In a country obsessed with sport in general, you would think that sports games would be best sellers. And when there has not been a good rugby game in years, you expect that American Football would be a worthy substitute. Funny though how the Madden games has not really been good sellers in South Africa. It must be due to the rivalry that occurs between padded and unpadded, helmets and no helmets. I guess rugby fans are just not mad for Madden.

In the US though, the Madden games has been selling like hotcakes. Every year a new game is released and every year the changes have been minimal. Apart from the obvious roster changes and a few new graphical bells and whistles added, there has not been anything to really write home about. It has to be said that EA Sports almost never releases a game that was worse than the year before. They are constantly improving and upgrading. It is the times when the difference is so minimal that it is almost imperceptible that fans cry foul and the game gets a lukewarm reception. This year the franchise brings a few added features to the table to try and win over some fans that are not hardened Madden fans. The fans will obviously buy this game regardless.

EA is renowned for their slick presentation of their sports games, and Madden 11 does not disappoint. A fancy introduction with an easy menu system makes it easy to slot the game into the console and get into a game in a matter of seconds. The music is smooth and never gets in the way. During game time it really feels like you are watching a game on television, complete with commentary that never seems to repeat itself and crowds that get suitably excited.

None of this is new though, as it is a near copy of the previous game’s feature list. One thing that has changed is the amount of time spent in the menus or fiddling between set plays. If you wanted to “play” football, you were always interrupted with picking plays, making subs, calling time-outs and waiting for the huddles and the snaps. Now you can let the coach on the side of the field make the plays for you, and you just follow them. This feature is called GameFlow, and is supposed to make the game flow better with less stops and starts. For the most part it works rather well, but as the coach gives you some reasoning behind his choices, I often found myself calling audibles from the pitch and rather playing those. Often the coach will also try something very silly, and I suppose that could make him just feel more real. We all agree that coaches can be pretty silly sometimes!

To make better use of your own brilliant plans while on the pitch, you can change the whole game plan and combine that with the GameFlow system. This will give the coach a general game plan to follow, and his calls from the side will correspond with that. The game planning can either be a general game plan, or situational based. Say you are 3 and short, rather than try a daring pass, you can try a run straight down the middle. In order for the coach to call this play you can give it a higher rating in this situation and the coach will use it in the next match.

All of this contributes to the natural flow of the game, and seems a lot more realistic. But NFL games are never actually very fluent. It consists of loads of scrimmages, huddles, time-outs and in a 15 minute of “game time” you may actually only have ball in hand for 5 minutes. This is probably the biggest reason why the rugby mad South African does not take well to the NFL.

Apart from the gameplay options above, you still get your standard play options. Either take your team through the entire season, all the way to the Super Bowl, or play as one of the original 8 teams in the AFL. You can also customize your team and create a few custom players. Needless to say my created player was a 7 foot tall monster of a man with muscles the size of pumpkins. Yet he still maintained speed and agility. Luckily growth hormone and steroids testing is not done in the game.

Tackles are as bone crunching as ever, and controlling your running and throwing feels as natural as it ever has. Passing is still a matter of hitting the right button corresponding to the runner on the field. Reading the field and seeing which runner is open requires quick scanning and precision timing.

There are a few animation problems that crop up every now and then, the most obvious being the ball that snaps to a receiver’s hands. When a ball is being thrown and the receiver slightly overruns the pass, the ball will magically snap to his hands anyway to make a brilliant catch. This can be quite frustrating as it seems to happen to the AI team more than to me!

The game, as most team sporting titles tend to be, is best played against another human player. Couch co-up is a blast, but finding a local player who actually knows the rules of the NFL and has some gaming experience is a bit of a hassle. Luckily the Xbox Live version is very good. Finding a player or even a few players to play against is not a problem, and the game design allows for some significant lag before it affects the outcome of the game.

Secondhand games and the whole market that has sprung up around it are apparently cutting into EA’s profits. In order to get a slice of this secondhand market pie they now require an online pass for the multiplayer games. This pass is a code that can only be used once. If you buy a traded in game you can always buy a new pass for the nice sum of $10. This offsets the secondhand price nicely against a new copy of the game, and any online players will probably go for a new title anyway then.

Madden NFL does nothing drastic to improve its spot at the top of the football games. Locally, seeing as it is the only real contender, this does not mean they can rest on their laurels. The new GameFlow and game plan mechanics combine very well and allows the generally slow stop start affair to be a little bit more smoothed out. Overall Madden fans may rest assured that they will get the best NFL game available and the best Madden game ever. They need to decide if it’s worth the cost to upgrade if they already have last year’s copy. In my opinion the answer is no.

The good: Improved fluidity in the game with less stop-starts; best Madden ever.
The bad: Yet again not enough to warrant a new release; only American Football game in SA.
The ugly: Remarkably the ball snaps to the AI’s catchers.

Purchase: