[Chronic Diarrhea]

Since the destruction of the NFL 2K series, the Madden franchise has been garbage. Some fans of the series declared it out loud, while many others tried to deny it, but knew it deep down inside. lt's probably no coincidence that the list of features coming up in Madden and NCAA 08 is vast, considering the return of the 2K football franchise.

To start off, it appears that EA Sports has finally made the first big step to creating a football game that is engineered entirely on a physics system, as opposed to the animation-based system we've seen since 1990. Gang-tackling will finally be used widely, and it looks like it will far surpass the gang-tackling system used in NFL 2K5 (which still remains better than Madden 07, which is sad).

[quote:8bc06]You can stand a guy up and come in with a linebacker to clean house. Yeah, it's been done before. But from here, Cummings said you can add on dynamically at any point. So maybe it takes two, three, four guys to haul Larry Johnson to the ground. Or if you're running in with a linebacker, you can actually knock the other defenders off the ball carrier with a poorly-aimed hit. Or blockers can come in and try to knock defenders off. Or you can try to strip the ball. A runner can cover it up. The list just keeps going.[/quote:8bc06]

Madden and NCAA will also be using an inverse kinematics engine, which will allow for player animations to look smooth and will also allow the player to stop an animation and branch out into different animations. Basically, without IK, players could slide around when running at times, or animations would continue until the end, which sometimes made your player get screwed. Think of the out route, where the receiver would catch the ball near the sideline, but his running animation would cause him to keep sliding out of bounds, even when you're trying to push "up" on the analog to make him run upfield. Another great example is the bug where your RB would get caught on a lineman at the line of scrimmage and start running in place. with IK, you can either push that fat fuck out of the way, or branch out into a wide variety of animations to move around him.

There will be a plethora of new player ratings; context-specific and perhaps even player-specific ratings to give the person controlling any player many more options on how to get that extra yard, or knock the shit out of the ball-carrier. They hinted towards superstar players actually having a big impact on games, without using cheap gimmicks to make them better. They used the comparison between Terrell Owens and Reggie Wayne, and the two receivers' tendencies to catch certain balls in certain situations. They also used an example of John Lynch and Champ Bailey. John Lynch will be exceptionally good at zone coverage, and Champ Bailey will be outstanding at pressing down a receiver in man-to-man. In previous games, even when facing the best CBs in the game, you could just sub in whatever player had the highest speed rating and call a go pattern, and that player would usually smoke the CB. It seems there's no chance in Hell you'll be able to do that anymore.

What this appears to mean for football games is individual player skill will finally be an important skill to learn to be successful at the game. Before, good players at Madden were good because they knew which plays to call at the right time and which plays were money plays, and they knew how to exploit the computer AI to give their player the best chance to gain yardage. Now you'll have to learn--and become proficient--at knowing what move to make with the player you control at the right time. Do you tackle a huge running back high, or do you go low and take his knees out? If you're Champ Bailey, you probably want to go low, so you don't get obliterated. If you're Zach Thomas or Brian Urlacher, you can probably try to go high and knock his head off, even against a huge back. Every choice you make will impact the way the game is played.

They're also changing the fatigue system. Weather and location will play a role now. The Miami Dolphins are going to tire quicker when playing at Buffalo in December. Likewise, Buffalo would tire quicker when playing at Miami in September.


Believe it or not, I left a lot of stuff out. For more information, here are two links:


[url:8bc06]http://www.gamespot.com/xbox360/sports/madden08/news.html?sid=6169878&tag=topslot%3Btitle%3B1&om_a ct=convert&om_clk=topslot&page=2[/url:8bc06]

[url:8bc06]http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/784/784281p1.html[/url:8bc06]