It’s that time of year again where sports fans around world rejoice with the familiar sound of “EA Sports it’s in the game” as they load their copy of Madden NFL 11 into the Xbox 360 on August 10th. Madden 2011 looks to bring the “game day” experience of an NFL coach to the living room of Sunday afternoon “Arm-Chair” quarterbacks this fall with the all new GameFlow and Game Planning features. The GameFlow mechanic delivers Madden NFL 11’s slogan for this year of “Simpler. Quicker. Deeper.” which shortens the time it takes to play a game from around 60 min to as quick as 30 min. EA Tiburon has been producing Madden for over a decade now, and some years we see incremental changes and other years dramatic. This year will be the most dramatic since the release of Madden 2006 and its addition of the “passing cone”. What is bringing all of this drama? EA’s decision to add the “strategy pad” scheme that maps certain play calling/adjustments to the controllers d-pad has Madden veterans worldwide screaming in frustration. Will all of the new features to the game play as well as the new Locomotion engine put Madden NFL 11 on the top of your must buy list, or will this be a year to pass on Madden altogether?
The first and most immediate sign of Madden NFL 11 is the all-new Locomotion engine that made its debut in NCAA Football 11. The Locomotion engine allows players to move more realistic than the previous iterations of the Madden series. Players will now move in ways never seen before in an EA Sports football game. Wide receivers will now make the one foot sideline and back of the end zone catches on a consistent basis. Players can now use the right analog stick to perform all new moves such as rotating the stick for spin moves, tapping left or right for a stutter step, or pulling back to make the ball carrier high step the diving defender from behind. Juke moves are not as effective as in the past, which means that the player needs some serious stick skills if they want to make a defender break his ankles ala Barry Sanders. Locomotion also brings a new twisting animation to the table that allows a player to drop their right or left shoulder to take on an incoming defender and protect the ball at the same time. If this all sounds complicated think about it like this, imagine the right stick is your player’s upper half when you have the ball. Moving the right stick up carries his weight forward, and moving the stick hard left or right from rotates his shoulders to protect the ball.
Another major feature that is changed this year is the Locomotion engine’s ability to have players block like their real life counterparts. The run blocking works better than any other football game we have laid hands on. The key to hitting the hole and breaking the big run is to wait and let the blocks set-up before cutting up field and out running your teammates. To make this easier on the player, EA Tiburon has removed the Sprint button on the default settings and replaced it with Auto Sprint to give the player an edge on being patient for block to set-up. (The Sprint Button/Right Trigger can be turned on in the settings menu) I suggest you give the Auto Sprint a try before changing back to the traditional sprint button to get an idea of how the Locomotion engine works when running the ball. The blocking works so well if you give it time to develop, that you will literally have to re-learn the way you pound the rock from years past. Speaking of past years, the “Hot Button” or should I say, “Hot Pad”, for this year’s game is the all new Strategy Pad. This has been a concept that has been hotly debated since the demo came out on July 27th and has even had Madden Veterans consider not buying the game at all this year.
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