Everyone is hyped up for the Super Bowl, Peyton Manning going for his second SB ring and Brees trying to propel the New Orleans area into a frenzy.  Will Dwight Freeney play and can the Saint’s “Remember Me” hits on Peyton Manning even work.  Others want to see the new commercials, the funny ads they will be talking about on Monday and even if this Tebow commercial is even worth all the fuss.  I’m looking forward to halftime.  No, I’m not a “The Who” fan, I’m a Madden fan.

Last year Ian Cummings, Lead Designer for Madden 11 (follow @Ian_Cummings on Twitter) wrote a blog at halftime about Procedural Awareness and how they wanted to be more transparent to the fans and I thought EA did a good job at times being transparent to us fans.  You can view that blog here: http://insideblog.easports.com/archive/2009/02/01/madden-nfl-10-first-look.aspx

This year I’m hoping to hear one of the following:

1. Improvement of Online features.

2. Improved actual gameplay.  I don’t want to hear about what new method or technology they have for bringing down ball carriers in the open field.

3.  Improved Online Franchise.   I’ve been loving Online Franchise but there are obvious needs there.

What I don’t want to see is how visually improved the game is.  How authentic fields, jerseys, coaches, etc ….. none of that matters to me that much.  Don’t get me wrong, I love all that stuff but if I had my choice of what new information I want to hear, those are not one of them.

What are you hoping for?

Every day this week I will be putting out a new article about Madden so please come back to MyMaddenPad.com and check it out.

Madden Monday’s at GameStop continue with a column from guest writer and EA’s Lead Madden Developer, Ian Cummings.  Ian starts off like many of his writings this year, by discussing how the team wants to make this year’s version of Madden the most authentic game ever.  I feel like they have done that in regards to visuals and gameplay advancements.  In this article he talks at length how now a QB’s height and style of throw affect tip passes at the line of scrimmage.

Playing quarterback in Madden NFL 10 now has this whole new wrinkle of strategy that has never existed in franchise history — you actually have find open passing lanes. We added accurate QB throwing styles to this year’s game as well; so you have to be careful with the guys like Rivers and Romo that have a lower release as they can get their passes batted down more often. This addition also makes height relevant for the very first time — guys like Manning and Roethlisberger that tower in the pocket back there and have a high release have much less of a problem dealing with the linemen in front of them, where you have to do a lot more thinking with a guy like Garcia.

To view the whole blog article, click here.