Screen grab of the nextgen Madden football.

[Titanio]

I believe its real time, just looking at the textures you can tell and it looks great. Their obviously using the Unreal 3 engine.

I'll guarantee it's not the Unreal 3 engine.

You can't just leave it at that, I need more input, Johnny5 needs more input.

EA have moved pretty much all their projects onto Renderware. They see it as a key part of meeting their productivity targets. This "switch" was confirmed some time ago in a leaked internal memo during the fallout of the "EA spouse" controversy. I doubt they've licensed UE3 at all, or any other external engine for that matter.

 

[Qroach]

Hehe why would EA use the unreal engine for a football game?

 

[Titanio]

Hehe why would EA use the unreal engine for a football game?

It could be done, but it's not being done

 

[Ooh-videogames]

Hehe why would EA use the unreal engine for a football game?

Its a engine thats ready for the picking.

 

[Sindre]

Looks great, but I can agree with the "zombie-stare", something with the eyes that reminds me of Madden 2001. . .
Will be nice to see the video and make some better judgement out of that.
Nice detail on the helmet-protection though!

 

[mckmas8808]

Lets compare that "fake render pic" to the real thing that we will see this Saturday.

Old Render pic

New Xbox360, PS3, Nin Rev pic

Looks close enough to me.
________
Easy vape vaporizer

 

[Farid]

You can't just leave it at that, I need more input, Johnny5 needs more input.

Oh, you can trust him 100%, when he, ERP, says this is not UE3.

Also, and while we're at it, UE3 is not the only "Next-Gen Compliant" engine out there. It's far from being the only one, truth to be said.

About the subject:

Looks real-time to me. I would go as far as to say, for this particular scene, a real-time cut-scene, I could see it done on Xbox, as I don't see anything mindblowing.

 

[mckmas8808]

I could see it done on Xbox, as I don't see anything mindblowing.

This pic looks way better than the following. So why make a comment like that.

Next-Gen Madden

Madden 2005 on the Xbox

NFL 2K5

[/img]
________
Apple games

 

[nAo]

I can't see any jaggies..ergo it's not realtime, period

 

[Evil_Cloud]

You can do a lot of nifty things with camera view angles, but the game will look a whole lot different viewed from a 'normal' camera. This is just a face and not all the players on the field at the same time plus an entire stadium packed with people.

 

[Pozer]

Meh, I may pick this up for the Xenon if there isnt a better playing football game. Don't care too much about licenses. After playing ESPN 2k5 you really get a feel for what madden lacks. Like a decent running game and better line of scrimage simulation. In madden players have the uncanny ability to block 2 peeps at once. Blitzing is practically useless on defense. The graphics are bland looking and just plain dull. Don't know what it is but EA games always look like there being played back on my Grandma's 20 year old 2-head Goldstar VCR. ESPN 2k5 not only has better textures but the color pallete looks more vivid.

 

[Farid]

I could see it done on Xbox, as I don't see anything mindblowing.

So why make a comment like that.

Because, maybe, I didn't make comment like that...
My comment was:

I would go as far as to say, for this particular scene, a real-time cut-scene, I could see it done on Xbox, as I don't see anything mindblowing.

I'm assuming that, as a tech demo, this scene, and ONLY this scene (Close-up face + water particles), could be replicated on Xbox.
Of course, in a game scenario, with others player models, a stadium, grass, etc... this would be impossible on Xbox, of course, I thought I didn't have to precise this.

My comment was primarily pointed toward thoses who thought this wasn't real-time but a pre-rendered CG.

 

[Acert93]

The new pic is in-game IMO. Besides the nose (which is very blocky) look at the helmet on the right side of the picture. You can clearly see the polygons--I can spot 4 angle breaks (looking at 400% in FW). Another area of low polys are the eye lids--very squareish. Same goes with the chin pad. So the poly count "feels" next gen to me. If it were a straight render I would expect more detail in the mesh.

The textures on the face, while very good, are also not anything like the insane "Fight Night" renders. In a game like Madden, where you have a controlled environment (22 players + stadium) this level of detail seems right for a 1st gen game. Clean and detailed but missing a lot of detail we have come to expect from CGI. The eyes also seem to have some detail and a "glassy" look, but on the other hand do not look out of this world. Basically HL2 on steroids. The reflection in the helmet looks good, but from the angle we see it is hard to tell if it is super high res or not. From what we can see it does not appear to be overly detailed which indicates to me it is real.

The things that do not look quite as "real" and make it feel like a render, PR shot (i.e. extra detail + high AA), or Photoshop editing: Depth of field, HDR (on the face mask), high levels of AA, steam from the mouth, and the very nice transparent plastic that attached the face mask to the helmet. All of these things are possible next gen and/or are extra "perks" easily added to PR shots.

Btw, whoever (Titanio?) made the comment about why EA would waste money advertising their next gen game at the draft really deserves a cookie EA no longer has to compete with any other next gen football games. Releasing info about their next gen game HURTS Madden 2006 sales if a next gen game is not available. 2006 already looks to have a couple quality features (notably QB field of vision) so hyping the next gen when they are still offering a competitive product (no competition!!) would be dumb. So Xbox 360 launch title is almost confirmed in my mind.

Anyhow, while the face shot looks good there are 3 issues:

1.) We never see the faces up close in gameplay, so who cares?

2.) How does it move? :Yawn: I am so tired of the mo-cap that does not work right. It totally kills the realism. Next gen graphics with PS/N64 level animation is not acceptable in my book. I would rather have dynamic animation that allows realistic blocking, tackling, and different "styles" for running backs, wide outs, defensive ends, etc... than new graphics. It would be great to have both, but if I have to choose I am choosing the animation.

3.) How many features are they going to cut from the current gen game to release the next gen game? I get bored, and tired, of the fact they frequently cut features when moving to the next gen and then "upsell" them the following years as if they are something new. I know being a developer is hard--but as a consumer I buy the game for the gameplay. New graphics and new rosters is not enough. Madden has really lacked in the AI and Animation for a long while. Almost every fault in the game relates to these two issue. They are a huge undertaking but for Madden to be "next gen" they really need to move forward constructively in these issues.

Finally, I bought Madden 2005 on the PC just to play online. I have 6 games under my belt... why not more? The rampant cheating. EA has basically ignored patching the issues and let the following years release "fix" the bugs/hacks. But every year they have new ones. One step forward, one step back. In my last game the gentleman told me, "You are really good. Once you learn some cheats you will win a lot of games". That is what he literally said. I was floored... nice guy, good game... but like every other player I have played with a winning win percentage he used a lot of small exploits. Money plays are all over the place and it is sad.

Anyhow, the shots look really good (especially considering there is no need for that much detail in the face... although the blank stair is annoying) but I will reserve judgement until I see it in motion and to see what GAMEPLAY features they add to declair it a next gen title. If it is just prettier graphics count me out.

 

[Iron Tiger]

I could see it done on Xbox, as I don't see anything mindblowing.

This pic looks way better than the following. So why make a comment like that.

Next-Gen Madden
[img/]http://www.psinext.com/PS3/madden.jpg[/img]

Way better than that? I'd have to strongly disagree. More polygons, motion blur, and lifelike eyes are all things I'd say the pre-render has over the "realtime" render. I'd also assume that the artists that put together that concept shot used more complex shaders for the skin. That's not to say the level of detail in the actual Madden game will be low. I'm actually pleasantly surprised that they used this many polygons (at least on his face grill), HDR-ish blooming effects, and decent skin shaders. The only other things I could hope for is volumetric turf, good cloth simulation, good collision (at least up to Tekken 5 standards), and a huge improvement in animation (at least up to Tekken 5 standards).

 

[gurgi]

2.) How does it move? :Yawn: I am so tired of the mo-cap that does not work right. It totally kills the realism. Next gen graphics with PS/N64 level animation is not acceptable in my book. I would rather have dynamic animation that allows realistic blocking, tackling, and different "styles" for running backs, wide outs, defensive ends, etc... than new graphics. It would be great to have both, but if I have to choose I am choosing the animation.

Yeah, the more realistic the graphics, the worse the same exact animation looks (if that makes sense). If they can output those kinds of visuals, and nail the animation, they will have a very pretty game indeed.

 

[wco81]

All football games have had money plays.

All football games will have money plays.

If you want to play against people who won't exploit money plays or glitches or bugs, then you have to join a league or something.

This kind of "sportsmanship" has to be self-policing, not something which can be implemented with code.

 

[one]

BTW isn't this at the EA page also an in-game shot?

(The file name of this pic is "money.jpg" )

 

[Acert93]

All football games will have money plays.

And your point?

Fact is, year in and year out EA introduces as many new bugs/hacks/exploits into the same game engine as they remove. Even more, they hardly bother to patch these things. They make paying customers buy a new version to get a "fix" for old problems. It would not be so bad if they would patch the rampant EXPLOITS in a timely manner. As it is you have super tackle, rocket jumping, and super blitz (to name some) cheats every year that go unresolved. Often a small patch would fix it... but EA chooses not to.

If you want to play against people who won't exploit money plays or glitches or bugs, then you have to join a league or something.

Yeah, great way to treat your paying customers. They did buy a football game to, uhmmm, play football.

Fact is even the ingame measures to help detour cheating are broken. e.g. the Diconnect rating was totally broken and therefore manipulated.

"If it is in the game, it is in the game" means nothing. If you want a real game of football you wont get it with EA's product out of the box. You need to hope you can find some "league or something" because their games own cheating measures are broken and useless.

Last time I checked it was not a good policy to make your customers go off and seek some unadvertised league that may/may not allow cheating to get a decent experience out of your product.

But hey, when you run all your competition out of town you can do that kind of thing

This kind of "sportsmanship" has to be self-policing, not something which can be implemented with code.

Your joking, right?

Your telling me DBs that do not cover, and exploiting the fact they wont cover certain routes, is something that cannot be fixed in code? (Btw, they semi fixed it... after a decade... so it was fixable in code after all. Imagine that.) Or how about rocket jumping? Or about audibles screwing the defense up so they wont re-align? How about when DBs would not cover men in motion? Or how about being able to block a kick every time because the OL wont block certain players?

There are, and always have been, basic bugs in the game that could be easily fixed in Madden games--and yet EA did not patch them. Go to a Madden board right now and ask them about the exploits. Many have been there for years. The former competition, and even their college product at times, did not have these issues. So surely MANY could be fixed in the code. I find it laughable that you would suggest customers need to go outside the game to find a decent game of _football_ because the product itself, marketed as a sim, has such glaring issues.

Madden has been broken for a long time at a fundamental level: AI and Animation/Physics. Instead of dealing with these issues they build on a broken engine that inherently allows these types of exploits. EA's patching policy has only compounded the issue.

 

[wco81]

I'm not talking about bugs.

I'm talking about style of play or the philosophy of those who play the game online.

Do they play with strategies which would be used in the sport of football or do they approach it like another video game which they want to beat at any cost, even if it's exploiting bugs or by playing in an unrealistic way?

The jetpacking you refer to, as long as people don't try to engage that animation, it's not a problem. Yes EA should fix that but if you're playing with honorable people, it's not much of an issue.

 

[Megadrive1988]

the older CGI concept render....

...looks somewhat similar to these other new pictures that came out today

notice the ball is VERY anti-aliased and nicely blurred, much like the old render.


now the first picture released today, clearly looks realtime. less anti-aliasing and not much if any motion blurring, or less of a filtered look than the other images