EA announces Arena Football game

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In its quest to dominate the football game market, Electronic Arts attained the licensing rights to almost every pigskin property available. The Redwood City, California-based publisher attained the rights to the National Football League in December, was granted the Arena Football League rights in January, and acquired NCAA Football license in April. This left other publishers with little choice but to make games based on fictional leagues, as Midway is doing with Blitz: The League.

EA's Madden NFL and NCAA Football franchises weren't strongly affected by the adoption of the licenses; their lineage goes back decades. The Arena Football League license, however, puts EA on a field where it has never been before.

Today, EA announced that it's ready to take some snaps on the enclosed gridiron with Arena Football, due in February 2006, when the AFL season begins. The announcement comes on the eve of Arena Bowl weekend in Las Vegas, Nevada.

In a release on its Web site, EA shows a game trailer and gives details on Arena Football. The game will try to capture the over-the-top action of Arena Football, which plays faster than its full-field NFL ancestor. It appears as though the game will fall somewhere between the simulation of Madden NFL and flashy action of EA's extreme football game, NFL Street.

The trailer, which doesn't appear to be in-game footage, gives a peek into the hard-hitting playbook EA has in store for the game. Included is a bone-crushing sack, a combo tackle that sends a wide receiver over the boards, and the familiar colored circles beneath players, designating which players are being user-controlled. It also appears as though gamers will be able to tackle a season mode and control some players on both offense and defense.

EA did not specify which consoles Arena Football will be available for, though the timing of the game's release implies current-generation consoles and/or the Xbox 360.

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