One of the most popular sports titles ever to hit a console system has been the Madden series of NFL style football games which have developed an enormous following for fans of the genre. Each year the games try to up the ante and fine tune the play experience to give gamers an even better, more realistic or more entertaining experience – depending upon the goals of that release. This year, the focus is on speeding up the action so that the games will play more quickly than they did with the 10th installment of the series. The developers are looking to reduce the standard game time of nearly an hour from Madden 10 down to only half an hour for Madden 11. Publisher Electronic Arts’ EA Sports division is in charge of the release and has made the decision that designers can totally alter the play calling system so that coordinators for both defense and offense will give players advice on what sort of play they could execute to gain an edge over the competition on the field.
Using the patented GameFlow system unique to the Madden series, the game will be able to leverage the built in AI to reduce play time by half since the computer will show players which plays would make the most sense in their given circumstances and eliminate the need for having to decide which play would work. This is a boon for gamers who are not strategy oriented or who lack an in depth knowledge of NFL play books.
