With NFL teams getting ready for training camp, it’s time for armchair quarterbacks to get ready for what’s become the most anticipated sports release every summer—Madden.  And with the playable demo being released on the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Marketplace just this week, it’s even more of a reason to get excited.

As outlined in our impressions from E3, the new focus this year is in its GameFlow playcalling system.  The inclusion of this new system allows playcalling to take less time and thus becoming more streamlined and simple.  With the press of the X button (or square on the PS3), your virtual coach will give you a play to use along with its playart and how to execute it properly.  In the most basic terms, it’s like the “Ask Madden” function in the traditional playcalling system, except it’s a whole lot more detailed.

After about three games, the GameFlow system works for both offense and defense, but on defense it doesn’t seem all that refined.  Maybe it’s because fans and experts alike don’t really understand what a defensive coordinator is telling his mic’d up captain on the field, but if anything needs work—it’s the defensive GameFlow.

While it may seem like GameFlow reduces the amount of control over your team’s plays, there’s another feature in the game that makes it a lot more solid.  Before every game, you have the ability to rate every play in your playbook using a five-star system for every specific down, for every specific situation.  Want to throw a deep, play-action pass on 2^nd and 10 and not worry about the coach calling a run play?  Simply rate your long pass plays five stars and those silly running plays no stars.  The computer tries to pick the best plays for the best situation.  Usually it would lead to a more balanced playset, but it all depends on how detailed you want to be.  And for those who are into achievements, you’ll unlock an achievement or trophy in the full game if you actually take some time to adjust your gameplan in the demo.

Another new feature in the game is with its kicking game.  Gone is the simple down-up motions with the use of the right stick.  Now the game takes more of a golf game approach ala Tiger Woods PGA Tour to hit your kicks.  The demo claims that the change was made to go more into your kicker’s strengths, but after a few tries, we sort of miss the old kicking system.

The goal of this generation’s Madden seems to be perfecting the football sim.  Last year’s game ran a bit slow, so it’s interesting to see that this game plays a bit faster than Madden 10 did.  The player models have been beefed up a bit and definitely look more realistic, and a lot more emphasis has been put on the sideline.  Gone are the ugly players numbered 00, and we also get to see a lot more of the stadium backgrounds as well.

The audio presentation is actually pretty exciting from what we’ve heard so far.  Thankfully, EA Sports has booted the monotone Tom Hammond for the colorful Gus Johnson.  If you don’t know Gus Johnson, he yells a lot–which was made particularly  evident with the Brandon Stokley miracle in Week 1 last season.  With Cris Collinsworth back, it seems like now there’s two color commentators, but rest assured, the voicework might actually be solid this year–even with Collinsworth’s annoying raspy voice.

You can download the demo for Madden NFL 11 now, and you can play full games with 5-minute quarters using either the Jets or Colts.  (Yeah, you don’t have to use both Super Bowl champions anymore.)  The game will be out for all the major consoles on August 10th, and we’ll have the game’s FIRST REVIEW in before then to tell you whether or not it’s worth a purchase.

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Related posts:

1. Review: Madden NFL 11 (PS3, Xbox 360)
2. Preview: Madden NFL 10 (PS3, Xbox 360, Wii)
3. Review: Madden NFL 10 (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
4. Review: Madden NFL Arcade (Xbox 360, PS3)
5. Cleveland Browns’ Peyton Hillis Wins The Madden NFL 12 Cover

About This Author: Danreb Victorio

Danreb Victorio is SmashPad's longest tenured staff member and has been writing for the publication since its existence as Gaming-Nation, Inside Gamer Online, Amped IGO, Amped News, and Gamer 2.0. Though SmashPad has gone through many branding changes, Danreb has remained the same--he pushes out content while also improving his craft with every piece that gets published. As a Co-Managing Editor, Danreb, along with Chris Selogy, is in charge of assigning, maintaining, and providing SmashPad's editorial content. Danreb is currently an undergraduate at San Jose State University studying to earn a bachelor of science in magazine journalism. In addition to SmashPad, you can read his work on Yelp.com and San Jose State University's student newspaper, The Spartan Daily.

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