The Super Bowl celebrations and animations for Madden NFL 10 were, honestly, a bit underweight. This year the game goes all out ā even bringing in the President of the United States for the big party.
IGN first reported today, with that video, on Madden 11ās enhanced Super Bowl interstitials. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodellās appearance up on that Jabba the Hutt Sail Barge at the end of the big game is very impressive. I donāt think any league executive in any sport has had his likeness represented in a game before. And thatās an important first.
Then the freaking President upstages all of that, showing up with your team on the South Lawn and, folks, thatās doing it right.
Throughout this, Gus Johnson gives a voice-over tailored to your teamās performance ā note that in this one he mentions the Saints repeating as champions, and the well understood theme of New Orleansā post-Katrina revival.
Johnsonās tone shift in the narrative is a little out of character. Weāre more used to hearing him at his best in the heat of the moment, which is why he came to this game in the first place, and not so much as the sober, epilogue voice-over.
But the dirty secret is that many sports developers know gamers are gonna X or A out of most of the cutscenes, and some studios give up without a fight for that reason. Kudos to EA Sports for putting out this kind of effort and a reason to not touch that controller when you claim the leagueās top prize.
