iPad app review: Madden NFL 11

by Enuh Iglesias

With this year’s playoffs promising an exciting Superbowl match, Madden on the iPad is a perfect shot in the arm while waiting for the next brutal elimination. EA Mobile, of course, is responsible for creating the hugely successful franchise on various platforms, with the iPad being its latest receptacle of football glory.

I must confess, first off, that I don’t know much about football, except vicariously through my boyfriend who happens to be a lifelong Chicago bears fan. Years of teaching me patiently about the ins and outs of the sport only bore fruition when I downloaded Madden 11 NFL on the iPad as a gift and casually began playing it.

To give EA Mobile credit, capturing the nuances of football is a pretty difficult task but the franchise has been doing it admirably for years. The iPad version is a huge leap from the confusing and cramped screen of the iPhone and iPod Touch, and makes the game much more accessible to newbies to the sport.

There are several game modes to choose from – season play, playoffs, vintage voltage, and multiplayer. Playing offense or defense for the first time pulls up a rather lengthy but useful tutorial. You can play using the standard playbook and take it from there, but advanced players can customize the gameplay by playing game flow mode on and adjust their plays on the fly.

Player rosters are comprehensive, offering individual and team stats for the avid football fan. However, although updated rosters are routinely available, overall team and player ratings have yet to reflect the current standing of the teams and players. This is a bit disappointing if you want to make the game reflect the current performance of your favorite team especially now that the playoffs is on-going. During the game, you can also make substitutions, use audible mode to adjust your play, call a timeout, and the like. Weather conditions, a factor in these games is also customizable (snow, rain, evening, sunny, etc.) but so far the weather doesn’t really affect the gameplay as it should in actual games.
In addition, you can adjust the level of difficulty by playing either regular mode or All-Madden mode. This is standard Madden stuff.

Multiplayer makes the game ten times more fun, and you can take on another player head on through Bluetooth in your team’s best home or away jersey. The only problem playing via Bluetooth is that the experience still leaves a lot to be desired. Multiplayer is significantly slower, with stutters and lags hindering smooth and intense head on combat.

When playing the offensive, you start out by choosing a particular play, including the formation and different styles – short pass, long pass, run and special (for the special teams). A nice pan and zoom function allows you to see the lines of the game drawn according to your chosen play and choosing where to throw the ball is as simple as tapping on buttons corresponding to the receivers’ numbers. In normal mode, these buttons are highlighted in green when chances of completing the throw are good, yellow if a bit dicey and red if plain difficult, or nearly impossible.

Graphics and sound effects are hi-res and polished, although the players don’t look as realistic compared to other Madden platforms. Game controls are generally responsive, but using individual action buttons can be a pain. When playing against the computer, you have to activate the timer button to select a particular action. In multiplayer mode, the action buttons are readily available. However, most of the time, these buttons don’t work as well as they should and it’s often simpler to just use the speed up button and just hope for the best. The lack of a zoom out function to see the entire field during gameplay also makes it difficult to anticipate opponents that come from out of nowhere and suddenly tackle you.

All in all, even with its flaws, Madden 11 NFL is a thoroughly fun and engaging game for football aficionados and newbies. Just live with the flaws if you just want to play football, you’re good to go. Hike!

NFL Madden 11 for iPad in the App Store

app review: Madden NFL 11 for iPhone

It’s become extremely clear this month that the iPhone has come into its own as a gaming platform. At the same time that Sony is releasing ads criticizing the quality of iPhone games, EA has released its second iteration of its flagship Madden franchise for the iPhone. Last year’s Madden game set the bar very high, but as with any Madden game released on a platform after the first, the question remains whether this year’s version is any more than a roster update compared to last year’s version.

If you don’t own any Madden games for your iPhone and you’re wondering if Madden measures up to the console versions, it does, with some limitations. You’re not going to confuse the iPhone version of Madden with the 360 or PS3 versions, but it’s definitely at least as good as you might expect the iPhone version to be, if not better.††Don’t hesitate to pick this up, even at the current price of $8, if you want a football game for your iPhone and don’t yet have one.

If you’re considering upgrading from Madden 10, however, that question is a bit more complicated. Most of the gameplay in Madden 11 is fairly identical to Madden 10 (rosters aside, obviously), which, on the whole, is a good thing. For instance, passing is still done by tapping on the receivers, and the Action Control system that lets the player slow down the action temporarily, a highlight of the original iPhone Madden, returns for Madden 11. However, what device you own and your play style could make the difference between a purchase and a pass when it comes to this year’s incarnation.

The most obvious change in this year’s version is the GameFlow system, which replaces the old Ask Madden system for having the computer suggest plays (which was missing from Madden 10 on the iPhone anyway). With GameFlow turned on, you are never even presented with a play calling screen; the game just advances from play to play automatically, while continuing to provide the option to either change the play entirely or draw hot routes for your players on the screen to adjust the play. Turning GameFlow on and off is as easy as flipping a switch on the screen in between plays.

In theory, GameFlow is fantastic, especially on the iPhone where you likely don’t have a ton of time to play in the first place. I also like it a lot more on defense, where I’m less confident with/interested in strategy than I typically am on offense.††In practice, however, it seems to skew very heavily toward running plays, which makes sense for some teams but not others. For instance, I play as the Patriots, and giving the ball to Laurence Maroney instead of Tom Brady for three out of four plays would have the fans in Foxborough screaming for blood. What’s more, I found scrolling through plays with GameFlow off on the sluggish side, which can be frustrating. That said, if you really just want to play Madden like an arcade game, GameFlow is a great addition to the game.

On the defensive side, Madden 11 adds Total Defensive Control, accessible by a button in the bottom center of the screen once the play starts. Pressing this button pauses the game and allows the player to either direct each player on the defense either where to run or queue up a button action (jump, swat, dive for a tackle, etc.). I do like this feature, because the standard Madden style of defense (switch to the closest player and then try to intervene in the split second before they get the ball) has never really worked for me. It can be kind of overwhelming to try to decide what eleven people should do on every play, but I do like having the additional option, and it does add a bit more realism on the defensive side.

The graphics are improved to take advantage of the iPhone 4′s Retina Display, and the difference is very noticeable. The player models are much clearer (if a bit on the blocky side) and you can even see individual fans in the stands instead of just a multicolored animation. I actually fired up Madden 10 to see how it looks on my iPhone 4 and it hurt my eyes in comparison. So for iPhone 4 owners, upgrading is worth it for the graphics alone.There are still some issues with the animations, though; it often seems like the players don’t quite collide properly on tackles, and some of the reception animations aren’t clear whether the ball was caught or not.

The sound is still a weak point of Madden, unfortunately. Though the game has supplemented Madden and Cris Collinsworth with Gus Johnson, the commentary still is really inadequate. You’ll hear the same few lines over and over again, even within a single game, and it’s even wrong, occasionally. Play by play is understandably difficult to do at all, and even more difficult to do well, especially given the space constraints of the iPhone. That said, however, it’s jarring enough in its current incarnation that it’s almost worth just leaving it out altogether if it can’t be done better than it is currently.

So should you buy this first “roster update” version of Madden for the iPhone? Again, if you don’t own Madden 10, absolutely; this is a full featured football game to rival those on other portable gaming platforms for one third of the price of a comparable version on the DS or PSP, and you don’t even need to carry around a separate device to play it. Similarly, if you own an iPhone 4 or are a casual player, then the new features (Retina graphics and GameFlow, respectively) make this version of Madden a giant leap beyond its predecessor. If you don’t fall into any of these categories, then it’s really a toss up. But even just as a roster update, you’re still getting a current, full version of Madden for less than you would pay for last year’s version on other gaming platforms, so it’s not nearly as bad as, say, a $60 roster update on the 360 or PS3. If you didn’t like last year’s version of Madden for the iPhone, this year’s version won’t change your mind, but otherwise, Madden 11 improves on the formula enough to be worth a purchase for more than just this year’s rosters.

Madden NFL 11 for iPhone is in the iTunes App Store for $7.99