Madden NFL 12 Message Board older than one year ago

Tom Brady Madden 12 / Madden 11 (difference) Overall: 99 / 95 (+4) Speed: 58 / 58 Agility: 54 / 58 Awareness: 98 / 97 (+1) Throw Power: 95 / 94 (+1) Short acc: 98 / 93 (+5) Mid acc: 96 / 91 (+5) Deep acc: 89 / 89 Aaron Rodgers Madden 12 / Madden 11 (difference) Overall: 98 / 94 (+4) Speed: 79 / 73 (+6) Agility: 81 [...]

EA ups the ante with Madden NFL 12 in this trailer featuring the legendary coach Vince Lombardi shown at their Press Conference at E3 2011!

Peter Moore just took to the stage at the Microsoft E3 2011 press conference to announce some new Kinect-compatible sports titles. Four upcoming games will sport Kinect functionality -- PGA, Madden, FIFA and "one we'll announce later."

Moore did not reveal how Kinect would be utilized in these games, though he did hint at being able to physically call audibles in Madden.

EA Sports president Peter Moore announced the company is bringing four titles to Xbox 360 that support Kinect...

#preview Beat on a quarterback for 45 minutes of an NFL game and you'll see a different guy in the fourth quarter. Some start forcing every throw. Some will run like hell. Some go catatonic. More »

It happens every Sunday. A player blows a play and it impacts their performance for the rest of the game. It digs into their head and suddenly one dropped pass becomes three drops and some poorly run routes. Some players are more susceptible to these things than others. Sometimes it starts to affect...

Marshall Faulk is the first athlete who has graced a Madden cover and is being inducted into the Hall of Fame. To celebrate this marketing opportunity, EA is releasing a Hall of Fame Edition of Madden NFL 12, replete with bronze, embossed cover, an autographed Panini trading card (inedible) and a Madden Ultimate Team Platinum Pack -- in-game collectible cards for Madden NFL 12's supplementary mode, Madden NFL Ultimate Team.

Oh, and if you're a Peyton Hillis fan, you can hit the jump to check out the official Madden NFL 12 cover. If you're not a Peyton Hillis fan, then don't sweat it: you can still daydream about how the curse will get him this season (if there is a season).

[Thanks, Matt]

The latest episode of South Park is ... well, one of the stranger recent episodes of South Park, an observation you probably made after reading its title: "Crack Baby Athletic Association." In the show's typical fashion, the episode is a hyperbolic, metaphorical critique of the treatment of professional and collegiate athletes, and their complaints of being denied royalties for media which feature their likeness. One target of the show's scathing barbs was EA Sports, headed up by one "Mr. Peters," a mock-up (pictured above!) of real-life studio president Peter Moore.

You can watch the full episode for free online over at South Park Studios. We've contacted EA Sports to see if it has any comment on the show -- considering it's South Park's second send-up of the developer, we imagine its hackles might be a little raised.

#madden When Madden NFL 11 released last year with a virtually unchanged Franchise mode, Josh Looman expected to hear about it. He just expected to hear it on the message boards. More »

Madden NFL 12 is looking to be the most robust offering the series has had this generation. Major improvements to the presentation, Superstar mode, Franchise mode, and online are expected this year. Here's what you need to know about the big changes...

"Any given Sunday" isn't just the title of a bad football movie; it's an old adage that you never know what you're going to get when players step out on the field. Anything can happen. Your star QB could sling it five yards past every receiver. Your shaky rookie cornerback might come up clutch with a game-changing interception. Over the course of weeks and seasons, players are defined by their tendencies and begin assuming roles in their teams...

#john*crag*ingmadden As an avuncular living-room presence for three generations, it's easy to forget John Madden was the head coach of the Oakland Raiders back when they were the Raiders, and he had to lead characters like Ted Hendricks, Phil Villapiano, Jack Tatum and Ken Stabler. So Madden's proficiency with the F-word should not be astonishing. More »

They say football is all about "team," but who doesn't come into the NFL dreaming of being a superstar? Developer Tiburon is hoping to make gamers feel like gridiron studs with some long-overdue improvements to Madden's Superstar mode...

#watchthis The Colbert Report tackled the latest innovation in Madden NFL 12 last night, with pseudo-conservative host Stephen Colbert—no stranger to video games—blasting EA Sports' "horrifying new feature" that sidelines Madden players suffering from concussions. More »

#madden Madden NFL 12 will present concussions realistically - as realistically as removing a player from the game, forbidding his return, and delivering commentary that highlights the seriousness of the injury. The game will not include suspensions for players who dole them out; nor is there any way to intentionally cause one. More »

#sports Gus Johnson, who debuted as the play-by-play announcer on the Madden NFL series last year, is out as an NFL commentator at CBS, meaning the enthusiastic boothman will be working NFL games only virtually in the upcoming season. More »

Madden executive producer Phil Frazier has confirmed, via Twitter, that Madden NFL 12 on the Wii will support the Classic Controller. Wii football gamers have long requested the feature. (His tweet was in response to this question from a fan.) More »

Take a look at some of the new features coming to the field this season in Madden NFL 12.

True to the game, EA Sports has entered Spring training and getting ready for the opening kick-off of the Madden NFL 2012 Season.

Even if you don't know who that guy is on the Madden 12 box, you've still probably got a pretty good idea of what's inside. No surprises here -- it's still a football video game. But, true to tradition, this year's iteration will include some new features.

On the field, Madden 12 players will be equipped with "the #1 most requested feature by fans in recent years" -- go on, guess! ... Wrong. It's custom playbooks, which can be modifications of existing playbooks or your own concoction of up to 400 offensive or defensive plays handpicked from the piles of X's and O's. Custom playbooks can also be integrated into the "improved" GameFlow system (last Madden's much ballyhooed feature).

Once you actually call a play (or GameFlow calls one for you), EA would have you take notice of the "all-new collision system" -- we're talking "over 100 new tackle animations, including 40 gang tackles" (ouch!) -- and the now more "advanced" defensive AI, a.k.a. "the smartest Madden defense ever." And be sure to give props to the "completely overhauled presentation," which includes "innovative 'real' on-field cameras shot by expert NFL Films cameramen." And, really, how else could you experience the "hundreds of visual improvements" (including really detailed blades of grass!), if not through the innovative "real" on-field cameras shot by expert NFL Films cameramen?

But the roster of updates doesn't end there -- we just have to. Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months as EA reveals more about the revamped Franchise and Superstar modes; the new "Dynamic Player Performance" feature (it's "just like the real NFL," only still pretty much a video game); what's in store for the "Madden NFL Ultimate Team" add-on this year; and the proper etiquette for joining one of the new "Online Communities." And by then, it should be football season! Fingers crossed.

#madden He's the first Madden cover star from a losing team. The first with no Pro Bowl appearances at the time of his selection. He led NFL running backs in one statistical category last year - fumbles. More »

#madden Two videos give the first look at Madden NFL 12's gameplay, calling attention to gameplay (above) and presentation details added for this year's game. They don't cover everything. There are three deeper discussions of the game's defensive and collision upgrades and fully customizable playbooks. More »

EA doesn't care if there's an NFL football season -- it's still set to release Madden NFL 12 on August 30. And the team at Tiburon is looking to bring some big improvements this year...

#ruhroh EA Sports recently uploaded - then quickly yanked - a YouTube video teasing Madden NFL 12 Madden junkies love to pick these things apart for clues about this year's new features. In so doing, they also found the Buffalo Bills' new uniforms - a design not yet announced. More »

If you're a big fan of NFL football, you know who the name Peyton Hillis. The 25 year old running back had a breakout season last year for the Cleveland Browns, rushing for nearly 1,200 yard, receiving for nearly 500 more, and scoring a cumulative 13 touchdowns...

After an exhaustive 32-man bracket of fan voting fervor, EA finally has its Madden NFL 12 cover man: Browns running back Peyton Hillis. If your first question regarding this is, "Who?" congratulations: you're not from Cleveland.

Hillis shocked the world last season by being a player on the Browns actually worth talking about. His 1,100 yard, 11 TD season sprung out of a 5-11 record for the team. As one of the few lone bright spots on the squad, Hillis quietly amassed a fervent following among the Browns fan base and, over the course of EA Sports and ESPN's voting bracket, actually managed to garner more votes than NFL stars like Falcons QB Matt Ryan, Ravens running back Ray Rice, and Super Bowl XLV MVP Aaron Rodgers.

His final competition was Eagles QB Michael Vick, who became the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year last season after a huge season for Philadelphia that led to a fairly typical Eagles post-season--one of abject disappointment. Vick would have seemed the logical, popular choice, though his chances may have been hurt by the fact that he apparently used to be way into killing dogs for fun and profit.

Hillis now need only avoid the Madden Curse, that long-running superstition that being awarded the coveted cover spot of a Madden NFL game is the endorsement deal equivalent of the Sword of Damocles. Gracing the cover has often led to, at best, a sub-par season for the featured athlete, and at worst, some kind of terrible, career-altering injury.

Though it's hardly iron-clad proof of any Madden-related hoodoo, stars such as Daunte Culpepper, Eddie George, Marshall Faulk, Donovan McNabb, Ray Lewis and Shaun Alexander have all suffered some manner of misfortune immediately following a cover appearance. Vick himself was once a cover victim as well. After taking the cover spot for Madden NFL 2004, Vick missed 12 games of the season after suffering a broken leg... not to mention all the years of financial turmoil and legal torment that followed after his status as an aficionado of competitive dog murder came to public light.

But hey, Hillis is probably going to be fine, and we here at Giant Bomb would like to offer our congratulations to Peyton and the people of Cleveland, who haven't had it easy in recent years, what with LeBron James and the economy and the suffocating weight of nonstop depression and all that. We also extend our condolences to EA Sports, who now have to figure out how to market a video game with a Cleveland Browns player on the cover. We're sure they'll figure something out.

#blip Fans selected Peyton Hillis, the Cleveland Browns running back, to grace the cover of Madden NFL 12. Hillis prevailed in a five-week, tournament style vote-off that drew nearly 13 million votes, and was the final round winner over Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Michael Vick. More »