madden

Can Backbreaker teach Madden any new tricks?

There is another football game in town, and it's a new one: it's called Backbreaker, and it's been developed by NaturalMotion. It doesn't have an NFL license. It's not Madden. So why should anybody be interested? Well, there's the real challenge.

Madden's sales have been dropping off. Its stronghold monopoly on NFL video games remains absurd and tends to result in laziness in the game's innovations. However, there are a lot of things Madden still does right. Statistical engines, play-calling realism, and online play are still second to none. We have a soft spot for the days when 2K Football actually had a better game, and kept Madden honest. And, at first glance, Backbreaker reminds us of that game's debut back in 1999.

Scott: Backbreaker's real claim to fame is its physics engine, the same Euphoria system that's in games ranging from GTA IV to The Force Unleashed. Tackles and player motions are astonishing and fun to watch, and have less predictable outcomes than the sometimes canned-feeling Madden tackles. Backbreaker also lowers the perspective closer down to field level, creating a shaky-cam realism that aims to shake players out of the complacent eagle-eye Madden view that turns plays into living schematics.

Because Backbreaker has no NFL license, it's created a bunch of fictional teams and stadiums in the spirit of NFL Blitz. Stadium designs are often overexaggerated and colossal, and the borderline reckless feel of the game is a nice break from Madden (although it's not as vicious as Blitz). The playbook, however, is far smaller than Madden's, and the control scheme is reinvented. It's not fully explained or easy to use.

Players can customize their teams with a graphics-editing engine, inviting a lot of risque designs. Playing online against others might lead to discovering some interesting acts of creativity. It's clever, but a gimmick in the long run. Not having an NFL license is a deal-killer for any game that wants to be about football.

The real moments when Backbreaker shines are on scrambles and running plays.… Read more

Hands-on: Is Madden 11 taking the coaching out of football?

Is Madden about being an armchair coach or an armchair quarterback? I admit, when I play Madden as the Jets, I increasingly avoid calling plays. I default to the "Madden picks" because I'm lazy, and I want to dive right into the plays. I'm more interested in how a team matches up against another than how my virtual coaching skills are.

A funny thing happened when I sat down to play a little of EA's upcoming release of Madden 11 at a pre-NFL draft event. While this year's iteration doesn't seem to have … Read more

EA's game arsenal coming to Facebook?

Is "poke" the new Konami Code? Maybe not literally, but one Electronic Arts executive has hinted that at least one of the gaming behemoth's titles is headed to Facebook, further blurring the line between social-networking applications and the game industry.

In a Bloomberg TV interview, EA Sports President Peter Moore obliquely said, "you'll see us on Facebook, going forward," with regard to its storied "Madden NFL" franchise.

Blogger Nick O'Neill of Social Times quotes someone anonymous saying this does, indeed, mean that there will be a Facebook version of "Madden … Read more

Best virtual ways to play your own Super Bowl

With the NFL's biggest game of the season comes the end of a long fall and winter of excitement and, largely, disappointment for 31 teams other than the one that wins it all. Then, to the joy of the spouses of some, the offseason cometh.

Whether or not you follow the NFL obsessively, there are plenty of other ways to exorcise your football demons and get your fix on virtually, be it on your phone, PC or game console. For fans of downtrodden teams like some of us, it's the only way to ease the pain. Our three … Read more

Post-turkey pigskin: Madden NFL Arcade goes live

(Update: Madden NFL Arcade is now available on Xbox Live and PSN just in time for post-Thanksgiving football doldrums. Here is our hands-on with the game.)

Football is a team sport. Alas, that goes counterpoint to a lot of the superstar worship and smack-talking that gritty sports video games are made of. To satisfy the casual fan, EA has launched a surprise on Xbox 360 and PS3 owners with Madden NFL Arcade. A five-on-five football game, it borrows heavily from previous arcade football games like NFL Blitz and EA's own dearly departed NFL Street (and less remembered NFL Tour), … Read more

Digital City Podcast 49: Steve Jobs returns, first Win 7 TV spots, and the Beatles/Dreamcast connection

Episode 49 of the Digital City, where we find out why Microsoft's Steve Ballmer tried to stomp a co-worker's iPhone; check out the first Windows 7 TV ad; and lament that Steve Jobs had to drag himself onstage at the latest Apple event to basically announce nothing (and that the purported Beatles/iTunes deal never materialized).

We also check out EA's Madden for the iPhone, find out why Batman: Arkham Asylum is such a hit, and fondly remember the 10th anniversary of the Sega Dreamcast.

Related links: >>iPhone NFL Kick off >>Arkham Asylum: best of '09? &… Read more

A utility suite for cheap and Madden football: iPhone apps of the week

Have you updated your iPhone to version 3.1 yet? Among the fixes and feature enhancements in the latest update, Apple added the Genius feature (formerly found in iTunes) to the App Store. Like its iTunes counterpart, Genius for iPhone apps looks at the apps you have on your iPhone and makes recommendations for apps you might like. I should point out that you need to digitally agree to Apple's terms and conditions, which you should read carefully before turning the feature on. The potentially objectionable part (that I have no objection to) is that Apple will track information, … Read more

iPhone NFL Kick off: Does Madden 10 play nice without buttons?

The real NFL season is about to kick off, and EA has seized the opportunity to finally slide in the release of its much-anticipated port of Madden to the iPhone/iPod Touch format. It represents the meeting of the mobile entertainment industry's unstoppable force, Apple's black slab of wonder, with the gaming industry's immovable object. Available at $7.99 through the kickoff of the Steelers-Titans game tonight and $9.99 afterward, is it worth your hard-earned tailgate dollars? We played it last week here at the CNET offices and played it a lot more on our own iPhone last night, and here's our verdict.

It took EA a few weeks longer to get its iPhone act together than Gameloft did with NFL 2010. Did it pay off? Well, in some ways, yes. The player models and 3D stadiums seem better rendered than Madden's NFL-licensed and similarly-named App Store rival, NFL 2010 by Gameloft, but with a significant drawback: the framerate on our 3GS playthrough was significantly choppier than NFL 2010. A future update will hopefully fix this, but in the meantime it doesn't affect gameplay enough to be a game-killer. The presentation and commentary are impressive, nearing console level but hovering nearer to PSP and DS versions of Madden.

The biggest fear among those who play any type of hardcore game is whether losing a physical control pad affects gameplay in any significant way. The answer is simple: yes, it does. I've played games on my iPhone for more than a year, and it rarely avoids feeling like a compromise: lose a control pad, but gain a simplified interface and an extremely compact form in a smartphone. As to whether it's worth it, ask yourself if you'd rather tote around a PSP or a Nintendo DS in your pocket in addition to your phone, or just carry an iPhone and lose a few controls, and you'll have your answer.

The solution EA has given is the same many developers have, including Gameloft: add a virtual stick in the lower left corner, and a series of context-sensitive buttons in the lower right. The problem with the virtual stick is that, like other titles, it can be lost in the shuffle on heavy-focus moments of game play. There's no tactile feedback, so it must be looked after, unlike a real analog pad. When playing Madden, that means a lot of the accuracy is lost. But the good news is that this game wasn't really designed for finesse play. We'll explain.… Read more

Madden for iPhone: A first look

Madden may rule the roost of NFL games for the most part, but one pesky little company still has a license for mobile phone-based NFL games, too: Gameloft. We covered NFL 2010 recently, and mentioned that it could give Madden a run for its money in the mobile space.

While Madden for the iPhone and iPod Touch was rumored before, EA Sports has formally confirmed the release of the game with some screenshots and a promise that it will be available "in time for opening day," which is September 10. Promising expertise that 20 years in the business can provide, the news release for Madden on the iPhone and iPod Touch is clearly cognizant that there is a competitor out there already.

One observation, looking at these screens, is that there's more than a little similarity between the interfaces of this game and NFL 2010. A virtual joystick on the left combined with contextual action buttons on the right will try to accommodate for the missing control pad in much the same way as Gameloft's title--although to be fair to Madden, it looks as if it has more action-button options on the offensive snap plays shown. Receivers look like they're color-coded based on how open they are, and it seems like tap-to-throw may also be the mechanic here, as it is in NFL 2010.

… Read more