[kobeskool]

Madden hands on from gamespot. http://www.gamespot....lusives;title;1

[santana]

To give you a quick glance of your team's (and your opponent's) abilities on the gridiron, you can press the left trigger before the snap; the camera will pull back, and you'll see all the different weapons on the field, with icons indicating their specific specialty.

This is something i wish didnt exist. It would be cool to not know what their abilities are... that way who ever knows their team or all the players the best in and out of the game would have an advantage.

[S-Dubb]

This is something i wish didnt exist. It would be cool to not know what their abilities are... that way who ever knows their team or all the players the best in and out of the game would have an advantage.

Yea but just like in real ball players know where the threats are and they gameplan accordingly. From what I've been reading their saying that everything can be countered so neither the offense or defense can have a specific advantage. If you use you're options at you're disposal you'll be able to counter whatever you see. "so they say"

[S-Dubb]

Madden hands on from gamespot. http://www.gamespot....lusives;title;1

I'm pretty sure I posted that someplace in here.. It's all good though

[S-Dubb]

new madden blog. With video.. good read

http://www.easports....ennfl/blogs.jsp

[santana]

never enjoyed any of the sound tracks. i always turned all the tracks off and just put on my own stuff.

[santana]

never really thought rock fit with madden. it sounded so cheesy specially when they had that jet song. the band jet that is.

[S-Dubb]

Rock can fit madden, but that band is horriable, and way too corny to be in a Madden video game. The type of music that should be in Madden is fight music. The type of music that gets you ready for the game of a lifetime. A couple good songs would include:

Metallica - "Enter Sandman"
System Of A Down - "X"
Staind - "Suffer"
Pearl Jam - "Leash"
Drowning Pool - "Bodies"
Rage Against The Machine - "Killing In The Name"
Slipknot - "Wait and Bleed"
Adema - "Unstable"
Limp Bizkit - "Break Stuff"
Hatebreed - "Bound To Violence"
AC/DC - "If You Want Blood"
Offspring - "Bad Habit"
Chevelle - "Comfortable Liar"
Soulfly - "Jump Da F*ck Up"

That would be fight music in the rock genre. Anyone of those songs would probably be good in a football video game.

I'm no expert on rock but those songs would be good the thing is.. is all of those tracks wouldn't be on the a NEW madden game. Chamillionaire was only known as a Houston Texas underground rapper until madden 06 came out. All of the sudden he's getting tons of notiriety now. Madden puts out underground artists and "in the now" types of bands. Although it would be a great thought to have powerhouses on the soundtrack like you mentioned it won't happen.

I happen to not mind the track they play in the trailer though. Kinda of sounds like a newer age Beasty boys... Maybe i'm trippin'

[kobeskool]

The soundtrack isnt a big deal to me. I only hear it when im getting ready to start a game.

[Amen]

the 2K Sports soundtracks were awful... putting on bums like Aesop Rock and Mr. Lif... boring ass nerd rap before a sports game? Jesus... thank god for custom soundtracks.

[BESTHANDS8381]

I personally like all the Madden sound tracks. Since 2004 most if not all the songs I have enjoyed or grew on me and I neva had a problem wit um. dunno what the big deal is. They are good songs and a good amount turn out to be hits.

[S-Dubb]

New 08 gang tackling vid.. o8 for 360 is looking promising.

http://www.easports....den-nfl-08.aspx

[kobeskool]

New 08 gang tackling vid.. o8 for 360 is looking promising.

http://www.easports....den-nfl-08.aspx

They finally put that in. NFL 2k5 had gang tackling a long time ago.

[santana]

They finally put that in. NFL 2k5 had gang tackling a long time ago.

i doubt it compares to this. this is so smooth... looks very promising.

[LeonhardSkynyrd36]

definitely getting the annual pre-madden jitters, and definitely going to be there at midnight

[S-Dubb]

Madden Producer Talks 08 Features
Jun 8, 2007 4:10pm - Author: John Gaudiosi

LOS ANGELES--EA Sports Producer Jeff Luhr was on hand at the first annual Rookie Madden Bowl at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, where several members of the development team cyber-scanned the heads of the top 35 NFL rookies from this year's 2007 NFL Draft. While eight rookies battled it out on Madden NFL 07 on Xbox 360, Luhr was on hand to show the newcomers their first look at Madden NFL 08 on Xbox 360. And he was able to show these Madden fans their all-new stats, which have about 40 different attributes for the new game. Luhr took a timeout to talk to ----------- about the latest Madden game.

Can you explain how the new Weapons work in Madden 08?

Our new feature for this year is what we're calling Know Your Weapons and the idea is isolating key players on teams so trying to separate the superstars. The Colts have three different kinds of receivers and they all play differently--Marvin Harrison's got the spectacular catches and everybody plays different. So the idea is that now they'll all play differently in Madden. To counter that, on the other side of the ball, there are hit sticks. If a guy's going for a high catch you want to hit him high or if you have a big guy coming through the middle you want to hit him low. It's really turning Madden into more of a chess game, if you will. It's how my side can look at your weapons and see what my options are and audible in and out of situations. It's adding a layer of strategic gameplay that we haven't had before and it's a lot of fun.

Do you think this might open up the game to newcomers?

I think it also opens up the game to people who are new to the game. It educates them on who's the go-to guy. If it's third and long and you know you have a brick wall back, you know that's the guy you want to go to instead of your speed guy. For the fans who are experts, they can see the match-ups. They may play with a couple of teams and know those teams really well, but when you're matching up with a team that you may not know as well it's really going to help you understand who to isolate and who to go after.

Can you talk about the new player ratings that Madden 08 introduces this year?

The idea behind the player ratings is that every player rating we add helps to define that person. It gives you a lot more things to judge players on. The more attributes a player has the more individualistic they can be and the more dynamic they can be and it really separates them from other players in the game. That's an important thing for us. Rating really allows us to bring that individuality into the game.

A lot of the players complain that their ratings aren't accurate in the game. What do you say to that?

No number we ever do is high enough or right for those guys, it's kind of funny. We have a team that just spends all their time on ratings. We have an exclusive deal with the NFL now and that allows us to bring in coaches and assistant coaches. We get every NFL game in a high 22 cam so we can isolate the play. We have guys crunching film, going out to the combines and talking to coaches, so we work really hard to isolate stuff. It's always tough with rookies because they haven't been on the field, so that's always the biggest challenge. But for guys who have been in the league for a while, you just have to do your due diligence and we take stats from a myriad of places and that's how we shake out the ratings.

Some players have suggested that EA should put together a panel of players to help decide ratings for Madden. Any thoughts on that?

We definitely talk to players about what it's like on the field. We don't talk to them about ratings, because any time you try to do anything like a player panel they're going to juice all of the ratings no matter who it is. It's a tough thing. Those guys will focus on one or two ratings. They'll look at their speed is high and their agility is high but my overall is low. Well, there are 40 other ratings now to compare and contrast. You have to roll all of that together to come out with the overall rating.

Can you talk about the new game and some other features players will find?

Madden 08 is chock full of things this year. Every year we do a ton of features and we really blow the depth out of Madden. For me, Owner mode is now in next gen for the first time as Front Office mode. Everything from Xbox and PS2 is now in Xbox 360 and PS3. The thing that's most exciting for me is how we've tightened up gameplay. This is the best-playing Madden ever. We have the 60 frames per second and we have new branching animations. Instead of catching the ball and rolling out of bounds, you're going to be able to stop, plant and run up the sideline. We've been able to get to a lot of stuff that we haven't been able to get to in the past because we have such short development times. Runners will move the pile and juke around. We've added so much to the actual gameplay that it's never been as responsive as it is this year.

When I was watching the rookies play, it looked like the players were getting tired in the game. Is that true?

Players now get tired when they play the no huddle. It's dynamic that players get tired. If you're Michael Vick and you're running left to right, you're going to get tired during the past, rather than after the play.

What were you able to do with the rookies today?

One of the things we try to do with our license is authenticity. Whenever we can get a group of players together, obviously these guys are rookies so they've never been in Madden before, we head scanned JaMarcus Russell, Michael Bush and Brady Quinn so their likeness is actually in the game. Their likenesses will be in Madden 08, so it makes the game as accurate as possible.