5 More things Madden Needs to Figure out in its 20s

If you missed Part 1, here it is.

Part 2: Controls

There's not a lot wrong with the controls in Madden. In the thirteen years of the DualShock era of controllers, Electronic Arts has been fairly conservative with their button configurations. The most radical, and welcomed change was when EA decided to map sprint to R2 (RT on Xbox) instead of X (A on Xbox). This freed up the user's thumb for stiff arms and spin moves. Madden 2005 introduced the greatest conceivable feature in a sports game: the Hit Stick.

Madden 25 touts a “Run Free” feature that is designed to give the user more control as the ball carrier. It makes running with the ball more like controlling a player in FIFA, which is always a good thing. There are other areas where Madden can improve its controls so let's hit the list.

5 Things Madden Needs to Figure out in its 20s

For those late to the party: The 25 means its Madden's 25th release.

Rabble Rabble Football! 

It's August.
Madden turns 25 this year.
The human brain is not fully developed until age 25.
Madden is not fully developed at age 25.


PART 1: Infinity Engine 2.0

Backbreaker 2010

Last year Madden added the Infinity Engine which introduced "real-time physics" to the gridiron. That's EA's line, not mine. What actually happened was EA finally took a baby step towards what Natural Motion had already accomplished attempted with Euphoria Engine in Backbreaker (2010).  The Euphoria Engine made Natural Motion's football game an impressive tech demo, but the game was hardly playable.  A radical camera angle kept most window shoppers at bay. The unpredictable passing game kept everyone else out.  On the other hand, every kickoff was accompanied by the first seven seconds of P.O.D's "Boom".  Every kickoff. Every time. A rough outing indeed for the first football game to feature a physics based collision system.

Before Madden 13
Before physics were introduced to Madden, the ball-carrier and defender would meet, and Madden would takeover to decide the outcome of their encounter with an animation. Based on the animation Madden selected for you, your player may or may not get to where you needed him to be. The animations were generally okay, but they removed control from the player.  An animation based tackling system turns every collision into a cut-scene.

Madden 13                      
Swapping animations for physics gives players more control over the collisions that happen on every play. The Infinity Engine 1.0 replaced most tackle animations with physics, but there are many other collisions where it is poorly used, or not used at all.

1. Getting tackled by your teammates.

This doesn't happen on Sunday...

The Infinity Engine needs to do a better job discriminating between gentle contact and knockdown force. Far too frequently, my ball-carrier made contact with a friendly lineman, stumbled, and then crumpled to the ground before any defender made contact with him. This problem plagues all but the very best running backs which makes running between the tackles nearly impossible for some teams. This is bad for balance.  What's worse is that a great deal of plays end in an uncontrollable stumble among your own lineman. 

2. Hurdles!

This looks like Sunday.

This is beautiful.  This is Backbreaker (2010)

This is Madden.

This is ugly. This is Madden 13 (2012)

3. Stumble Control

In Madden 13 there are times where your player breaks a tackle and will begin stumbling.  Sometimes he regains his balance, sometimes he falls.  The issue is that when the character begins his stumble, control is removed from the user.  The user should be granted some control over a stumbling character in much the same way the user is granted some control of a sliding car in a racing game. Stumbling in its current state, just brings the user along for the Madden ride, which is what the Infinity Engine sought to remove in the first place.    

4. Magnetic-Static Blocking 

A player gets blocked in Madden in two steps.

Step 1: Defensive player is drawn in by the offensive player's magnetic blocking field.

Step 2:  The pair engages in a static "blocking embrace".

In Madden, control is wrenched away from the player as soon as they get too close a blocker.  This is the reason it's not fun to play as a defensive lineman. The Infinity Engine 2.0 should make blocking more dynamic and user-controlled....also...pancakes.  

                                                                                                                                      

                                                                                                                       
5. Why does everybody run hard?

If Andy Dalton, an average sized quarterback, were to ever scramble out of the pocket and allow a linebacker to hit him, he would go straight to the dirt.  Neither occurs in Madden 13. Quarterbacks consistently behave like their much bigger teammates at the moment of impact. In reality, quarterbacks do not fight for extra yards at the moment of impact, they look to get down on the ground as safely as possible.

See: Tom Brady

In Madden 13, every quarterback fights for extra yards, and more often than not will try to bulldoze defenders. There are a few slippery quarterbacks in the league, but most of these guys are elusive, not powerful. Also, when these guys slip away, it's usually in the backfield, not fifteen yards downfield.

Stay Tuned for Part 2:Controls

14 things I'd like to see in NHL 14

Today EA Canada gave the first hints of the next installment in their long-running hockey franchise, with the first details to be released on Monday. With that in mind, here's a list of my fourteen most-wanted features for NHL 14. The theme I keep coming back to is making it a truly global game, looking to EA's own FIFA soccer series for inspiration.

1. The Kontinental Hockey League. If EA wants to include all the best players in the world, they need to pony up the cash for the KHL license. One of my favorite things about EA's FIFA is that it includes almost every top league in the world. NHL 13 respectably includes the Swedish, Finnish, Czech, Swiss, and German hockey leagues, but at this point they can't keep denying the second-best league on the planet. Russia's Kontinental Hockey League now boasts teams in seven different countries all over Eastern Europe, with rumored future expansion even into Italy. Most of the best non-NHL players in the world play in the KHL. Why keep stalling, EA?


2. The Olympics! With the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics right around the corner, it seems there's no better time to revamp NHL's international teams. EA probably can't wrestle the rights to the Olympics from Sega, but they could at least get the rights from the International Ice Hockey Federation to use real international uniforms and real IIHF World Championships. I'd love to see international play incorporated into every mode of the game, much like it is in EA's FIFA.


3. College hockey. The Frozen Four is going on right now in Pittsburgh. Why can't I play this in videogame form? The 60-team major junior Canadian Hockey League was added in NHL 11, and it'd be nice to have the U.S. equivalent. Like in EA's college football franchise, NCAA rules would probably prohibit real player names from being used, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make for college hockey in NHL.


4. The ECHL, the third tier of North American professional hockey. NHL already includes the second-tier American Hockey League, and the ECHL would complete the NHL's three-tier farm system pyramid.


5. The Slovak Extraliga, the other major European hockey league not included in NHL 13.


6. Why are my top five requests all more teams and leagues? So the game can have a deeper career system. All these league and team additions would make career modes in NHL that much more dynamic, whether in "Be a Pro" or in "Be a GM" mode. Once again, just look at how EA does it with FIFA.


7. The correct number of on-ice officials. Real-life NHL games feature two referees and two linesmen, but the NHL series has long featured... one referee. And that's it. Would it be that hard to add three more officials?


8. I'd also like to see the on-ice officials made "live" in NHL 14. In 13, the ref is a ghost that players and pucks alike can go right through uninterrupted. But in real life, sometimes the puck will inadvertently bounce off the official and change the flow of play. FIFA already does this, so why can't NHL?


9. A revamped single-player franchise mode. The focus in recent years has been on the EA Sports Hockey League and online play, but for someone who just wants to sit down and play a "campaign," NHL 13 is pretty mundane. It's really just... a series of games. And even if you lift the Stanley Cup, it's just one short mediocre cutscene followed by... another series of games.


10. A revamped standard online mode. While everyone is all about teaming up with other people and playing six-a-side matchups online, often I just want to play simple one-on-one matchups online. The only depth in NHL 13's standard online mode is a leveling system. Can't there be a bit more to it?


11. A revamped interface and menu system. It's far too wonky to get to game modes and make quick roster changes in the game.


12. Improved "NHL Moments". NHL 13 tried recreating situations where the player has to play a highlight from the real-life NHL season, but it always boils down to either "score a bunch of goals" or "don't allow any goals." It's a great idea that's been poorly executed, and it'd be nice to see more dynamic, specific situations in NHL Moments. Speaking of NHL Moments,


13. Better historic teams. Right now players can replay "historic" NHL Moments, but because there aren't really any historic teams in the game, the player will play as Wayne Gretzky with the 2013 Oilers, or Mario Lemieux with the 2013 Penguins. Can't we get historically accurate teams for these guys to play with?


14. A better soundtrack. I know I can import my own songs into the game, but it's a huge roundabout process. What we're left with is NHL's completely horrible butt-rock soundtrack every single year. And only a handful of songs. NHL 13 features 16 tracks, which get to be pretty tiresome when you hear them over and over and over and over. FIFA 13, on the other hand, features 50 songs on its soundtrack. I understand hockey isn't as popular as soccer, but can't we get a few more? And not all hockey fans are Nickelback enthusiasts. While FIFA features a wide range of musical genres, NHL has... Thousand Foot Krutch. And Shinedown. And My Darkest Days. Please, please, no more butt-rock.

If I can get at least one of these wishes fulfilled when the first details of NHL 14 are released on Monday, I'll be happy. We'll see.

What modern sports games tell us about competition in the market

There's been hubbub lately about Sony's upcoming baseball simulator MLB 13: The Show being, for the first time, the only baseball video game on the market. Sports video games, once a genre full of games made by competing companies in each sport, are nearly now down to a single game per sport. Want some NFL? Better play Madden. Want hockey? Better play NHL 13. Many people worry that this lack of competition in the annual sports game market will lead to studios getting lazy and publishing the same product year after year, since consumers have no other choice if they want to enjoy their preferred sport in virtual form.

Let's take a closer look at the last ten years of critical reception to sports video games. Any farther back and the market gets veritably flooded with other competing sports game franchises, many of which lasted only a year or two; the last decade has seen a relatively consistent market. I normally don't look at aggregate review scores to judge the quality of games, but annual sports games are a unique genre--objective improvement is slightly more conceivable here than in other types of games. All my statistics in this article are taken from the review aggregator site GameRankings.com.

American football

We want to believe competition breeds innovation, right? Nobody likes monopolies. It's simple economics. The posterchild for this is the biggest sports game franchise in the United States, EA Sports' colossal Madden NFL series. While the series has gone downhill since 2004 when EA bought the exclusive rights to NFL video games, this may be the exception, not the rule, when it comes to the results of competition (or lack thereof) in sports games:

We talk about competition in football videogames like it was yesterday, but Madden has had nearly a decade on its own now. It's been a bumpy road that's never quite reached the glory days of a bygone gaming era. Much of players' anger directed at EA stems from the fact that rival 2K Sports ended its football career on a high note--the final game in the series, ESPN NFL 2K5, is considered by many fans to be the pinnacle of virtual gridiron.

Baseball

2K Sports' pigskin franchise was a life cut tragically short by EA's multimillion dollar deal. So what did 2K do? They fired back, of course, by buying the exclusive rights to the next-biggest American sports league: Major League Baseball. But unlike EA's NFL deal, 2K didn't take into account that they only got exclusive third-party rights to MLB. The major console manufacturers are still allowed to internally develop their own pro baseball games, and that's exactly what Sony has done. Let's take a look:

Approaching Camera Angles in Sports Games

I'm a big hockey fan. This year, EA Sports announced a big new addition to its hockey sim stalwart NHL 13: a new "true broadcast camera" angle! As realistic as the NHL series has become, the most glaring difference between real hockey on TV and virtual hockey is the camera orientation. While most hockey video games usually use a vertical angle to replicate the players' perspective, TV broadcasts use a horizontal view to create more of a balance between teams' camera space.

So does it work in NHL 13? Not really. The horizontal perspective makes local multiplayer easier since neither human-controlled team has to be going downwards, but for standard single-player and online gameplay, most players will stick to the vertical angle. NHL's analog stick controls were built around the vertical view, and the developers knew this: despite touting the true broadcast camera in marketing, the default settings for the game are still set to the classic vertical view.

It hasn't always been that way. Konami's 1987 Blades of Steel and Nintendo's Ice Hockey the following year (pictured here) were two of the most influential 8-bit sports video games, and they both featured the horizontal perspective.

But as soon as EA Sports got into the game with NHL Hockey in 1991, they introduced the vertical camera to hockey gamers. It's been the standard angle for hockey in video game form ever since.

What about other sports? On a basic level, soccer (football) has many similarities to hockey: two teams trying to score on each other's net, guarded by a goalie. But strangely enough, after going through a few changes (including an isometric view in 1993's FIFA International Soccer), the industry standard today for soccer video games is the horizontal perspective. Basketball games have settled on this angle as well.

Hockey isn't an anomaly, though. One of the best-selling game franchises in the United States, Madden NFL, uses the vertical angle. While the angle in NHL remains the same throughout the duration of play, the camera in Madden actually makes a 180º flip whenever the ball changes hands. This is easier to accomplish in (American) football because possession doesn't change nearly as frequently as it does in hockey.

Baseball is a league of its own, due to the sport's asymmetrical gameplay. While the standard camera angle for batting is behind the batter (instead of behind the pitcher, as it is in TV broadcasts), it matches television angles when the ball is in play and the game switches to a wider angle of the action.

So will hockey video games ever change full-time to the "true broadcast camera"? Even if you're not a sports fan, we can all learn something from studying sports games' approach to the camera. Capturing a game within a game--adapting an existing real-world game to video game form--presents a huge array of philosophical questions for game design. It boils down to balancing what's best for gameplay with how to best simulate the real world events players are already familiar with.

The most riveting online video game experience of my life

I've become fairly skilled at EA Sports' NHL series as of late. I don't play it for hours at a time, but I play a couple quick games online every day to blow off steam after work.

I'm not a big fan of online multiplayer gaming in general. I even write for a website called Only Single Player. NHL is my exception. I almost don't see it on the same level I see all the "arty" games I play. The other games are there to give me some sort of intellectual fulfillment. NHL is there to fulfill my carnal gaming instincts. I used to play it against the computer, but eventually real human opponents are the only way to truly challenge your skills at a competitive game.

NHL 12 is not a perfect game. Players are assholes online, so they still try to get in fights with you and take shots on goal during every single stoppage in play. And when they get desperate, players online ALWAYS go for the cheap, glitchy wraparound goals. Even after all EA's tweaking, wraparounds are still the best way to take advantage of faults in the goalie's AI.

But on a twitch-impulse gameplay level, NHL 12 is immaculate. The developers have perfected the game's controls--players have total control over every aspect of their virtual pros' skates and sticks.
I've been on a roll lately, winning five games online in a row. They're ranked matches, so if you play well, you get matched up against other players who are of a higher skill level.

Tonight, I played a level 31 match--the highest I've ever played. I was feeling a bit cynical after winning so much, so I decided instead of playing as an NHL club, I'd play as a minor league team. I chose the Hershey Bears, the farm club of my hometown Washington Capitals.

Joel Rechlicz is mediocre at hockey. But in my virtual hockey game, he was vital.

Usually, it's NHL 12 online etiquette that if one player chooses a minor league or European team, the other player does the same so they're on a level playing field. But nope, my opponent tonight stuck with the NHL's St. Louis Blues. "Uh oh," I thought to myself. "This is the highest ranked match I've ever played online, and I'm playing as a minor league club against one of the best teams in the world." And then the game began.

Of course, the Blues scored right away to take an early lead. But amazingly, after endless forechecking and offensive pressure, I got one back! It continued this way through the duration of the game, my opponent and I trading goals--although I never had the lead. It was always St. Louis going ahead, and my team coming back to tie it up.

When my opponent was leading 4-3 in the third period and one of my players took a two-minute penalty, I thought the game was over. But alas, not only did I kill the penalty... I scored a shorthanded goal! Game tied, 4-4!

At this point, my hands were aching. Along with NHL 12's perfect controls come the attrition of constant attention to detail in playing. You can't passively play NHL 12. So not only was I in this heated online matchup, but I was facing the possibility of real-life injury to win the game. NHL features cutscenes during stoppages in play that people normally skip through to get to the real gameplay, but this late in the game I took every breather I could to rest my shaky hands for a few precious seconds.

And with the third period almost over, my star player Joel Rechlicz--perennial minor league enforcer, mediocre goal-scorer--scored his third goal of the night to complete a hat trick and win the game for my Hershey Bears. I nearly cried tears of joy.

This whole experience took about twenty minutes, but it felt like three hours. When the match finally ended and I emerged victorious, I rejoiced like I never have with a video game before.
While many game critics write off sports games as simple diversions, I felt legitimate emotional connection to my experience in NHL 12 tonight.

Thoughts on the NHL 11 demo

The demo for EA Sports' upcoming NHL 11 was released to Xbox Live and the PlayStation Network yesterday. I've spent hours upon hours playing NHL 10, so I was eager to get my hands on the demo for the new one. Thoughts:

The good

• The revamped faceoff system is awesome. Tons of different options for the dot. I wonder if some of the techniques will be exploited online, though.
• Broken sticks are a lot cooler than I thought they'd be. I love that sometimes the player can go pick it up, but sometimes it just sits there on the ice for 5 minutes like in real life.

• I didn't really understand the "quick dekes" EA was touting until I actually played. It means while in NHL 10 you could only deke "left" or "right," in NHL 11 you can change stick direction mid-deke. It's invaluable on breakaways when you're trying to deke the goalie in a tight situation.
• The Hockey Ultimate Team mode is awesome, and makes for a surprisingly beefy demo. It's very similar to FIFA 10's Ultimate Team, but it's much more refined. The whole "value vs. potential" aspect and limited training slots per player make every decision even harder. I will spend forever in this mode. And unlike in FIFA, NHL's Hockey Ultimate Team comes packaged with the game when it hits stores September 7; you don't have to buy it as a separate download.
• Menus and interfaces have been partially overhauled, which I've wanted for a while now. We'll see if that carries over into every game mode.
• The new TV-style presentation is spectacular, a huge step up from last year. I especially like the subtle touches of giving little details on the scoreboard before faceoffs, things like players' faceoff percentage and teams' power play efficiency. A couple little flaws I noticed in the demo though: info on players will have a background the color of their team (i.e. Flyers players will have an orange background), and when I played as a team with yellow info backgrounds, you could barely read the small white font signifying their goals, assists, etc. Also, when I played against Team Canada in the demo, the intro sequence presented them simply as "TEAM". Hope that gets fixed.

• The Canadian Hockey League's inclusion is great for more than just the 60 extra teams you can play as. All these added prospects means that Manager Mode, Be a Pro Mode, and the new HUT mode will be much deeper than before.
• The ice surface is a huge step up from last year; it looks more worn out. Perhaps that's why there are scratches all over Mr. Toews on the box art.
• Player models, especially their faces, are upgraded from last year.
• It'll take a while to get used to the new passing control (holding RT longer for harder passes), but I imagine once I adapt to it, I won't be able to go back. No more ping-pong passing.
• The real-time physics engine means the hits look great, but I found myself pulling off massive hits far too often. I hope this is only for demo purposes, and it'll be toned down for the real game.
• The new physics also mean the game has a slower, less arcadey pace than NHL 10. At first it felt like playing in peanut butter, but after a while it feels much more realistic than its predecessor.

The bad

• Presumably, the Flyers-Blackhawks Battle for the Cup mode included in the demo is representative of the Stanley Cup Finals in NHL 11. Bummed out teams playing in the Finals still don't get the Finals patch on their jerseys, although I guess it'd be tough to generate random patches that haven't been designed yet for future Finals.
• Also sad playoff beards still haven't found their way into the game--2K Sports' inferior NHL 2K series has had them for a few years now.
• I don't like that the demo lets us see our team lifting the Cup! That would be like the end of Fallout 3 revealed in the demo. I understand it's there to get attention, but I still wish the demo ended at the end of the game. It's nifty to see the presentation of the Conn Smythe Trophy, though--I don't recall that being in NHL 10, but I may be wrong.

• There's still the issue of jersey stretching--if a player outstretches his arm, you'll see the nameplate on his sweater stretch with it.
• Judging from the sample of players available in the HUT demo, it looks like the Kontinental Hockey League and Slovak Extraliga haven't been added to the game (I'd also like to see the ECHL, but that's further down my wish list). It may be because of the huge addition of CHL teams this year. If EA can add the KHL and Slovak Extraliga, they'd have every major hockey league in the world represented in the game. Rumor has it EA is working with the NCAA to include Division 1 college teams in NHL 12. That will be awesome.
• I hope EA secures the rights to the official IIHF uniforms for national teams, so we don't have to endure another year of national teams with "generic sweater + country flag" uniforms. It'd also be nice if we can pick if we want to play in North American or international-sized rinks, regardless of what team we're playing as.
• We want to see the Winter Classic! EA Canada could even take the Ralph Wilson Stadium and Heinz Field models straight from the Madden team at EA Tiburon. There may be some copyright issues with using Wrigley Field and Fenway Park since 2K has exclusive rights to Major League Baseball video games, but I'm sure EA could find a workaround. If it were in NHL 11, though, it probably would've been announced by now. I hope it makes the cut next year.