Editors Note: Andy McKenzie was a designer of the Backbreaker video game series. In this series he is writing, Andy is going to break down the Madden NFL Design and the implementation of features from a game developers perspective and to see exactly where Madden succeeds and where it doesn't. This should be an interesting series to say the least. Read Part One.

"Three things can happen when you throw the football, and two of them are bad" - this quote pretty much sums up my offensive philosophy when playing Madden.

I love to run the ball in football games. But, if like me, you've played a whole lot of Madden then after awhile each rushing play begins to feel the same. This is because of the very simple blocking system that governs the run game.

The entire library of blocking animations in Madden 12 appears to be two-or-more person animations. This means that every possible outcome is scripted by the game, and is limited to what animations they have in the library. Each block on every play appears to be decided by one overarching formula that pits the stats of the two players involved together, and is then heavily influenced by the difficulty setting.

Each offensive lineman that engages in a one on one block with a defender enters in to a standard two man blocking animation, where the offensive player has inside leverage over the defender.

This is problem number one for me.

As a player at this point, the only visual feedback you’re getting is that your blocker has his hooks in a defender's chest and that his block is more than likely to succeed. For the majority of Offensive Linemen in the NFL, if they get their hooks in to your chest plate, it's game over.

This animation probably lasts up to 10 seconds at its full length (it never plays that long in-game though) and is just a state for the players to be in so that they look correct while the formula figures out what to do with them. The reason this animation is so standard looking is every possible outcome of the block stems from this, and they all need to blend seamlessly otherwise you would have some rather noticeable glitches in animation.

It’s at this point where the difficulty setting usually comes in to play. The two players remain in this animation where the defender is effectively blocked for a short period of time until the block resolves itself with either a block shed or a pancake animation. This always takes longer on the lower difficulty settings.

On the higher difficulty settings you will notice that even though your offensive player starts out with leverage, he is always a few seconds away from being defeated by a defender, usually one that is right in your path. The most popular (and most unrealistic) animation I see is the defender just completely shedding the block to the side that you're running, and then he usually makes the tackle.

This block shedding happens so often that you can even begin to rely on this and use it to your advantage. You start running inside or outside of a block on all-pro or higher and you can pretty much guarantee your guy will lose the block to the side you're running, meaning if you time it correctly you can usually cut behind the block shed, fooling the defender because he's locked in animation.

Now, I understand that blocks sometimes get completely blown up in the NFL, but the most important thing in this situation in a video game is that it looks realistic and you as the player can see why your blocker lost. It's the "why" that makes this either a fun or incredibly frustrating experience. If you watch a rushing play on replay against an All-Madden CPU, you will most likely see several defenders in the front 7 simultaneously shed a block at the point of the handoff. This makes for a really frustrating experience as a player because the only information you have at that moment is the visual feedback of seeing your blockers making good blocks, only for them to be completely destroyed as soon as you gain control of the half back.

So the main problem with the ground game is the lack of variation in the blocking animations. It's a very binary system: A player is either being blocked, or he isn't.

I would like to propose a middle ground with a variety of blocking animations that show the defender winning the battle, perhaps fighting to get one shoulder free and take outside/inside leverage, but with the offensive player continuing to attempt to make the block.

This would expose another problem with the current blocking system and brings me on to my next suggestion: there is little-to-no lateral movement in any of the blocking animations. If you do a quick comparison of an outside run like HB Stretch in Madden Vs a similar play from a real NFL game, you'll instantly recognise how wrong this looks in-game. The reason for this is probably to stop players running sideways in to each other, for example if one pair is moving laterally and another pair isn't you might get some pretty terrible glitches. So I would like to see lateral movement implemented in the blocking system for Madden, I think it would really add to the realism of the running game.


The need for lateral movement in blocks to be implemented becomes even greater when you consider playing run defense in Madden 12. There is nothing more frustrating than flowing with a defender to make a tackle against the run and being caught up and locked in a blocking animation. The current system really doesn’t take weight and momentum in to account when defenders collide with blockers, so you often feel a little cheated when your 260lb Linebacker is halted in his tracks immediately by a passing blocker even though you weren’t running straight in to him.

Slight contact with an offense lineman like this should never stop a defender from moving his feet, and so I would like to be able to control my players’ movement through the block and also feel the resistance from the offensive lineman. This would probably have to be accomplished with separate animations for the blockers and defenders (as opposed to the two-man animations that they currently use), meaning that the interaction might not look as crisp as you’re used to seeing, but I think ultimately it would be worth it.

Another argument for blocking on the run can be made for special teams blocking, particularly when trying to block the gunners when you’re on punt return. In a real NFL game, players on the punt return team will sometimes run 20-30 yards downfield whilst maintaining some kind of block or contact with the gunner. In Madden, all of the blocks you see are short collisions meaning they are never held long enough for you to make an effective return.

Contrary to playing offense where the blocking is mostly out of your control, on defense you as the player have the opportunity to interact with the blocking system by trying to shed a block pressing the Right Analogue Stick Left, Right or Down. The great thing about this is that you get to see your defender attempting to shed the block as soon as you press the control; however, you are often left frustrated and wondering why you lost the battle. This seems to be randomly successful depending on the difficulty level you are currently playing on. Most of the time when I try to shed a block or generate a pass rush when playing on All-Madden mode, my defender ends up getting pancaked. Again, I understand that this happens sometimes in the NFL, but I feel that you need to give the player context as to why they lost that specific battle. I think a more in-depth control system would help, because currently it feels like you enter a block, press one of three controls for block shed and then the computer just decides if you won or not. I would like to see some sort of timing based mechanic for when the first collision is about to occur which would decide whether you win first contact and gain the leverage over the blocker, kind of a fight for lower pad level. Then you would have to use the Left Analogue Stick to control your foot position and combine that with a block shed move that you select on the Right Analogue Stick. This gives us plenty of ways for you to excel at block shedding and also plenty of ways to mess it up, which will ultimately make for a less frustrating experience when playing run defence in Madden.

So there are just a few observations, thoughts and suggestions about the gameplay systems involved in the run game in Madden 12. If you can think of any features you would like to see improved or added to the run game in Madden, please leave a comment down below or send an email to [email protected] with “@MADDEN” in the subject bar and we’ll try to talk about it in the future!