The Fall is fast approaching and so is the upcoming NFL season, so for gamer this means it is time for some Madden NFL videogame football. Last year's game was riddled with miscues, so the developer set out to improve the game this year.
Gaming site IGN sat down with Josh Looman, senior designer for Madden NFL '13, and discussed many aspects of the game including the new Connected Careers mode, the lack of imported rosters and some other features.
During the interview, the game designer talked a lot about what Madden NFL '13 is trying to do with the new career mode, online play and the games artificial intelligence.
"With the career mode this year we really wanted to make sure that when you are matching up with your buddies in your league that the game is competitive and fun," Looman said. But we also wanted to make that when you are playing against the computer team week in and out that it is a challenge. Rarely do you have the opportunity to just dominate."
Madden's new connected career mode provides player with a way to level up their in-game players. The feature is very similar to role-playing games, something that is a sports gaming first, according to Looman.
"So we really wanted to make sure that we got that RPG element in there," Looman said. " I think it is the first true RPG in a sports game. Obviously there are a lot of people like myself that play madden, play sport games and still play other game and love other games. So making sure people are familiar and have a very similar {RPG} experience is a great thing."
Looman also discusses the subject of Madden's artificial intelligence, its learning ability and how it is important that the engine keeps gamers from being able to run the same play over and over.
"The one thing we want to make sure that doesn't happen is obviously is that if you keep calling the same play over and over and its successful every single time," Looman said. " That breaks the realism threshold. Just like the real NFL you have to make sure you use strategy and you don't get predictable. In the NFL if you are predictable you are going to get beat by 40-points."
Despite all of the implemented innovations in this year's Madden NFL '13, the game lacks one feature that has been common in previous releases. The game doesn't have the means to import NCAA draft classes. This has been a shocking development for fans of the series. According to Looman the feature was left out of the game because EA has not perfected the feature.
"We really wanted to do import draft class, but we didn't have time to do it the right way," Looman said. "I don't want to do it, in till we can figure out how to do it right. I promise the fans we are not going to do it till we do it right."
Watch the rest of the interview here and look at the video below to learn more about Madden's Connected Careers mode.
What do you think of Madden NFL '13 not having the ability to import NCAA '13 draft classes?