John Schappert of EA Canada talks about the new Madden title being made for Nintendo's next gen. I'm not a big Madden fan, myself, but it's pretty interesting to hear more about what Nintendo's new controller can do and how it can be applied to a game like this.

quote:

John Schappert: So our focus has been, how do we make this unique for Wii? How is this game going to be seen as innovative and, if you will, a Wii original? That's what we focused on. When you first play it, it's completely different. When you go to hike the ball, for instance, as opposed to pressing a button you simply jerk the controller up. Boom, you snap the ball. When you want to pass the ball, you gesture a throwing motion while holding the button down to the intended receiver. When you want to stiff-arm left or right, you juke with the nunchuck controller literally. When you want to kick, you gesture the kick motion. It's not like we said, "Oh, here's a different controller, how can we kind of finagle Madden on it?" It was, "Hey, here's a completely unique controller that we've never seen before. What's the best way to play Madden on this machine?" IGN Wii: So you're using the free-hand style pointer. How are you using the nunchuck unit? John Schappert: Well, it controls how you move your player. IGN Wii: Does you use the trigger buttons on the nunchuck unit? John Schappert: You know, the buttons are all still being mapped out. It does use the trigger buttons right now. I don't know how much we'll have locked in for you at E3 because we are still working on the final button layout, but it does use the trigger buttons, and it does use the accelerometer in the nunchuck unit as well for juking. IGN Wii: Perfect. Could you just for clarification purposes give us an idea of how a typical play might work using the controllers? John Schappert: So, you take the controller, jerk it up to snap. Quarterback now has the ball. Your passing icons are now up. Take the wand controller and you'll see that the four directions on its D-Pad represent four of your receivers; the A button is your fifth receiver. Point to one of those receivers that you want to receive the ball and with your hand gesture a throwing motion to pass. Now, the harder you throw, the more that's going to be a bullet pass. The softer and the more you lob a throw, the more that it's going to be a lob. When you receive the ball, you run with the analog stick on the nunchuck and if you want to juke, you use the nunchuck to gesture it. And if you want to stiff-arm, you use the wand.

http://revolution.ign.com/articles/703/703727p1.html

___________________