Madden NFL 2005: Defending a Winning Tradition

Madden NFL 2005 brings defense?and drama?into its game of football.

When you?re the league champ, everyone comes gunning for you with their ?A? game. In 2004, Madden NFL football sold more than any other videogame topping over 4 million copies. So what?s the strategy that developer EA Sports Tiburon plans to use to remain king of the hill? Dee-fense!

Defensive Smarts
?This year we want to give players the same tools and abilities to make big plays on defense that we?ve been giving to the offense for the past few years,? says Jeremy Strauser, producer for Madden football. ?We want to make it as fun to play defense as it has been to play offense.?

One way to do that would be to make the artificial intelligence (AI) smarter. Madden?s defensive AI has been fortified to put defenders in the right position more often to make plays. The concept is called ?assists? and is most frequently used in auto racing games to keep cars stable on the road. For example, if the offense calls a running play pursuit angle assists will automatically direct each defender to find an optimal line of attack on a ball carrier as he moves down the field. Against passes, coverage assists will make AI-controlled defenders go for a swat or an interception if a pass comes into their range.

Stick It to ?Em!
Don?t worry the AI isn?t going to do it all for you. Defensive game controls get a cool upgrade called simply the Hit Stick that increases the opportunity for single defender to make a big game-changing play. Once you maneuver a selected defender into position, you can flick the right analog stick to try to deliver a monster hit. Notice we said ?try.? Although you might make a big stop or even cause a fumble, if you miss you might tumble out of the play or wind up with a face full of turf. ?You can?t run all over the field flicking the stick as you go,? Strauser warns,? you?ll just end up taking yourself out of the play.?

This is a timing based system that enables you to flick the right analog stick to make a defensive player leave his feet to deliver a brutal hit. In the preview builds using the Hit Stick took a little practice. The ?hit? responds to a simple flick of the stick that?s a brand new movement to master. It?s not hard to do, but your tendency to jerk the stick back produces nada. Still a skill-based attack move as part of the individual defender?s repertoire is great.

Read and React
Of course, any armchair coach can tell you that defense is all about reading and reacting to the offense. Last year?s version of Madden gave the offense a great on-the-fly weapon by enabling you to use the Hot Routes feature to change pass routes for star receivers at the line of scrimmage. This year you can similarly mix things ups to keep the offense off its toes. A new Hot Routes-style feature will enable you to change defensive assignments at the line to initiate tactics like flat zone coverages, hook zone coverages, blitzing, and quarterback spying with any defensive player. Simply highlight the player and a simple stick moves makes the assignment.

Additionally, prior to the snap you can now choreograph an entire ballet of defensive adjustments. In addition to shifting at the line you can make the defensive line crash to any side or all rush to the outside. You can rush either outside linebacker or call an all-out blitz. Defensive backs get their own suite of refined moves. Depending on the defensive play you?ve called, you can shift the safeties to either side. You can also focus on individual matchups of DBs on receivers and make your defenders play off the receivers or use bump-and-run coverage. Finally if your safeties are in zone coverage you can decide to double-team any receiver.

If all that sounds like a ton of stuff to analyze and execute prior to the snap?you?re right. Welcome to the Madden NFL in 2005! But don?t worry you can make some global, pre-game defensive decisions, too, such as pre-setting the DBs to double-team the opposition?s star player all the time.

Looking Like Football
Madden 2005 is also prepared to put on a show! New animations provide more types of sacks and slick refinements like making players hop over piles once a play is dead.

Player bodies are much more defined with shoulders and arm muscles more accurately proportioned. Jerseys wrinkle and move more realistically, and even shoulder pads move independently of the rest of a player?s body.

NFL stadiums also get a Madden makeover. All stadiums have been rebuilt to scale with the player models. Real-time weather effects and time-of-day lighting will change during the course of a game. Additionally, the traditionally sparse sidelines will finally get the full visual treatment with a full-team bench and other sideline attractions. In Franchise mode, you even get to design your own fanatic fans who appear in the game cinemas.

NFL Drama
Besides the fan builder, Franchise gets a few more neat upgrades. Storyline Central is an impressive new feature that ultimately will put a new layer of strategy on top of sports franchise modes. It brings all the individual drama that occurs every day in real-life sports such as coaching changes, contract disputes, or playing-time issues and makes it affect the performance of your franchise.

?We?ve even implemented a player morale system,? Strauser says, ?where players are either happy or unhappy based on many different types of events, and that in turn affects all sorts of different things on the team whether it?s team chemistry or individual player ratings during a game.?

How will you as owner know all this? Through the media of course; just like real life! Madden 2005 will ?publish? 32 unique newspapers all based in your team?s home town that all report headlines that reflect your Franchise moves. Even Tony Bruno from Fox Sports Radio gets in on the act as host for Madden?s EA Sports Radio show. The show plays in the background as you operate in Franchise mode. In his show, Tony runs down the good and the bad moves you?re making with your franchise!

Winning Form
With or without the drama, the Madden football franchise is one of those games that seems to take on a life of its own. ?It?s like Madden?s a part of the popular culture now and we have to live up to that,? says Strauser. ?The last thing we want to do is let people down. Every year we look at the game as a whole new product not just and upgrade.? With the improvements on the defensive side of the football this year, Madden NFL 2005 is certainly looking like the complete package.

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