Madden Challenge Series is a videogame tournament to find out the skilled Madden NFL 12 players. The tournament is PS3 exclusive, so if you want to join, you better play on the PS3 and have good knowledge of the controller.

You can also participate in the tournament online. You can register for the tournament over here.

The EA SPORTS™ Madden Challenge Series, is a video game tournament determining the most skilled Madden NFL 12 gamers. Hosted by Virgin Gaming and exclusive to the PlayStation®3 (PS3TM) computer entertainment system, participants will compete for cash and prizes. Madden Challenge allows gamers to participate in the tournament online at their own leisure by pairing up gamers playing on the site at the same time.

Tell us what you think in the comments section below.

EA is pitting up a team of Football Stars for what is known at the Battlefield 3: Operation Gridiron.  In correlation with Madden NFL ’12, Battlefield 3, their developers as well as publishers and the cooperation of these football stars, a reality show will are on GTTV.  This show will put quarterback Drew Brees, linebacker Clay Matthews, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and defensive end Jared Allen into real-life combat scenarios that are inspired by the game Battlefield 3.

The show will air this fall on Spike TV and will be filmed on a secret location.  Using the team skills the players already have, they will also be trained for combat by some of the worlds best Special Operations Soldiers out there.  The second promo episode has been released which can be seen above, while the first you can view right here.  The full press release for the Operation is can be view below.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– From the football field to the battlefield, the Battlefield 3™ experience comes alive this fall! Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) today announced that it has teamed up with some of football’s biggest stars for an exclusive reality show titled GTTV Presents Battlefield 3: Operation Gridiron. Airing on Spike TV this fall, the show takes quarterback Drew Brees, linebacker Clay Matthews, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald, and defensive end Jared Allen into real-life combat scenarios inspired by the award—winning videogame, Battlefield 3. Filmed at a top secret location, these all-star athletes are provided the ultimate in combat training by some of the world’s most elite Special Operations Warriors. Following their advanced training, they must work together as a team to accomplish a live simulated operation, pulled straight from the gritty war scenarios players will face in the game. Starting today, weekly Tuesday webisodes will be posted at 9:00am PDT on the Battlefield Facebook page. The finale will air on Spike TV on October 24 at 12:00am EST/PDT and at 11:00pm CST. Gamers can “LIKE” Battlefield 3 on www.facebook.com/battlefield to view the Battlefield 3: Operation Gridiron webseries.

“Taking to the battlefield in these real life war settings was really exciting and eye-opening,” said All-Pro quarterback Drew Brees. “Every day men and women face challenges similar to what we tackled in this show but with potential dire consequences. Filming this show once again reinforced my respect for the soldiers who fight every day for our freedom.”

Battlefield 3, developed by DICE in Stockholm Sweden, is one of the most anticipated games of 2011, having already earned more than 50 awards including ‘Best Action Game’ and ‘Best Online Multiplayer Game.’ Critics praise the game for its intense gameplay experience, powered by the Frostbite™ 2 state-of-the-art game engine that delivers superior performance in character animation, visual rendering, audio and physical destruction. To accompany the game, Orion Publishing will release a novel called Battlefield 3: The Russian written by the highly decorated ex-SAS operator and best-selling author of Bravo Two Zero, Andy McNab, with co-author Peter Grimsdale. McNab is working with the creative team at DICE to ensure the authenticity and grittiness of today’s warfare is experienced in the single player, co-op and multiplayer campaigns.

Battlefield 3 will be available October 25, 2011 in North America for the PlayStation®3 computer entertainment system, the Xbox 360® videogame entertainment system and the PC. For the latest news on Battlefield please visit www.facebook.com/battlefield or follow us on Twitter a www.twitter.com/battlefield.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:ERTS) is a global leader in digital interactive entertainment. The Company’s game franchises are offered as both packaged goods products and online services delivered through Internet-connected consoles, personal computers, mobile phones and tablets. EA has more than 100 million registered players and operates in 75 countries.

In fiscal 2011, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.6 billion. Headquartered in Redwood City, California, EA is recognized for critically acclaimed, high-quality blockbuster franchises such as The Sims™, Madden NFL, FIFA Soccer, Need for Speed™, Battlefield, and Mass Effect™. More information about EA is available at http://info.ea.com.

The Sims and Need for Speed are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. Battlefield 3 and Frostbite are trademarks of EA Digital Illusions CE AB. Mass Effect is a trademark of EA International (Studio and Publishing) LTD. Xbox and Xbox 360 are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies and are used under license from Microsoft. “PlayStation” is a registered trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. John Madden, NFL and FIFA are the property of their respective owners. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

EA has announced that Madden NFL 12 has sold over 1.4 million copies in a week and has outperformed last year’s first week figures by 10%. They also announced that the digital revenue is up by 78%.

“Madden NFL 12 is off to a great start, and we’ve seen a tremendous amount of excitement and demand this first week,” said Chris Homeister, senior vice president and general manager of the home entertainment group at Best Buy. “Fans lined up at Best Buy stores around the country for midnight launch events to be the first to bring Madden NFL 12 home and get a jump on their rivals.”

Among the additional notable accomplishments for Madden NFL 12 in its first week at retail:

– Madden NFL 12 fans have played more than 5.4 million online connected game sessions since launch; the equivalent of more than 10,000 regular NFL seasons.
– Madden Ultimate Team has been a big hit, with fans having purchased nearly 200,000 Madden Ultimate Team card and coin packs in the first seven days.
– EA SPORTS Season Ticket subscribers got a jump on the competition, with early full-game digital access to Madden NFL 12 beginning on August 26. Fans logged more than four million total gameplay minutes in the early access period.
– Within its first week on the market, Madden NFL 12 reached the number one top paid spot on the Android market and ranked in the top 10 grossing on the App Store for iOS platforms.

“With the start of the NFL season only days away, fans are thrilled to get back to football and they’re doing so in record numbers through Madden NFL 12,” says Andrew Wilson, executive vice president of EA SPORTS. “The growth across console and digital shows that the appetite for the Madden NFL franchise has never been bigger.”

Looks like the game did exceptionally well for EA. Are you satisfied with the game tell us in the comments section below.

PR

Let’s talk about the new features this game has to offer. My personal favorite is the “Dynamic Player Performance” or, DPP for short.  DPP is a new feature that directly impacts the performance of every player in the league. Each player now has a confidence score ranging from 1 – 5; when Madden ships, each player’s confidence level will be set to “3”. As you play through games, each player’s performance will be influenced by their actions within the game. Catch an impossible catch for a game winning touchdown? Confidence boost. Likewise, messing up what may have been an easy play will result in a decrease in confidence. You can really tell as you play too! In one particular game as the Eagles against the Rams, I wound up going 56 to 3 as I watched the Rams slowly give up any hope of stopping Michael Vick. Eventually, they practically let me score free touchdowns off of their punts, and seemingly passed me the ball for easy interceptions.

Some serious air.

In addition to those features I mentioned about DPP, there are also “Hot Streaks” and “Cold Streaks” in Franchise mode. Put simply, when coming out of a bad game, players may have a “Cold Streak” and perform worse in their next game. The same is true for the opposite, keep up the momentum and your players will continue to reward you with a stellar performance. Finally, something I found really awesome is that with the weekly roster updates, EA will continue to change player’s confidence level based on their real world performance. This will be perfect for those of you that have the guys over on the weekend to play a few rounds of Madden, giving a gaming experience that closely follows real world events.

Another feature that has seen a lot of love is the Superstar Mode – a mode where you can create your own rookie, play as an existing rookie, or import a player from NCAA 12 to play through a career. As a huge RPG fan, I couldn’t help but notice a lot of the similarities this mode has to your typical Role-Playing game. Your character levels up through practice, you can adjust your stats based on the points you earn from completing practice and games, and there are even “roles” which remind me of RPG abilities – special additions to the character that impact the game in many different ways. Also, when creating your character, you can choose to sign onto any team you want, or if you’d rather, you can enter the draft and get picked by a team that needs the niche your personal character fills and get bonus skill points. Superstar Mode has created something I never thought could exist – a Sport’s RPG; Dungeons and Dragons for Sports Fans, if you will.

Play in the snow!

If Superstar Mode is Madden’s version of Dungeons and Dragons, then “Madden Ultimate Team” (MUT for short) is certainly its Magic the Gathering. When you first start up MUT, you will receive a starter pack of cards that contains everything from players, to coaches, to uniforms, stadiums, and other miscellaneous things. The Collector’s edition comes with a special “Legendary” pack of cards, so if this feature is something you’re looking forward to, picking up the collector’s edition is a good idea. You form a team out of those players and play games with your new fantasy team. As you play through games, you’ll earn coins which you can use to purchase more packs of cards to add more players to your roster. While there is a relatively low cap on the amount of players and cards you can have, this year you can trade your cards, or auction them for coins to others in order to create your perfect team.

Perhaps the most noticeable feature in Madden ’12 is the sheer amount of polish the game has been put under. The Madden experience is the closest it’s been to actual Sunday night football yet. The Grass is 3D now, and the level of uniform degradation is at its best yet with helmet nicks and scratches, uniform wrinkles, and photo-realistic grass stains. (The cardboard cutout audience is still there.) EA’s team worked directly with actual NFL Film’s cinematographers in order to produce accurate and realistic camera angles and shots. Everything from the analyst’s reviews of key players and the NFL logo after the game make you feel like you just watched an actual game of football and not just a video game. The only thing that dispelled my suspension of disbelief was the lack of unique commentary from the announcers. There were a few games where I would hear the same. Exact. Phrase. 4 or 5 times through the course of one game. I do suppose Madden needs a few things to improve upon year after year if they want to have a Madden ’13 that’s more than just roster updates.

My ball biotch!

The list of new features does not end there either. There are dozens upon dozens of improvements with this new installment of the Madden series. One thing that I would like to stress is that everybody that purchases this game new should immediately update the roster so that it’s accurate. Unfortunately, if you’re buying this game used you will need a Madden Online Pass which will run you an extra ten bucks, so it’s something to consider if the latest rosters are important for you. Collisions have also been improved in this game, meaning you will no longer see suction, warping, or sliding. Size and weight of players also play an important role in determining the success or failure of tackles and blocking. For those of you obsessed with the strategy aspect of Madden, you’ll be glad to know you can now customize your playbook and the AI will even consider your custom plays in its Game Flow should you decide to listen to the CPU. (Please note, I found following the Game Flow against other CPU opponents very effective, but don’t try it against even the most novice of players. You will regret it.) Finally, there are online communities, groups you can form or join online that have their own sets of house rules so you can always find someone to play just the way you like to, and they do too!

That’s Madden ’12 in a nutshell. Despite the potential NFL lockout looming over this season, EA managed to pull out all the stops in an attempt to make the best madden yet. Perhaps this lockout was the best thing to happen to Madden players yet, as it has nearly forced EA to make an incredible experience in anticipation of potential lost sales from the lock out. Now that the lockout hasn’t happened I expect the players, and EA will reap the benefits of their hard work this past year. My friends and I have a saying “Madden skips a year.” Essentially meaning the changes from year to year usually aren’t enough to justify buying the latest Madden, but if you missed out on last year’s version, this year is sure to blow you away. In Madden ‘12’s case, I would even make a case saying that this year is worth the purchase even if you already own Madden ’11 to all but the most cash strapped of gamers.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox 360.

Madden NFL 12 releases this August. Stay tuned with GamingBolt.com for more news and updates.

EA Sports has released a new trailer for Madden NFL 12 with some serious gameplay footage action.

The games are due on PSP, PS2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 and 3DS on August 30th.

EA’s has just announced that the cover for Madden NFL 12 will be chosen by you, the fans. There will be 32 teams to pick from with only one making front the cover. Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, Michael Vick (Philadelphia Eagles), Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson and Julius Peppers are just a few notable contestants out of the 32 candidates.  Head over to the voting site here before it ends on April 27th.

Full Press Release below.

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ:ERTS) announced today that football fans across the country will have the opportunity to select the next cover athlete for the award-winning Madden NFL franchise. Beginning today and continuing through April 27, fans can participate in a bracket-style voting campaign on www.ESPN.com/MaddenVote and choose among 32 candidates (one representative from every NFL team) to appear on the cover of Madden NFL 12. Fans’ votes will determine which NFL players advance through the seeded bracket, culminating in the reveal of the Madden NFL 12 cover athlete on ESPN’s “SportsNation” on April 27.*

Green Bay Packers quarterback and Super Bowl XLV MVP Aaron Rodgers, former Madden NFL cover athletes Drew Brees (quarterback, New Orleans Saints) and a wave of NFL stars including Michael Vick (quarterback, Philadelphia Eagles), Maurice Jones-Drew (running back, Jacksonville Jaguars), Adrian Peterson (running back, Minnesota Vikings) and Julius Peppers (defensive end, Chicago Bears) are among the 32 candidates.

Tune in to ESPN’s “SportsNation” today (March 21) at 4pm Eastern Time to see the full Madden NFL 12 cover athlete bracket.

“Whether it be from fans, media, agents, or even the players themselves, there’s never a shortage of opinions when it comes to the annual selection of the Madden NFL cover athlete,” said Anthony Stevenson, Senior Product Manager of EA SPORTS. “So this year we’re handing the keys over to the public. ESPN continues to be a tremendous partner of the Madden NFL franchise, and it makes perfect sense for ‘SportsNation’ to be the platform that gives fans the ultimate say in who graces the cover of Madden NFL 12.”

From March 21 — April 27, fans can log on to www.ESPN.com/MaddenVote to vote daily for their favorite cover athlete candidate. Every Monday throughout the campaign, fans can tune in to ESPN’s “SportsNation” at 4pm Eastern Time for the latest voting results and see who will advance to the next round. Fans can also visit the Madden NFL Facebook page (www.facebook.com/EASPORTSMaddenNFL) to fill out their own Madden NFL 12 cover athlete bracket to compete against their friends and co-workers for the chance to win a variety of prizes including Super Bowl tickets and copies of Madden NFL 12. Visit www.facebook.com/EASPORTSMaddenNFL for Official Rules.

“ESPN is proud to continue its tradition of serving fans by collaborating with EA SPORTS and putting the cover vote of Madden NFL 12 in their hands,” said Raphael Poplock, Vice President, Games & Digital Partnerships, ESPN. “We believe ESPN provides the perfect platform for fans to be heard, and encourage everyone to support their favorite representative in this bracket-style vote.”

Candidates from each NFL team were selected and seeded based on a variety of criteria including on-the-field performance during the 2010 NFL season, their visibility within their franchise and community, and their personal career journey.

The Madden NFL 12 cover vote marks the second-consecutive year that EA SPORTS has asked fans to help shape the face of the Madden NFL franchise through a cover athlete voting campaign. Last year, New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees, fresh off a Super Bowl XLIV MVP award, won the fans vote to appear on Madden NFL 11, beating out Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Reggie Wayne and Minnesota Vikings defensive end Jared Allen.

Madden NFL 12 marks the 23^rd edition of the video game in franchise history. Since its debut in 1989, Madden NFL has over 90 million units sold-in to date. Madden NFL 12, which launches in August, will provide an immersive and authentic experience that fans have come to expect from the award-winning franchise, including all 32 NFL teams and more than 1,700 NFL players.

Madden NFL 12 is developed in Orlando, Florida by the EA Tiburon studio, which also produces NCAA® Football, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR®, and EA SPORTS™ MMA.

* The Madden NFL 12 cover announcement date is subject to change. Visit www.maddenNFL.easports.com throughout the campaign for updates and for more information.

All player participation has been facilitated by NFL PLAYERS, the licensing and marketing subsidiary of the NFL Players Association.

EA SPORTS is one of the leading sports entertainment brands in the world, with top-selling videogame franchises, award-winning interactive technology, global videogame competitions, and breakthrough digital experiences. EA SPORTS delivers personal access to the emotion of sports through industry-leading sports simulation videogames, including Madden NFL football, FIFA Soccer, NHL® hockey, NBA ELITE basketball, NCAA® Football, Fight Night boxing, EA SPORTS MMA, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® golf, and EA SPORTS Active.

About Electronic Arts

Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is a leading global interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the Company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for video game systems, personal computers, wireless devices and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTS™, EA™, EA Mobile™, and POGO™. In fiscal 2010, EA posted GAAP net revenue of $3.7 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million units. EA’s homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA’s products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

EA, EA SPORTS, EA SPORTS Active, EA Mobile, and POGO are trademarks of Electronic Arts Inc. John Madden, NFL, FIFA, NHL, NBA, NCAA, Tiger Woods, and PGA TOUR are trademarks of their respective owners and used with permission. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

About ESPN, Inc.

ESPN, Inc., is the world’s leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring a portfolio of more than 50 multimedia sports assets. The company is comprised of six 24-hour domestic television networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes) and ESPN 3D, an event-based network. ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS HD are simulcast services. Other businesses include ESPN Regional Television, ESPN International (46 networks, syndication, radio, websites), ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN3.com (broadband sports network) ESPN Mobile, ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Enterprises, ESPN PPV and other growing new businesses, including ESPN on Demand and ESPN Interactive. Based in Bristol, Conn., ESPN is 80 percent owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds a 20 percent interest in ESPN.

© 2011 NFL Properties LLC. Team names/logos/indicia are trademarks of the teams indicated. All other NFL-related trademarks are trademarks of the National Football League.

During the Super Bowl half-time the first blog post went up for Madden NFL 12. The first new feature announced is the ability to have surprise onside kicks as shown in the video above. There are also tuner sets, that seem to vastly increase the customisation you have over your team. Stay tuned for more news on Madden NFL 12 as it comes in.

Thanks to VG247 for the info.