in Madden, so it is very encouraging to see what has been done this year. It adds more of the exciting feeling to the game all the while helping to differentiate the better receivers from the rest.

The catch in the endzone has to be the best looking catch I’ve ever seen in a football game. The fluidity of it is amazing, and it just looks incredibly natural.