Electronic Arts Reveals Next-Gen Madden

Tim Grube writes "Electronic Arts has released the very first image of Madden NFL running on the next-generation consoles. This Saturday, on April 23rd, the NFL Draft begins on TV and EA has already scored a promotional commercial to unveil Madden Next-Gen. It will air on ESPN."

canned movie or real time game footage?

[Anonymous Coward]

notice that EA isn't actually stating that the screenshot is of gameplay, and gamespot is only implying it yet never clearly states either.

Re:Newsflash

[MBCook]

I agree to a large degree, but at least we can glean SOME info from this. I won't watch the commercial (it will probably be on the net within a 1/2 hour anyway). Here are the things I would watch for:

• Crowd - Is it just a flat polygon? Sets of flat polygons? Undetailed models? Semi-detailed models? Is there dynamic detail (does it look better up close if the camera zooms in?)
• Players - This is the one to look at. How good do they look? Recent games look quite good, but they could be better. The animation is the biggest problem here. While they may have motion captured realistic running, when you switch from running to jumping for the ball or something like that it is usually quite a noticeable transition. Did they get these smooth? Do the players look very detailed up close?
• Misic - Footsteps in snow for all the players (bonus points if they don't dissapear after 20 steps or so)? Depth blur? Hear blur for hot days? Does the grass look like grass, or a green texture? Having actual grass when they zoom in on the ball or action instead of a green texture would be very cool.

I'm sure people who play these games on any regular basis (I'm not a sports person) could come up with more. Personally I'd like to see a GT4 killer. GT4 looks awesome, but it is still obvious it is a game. Take GT4, make it hi-def, ANTI-ALIAS IT, add damage to the cars, increase the background detail and you could have one FANTASTIC looking game.

Hopefully we'll see more screen shots and movies soon as we get closer to the launches (and the XBox 360 unveiling on the 12th).

And personal note to MS: Don't make a cool looking game like Malice this time, only to release it as a terrible "me too" game 3+ years later.

Graphics?

[jone5ey]

Why is everyone making such a fuss over the graphics? I wouldn't mind if they put in the crowd from the original genesis version if the game played right. Madden 2005 had so many major gameplay flaws like the Offensive linemen not being able to block, and several rules where not implemented. You could have a receiver go out of bounds and then run back in to catch the pass with no flag. EA should focus on these things before they even start revamping the graphics. And hey, how about a decent PC version with all the features from the consoles?