Jon Robinson of ESPN.com had the chance to sit down with madden 12 director Ian Cummings to discuss some news features and news surrounding madden 12. Cummings commented on the addition of suprise onside kicks and how they will be implemented in next year’s madden in his annual superbowl halftime blog.
“Jon Robinson: Of all the new features you guys are kicking around, why did you announce surprise onside kicks as the first thing gamers can expect for “Madden NFL 12″?
Ian Cummings: We discussed for quite a long time what we would lead with. There was a lot of debate, but I really wanted to lead with this because of the discussion it would cause. It’s not a huge feature. It’s not something that took a ton of time. But it’s something that’s been a hot-button issue in the community. Some people have made a really big deal over us not having this in the game, and it’s something we always wanted to do, we just needed to balance it right. So we figured we’d lead with it and we’ll get people talking about how it will be an exploit, or on the flip side, how it needs to be in the game. But we knew it was something that would get people talking about “Madden 12.” If we lead with something huge, then it’s tough to continue that momentum. So we decided to lead with something controversial to get people talking about the game.”
Jon Robinson’s complete interview with Madden 12 creative director Ian Cummings can be viewed at ESPN
For our newest Madden 11 guide, madden-school is pleased to announce that it was written by Big Game James. If you don’t know who Big Game James is, then you are either very new to madden or you have lived under a rock for the last 5 years. He is widely considered as one of the greatest madden gamers of all time.
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Here are just a few of his achievements:
MWS National Champion in 2004
Cleveland Madden Challenge Champion 2006
2 time Players Bowl Champion 2006
Ultimate Players Bowl Champion 2006
4 time LAB Tournament Champion 2009
Baltimore Madden Challenge Champion 2009
For only $24.99, you get to run the defense created by a man who has traveled around the country for the last 8 years making money by beating the best madden players in the world.
The Madden 11 Oakland Defensive Strategy Guide is complete with 9 chapters filled with coverage plays, nanos, and the best run stopper I have ever seen. You can use the concepts in this guide with any defensive playbook and any of the 32 NFL teams. Also, Big Game James throws in his 5 audibles that he actually runs, free of charge.
Every year a new summer comes with screenshots, videos, and previews of the new madden game. This year the hype surrounding madden 11 is no different. The screenshots look terrific, the videos look even better, and promises have been made that problems from past maddens have been corrected. Undoubtedly, come August when the reviews are released, all the major video game media companies will give madden 2011 a giant thumbs up and rate it very highly, leading us to think that this year will finally be the year that EA Sports gets it right.
But those aren’t the reasons that this year’s Madden 11 game will be a hit. It will be a hit because it is forced to be. EA Sports exclusive deal with the NFL is coming to an end. New competition is sprouting up in games like Backbreaker. The game will be good because if the people who make it don’t do a good job this time around, they may lose their jobs. The standard has been set fairly low, because of past dissappointments, so all that needs to be done is to make Madden 11 playable.
The Jacksonville Jaguars have steadily declined over the past few years since their 12-4 season 3 years ago. However, in Madden 11 they will be a force once again. The key to Madden has always been time management and a solild defense. With the addition of Aaron Kampman and Kirk Morrison, the Jaguars defense is scary again. The linebackers are as good as they have ever been with Morrison, Durant, and Smith. But the true strength of the Jaguars team in Madden 2011 comes in their biggest weakness in the NFL. The secondary becomes scary if you move either Cox or Mathis to free safety and move the speedy Reggie Nelson to strong safety.
On offense, all you have to do is get the ball in Maurice Jones-Drew’s hands and you will find your way into the endzone. With rising stars Mercedes Lewis and Mike Sims-Walker, the offense is becoming very potent if Qb Garrard can return to form. Look to get secret weapon Mike Thomas involved on screen passes and drag routes. The Jaguars are by no means the best team in Madden 11, but they will be very usable.
More team specific strategies coming soon to Maddenholics, so keep checking in.
One of the biggest frustrations I’ve had with “Madden” over the past couple of years is the disgusting amount of times receivers catch the ball without making any attempt to get both feet in bounds.In a blog on EASports.com, “Madden NFL 11′s” lead designer, Ian Cummings addresses that issue, along with a couple of other welcome fixes to the receiving game.”As developers, catching has always been one of the hardest and most frustrating areas of our game to tune because of the sheer amount of possibilities,” explains Cummings. “When you start to try to account for all the different angles a pass could be coming in to a receiver along with the difference in his body position, it is always a difficult problem to solve.” To address these issues plaguing the game, EA Sports created a debugging tool to figure out why certain catch animations were being triggered more than others (think jump catch). Where last year, a receiver would actually slow down on the route simply to make a jump catch in the game, in “Madden NFL 11″ receivers in open space will now catch the ball in stride. “These types of catches will only trigger, however, if there is not a defender in the path of the route or in a position to make a play on the ball,” writes Cummings. “We want the Larry Fitzgerald/Calvin Johnson type receivers to really go up and fight for the ball and come down with spectacular catches if there is a crowd of defenders around them.
”Another area of focus we have been working on is tuning the frequency for when “aggressive” types of catches can trigger. In previous years there have been situations where you could sometimes see a receiver playing a catch where he runs back towards the ball. These could sometimes be seen on Curl/Hitch/Smash type routes as well as Screen routes behind the line of scrimmage. There is nothing more frustrating than calling a 5-yard route on 3rd and 4 and having the receiver catch it moving towards the QB and get tackled for a 2-yard gain. Well, this year, the receiver won’t play those types of catches (unless of course there is a defender between him and the ball). If you are running a 10-Yard Curl and the defender is behind you, the receiver will always be forced to match a ‘standing’ catch so he can try to backpedal into the defender for extra yardage. Also, we eliminated the likelihood that a receiver that is behind the line of scrimmage (e.g. WR or HB Screen play) would play a running, aggressive style catch if he is in open space.”
Last but not least, Cummings addresses those dreaded sideline catches.
“For ‘Madden NFL 11,’ with the help of the Catch Debugging Tool, we have corrected all of our sideline/back of the end zone catches. You no longer have to be afraid of trying to squeeze that Deep Out or Goalline fade inbounds, as now the receivers have much more advanced AI to get both feet in.”But that’s not all, as Cummings adds that EA Sports has done extensive motion-capture work this year when it comes to these virtual receivers in order to get more authentic animations into the game.Will the new animations and debugging pay off? ESPN will find out when EA Sports reveals “Madden NFL 11″ to the press for the first time the week of the NFL Draft.
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