In recent years the Madden franchise has fought an uphill battle of its own making.
Madden NFL 12
Platform: PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
Style: 1 to 6-Player Sports (PS3), 1 to 4-Player (Xbox 360) (Online TBA)
Publisher: EA Sports
Developer: EA Tiburon
Release: August 30 (early September in New Zealand)
Last year's game was excoriated for legacy issues and the lack of progress in the franchise mode, but the development team is aware of this and is trying to address these problems as well as make progress in other areas.
We recently saw an early build of the game, and although EA Sports is only talking about certain features at the moment, it plans to reveal the big changes to franchise mode and other areas soon.
Regardless, even now it's clear that the development team is trying to simultaneously address old gripes while still moving the ball forward.
Madden is improving its animation system so players no longer slide around the field and get stuck in mismatched animations as they try to tackle or catch the ball, for instance.
Specific animations run only when contact is made between the players (or players and the ball), which, hopefully, cuts down on the occasions when it looks like two players are sucked together in a single animation.
Animations also react to each other better.
Gang- tackling looks more realistic as the momentum of the ball carrier and anyone he's dragging along for the ride more accurately influences oncoming defenders trying to finish off the job.
This includes fixing last year's gang-tackling issue where only one defender would actually make a tackle while the other defenders had no effect on the outcome.
Players not only move around the field and interact with each other better, but defenders are smarter doing these actions as well.
New coverage AI makes it harder for quarterbacks to pick apart seams in zones because as a receiver travels through a linebacker's zone, for instance, the linebacker will trail the receiver before a safety picks him up as he runs down the field.
This is intended to create smaller windows to throw the ball, and it also makes linebackers and corners more active in tracking players who enter their zones.
The success of the above improvements can't be judged until we review the game, of course, but one new feature in Madden which fans should be unreservedly excited about is the custom playbooks.
Building them is straightforward - you pick from the entire list of plays in the game and construct your own offensive and defensive gameplans. You can even keep multiple playbooks and integrate these into the GameFlow play calling system.
Speaking of GameFlow, before you elect to use it in the game, a new onscreen GameFlow HUD lets you select styles of plays like pass or run heavy, for instance, from which a GameFlow play will subsequently be chosen.
The developer isn't just addressing criticisms from previous years; Madden NFL 12 also bolsters one of the series' strengths - the presentation.
Improvements like TV-accurate camera placements in stadiums, TV-style presentation wipes between plays, more sideline details (including cheerleaders and better player models), and NFL Films-like intimate Steadicam footage should help the game look more like the broadcasts you watch in your living room.
EA Tiburon says these features are just the beginning. The make-up of this initial slate of features has us hopeful that this year's game doesn't lockout long-time fans.
