After Electronic Arts' Neil Young explained his issues with Revolution to Gamasutra — confirming EA's Revolution activity in the process — this morning we have, courtesy GameSpot, some details on one of the titles they have in the works: a Revolution-specific version of EA's breadwinning Madden football franchise.
Development on the title is not being handled by EA's Tiburon studio in Orlando, where Madden development has been handled exclusively in years. Instead, a special Revolution-focused group in EA's Burnaby, British Columbia studio is handling the title.
GameSpot reports on how the title will play, based on an advanced scouting report:
Players will hike the ball by mimicking a quarterback receiving the ball from the center, and then pass it to a receiver by making a throwing gesture with the free-hand controller. The faster the passing motion, the more of a bullet pass it becomes (in previous Madden editions, bullet passes were made by holding the passing button down longer).
Kicking the ball will be accomplished by sweeping the controller up as if it were a kicker's leg striking the ball. A fast, level swing will make for a hard, straight kick.
The Revolution controller will also come into play when running the ball, as jerking the controller left or right will make the ball-carrier juke to either side, while shoving it straight ahead will make him stiff-arm the opposition.
GameSpot has interviewed EA Canada head John Schappert about the title and EA's Revolution plans. Schappert formerly held the top position at the aformentioned Tiburon studio. Schappert talks specifically about the Revolution-focused team:
GS: In the past, I imagine EA would be happy if everyone would buy Madden on one of their systems. If you have it on the GameCube, EA's not expecting to sell it to you on the PlayStation 2 also. Is the Revolution version of Madden going to be aimed as a supplement for the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 versions?
JS: I think Madden Revolution is unique and would complement any version of Madden as well as stand on its own. What's neat about it is we've taken a different approach with the Revolution than we have in the past. We've created a separate group that we have in Canada here that's doing Madden and some other titles and they're just focused on Revolution. Their whole mantra is to create Revolution-specific versions of these games that are created just for the Revolution. So Madden Revolution will be very different from any other version of Madden you play. It'll be tailored just for the Revolution, which means we're spending a majority of our time making the control, which is very unique and different...specific for that machine.
Schappert also talks about EA's general strategy targetting Revolution owners:
GS: What can you say about EA's plans to bring other franchises, other familiar names to the Revolution? Is this something that we'll see unveiled across all the major brands eventually?
JS: I can tell you that we're working on titles other than just Madden right now and we're not unveiling those just yet. I think you'll see continued support for Revolution and you'll see EA continue to bring innovative titles that maximize the power of the machine. What's important to us is we've recognized the uniqueness of the Rev and how innovative it is, and what we don't want to do is say, "Hey, there's another platform, lets port a game to it and get it on that platform." Unless we can maximize that game for the power, the uniqueness, and the innovative control, we're going to wait until we know how to do that right to bring those franchises there. What I'm proud of is all the franchises we have in development have very innovative control schemes as I've just described for Madden. They're maximizing the power of the machine: the control, the WiFi. What makes the Revolution unique is what our focus is for our Revolution group and the titles they're working on.
GS: So we won't be seeing straight ports to the Rev?
JS: I don't think Revolution consumers want straight ports. We want to bring out games that are great for the Revolution. And that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to take our expertise, and happily having a great football engine that we can count on solves a lot of problems. You don't have to sit there and worry about, "Let's get the game to play great football AI." It's more about, "Let's get the game to play great on the Revolution with a brand new, unique control device." Which is really the problem that we think all of our games should be solving on the Revolution.
Electronic Arts will have the new Madden title in playable form at the upcoming E3 2006 expo. No release date has yet been set, but it's at least reasonable to expect it this year.