The Evolution Madden Video Games

       The history of madden video game started of with the EA’s football franchise. founded in 1986 by Trip Hawkins and EA employees based on the concept of John Madden Football. John Madden asked for several requirements like eleven on eleven play like regular NFL games.  Overtime they worked out a deal and started their creation for the Franchise.  The deal never went through so the game serios was put on pause. With a great idea but no results yet EA managed to assemble John Madden Football in 1988. As any new game it had its kinks and fixes that needed to be made. However, the game was brought to life. One of the struggles Ea had was trying to get an NFL license to so they could use real player names and not fictional. Other features on the game included like changing weather and player fatigue which fans took immediate notice of.

When madden was brought to Sega genesis the system was fast to play on but they wanted to give the customer a better football experience. EA eventually brought Madden to the Super Nintendo, but it had  little complexity Plus, the game released much later than the first Genesis game . This edition of Madden was the first time the action was seen from above a vertical oriented field. Football games before this were seen from the side. This new view gives the player a better view of the action on the field. Also, it allows EA to place more information for the player in the top third of the screen. Such as playbooks, without obscuring the squat, little players. Since the release, Madden games have always defaulted to this view, although customizable cameras were later added to the series.  Sega soon recognized madden success and created the Joe Montana football series with EA.  EA was not the first to license the NFL. SEGA banked the NFL first for the 1993 edition of Joe Montana. EA did not release an NFL-branded football until the following year in 1994. However, from that release on the NFL has been front and center in almost every single one of EA’s Madden games, starting off with Madden Football 64 on the Nintendo 64.

The 1994 version is notable for the inclusion of digitized speech. In response to the “Sports Talk” feature in Joe Montana, EA added it’s now famous “It’s in the game” catchphrase to the game as well as some color from Madden himself. Madden as a commentator would now become both a signature feature of the series and a constant that exists to this day. The 1995 version of Madden NFL not only retained the NFL license, but it also added the Players Association license so EA could use real names and likenesses. 1996 was an interesting year for Madden. As EA completely fumbled the ball on the PlayStation deal, ceding important ground to Sony’s own franchise: Game Day. The series is a forgotten memory to many gamers now, but the shake up rocked EA and backfired . Madden 96 was released on Genesis and SNES. Madden 96 features the addition of a player creator and historical teams.

In 1998, Madden really regained its footing. This was its second season on the PlayStation and EA’s developer Tiburon was showing remarkable proficiency with the platform. However, the series was still primarily using sprites something that put it out-of-tune with the changes of the generation. In IGN’s review of Madden for the PSone, stated: “…the game itself plays and looks similar to all the other Madden titles. Sprite-based graphics, same interface, John Madden it’s all there, but it’s still the same game. It’s hard to change something good, but perhaps an upgrade in graphics wouldn’t hurt the game at all. In fact, it would be a totally new game if EA took its Madden series to the next level, that being polygons.”

Madden NFL 99 re-established Madden as the top dog in football. Sprites were out, polys were now in. The N64 version of the game regained the NFL license that was painfully missing from the previous edition. The biggest new gameplay feature in this edition was the arrival of Franchise Mode, which allows gamers to oversee the development and ultimate fate of a single team franchise over the course of no fewer than 30 seasons. The next year’s game was built largely on the strengths of ’99 but is mostly memorable for being the very first Madden game to not have only John Madden on the cover. The next year, Madden would be gone, and cover athletes would dominate the boxes. Thus, the birth of the Madden curse. Finally, this brings us to the modern era for Madden. The release of Madden NFL 2001  on the PlayStation 2 launched to great fanfare — and solid sales. Game Day self-immolated with an anemic release by comparison. from here on out madden would evolve with eah game system and graphics over time to the game we know today.