What Madden Can Learn From FIFA
Options
What Madden Can Learn From FIFA
The footballer from across the pond set the bar that EA Sports' biggest franchise must now clear.
by Nate Ahearn
January 14, 2010 - Last year EA Sports outdid itself with the creation of FIFA 10. With that release gamers were met with what was, in my opinion, the greatest soccer game ever made. It surpassed EA Sports' biggest franchise – Madden NFL – in multiple departments, whether it be gameplay, overall design or the coveted Franchise (Manager Mode in FIFA) Mode, the pigskin favorite got beat. I wasn't lying when I said that Madden NFL 10 was home to the most realistic football in videogame history, but it still has a long way to go before it can be thought of as resembling what you see on Sundays.
Thankfully for the Madden series, Tiburon (the developers of Madden) can follow many of the design philosophies and ideals that EA Canada instilled in FIFA – being that the two series are under the same super-empire that is EA Sports. Now all the Orlando branch of the sports conglomerate needs to do is take notice of what worked so well with last year's sports game of the year and adopt it in next year's iteration of Madden. I'm here to point out a few of the more obvious points in the hopes the ensuing Madden NFL 11 will reclaim the trophy for my favorite virtual pastime.
Synergy Between Modes
Probably my favorite design decision EA Canada made with FIFA 10 was to implant some sort of interaction between virtually every mode in the game. It was labeled as Virtual Pro and Madden should concoct some sort of variant for its own purposes.
When you first hop into FIFA 10 you have the option to create your very own virtual pro, much like you would in Madden's Superstar Mode. But instead of that superstar living in a vacuous hole that you must seek out in order to expand your wannabe's attributes and skill set, in FIFA your Virtual Pro is with you whenever you play with his squad. If my created forward is on Barcelona, then every game I play with them will affect my pro. I can complete goals and advance him in Manager Mode and I can bring him online and get skill points for talking smack. Okay, not really, but you can take him online and progress just as easily as you can off.
Madden's entire repertoire of modes would benefit from having this sort of synergistic approach. Imagine creating a player and not having the poorly constructed Superstar Mode as your only outlet to make him a stronger force on the field. Put your player on the Jaguars and even when you hop into an exhibition game with the Jags, you could be improving his abilities. It's a small design change, but it's one that could greatly improve Madden's chances at regaining supremacy in the sports genre.
Authentic AI Performance
It's too often when I'm playing Madden that I see the same instances of AI lapses that I've witnessed for what seems like the past decade. I'm nowhere near one of those gamers who thinks Madden rehashes ideas year over year (I actually think that the amount of content they're able to cram into a game in a short development cycle is pretty impressive), but the amount of times I've seen the artificial intelligence look downright robotic when in standard gameplay is pretty unforgiveable. And I'm talking about this year's game of Madden.
On the other side of the coin is FIFA whose artificial intelligence is able to mimic real world behaviors extraordinarily well for the most part. When you ratchet up the difficulty in FIFA you don't just get faster players who complete more passes, but instead you'll see a better brand of soccer. The art form is articulated very well by the game and the artificial intelligence performs admirably with different types of players.
I'd love to see Madden improve on the aforementioned faults and tune its AI to resemble a more real game of football. The fact that the AI doesn't understand how to utilize the awesomely expansive animation set that's at the user's fingertips is a real shame. Madden NFL 10 had the ability to look very close to the real thing, as is evidenced when a good player gets his hands on the controller, but the artificial intelligence simply doesn't understand how to utilize the move set it was afforded.
Online Dominance
Madden has made hearty attempts at improving its online game, especially this past year and I applaud the development team for that. Online Franchise was great, while Co-op pretty much fell flat on its poorly designed face thanks to bad camera work. Their ideas are certainly moving in the right direction, but Madden should be positively owning the online space. EA should be innovating in a way that stays consistent with delivering an enjoyable game of football (i.e. not having eleven human-controlled players on one side of the ball) that more than two people can enjoy at a time.
I suppose FIFA did have an easier road in the online space. All EA Canada had to do to deliver the finest online sports experience around was make every player on the pitch controllable by a human player and they were off to the races. The feeling of yelling to your friend that you're about to start a run, having him nail a perfectly timed thru ball that slices through the defense as you approach the goal and then hammering home a shot to the upper-90 approaches orgasmic qualities. It's tough to explain and it's rare, but when it happens there is no finer feeling.
So, Madden, co-op didn't work in the slightest. Are you going to scrap the idea or try to improve upon it? I'm not here to offer a specific diagram of how to dominate the online space, all I'm here to say is that if FIFA can do it, then so can you.
Mind the details
Anyone who plays sports games will be able to tell you that delivering a truly authentic representation of the genuine article is wholly dependent on the game's ability to deliver the finest details imaginable. It's in these details that reality and the virtual space can begin to blend together. Take Madden's Procedural Tackling from last year. It did a wonderful job of bringing tackling in line with what's seen on the actual field. Sadly there were still plenty of finer points that needed fixing. Clock management was still a total mess, downfield blocking was nowhere close to where it needed to be and the design of the Superstar Mode was just plain bad in terms of considering the details that could have made it fun.
Thankfully FIFA does a great job of delivering the minutia of its sport. Big guys play like the colossal towers that they are and the little fellas follow suit. Seeing two players jostle their way down the field and watching the nearly endless list of animations – I just saw a totally original circumstance unfold ten minutes ago – transpire on the field is great for the virtual representation of the sport. This attention to detail also extends to the design of the modes and everything in between. It seems as though Madden could benefit from not trying to paint in such broad strokes with modes like Online Franchise, and instead focus on technological advances such as Pro-Tak that help bring the real sport to your controller.
Nail Career Mode
If there's one trend that has made itself evident over the last several years, it's that a single-player career mode is the most original way to deliver a good solo experience in a sports game. This is a glaring area where Madden has failed to deliver. Last year's Superstar Mode seemed as though it had taken steps back from when it was originally conceived. Madden's Superstar Mode should present players with a real depiction of what it's like to be an NFL superstar (within the constraints of the NFL license) the same way that FIFA's Be A Pro mode does.
The construction of Be A Pro in FIFA is wonderfully done so you feel as though you actually are expanding on a list of talents and abilities the more you play. Beyond earning the requisite experience points to improve core attributes, you also earn different abilities to use on the field. It's a very rewarding gameplay experience and one that I sincerely hope Madden adopts when we next see Superstar.
With two truly great sports series it's tough to go wrong, but now that EA Canada has shown me just how great and well-thought out a sports game can be, it's time for EA's Tiburon studio to answer the call and raise their game. One thing's for sure, next year is going to be very interesting.
http://sports.ign.com/articles/106/1061237p1.html
The footballer from across the pond set the bar that EA Sports' biggest franchise must now clear.
by Nate Ahearn
January 14, 2010 - Last year EA Sports outdid itself with the creation of FIFA 10. With that release gamers were met with what was, in my opinion, the greatest soccer game ever made. It surpassed EA Sports' biggest franchise – Madden NFL – in multiple departments, whether it be gameplay, overall design or the coveted Franchise (Manager Mode in FIFA) Mode, the pigskin favorite got beat. I wasn't lying when I said that Madden NFL 10 was home to the most realistic football in videogame history, but it still has a long way to go before it can be thought of as resembling what you see on Sundays.
Thankfully for the Madden series, Tiburon (the developers of Madden) can follow many of the design philosophies and ideals that EA Canada instilled in FIFA – being that the two series are under the same super-empire that is EA Sports. Now all the Orlando branch of the sports conglomerate needs to do is take notice of what worked so well with last year's sports game of the year and adopt it in next year's iteration of Madden. I'm here to point out a few of the more obvious points in the hopes the ensuing Madden NFL 11 will reclaim the trophy for my favorite virtual pastime.
Synergy Between Modes
Probably my favorite design decision EA Canada made with FIFA 10 was to implant some sort of interaction between virtually every mode in the game. It was labeled as Virtual Pro and Madden should concoct some sort of variant for its own purposes.
When you first hop into FIFA 10 you have the option to create your very own virtual pro, much like you would in Madden's Superstar Mode. But instead of that superstar living in a vacuous hole that you must seek out in order to expand your wannabe's attributes and skill set, in FIFA your Virtual Pro is with you whenever you play with his squad. If my created forward is on Barcelona, then every game I play with them will affect my pro. I can complete goals and advance him in Manager Mode and I can bring him online and get skill points for talking smack. Okay, not really, but you can take him online and progress just as easily as you can off.
Madden's entire repertoire of modes would benefit from having this sort of synergistic approach. Imagine creating a player and not having the poorly constructed Superstar Mode as your only outlet to make him a stronger force on the field. Put your player on the Jaguars and even when you hop into an exhibition game with the Jags, you could be improving his abilities. It's a small design change, but it's one that could greatly improve Madden's chances at regaining supremacy in the sports genre.
Authentic AI Performance
It's too often when I'm playing Madden that I see the same instances of AI lapses that I've witnessed for what seems like the past decade. I'm nowhere near one of those gamers who thinks Madden rehashes ideas year over year (I actually think that the amount of content they're able to cram into a game in a short development cycle is pretty impressive), but the amount of times I've seen the artificial intelligence look downright robotic when in standard gameplay is pretty unforgiveable. And I'm talking about this year's game of Madden.
On the other side of the coin is FIFA whose artificial intelligence is able to mimic real world behaviors extraordinarily well for the most part. When you ratchet up the difficulty in FIFA you don't just get faster players who complete more passes, but instead you'll see a better brand of soccer. The art form is articulated very well by the game and the artificial intelligence performs admirably with different types of players.
I'd love to see Madden improve on the aforementioned faults and tune its AI to resemble a more real game of football. The fact that the AI doesn't understand how to utilize the awesomely expansive animation set that's at the user's fingertips is a real shame. Madden NFL 10 had the ability to look very close to the real thing, as is evidenced when a good player gets his hands on the controller, but the artificial intelligence simply doesn't understand how to utilize the move set it was afforded.
Online Dominance
Madden has made hearty attempts at improving its online game, especially this past year and I applaud the development team for that. Online Franchise was great, while Co-op pretty much fell flat on its poorly designed face thanks to bad camera work. Their ideas are certainly moving in the right direction, but Madden should be positively owning the online space. EA should be innovating in a way that stays consistent with delivering an enjoyable game of football (i.e. not having eleven human-controlled players on one side of the ball) that more than two people can enjoy at a time.
I suppose FIFA did have an easier road in the online space. All EA Canada had to do to deliver the finest online sports experience around was make every player on the pitch controllable by a human player and they were off to the races. The feeling of yelling to your friend that you're about to start a run, having him nail a perfectly timed thru ball that slices through the defense as you approach the goal and then hammering home a shot to the upper-90 approaches orgasmic qualities. It's tough to explain and it's rare, but when it happens there is no finer feeling.
So, Madden, co-op didn't work in the slightest. Are you going to scrap the idea or try to improve upon it? I'm not here to offer a specific diagram of how to dominate the online space, all I'm here to say is that if FIFA can do it, then so can you.
Mind the details
Anyone who plays sports games will be able to tell you that delivering a truly authentic representation of the genuine article is wholly dependent on the game's ability to deliver the finest details imaginable. It's in these details that reality and the virtual space can begin to blend together. Take Madden's Procedural Tackling from last year. It did a wonderful job of bringing tackling in line with what's seen on the actual field. Sadly there were still plenty of finer points that needed fixing. Clock management was still a total mess, downfield blocking was nowhere close to where it needed to be and the design of the Superstar Mode was just plain bad in terms of considering the details that could have made it fun.
Thankfully FIFA does a great job of delivering the minutia of its sport. Big guys play like the colossal towers that they are and the little fellas follow suit. Seeing two players jostle their way down the field and watching the nearly endless list of animations – I just saw a totally original circumstance unfold ten minutes ago – transpire on the field is great for the virtual representation of the sport. This attention to detail also extends to the design of the modes and everything in between. It seems as though Madden could benefit from not trying to paint in such broad strokes with modes like Online Franchise, and instead focus on technological advances such as Pro-Tak that help bring the real sport to your controller.
Nail Career Mode
If there's one trend that has made itself evident over the last several years, it's that a single-player career mode is the most original way to deliver a good solo experience in a sports game. This is a glaring area where Madden has failed to deliver. Last year's Superstar Mode seemed as though it had taken steps back from when it was originally conceived. Madden's Superstar Mode should present players with a real depiction of what it's like to be an NFL superstar (within the constraints of the NFL license) the same way that FIFA's Be A Pro mode does.
The construction of Be A Pro in FIFA is wonderfully done so you feel as though you actually are expanding on a list of talents and abilities the more you play. Beyond earning the requisite experience points to improve core attributes, you also earn different abilities to use on the field. It's a very rewarding gameplay experience and one that I sincerely hope Madden adopts when we next see Superstar.
With two truly great sports series it's tough to go wrong, but now that EA Canada has shown me just how great and well-thought out a sports game can be, it's time for EA's Tiburon studio to answer the call and raise their game. One thing's for sure, next year is going to be very interesting.
http://sports.ign.com/articles/106/1061237p1.html
Comments
-
Madden 11 is supposely has new "innovations"
