I had purchased Madden 17 with high hopes. I love football, love a good computer simulation and had heard great things about the great graphics offered in Madden. So I purchased the game and gave it a try. Admittedly I was surprised at the complexity of mastering the game controls, as well as the extensive playbooks available on both offense and defense. Still, the complexity onlyI had purchased Madden 17 with high hopes. I love football, love a good computer simulation and had heard great things about the great graphics offered in Madden. So I purchased the game and gave it a try. Admittedly I was surprised at the complexity of mastering the game controls, as well as the extensive playbooks available on both offense and defense. Still, the complexity only added to my excitement and my hope that Madden would be an engrossing and accurate simulation of NFL football, sans the bruises, broken bones and CTE of the real thing.
Unfortunately I was disappointed in Madden 17, and am even more disappointed in Madden 18.
Without question, the graphics are outstanding. One thing I will acknowledge as an improvement in ’18 over ’17 is far better rendering of the faces of the players, coaches and referees. Gone is the pseudo-“Zombie Apocalypse” appearance of the faces. Also, the stadium and gameplay graphics appear to be somewhat cleaner and sharper than before. Sad to say, great graphics is the best thing Madden has going for it. The music track is terrible. Seriously, it stinks out loud. It is almost as if one of the millennials who wrote some of the code for the game just dumped their playlist into the game and said “Yeah! That’s cool!” Uh, no…it’s not.
The Franchise Mode can be entertaining. “Longshot” is okay, but just okay and really adds little to the value of the game itself. The biggest problem with Madden has been and continues to be the way the game plays. Playing against the CPU you have 4 levels to choose from in ascending levels of difficulty: “Rookie”, “Pro”, “All-Pro”, and “All-Madden”. “Rookie” is where you learn to play. As expected, it is meant to be easy and after a few tries you could play as the Cleveland Browns and be able to blow out the New England Patriots. “Pro” is considerably harder and less forgiving, and more so as you advance to “All-Pro” and finally “All-Madden”. Also, you can choose to play in two different modes: “Arcade” and “Simulation”.
I assumed simulation meant just that: a simulation based on the actual abilities of the players on a team roster. I also assumed when I played I would be the virtual coach of the team, with some additional control of the movements of the quarterback, receivers, ball carriers, and some of the defenders. But it appears EA defines “simulation” somewhat differently than most of us. Here is what happens:
A typical game will go like this” Let’s say you want to play as the Packers against the 49’ers. You will score a couple of times in the first half, and be ahead by a score of something like 17-7 at the half. Not an unexpected result given the match-up. But then, almost like clockwork, something changes. The CPU controlled players seem to gain almost superhuman abilities, the human controlled players begin to drop passes, fumble, or commit penalties right at critical times, and somehow CPU controlled defenders can manage to sack the QB while playing a Cover 4 offense where 2 or three defenders penetrate the offensive line virtually untouched by a defender. Aaron Rodgers will start underthrowing a receiver by 10 yards (regardless of whether you choose “bullet pass”, “touch pass”, or “lob pass”), Victor Bolden or Trent Taylor will make two or three one-handed pass receptions on third and long, Randall Cobb will have a pass bounce off his hands, and have it tipped by no fewer than 3 defenders before finally being caught by a 49er DB and returned for a “Pick-6”. This crap occurs in virtually every simulated game. I had emailed EA about this months ago basically wondering what was up. I was told, “we make every effort to make the game entertaining and competitive”. Competitive? Hmmmm…. I thought this was a simulation. So in other words the game is set to actually cut the point spread if it’s deemed by the CPU to be too wide? Yeah, that’s not how football…or any sport…really works. Well, unless a gambling syndicate is involved but we won’t go there.
So if are looking for is a video game with an AI engine which seems to have a lot in common with the AI from the old arcade game “Space Invaders” (just make things go faster as you level up), this is the game for you. If you are looking for a game that does a great job of simulating a true NFL game, save your money. This is not what you are looking for.… Expand
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