Having played and reviewed many Madden games over the last few years I have come to terms with a few realities. First, from year to year you just won’t see a massive overhaul of the franchise. With pretty good sales figures, solid reviews and a large fan base, I have come to accept there will likely never be sweeping changes to the Madden franchise. Second, regardless of what changes EA Sports makes to the game, many hardcore Madden online gamers will continually resort to “money plays”. In other words, online exploits or plays that generate favorable outcomes will be the choice for many online Madden gamers. Three, despite the yearly backlash of people expressing concerns about the lack of changes from the previous year, people keep coming back for more because as far as the NFL is concerned, it is the only show in town.
Despite some of my pessimistic views about the Madden franchise, I still love it. Year after year, I keep coming back because I love the NFL and I love playing Madden. It is as simple as that. I have come to terms with some of my views on the franchise and I have come to accept it because I just love playing the game so damn much.
Once again, we can expect some changes but this year it appears we will see quite a few significant changes. More changes than we saw last year? I think so. For starters and for the first time in franchise history, Madden 13 is going to use the Infinity Engine. What this means is now you can bump, shove and watch some crazy hits that we have all come to love and expect with the NFL. Players will stumble, trip and lose their footing at times. When they stumble, they will collect themselves and bounce right back up. Velocity and momentum are considered into every play. It is all about making Madden true to life or at least as truest as they can get it. Pre-determined animations appear to be going by the wayside. Instead, a player’s height, weight and attributes will all play a part in terms of how he will compose himself on the field and how he will get hit.
While at E3 I had a chance to spend an hour with Madden 13 and had a chance to get a feel for some of the new features including some of the new animations. Right off the hop I noticed many of the new animations. In one instance, my wide receiver spun like a helicopter after two defenders collided into him. EA Sports tells us there are over 1000 new animations. The game very much still looks like Madden but the new contact animations are certainly evident. It feels different but more in line with what an NFL game should feel like. Does that make any sense?
One of my biggest complaints from last year had to be some of the acrobatic interceptions we would see from middle linebackers and the defensive backs seem to have this amazing ability to zero in on the ball at all times. This resulted in a crazy amount of interceptions in the leagues I participated in. I was assured this area has been addressed by the development team. When the linebackers have their back to the ball, they will not automatically hone in on the ball. Likewise the DB will not torpedo to the ball if they have their backs to the QB. At the end of the day, I will have to jump online myself and put the game through its paces before I am convinced this has been fixed. Nevertheless, this is encouraging.
New to Madden 13 this year is Connected Career. Here you can create your own legacy or relive that of a legend in the all-new Connected Careers. You can proceed with a created player, current or retired NFL’er. You can even tackle Connected Careers as a coach. The idea here is that you can play the way you want to play and at every step the game will analyze your every move. I admittedly did not spend a lot of time in this area but it did have me intrigued. The idea of a live Twitter critiquing my every move sounded very cool. Also an XP system sounded equally cool and gives gamers incentives to practice, participate in virtual drafts, build playbooks, etc.
Bye bye Mr. Collinsworth! This year we finally have a new announcing team as Jim Nantz and Phil Simms will be providing the commentary. They have provided over 9,000 lines of dialog. Needless to say, I am excited by this news. Madden 13 will also feature new sound effects such as authentic quarterback cadences from Aaron Rodgers, Cam Newton, Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger.
The passing game has also received some enhancements. The new Total Control Passing mechanic allows you to lead receivers into open space and put the ball exactly where they want it to go. I gave this a spin at E3 and admittedly it will take some practice for me in order to master the precision passing. I was all over the map but clearly if you can master this function, I can see lots of wins for you in the Madden win column online and offline.
In any event I have a feeling I am barely scratching the surface with all the changes but so far so good. All these changes sound wonderful but at the end of the day I play Madden for the franchise mode and online leagues. So in terms of changes, I will be interested to see how many of them will impact the actual gameplay.
