New Next-gen Madden Screen(s), plus info about 1st commercial

EA would allow Microsoft to do a lot of things if it made them a lot of money, which this move will do. It will be a year before they can make a PS3 Madden, so they might as well cash in now with the Xbox 360 craze. Besides, I'm sure Microsoft gave EA some "thank you" cards, if you know what I mean.

And I doubt Madden 2006 for current-gen platforms will be a waste of money (at least, to those who bought them normally). I'm sure they will be splitting their focus between the two games, but it sounds like they got some things still left to exploit this gen. The whole vision passing stuff mentioned recently sounds interesting, and I'm sure EA may have some more tricks up their sleeves, not to mention updates galore. Plus, you still have to pay ~$300 for the Xbox 360 and possibly $60-$70 for Madden Next-Gen (I guess I'll call it that for now). Granted, I doubt many will have too much of a problem justifying a Xbox 360 purchase, but it may be easier just to pay the $50 for Madden 2006 and wait until a cheaper Xbox 360 or a PS3/Revolution in 2006. Of course, if you have the money, you'd get the next-gen version, but for those regular Joe's, I'm sure Madden 2006 won't be too much of a letdown, if any at all.


As for the whole gameplay shots or not thing, I'm still out on the fence. Obviously, there isn't any gameplay situation where you would be that far zoomed in on a player, and it would be difficult to have each player on a football field look like that, plus the refs, plus the cheerleaders, plus the coaches, plus the fans, etc., and still have next-gen gameplay as well (better animation, physics, etc). That said, I've seen better stuff that this from next-gen games. If you know what normal mapping looks like, you can really notice it on the arm of the last screen. Again, if these were just renders, I would think EA would have made it not so obvious.

For those doubting that this could never be gameplay pics, check some of the following, especially the videos:
http://www.artificialstudios.com/media.php
http://www.artificialstudios.com/videos.php
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/html/technology/ue30.shtml
http://www.1up.com/do/download?cId=3138759
http://www.elderscrolls.com/art/obliv_screenshots_01.htm

IIRC, all that stuff was being done on hardware that has been out for a little while (want to say Radeon 9800's for a lot of them) and were getting decent framerates. Now, consider that these new consoles will offer so much more power than that hardware (except for maybe ram, although the bandwidth helps), and you can see how great looking some of the games can look. If this is what EA can do, I can't wait to see what developers like Capcom, Konami, Team Ninja, Square-Enix, Namco, etc., do. Fighting games will be gorgeous. *imagines next-gen Soul Calibur or Tekken*

 

Guess it is Wednesday already:


Another

BTW, this reminds me that I read McNabb is supposed to be on the cover for the next Madden. As a Cowboy fan, I'm kind of happy about that...if you now what I mean.

 

IIRC, the 4th link I gave earlier has some links to videos of Unreal Engine 3.0. In demo 3 or 4 (can't remember which), they show off the engine's streaming ability. From what I remember, they show this jeep-like vehicle going around this city that probably looks at least as good as the cities in Half-Life 2, only without the loading. After going through a bit, the camera zooms out and shows off a gorgeous view of the city and some water. It just floored me. Considering that a GTA will probably be made using the same idea, only with much better hardware and tweaks, it will be amazing to see what Rockstar will come up with. I'm sure they still won't be the prettiest games around, but they will probably make the best looking games right now, including PC games, look old.

The NBA stuff should look great considering how much less there is going on in an NBA game as opposed to a NFL game. Plus, they may have more time to work on an NBA game. It would be great to have some sort of physics though. Imagine some complex physics engine that accurately shows how T-Mac can create a 3 point play while getting hacked by Shaq...although it would suck to see the physics part of him falling down from a flagrant by Shaq.

Final Fantasy and other games from Japanese-based companies should look great as well. Normally, those companies have excellent art design. I mean, if they can get this and this out of the PS2, I wonder what they can do with next-gen hardware.

I've been bored all day, kind of wishing that last pic didn't come out until sometime today. Depending on when they release the next one, I'll have to wait a while before I can critique the next image. Stupid EA and their teaser images.

Since I'm posting, I'll go ahead and post this article from CNN about Madden and the Xbox 360:

 

Day 4 pic:

 

Day 5 pic:


And a preview of the commercial, along with something interesting facts, from IGN:

So these aren't really gameplay screens, although they plan on putting out an even more impressive game as far as graphics are concerned. I've read similar things from one of the Tiburon artists on another forum. He doesn't get too specific obviously, but he has said a few times that we haven't seen anything yet.

Also, the comment about the jump from this gen to next-gen will be bigger than the PS1 to PS2 is pretty interesting. Some people have argued that this jump may be more like the DC->Xbox instead of a PS1->PS2. According to this comment, it will be a big jump in graphics, which should explain why they predict even better graphics I guess.

There was that patent on a matrix-type technique that Sony had patented a few weeks ago. Maybe we're a lot closer to that than we think.


So remember to catch the NFL draft tomorrow for the commercial. I know not many people care about the draft and have many other better things they can do than watch some uneventful draft for professional football, but at least you will get to watch this commercial.

 

The commercial just came on. I didn't quite expect it this soon. My overall impressions are kind of bleh. They probably should have just aired that Nike CGI commercial considering how unrealistic everything looked. Some of the animations still look like this-gen stuff. It did look pretty good though, and if EA can do better than that graphics-wise, then things will be good...of course, you won't be getting close-ups of the TO's eyeball during a game, so I don't know how much that matters.

I need to watch it again. I hope they have some downloads for it pretty soon. I'll try to post it here for anyone who misses it.

 

That was quick. It looks like you can get it here:
http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox/1854/Madden-NFL-NextGen-Commercial/

Wanda/Shadow (different name depending on regions) of the Colossus. It is made by the team that made ICO. Gorgeous game.