ven as EA’s latest ad campaign tells everyone to rest up this summer for Madden NFL 06, there’s no escaping a wired Game Informer staff. We were able to corner Producer Phil Frasier into telling us everything he knows about the new NFL Superstar Mode, changes to the franchise mode, the PSP version, and even a little bit about the Xbox 360 version. Get everything you need to know about the Madden NFL 06 right here, and get a heap of high resolution direct feed videos!
Game Informer: Can we jump forward to just a general gameplay question? Last year you guys wanted to cut down in “jet packing” by the receivers. It seemed to cut down the receivers’ effectiveness because one-on-one passes a lot of times weren’t caught by receivers because it was too easy for the defensive backs to cut down the angle of the ball by jumping. Whereas the wide receiver had to just stand there and couldn’t jump. Has anything been bouncing out on whether receivers will be jumping again, has anything been done to make it a little easier for receivers?
Phil Frazier: The jet pack animation was more of an exploit fix, the animation itself wasn’t the problem, it was the way the AI used that animation. People found a loophole in the AI where they would literally take the receiver as he’s running his route, set him up like three to four yards behind the landing spot of the ball and switch off the receiver and he would always play that jump catch animation, and when he played that animation, there was no way to defend it. So the quick, easy fix was to take that animation out for the offense.
This year, you can jump with the receiver, but you can’t jet pack. Now what has to happen is first: a defender won’t be able to make a play unless he’s looking at a pass so he has to know that the ball exists which is kind of why we have the head turn stuff. He should be a lot less likely to make a play on a pass either through swat or trying to pick it if he’s not looking it down. We also had several “über swats” where the defense could be six yards away and the offensive players who’ve already caught the ball and the defense has this swat animation that plays where he comes out of nowhere and is able to swat it down, we have definitely tuned all of those back so if the guy is just flat out of position, he’s not going to be able to make the play. We have been working on that balance and it’s a tough thing. With the jet packing, it made passing ridiculously easy and we don’t want that to happen again but at the same time we want it to be fun, we want to be successful, we want it so you can bomb it to Randy Moss and be successful with it because that’s just bread and butter. It’s defiantly something we looked at this year and we think we have it pretty solid.
GI: Say you want to playing just a basic game or you might not want it to be as in-depth as the game is with the QB Vision - can you turn that off?
Frazier: You can. There is an option in settings to disable it and it can be disabled per user so say if I’m playing you and you want to use it and I don’t, I can actually turn it off while you keep it on. So that way you get all those precision elements and all that control and all the bonuses and I can disable it and receive no penalty.
Vision In Action
GI: Now will the AI change at all since I’m obviously a more precise player, will that give you any bonuses because you’re not using it?
Frazier: It doesn’t. The AI will always use it. The AI will basically never turn it off. The AI doesn’t use it perfectly. I don’t think there will be an AI quarterback in the game that will use it 100% correctly every time. It’s still based on rating even for them. So if they have low awareness, low throwing, or low throwing accuracy, they are going to make the same mistakes a human might make. They’re going to make the wrong reads, throw to the wrong guy, they may not look off defenders when needed. So if you turn it off the computer will still be using it and they’re not going to be perfect, they’ll still be making mistakes.
GI: If I’m playing another friend of mine on the couch, he’s going to be able to see what I’m doing. Is there a way to not allow him to see where my vision is?
Frazier: That’s one of the first sets of feedback we got on the feature, and if you’re always looking at the receiver you’re going to throw to, that’s your fault. Just like in the NFL, if a quarterback is staring down his target from the time he snaps the ball from the time he throws it, he’s going to get picked off every play. Your job as a user when you’re using that precision mechanic is to look off AI opponents and user opponents. Make sure you’re not staring down your target; make sure you’re not looking down the right side of the field every time you throw right. You got to switch it up and the AI is going to do the same thing to you.
GI: Is there a way to keep it hidden?
Frazier: The vision? No. The only way to kind of keep it hidden is to turn it off, but when it’s off, it’s not really just hidden. If it was hidden then you wouldn’t really know where you are looking. So it’s basically always on. Some of the things you can do is by default when you snap the ball the vision’s going to be locked on to your primary target which is the guy that’s in yellow when you bring up the coach cam art. You can switch your primary guy pre-snap very easily, on PS2, you just bring up coach cam and then you bring up the receiver icon, it switched to the primary guy and when you snap the ball your vision will be on him. So if you’re always calling a specific play, and you don’t want your opponent to know you’re calling that play or to where it’s defaulting, you can easily switch that to another guy. At the same time, you can always put the middle of the field. You just bring up coach cam and press up on the right stick and it will just put the vision right to the middle of the field so it’s not even locked to a receiver at that point. It’s just kind of a way to disguise right away who you are looking at.
GI: Last year you had the Hit Stick, this year you’ve got Precision Passing and the vision, and the Truck Stick. Do you have a game plan like this is what your doing this year, this is what your doing next year, how far down the road are you guys planning ahead or have ideas and thought processes?
Frazier: To be honest, for current generation platforms, we haven’t done that much thinking. We have done it on a much higher level so from time to time we will say things like, “This year, we want to focus on accessibility for our product, or make sure the game is fun so a newbie guy can pick it up. Next year we’re going to focus on depth features. Features like an owner mode, features like building onto the franchise mode.” So we have a very high level goal sometimes, but we don’t get into like the nuts and bolts features, like we don’t have predicted for 2009, anything for the right stick, we don’t go into that level of detail. But we defiantly have some very high level goals. What we do when coming up for the key feature set for the year is try and hit something that hasn’t been touched in a while. That’s the goal each year in preproduction. I can tell you that we’re already working on things for 2007. We’ve already had dozens of brainstorming sessions for 2007. So we roll right from one product to another. One of the things we do right when we start pre-production is look at one of the things we haven’t touched in a while. We hadn’t touched defense in quite some time. This year we obviously choose passing. So each year we take a step back and look at the history of the last couple of years and put on a big map say; defense, passing, playmaker, and we look for what seems to be the logical next step. Sometimes it’s easy to get that, sometimes it’s not so easy. That’s the planning we do for each year and we’re in the heart of that right now for 2007.
GI: Just looking backwards for a second. Last year, 2005, you mentioned the defense and putting in some new stuff for them. Is there any particular reason we’re seeing such a jump forward with the vision and everything verses last year which seemed like there wasn’t as much new stuff as we were accustomed to in the past?
Frazier: Not really. I don’t really have a good answer for that question. We haven’t changed the way we do things here at all. When we approached 2006 pre-production, we basically did things the exact same way they were done in 2005 and I have been involved with the last three or four Madden projects from start to finish so I am very familiar with how they all worked. Last year what I think you saw was, if you were to list all the features in 2005, even small features, you would probably see a longer list than you would this year. The difference between last year and this year is we chose to focus on a couple bigger features and go deeper with them. We choose to focus on a fewer elements and really nail them right instead of focusing on dozens and dozens of elements and making them great but not quite as deep as this year. We chose our battles. Passing was our focus and NFL Superstar was our focus. Everything else either has to go away or fall in line with one of those two goals. You’re always going to get extra features with gameplay and online. That’s one of the key things we did this year is focus on the passing, NFL Superstar, and a couple other side features. Where last year was kind of all across the board.
GI: With NFL Superstar mode, do you expect a different kind of player to get into that mode?
Frazier: When coming up with that concept, it seems that every year we added quite a bit to franchise mode. We added franchise in the late PlayStation years. We basically started over again with PlayStation 2. We added owner mode. The mode is getting so deep that I’m kind of getting lost in the shuffle myself because sometimes I don’t want to deal with half of the options we have in there. I don’t care about relocating a team. I don’t care about setting ticket prices. We do have an audience that appreciates that so we still want to provide that. Our goal this year was to build a new mode that was more mass market than franchise mode has become. Franchise mode did start out very mass market and it is still to a degree but there is a lot of stuff around the edges there that can maybe turn people away because it looks very deep and hardcore. So NFL Superstar was meant to be a mass market mode. A mode that can be picked up by just a casual football fan. You don’t need to know a lot about football to know hats going on in the mode. Everybody knows that players and celebrities have agents. Everybody knows you have to practice to be a football player. Everything in the mode isn’t so deep; it doesn’t require really heavy, in-depth knowledge. So our goal is to maybe bring people that have started to shy away from franchise mode because of how deep it is, back into kind of a single player experience again. We want to give them something else to do that’s not quite as deep as franchise mode.
GI: Is it involved or related to franchise in some way? Or are the two totally separate?
Frazier: They are completely separate modes. In Superstar mode, you have no control over team decisions. You don’t get to pick what team you’re on. You don’t get choose personnel. You don’t have any involvement in the draft, its all done by your coaches. You’re a player on the team. You can kind of impact where you might go in the future based on your performance on the field and what you do with your agent. You can tell you agent you want to be traded. The key is you can’t say I want to be traded to the Cardinals and expect to turn the franchise around. It’s going to be based on team needs. It’s meant to be a single player mode that you can’t control every aspect of.
GI: It seems very much like the Heisman mode in NCAA, am I correct?
Frazier: They’re both very similar, which is why you can actually import your race for the Heisman guy into Superstar mode and start from there. Once we started to go down the design path, we were like, “Hey, this has great crossover potential between the two products.” So yeah, they’re both very similar. I do think the Madden feature is a little deeper than the NCAA feature, but you’re right. In concept form, they are both very similar which is why it makes sense for you to bring your guy from NCAA into Madden.
GI: Will you be able to get a better looking girlfriend than you can in NCAA?
Frazier: (laughs) We don’t go the girlfriend route in Madden unfortunately.
GI: I just had been playing a little bit of the NCAA. I know you just said that the Heisman and the Superstar are a little different, a little more in depth for the Superstar. One thing I found with NCAA was it was nice, it was interesting, a good change in pace, but it basically seemed like it was a new HUD for a way to get the same stats and things like that. Do you think that Superstar will be seen like that or do you think that it will be seen differently?
Frazier: I think it will be seen differently. When you first pop it in the mode and you’re hiring an agent and doing things you haven’t done in a franchise mode it’s going to feel very new. There’s also going to be things [like] expectations and getting endorsement deals that you haven’t had to do in Madden before. That’s going to feel very different. So instead the end result is not just winning games anymore. The end result is meeting your statistics goals for your endorsement people, earning spots in the Madden bowl. You have other side goals besides just playing through games and practices. I think when you take that whole package together, people will see it as a fun alternative. It’s not going to be just a re-skinning of the franchise mode or anything like that.
A Pimp's Pad
GI: In your apartment, I assume it will change, it will get bigger or whatnot. Will you actually have any hand in how it looks or anything?
Frazier: You don’t. That’s actually something we talked about as a building thing. I will admit with Superstar mode that was a feature that when we discussed the concept was a lot deeper than what you actually see in the product. I do think that there is a kind of a built in two to three year plan for Superstar mode because it’s such an easy platform to build on. As far as the apartments go, it’s all based on your rating, specifically your overall rating and kind of how that gets calculated. So as you become a better player, which will lead to more popularity for your player, you’ll actually upgrade your apartment. You don’t have any actual control over the items in your apartment or like the look of your drapes and that kind of stuff, but you get a nicer pad. There are 3 levels. You work your way up to a mansion and that’s the level of control right now. But we did discuss early on with customization like the ESPN Cribs style where you get to pick furniture and stuff like that. I don’t know if we will go to that level of in-depth, but we did discuss customization to a point.
GI: Can you discuss a movie shoot, how that would actually work, once you’re in there?
Frazier: Sure, it’s a pretty simple game. You will be offered a role. If you accept the role, you will be given a script on the screen. I think it’s between five and six lines per script and you have to memorize the script in like five seconds or so, there’s a timer on the screen that counts down as you’re reading it. The script will disappear then you will see somebody else read their lines and you have to respond with the correct line that you’re supposed to read. This is all text based, there’s no 3D or audio involved. If you perform well, you movie will actually do well in the box office and you will become more popular as a result. If you read your line poorly, your movie will bomb and it will hurt your overall reputation.
GI: So it will be kind of like a menu, you pick from like five different lines?
Frazier: Yeah, it’s kind of like a multiple choice type thing.
GI: There’s a training institute also?
Frazier: Yeah, that uses our mini camp stuff. You only get access to the training facility if your agent gets you access. That kind of mirrors what happens in the real NFL. There are a lot of really high power agents that have access to these super elite training facilities that no other agents can get to. We have that modeled in Superstar as well. Some agents have access, some don’t. When you first start out you won’t have access, it’s reserved for the elite players. So as you get better and sign better agents, you will get access to that stuff to better enhance your rating through drills.
GI: What new training or mini camp drills are there this year?
Frazier: We didn’t specifically add any new mini camp drills this year
GI: The Packers had a record of 10-6 and the Vikings were 8-8 and I was looking at the overall ratings of the teams. The Packers were like 80 and I think the Vikings are like 90. I’m just curious on how that plays out.
Frazier: Well ratings are very subjective. It’s impossible for us to please everybody, but I will say that it’s not as simple as just looking at last year’s record. We’re actually trying to predict performance for next season. We do that for player ratings. We do that for team ratings. We do that for everything.
GI: Is that different than previous years?
Frazier: That’s been true in pervious years as well and that’s what makes it hard. A lot of times the June 1st cut date comes around and then players are already getting cut from teams and switch teams so we have had to modify rating accordingly. That’s always a challenge for us. Two years ago or three years ago, we didn’t even have Tom Brady in the game when he won the damn Super Bowl because he wasn’t predicted to be their starter, in fact he was predicted to be their 4th string guy that year and we don’t go that deep with our rosters. We have a team of three or four guys that are the ratings team. They keep track of rosters, player movements, player parts, ratings and everything. They look at last year’s performance and they also look at what team they’re on now. Who’s ahead of them on the depth chart. Are they the number one guy now or are they the number 3 guy now. They look at some of the spring drills, some of the spring training that has happened. We get tapes and we get information and some scouting reports on how players are doing. If they’re fat, if they’re thin. We put it all together and try and accurately [predict] what they’re going to be in the next season. Of course, we’re not going to be 100% right. We can’t predict the future, but we’re usually pretty close and we can update a little bit as roster updates come out. So the team’s ratings are where our ratings guys feel the teams will be in the next season. So obviously, the Vikings lost Randy [Moss]. That’s going to hurt. Ontario Smith being out for the season, that’s going to hurt. But they kind of take all that stuff into consideration when doing those ratings.
Still Up For Grabs
GI: Is there new Madden audio this year?
Frazier: There is, we got new audio from Al [Michaels] and John [Madden]. We also got some new stuff from Tony Bruno. I’ll admit that the audio presentation will feel very similar to what it felt like before, we just spruced up some of the commentary that felt repetitive and we added some new events and some new stuff to talk about. But the overall flow and format of the game will be like what it was before.
GI: Last year, I liked the Hit Stick, I liked using it but you had to anticipate it like a half second early. Will it be more responsive this year?
Frazier: That’s one of the things we struggled with last year. It’s like that for a reason. It’s based on the way our animation system works. So if we made it any longer or made it more responsive, we would be able to play those different animations. If we waited a little bit longer, then we would give a fumble chance increase, but we would be able to play those nice animations because those animations are longer than our tackle animations. So we have to force the user to do it earlier than they kind of would think they would need to use it so that if it’s going to play, it has time to fully play all those tackle animations. It sucks that you didn’t really like the feel of it. A lot of people were able to get used to it. I will agree that it’s a little awkward at first because you flip the stick earlier than you would like to. I’ll admit I don’t think we tightened it up. It was a symptom of our current generation animation system and the fact that the hit stick tackles are longer in duration than our normal tackles were, but in order for us to trigger those, we literally had to make that decision before we would normally make a tackle decision in the game.
GI: Another thing you guys did last year for the online play was to get the full features set, you had to put in your credit card information. Are you guys doing that again this year?
Frazier: We’re doing something similar. We have a deal with ESPN. I think last year, we had Dodge as our sponsor. To be honest, I’m not 100% sure what info you will need to provide in order to get that full feature set, but I do believe you will need to provide something. As a result, you will get a free trail subscription to ESPN Magazine and an ESPN Insider account for a trial period as well. You’re getting all the online features plus some ESPN stuff. That part is still being worked out and will actually be provided by a separate group.
GI: I heard that some of the online virtual locker will be scaled back a bit. Can you talk about some of that?
Frazier: The clubs concept was scaled back because of some scheduling issues. Everything else is actually being done as planned. So locker is still around. Matchmaking stuff is still around. The way the locker works is like a virtual memory card in the sky. You can share any Madden card files with anyone on your friends list. The locker is still 100% functional. The only thing we lost was clubs.
GI: Can I play with my created player online?
Frazier: You cannot play with custom rosters online. So created players are a no. But if you wanted to share a franchise, you could use the locker and spawn game support.
GI: Are there any gameplay tweaks to accommodate for any exploits people have found online?
Frazier: We solved all known exploits at this point. As soon as the game comes out, all of our gameplay guys and all of our designers are basically trying to have fun with because we work on it for so long that it becomes more work than fun, and then once we’re done we really get to have fun with it. We’re watching message boards. We’re watching the way people play. We’re watching stats online. We’re also going to Madden Challenge events and looking at all the glitches people are finding. At this point I think we have solved all known glitches that were in the game. And we have been testing the game for the last two months. We have been solving glitches we found internally as well. So at this point, we have none that we need to act on. Based on the amount of people that play Madden online, a glitch is bound to pop up. We gave ourselves a little more control on the server side of things so we could disable certain features. I know with the formation audible bug you could repeatedly do that to fatigue the entire defense. Our only solution to that last year was to basically hack out fatigue from online games. This year we have more control over the games so if things are found we may be able to address them.
GI: Can you give me a specific example of a player-found glitch?
Frazier: I can tell you that the Juke glitch last year was a bad one. That would always cause the defense to miss. They would misplay that animation, it was ridiculous. The Madden Challenge winner would use that non-stop. It was just, juke, juke, juke, juke all the way across the field and they would just misread where he was going and it was really bad. We actually solved that last week. It was a very difficult one to solve and we think we solved it now.
GI: Just firing up the game, we noticed all the old NFL films and music, stuff like that. You obviously have an exclusive license from those guys. Can you give some example of how the license has helped you or the NFL has helped you guys with the game?
Frazier: I’ll admit first off that we didn’t know about the deal until December like everyone else. So we complete pre-production for our products before we actually begin the work so all the features were already set. All the decisions were already made then all of a sudden they dropped that bomb on us like everyone else. That being said, the NFL Films music, that’s a direct result of that deal. We were able to get a lot more access to NFL Films footage, which you will see on our main menu. We have the NFL sound effects where they have the mic’d up stuff, which isn’t quite in the game yet, they show on Monday Night Football. That’s all NFL Films stuff as well. So we have access to all the archives to use in the future. So if we wanted to use Ray Lewis smack talking in a game, we may be able to use that in the future directly from him instead of using generic voices. In addition to that, some of the things we actually used was the music and we got what is called “All 22 Cameras” which are created by the NFL and their tape of every single game in the regular season. From the All 22 stuff, which is basically a camera that is at blimp level, we see the entire field and then we also see it from the side. Our playbooks guys took those and mimicked every single play that they saw and put them into the game. Every single formation they could get into the game is in there based on that footage. We have a lot of access to rookie events, which allows us to get better references and portraits and stuff like that. At this point it’s a lot of access, but moving forward it will be used, like the NFL Films footage, the audio and so on. We were already 30% done when that was dropped on us.
GI: So you mention moving forward. Will that encompass the Xbox 360 version to come out later on?
Frazier: Sure, yeah. I sit literally right across the hall from the 360 guys and even though we’re focused on current-gen, we’re still very aware and active in what’s in the 360 realm of things. They are looking at the exact same access as we’re looking at.
GI: Will the 360 version be identical to the current-gen version, besides obviously the graphics?
Frazier: At this point I am not supposed to be discussing the 360 version.
GI: With your new deal with ESPN, outside of the online sponsorship, is there anything else in the game?
Frazier: We’re not allowed to use ESPN in the product as like feature stuff until calendar year of 2006. They’re still under contract with Take 2. So at this point we’re not allowed to touch ESPN with a 10 foot pole. Online is actually not part of our product, it’s more like a side service. You should see your first ESPN feature in Madden 2007 and beyond.
GI: What would you like to do that they didn’t do? Anything you can talk about?
Frazier: It’s still very early in our pre-pro [pre-production] process, so we haven’t solidified anything. But ESPN is a huge sports product in North America. I would not expect Madden to become ESPN Football though.
GI: So Madden will always be named Madden?
Frazier: That’s what I would predict, yes.
GI: Have you guys had renewal contracts with Madden?
Frazier: I think we’re locked up with Madden.
GI: Can you say a length of that contract?
Frazier: No, I cannot.
GI: Are you doing any Game Boy Advance or DS connectivity for the Nintendo version?
Frazier: Not for the Nintendo version, but we do actually have connectivity for the PSP version where you can spawn off your franchise games. So it’s pretty cool because if you’re taking a business trip, you can actually play your franchise games.
GI: Do you expect the PSP version of Madden to play very similar? I know EA products have had kind of a mixed record of trying to encompass the whole experience but having mixed results. What’s it like developing for the PSP?
Frazier: We have a completely separate dedicated PSP team so it’s not like we’re just trying to port it with two guys and trying to make it happen. We have full design, development, and art teams working on the PSP product. We want it to look great and play great. That being said, it’s got only one little analog stick so you’re going to lose features that require two analog sticks. It’s also got six buttons instead of eight, so you are going to lose some features there as well. They’re not trying to rush through the PSP version. They are trying to make it a great product on its own. It’s a different market so they are not porting it from current-gen. They are actually adding PSP specific features like mini-games and stuff like that. The guy that’s working on it now that I work very close with, we were very involved with our other NFL games. This is a very full team. They take this very seriously.
GI: Did you guys try and get in on the PlayStation 3 demo at E3? Or was that sort of given to the Fight Night team? Can you talk about Tiburon and EA, and were you guys going to present at E3?
Frazier: That’s kind of above and beyond my role here on Madden.
GI: So you said the game is almost at final review then?
Frazier: Yeah, we’re really close to being done.
GI: When’s your roster cut-off, or are you already cut-off?
Frazier: You know, having to be done this early is kind of a pain in the butt because we do have to cut off rosters at some point. Technically we cut them off on June 2nd, but I will admit we did make some roster changes today. If something major happens like Ontario Smith being suspended for the season, we’ll probably try and get that into the game. If it’s something simple like making some guy’s speed a little faster then we will probably wait for the next roster update, which will be right at launch anyways. So it cut-off. We’re just waiting for something major to happen in the league.
GI: I know EA and Sony in particular like to support the older consoles once the new ones come out. I know you guys have come out with a PlayStation version of Madden for a number of years. Do you expect you make further strides in the PS2 version of Madden once the PS3 comes out?
Frazier: Yeah. Like I said, we’re already working on Madden 2007. And when I said that, I’m talking specifically current-gen. We’re taking 2007 very seriously even though the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3 and the Revolution even are just on the horizon. The current-gen systems will still be very popular with people. It takes time for the next-gen stuff to become mainstream. So we’re going to be supporting this stuff for years and years.
GI: To back up for a second. From a preproduction standpoint, is there a general pool of ideas that you guys grab from or will the current-gen lead the ideas? And then is the 360 something that you guys have to plan around otherwise?
Frazier: We have different meetings that kind of do all of the above. Sometimes, we’ll have current-gen and next-gen guys sit and talk or sometimes its just current-gen. Right now, we’re looking at some things that will be shared. We do look to share some stuff. We will still have a full team for next year on current-gen so it’s not just a roster update, it’s like this year, a big product.
GI: I’m going to pick up the Xbox version of Madden in August and I’m going to start my season and create my guy. I’ll do all that. But then obviously the 360 version will come out at launch. Are you guys thinking of anything so you can carry that stuff over?
Frazier: That’s more of a next-gen question because they would be doing a lot of the work on their side. I don’t think I should be answering even if I knew. But the reality is I don’t know.
GI: Well, that would be cool.
Frazier: (laughs) I agree it would be.
-Billy Berghammer, Matthew Kato