Archive for the ‘Madden’ Category

Barry Sanders wins the Madden 25 cover vote!

The Madden 25 Cover Vote is down to the finals, and it’s a battle of old school vs. new school running backs. Two of the greatest running backs of all time, Barry Sanders and Adrian Peterson square off to determine who will be the cover athlete of this year’s Madden game.

Though it was lengthy, the voting saw great numbers for EA Sports, who partnered up with ESPN for the campaign. Over 38 million total votes have been cast so far, and it’ll be interesting to see how the numbers fare out after the final round of voting.

So cast your vote here. The winner will be revealed live on ESPN at 8:00pm ET on April 24^th. I can easily see BOTH running backs grace the cover, sort of like how Tiger Woods PGA Tour did this year.

Who do you got between AP and Barry Sanders?

We’re now in the final stages of the Madden NFL 25 cover vote, and four players remain. From the new school: Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster, and Jerry Rice and Barry Sanders represent the old school. ESPN got a chance to speak with the final four NFLers about Madden, especially the Madden Curse:

Adrian Peterson	I don’t think the Madden curse is real. The only thing I think is real about it is that the world makes it out to be a curse. You get so many people talking about it and thinking about it and throwing it out there that I feel like whoever is on the cover already has it on their mind that they’re going to get cursed. I feel like if you think about it too much, that opens up the window for something bad to happen. Me, personally, I don’t believe in the curse. If I was on the cover of ‘Madden,’ the curse would be broken, I’ll tell you that.
Arian Foster	My character’s not good-looking enough. He doesn’t look like me at all. But they just took a digital scan of my face, so hopefully in the next game, it looks more like me. My speed and all my ratings, I’m good with those, it’s my face they need to fix. I was always a big fan of the quarterback vision cone. I know it was too hard for a lot of people, but it was pretty cool. … The virtual game of football is just as exciting for the kids to play as the real thing. And to see how the game evolves every year, and to see what features they come up with next, it always blows me away.
Jerry Rice	I think it’s fantastic. I played the game at a very high level and I really enjoyed what I was doing out on the football field, so to hear fans come up to me and say, ‘Hey, I played as you today and you were unstoppable,’ I’m always like, ‘Oh my God, really?’ [Laughs] It’s really cool, and it’s a testament to my hard work and my dedication to the game. I never took anything for granted. I always wanted to go out there and entertain the fans.
Barry Sanders	It’s cool because kids who never got to see me play can play as me in the game. They can experience to a certain degree the type of player I was, and from what I hear from fans, these kids are giving me respect for what I did based on ‘Madden.’ It’s a way for me to live on long after I’m done playing. You always run into people who want to talk about some of the things you’ve done in ‘Madden,’ and they talk about it like it meant as much as something I did for real, so it’s pretty funny.

There isn’t really anything special to this post, but ESPN released the first screenshot from the upcoming Madden 25, featuring Arian Foster running over Von Miller at Mile High Stadium. Expect more screenshots to come out in the coming weeks, but for now, this is all we get.

We’re now in the third round of voting to determine who’ll be on the cover of EA Sports’ Madden 25, set to release this summer. What started out as a 64-player bracket is now down to the final 16, split between legendary NFLers and 8 present-day stars.

Here are the 16 athletes that may potentially be your Madden 25 cover athlete:

You can cast your votes via ESPN’s Sportsnation site. Quarterfinal voting runs from April 3^rd-10^th, semi-final voting from April 10^th-17^th, and the finals from April 17^th-14^th.

EA Sports has confirmed that the new NFL rules that just got approved will be ready for the launch of Madden 25.

The rule change that affects the Madden franchise most is the passing of the crown-of-helmet rule, which bans all ball carriers from initiating contact with the crown of their helmets in the open field.

This is more than likely a farewell to the truck stick.

I never thought I’d write a post about fake tweets showing up in a video game, but there’s a first for everything. If you’re a fan of sports and sports apparel, you’ve probably heard of UniWatch (run by Paul Lukas), who usually leaks out first looks at new jerseys, logos, and other apparel exclusives.

EA Sports’ Madden franchise has jumped on, and signed UniWatch to a 2-year deal for their in-game fake Twitter feed, joining the likes of Adam Schefter, Skip Bayless, Alex Flanagan and Mark Schlereth. A higher-up from EA Sports is a big fan of the UniWatch blog and Twitter feed, and contacted him to be a part of the football gaming franchise.

Whether real or fake, social media integration into video games is becoming the thing to do. NBA 2K13 does the same thing, featuring fake tweets from retired and current NBA players, as well as some members of the media. So go create a Twitter account for the most sports-related niche market you can think of, gain a following, then PROFIT.