Wii, PS3, & Xbox 360 Receiving Competition for Madden?

Most football fans were less than pleased with Electronic Arts' decision to purchase the National Football League franchise just over two years ago.  That essentially lopped the head off of a successful 2K pigskin franchise, forcing the line of sports games to turn their focus back towards the NBA, MLB, and NHL.  The exclusive EA deal has left many Madden players and football fans wondering if the company is really pushing the envelope every August.  Why bother, right?

Well, competition may finally be on the way.  After a few years dormant on the football front, 2K Sports is set to release some form of competition for the EA juggernaut.  Visual Concepts will develop a title called "All-Pro Football 2K8", with a scheduled release date of summer, 2007.

Unspecified recipients are "next generation video game systems".  Considering the past history of success on the PlayStation 2, there's no reason to doubt that the floundering PS3 will receive a version.  Xbox 360 is sure to be on board.  And, if 2K really wants to make a splash, it can improve on the Wiimote football controls introduced by EA last year.

It's not yet clear who gamers will be playing when All-Pro hits shelves this summer.  It certainly won't be Peyton and the boys, as the NFL deal with EA is set to last a while longer.  Speculation is that players may be taking control of Hall of Famers, with gameplay completely unlike the seedy arcade theme introduced by Midway in Blitz: The League.

What would you like to see, Gizmo readers?  Personally, I say to heck with "All-Pro" and hope we instead see "2K Sports Pop Warner".

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4 comments
Posted by CK on January 31,2007 at 11:37 AM
Word ...
Looks like 2K is back on the map. Gonna be hard to battle against the wonders that is EA, seeing as EA has been the premier in sport gaming for so many  years. I know a lot of you sport game fans play for the shear statistical recordings, and others just because it's fun, 2K, EA, even 989 and Midway will be able to keep the industry flooded with options. If it's graphics, gameplay, up-to-date stats, or career simulators, sports games will always have a home. Glad to see someone else is joining the ranks of quality sport gaming.  Welcome back 2K.

Asisde, I'm not a sports gamer AT ALL so my opinion would probably fall by the wayside. I did however love playing Super Soccer Champ on SNES and the FIFA line on PlayStation.
Posted by modsuperstar on January 31,2007 at 11:21 AM
I wasn't too fond of the controls for the 2K games, mainly because I was so used to playing with Madden controls for 15 years.  With that said, I miss the 2K games because they created honest to goodness competition in the market.  Hockey games seem to really benefiting from the competition now as both 2K and EA seem to be innovating in controls and presentation.  I would really like to see this competition make its way back into football games.
Posted by Mikey on January 31,2007 at 10:58 AM
The last football game I played for any console was the NFL 2K2 or whatever for Dreamcast.  My friend really liked football and we were looking for a game we could both play on the same team instead of just him on his computer.  We ended up not playing it for very long because the interface just um well it was not good.  We could not get anywhere in the game and we were both seasoned football game players.  We had no running game yet the computer always broke through.  Our players always dropped the ball the computer always caught it.  We get touched by another player and we fall over for a tackle, four guys slam into them and they keep on running for the touchdown.

Sure it may have just been the Dreamcast game was not made well but I prefer to spend my time playing the hockey games.

On Dooger's note of bad commentating.  In one of the hockey games I played before with the SAME commentator, he frequently made a comment about wishing his wife a happy anniversary in several games throughout the year.  Essentially after about 5 games you hear the same stuff over and over again.  In addition to just casually commenting on who won the game, how about when you win the championship?  The hockey games I remember would do little more than mention what team won the cup.  One game ended with the players skating around with one holding the cup.  Some even ended with just the name of the team in the playoff tree under the Stanley Cup.  One of the early Genesis hockey games actually went through the trophy winners based on the seasons results.  I have yet to finish a season on a sports game since 2002 but am working my way through NHL 2K6 and noticed they seem to be keeping track of people up for trophies and other interesting stats so it looks like there might be more at the end which would make it more interesting and worth going through it for more than just what I might unlock.

Other games have the generic comment that seem unlike what would really happen like Street Fighter.  After the fight the winner makes some remark.  I would beat the opponent just barely, like next hit I would have lost, yet when I win the comment would be like "I totally destroyed you", um no I almost lost.  How about a comment reflecting that?

I think games now should take those little details into account.  Take a look at the stats of games.  83-82 would be a very high score for a football game and that should be taken into a account, unless pretty much every game went that way then it would be unrealistic.  I don't think a stat analysis and basing what is said off that would be too complicated.

The trouble with sports games these days is you can't do much with them to make them just totally better.  The gameplay is the same, you can improve on the look(maybe) and the rosters are updated.  Sometimes a new feature or something is added that could be a hit or miss.  Taking time to look at what people might want to see during and after the game might need to be looked at.
Posted by Dooger on January 31,2007 at 9:41 AM
EA needs to realize that gamers care about more than just how to avoid being tackled. They haven't updated the game commentary in years. John Madden and Al Michaels still say the same inane things 10 times every game. They need to add in interesting stuff between plays (like maybe cut to a shot of the sidelines and show players arguing or something). They also need to make it a LOT more exciting when you win a big game. When I win 83-82 in OT, the commentators should do a bit more than just give a half-hearted "Titans win the game." They should be excited by the fact that they just watched the highest-scoring game in NFL history.