National Football League

Madden NFL 11 review

Published Aug. 11, 2010 1:00 a.m. ET

foxsports

For years, the "Madden NFL" series has been building features, gameplay modes and control mechanics for the hardcore football fans of the world. It was trying to emulate even the smallest details of NFL football and EA Sports enjoyed lots of success with its endeavors. But in recent years many newcomers were turned off by the complexities that "Madden" brought to the table.

With that in mind, EA created "Madden NFL 11," an iteration of the series that is built with the mainstream fan in mind, while still not losing any of the hardcore-focused accoutrements that have made their way into the package in past years.

While using the right analog stick for more than simple juking is great, the biggest departure for this year's "Madden" in terms of control is the elimination of turbo on default settings. At first, it's weird, yes. But before long you'll forget what using a turbo button felt like. Now your player just adjusts his speed accordingly. Rarely did I find myself outrunning my blockers, as the artificial intelligence (AI) was usually sharp enough to make its own changes in speed.

Another great addition in this year's gameplay is the ability for your AI teammates to actually land successful blocks and hold them long enough for you to utilize them if you can read the defense correctly. You might notice this working almost too well in conjunction with the new right analog control scheme. I had no problems breaking off multiple 300+ yard games on the ground en route to a 15-1 season on the All-Pro difficulty that used to give me trouble in past "Madden" games.

On the defensive side of the ball, EA Sports tried to turn all of the hot routing and assignment changing functionality you're used to into something called the Strategy Pad, but the results are a bit frustrating. You navigate through options with the D-Pad, adding one extra button press to access the aforementioned functions. Anyone playing against a fast-paced offense is going to be a bit handcuffed to make their adjustments in time before the snap.

All in all, the core gameplay on the field is great and looks fantastic in motion. The players have a nice level of polish and they move with the elegance and power you'd expect from top NFL talent. There are still moments when it's clear that you're playing a video game, but mentioning them in a negative light would feel almost nitpicky. The replay system has also been re-crafted to better articulate all of the cool animations on the field. Now if only I could save a replay and share it with my friends -- or put it on YouTube. Then I'd be truly happy. The fact that so much cool stuff happens is great, but I really want to be able to show non-"Madden" players what I'm yelling about without having to call someone over to my desk or record something on my cell phone.

For all of the cool gameplay features that have been developed for this year's game, the most debated will likely be a huge departure for the series called GameFlow. It's an automated play calling feature that shortens a typical gameplay experience to about 30 minutes -- where it used be closer to an hour -- by theoretically cutting the amount of plays from more than 300 to one. I think if you're someone who's new to "Madden," or if the complexities of figuring out formation types was too much for you in the past, you're going to enjoy the bulk of what GameFlow does for you. On the flipside, if you're a hardcore football fan who really knows their X's and O's, chances are you aren't going to use the feature all that much. The AI makes some bone-headed play calls that, while they won't be noticed by casual players looking for a quick game, will likely be lamented by hardcore veterans of the series.

EA Sports did take the time to beef up a few of the presentation elements that were missing from last year's game. Gus Johnson has replaced Tom Hammond in the commentator's booth and provides easily the best voice I've ever heard in a "Madden" game. His intensity brings a lot to the experience, even if the technology running under the hood leaves something to be desired. His speech is still too fragmented, which is probably a symptom of this being his first year on the job. I'm sure they'll expand and give him different ways to describe the same event so you don't get an identical piece of dialogue on every long run. This is certainly an impressive start to Gus's tenure in "Madden," I just want more of his awesome intensity.

The other big addition in the way of presentation elements is new Super Bowl celebrations that do a great job of delivering the weight of the event. Winning the biggest game in football no longer feels like any other Sunday. Now Gus delivers team-specific commentary to let you know that what you just accomplished is something special. Oh, and President Obama makes an appearance. How cool is that?

I think it’s clear that this year’s "Madden" is geared toward the mainstream football fan -- someone who just wants to come in after playing a game of catch outside and get their hands on some real NFL talent. For that audience, "Madden NFL 11" delivers. However, if you’re the type of player who sits alone in your living room combing the free agent wire for a player to add to your beloved franchise, this year’s "Madden" may leave something to be desired.