Bengals will be awesome on Madden 07

[combatbengal]

Here is some new information on the Madden 07 coming out this fall. It appears that we'll be able to utalize the Bengals playbook.

Q: Talk to us about the all-new defensive playbooks. How did you come up with those?

Frazier: We watched a lot of game-tape. We've got two guys that are dedicated year-in and year-out to making Madden playbooks great. They're the most hardcore football guys that we have in this building. One of the guys actually played college ball at Florida, and the other one aspires to be a head coach somewhere. The two of them combined watch hours and hours of game tape that we get directly from the NFL. Using that footage, we're able to create plays in Madden that look exactly like plays that NFL teams run, and we also get a lot of different systems and formations in there as well.

This year, we have team-specific defensive playbooks in the game. Instead of having just the schemes, like 3-4 and 4-3, we actually went in and looked at team-specific things. Teams will run things based on specific personnel, and we wanted to capture that in Madden.

Q: You've expanded last year's Superstar Mode? What's new in that?

Frazier: Superstar Mode was something that a lot of people were excited about in concept last year, but at the end of the day, when the game shipped, there was no real difference in playing a Superstar game than there was in playing a Play Now game or a Franchise game. The in-game experience was exactly the same. This year, we wanted to change that, so we went in there and now we lock you to your position. If you create a quarterback, you play quarterback and only quarterback. If you're a wide receiver, you play only wide receiver, and so on. It's called Superstar: Hall of Fame mode and it's a big improvement over last year.

We really wanted to kind of focus on you being the guy you create, and that's more than just the off-the-field stuff -- that's with in-game stuff as well. As you're playing with these guys, we've also added position-specific cameras so you actually get to experience what it's like to play at that position. When you're on defense, you're not looking at the standard camera where you're looking down the field -- you're actually looking from behind the defensive player's shoulder. You get to watch the quarterback as he's looking at you or into your zone, you get to cover wide receivers as they're running all over the field, and you have to react to plays like a normal defender would.

Every position is covered: you can be an offensive lineman, punter, kicker, whatever. They all have special cameras and functionality in the right stick specific to that position. This will provide a brand-new in-game experience in Superstar: Hall of Fame mode in addition to fixing to some of the minor things that were happening elsewhere in the Mode.

Q: Any additions to Franchise Mode this year?

Frazier:Yeah, we touch a lot of things every year. This year's Franchise Mode features something called Player Roles where players, based on their play style and what they're doing, can earn and unlock different types of roles for themselves. If you're a Shutdown Corner, you get that kind of label added to you, and that label impacts you in the game and does certain things to your ratings and your opponent's ratings.

In addition, we also have a brand-new scouting system with the draft. The draft is all-new, so you can better scout players, and we've got Mel Kiper in there giving you some comments on different players in the draft. We think we've added some cool new things to Franchise Mode.

Q: Do you have any integration with the NFL Network?

Frazier: We took out the Football 101 mode from a couple years ago and replaced it with the NFL Network's Playbook Mode. What this is, is a chance for you to go in and look at several plays within each team's playbook, and we have them broken down by Sterling Sharpe. He goes in there and tells you how they should be run and why they're important to that team's success, and we use telestration to showcase some of the key things within the play. Then you get to run that play in real-time to see what it's all about. Using Sterling Sharpe gave us great insight into these plays and why they're important.

Q: Current-gen systems have been out for over five years. Do you feel like the Madden team has been able to maximize everything these systems have to offer?

Frazier:Yeah, I think we've been at that point for a couple years now. Each year, we go to add stuff to the game, and we're almost getting to the point where we have to remove other things from the product or make sacrifices to fit in new features. We're using PlayStation 2 and Xbox and GameCube to their full potential. Every year, it's definitely a challenge as you try to put new things in the game -- you have to maintain a good framerate within the game or people will complain it's true slow. You also have to make sure the game doesn't suffer graphically when you add something else to the game, like lighting or animation. Everything has its plusses and minuses and you have to be careful what you add. You want the game to look great and play great, and we're definitely pushing each of these consoles to the limit.

Q: Anything else you want to add about Madden NFL 07 for the current-gen platforms?

Frazier: The key thing to remember is that we're not abandoning the current-gen systems. Even thought next-gen gets a lot of the hype, we have a full team dedicated to current-gen development. There are improvements to Franchise, an all-new Superstar mode, online is bigger and better -- there are so many things going into the product, it's gonna be a great game. People shouldn't forget about the current-gen versions just because next-gen is out there now.

[Folz]

do we know who is going to be on the cover?

[GROIIIDayton]

Shawn Alexander

[LABengalsFan09]

When do the ratings get released?

[combatbengal]

The game is usually released in Aug so I'm thinking around the July time frame.

[ShulaSteakhouse]

I'm still bitter over ESPN's game being taken away.

[Smackdown625]

I'm still bitter over ESPN's game being taken away.

Yeah, me too. Better game for a lower price....

[Kazkal]

I hope our playbook leads too 5 ints a game like irl lol

"

I'm still bitter over ESPN's game being taken away."

agreed =/ EA coulden't handle the comp even though it still had people who would live and die by madden

[jditty47]

gameplay on madden is 10000000000000000 times more realistic than crappy espn. espn looked good yes, had great accessories and nongameplay features such as halftime sportscenter etc. but the ai isnt nearly as good as on madden.

[Kazkal]

Ohyes it's so realisic to get sacked before you can hand the ball off on a run play or to have every DB run to the WR that was thrown the ball before it reachs him qaud teamed lol or to get stuck on linemen

Madden isen't horrible but ESPN was nice for the football fans that wearn't big on madden now you have 1 choice and only 1 choice =/

[CBin2k7]

ESPN's game was taken away because of the low price. The NFL stepped in and sold their exclusive rights to EA sports because of the $19.99 price tag.

I really think that Madden was getting lazy anyway, and some of the upgrades that they are making are not curing the obvious problems. Hopefully by reworking the defensive schemes they will make the gameplay that much better.

[Bengalhead]

ESPN's game was taken away because of the low price. The NFL stepped in and sold their exclusive rights to EA sports because of the $19.99 price tag.

I really think that Madden was getting lazy anyway, and some of the upgrades that they are making are not curing the obvious problems. Hopefully by reworking the defensive schemes they will make the gameplay that much better.

Give me a break! That is totally wrong. It had NOTHING to do with the price tag of $19.99 by ESPN and EVERYTHING to do with EA buying the rights from the NFL.

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

I'm still bitter over ESPN's game being taken away.

Yeah, me too. Better game for a lower price....

I'm still playing the last ESPN game, and utterly refuse to give Madden a look no matter what they do. What they did was unethical and I won't support them.

ESPN's game was taken away because of the low price. The NFL stepped in and sold their exclusive rights to EA sports because of the $19.99 price tag.

I really think that Madden was getting lazy anyway, and some of the upgrades that they are making are not curing the obvious problems. Hopefully by reworking the defensive schemes they will make the gameplay that much better.

Give me a break! That is totally wrong. It had NOTHING to do with the price tag of $19.99 by ESPN and EVERYTHING to do with EA buying the rights from the NFL.

EA made the NFL PLAYERS ASSOCIATION the right offer, not the NFL.

[CBin2k7]

Give me a break! That is totally wrong. It had NOTHING to do with the price tag of $19.99 by ESPN and EVERYTHING to do with EA buying the rights from the NFL.