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Free Madden NFL 10 Card Game Coming

by Matthew Kato on Nov 04, 2009 at 10:54 AM

Think you already spend a lot of time at work obsessing over your fantasy football team? EA Sports is going to make things worse. The publisher has unveiled a free card game mode for Madden NFL 10 that will be available for download sometime in January.

Similar to the Ultimate Team feature in FIFA, Madden Ultimate Team features card packs of players, coaches, contracts, playbooks, uniforms, etc. that you arrange and play against the computer or people online for credits. You start out with a random assortment of low-level card packs (which come in the bronze, silver, and gold designations), but of course, you can buy new and better ones with the credits you’ve won or with your own real-life cash. There are also buyback and auction features enabling you to sell your doubles or pick up someone else’s discards.

Getting cards to fill out your 100-card deck is just the beginning. Each player has a contract rating, which represents the number of times you can use them. This might only be for five or six games. Thus, applying a contract card to your favorite player extends that number. There are also chemistry bonuses for playing teammates together or for pairing players with their coaches, playbooks, and stadiums from real life. Furthermore, there are rare legendary player cards that feature current players from the teams that made them famous, such as Randy Moss from his Vikings days.

Personally, I really liked this feature when it was introduced in UEFA Champions League 2006-2007, and hats off to EA for giving it to the Madden faithful for free. The matchmaking is going to have to be tight since you can spend real-world money to buy cards, and EA will hopefully make sure that credit payouts are balanced right so you don't find yourself in a losing spiral and unable to earn enough credits to better your team. I can’t wait until they integrate the credit system into what you do in the rest of the game.

 

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