Having not played a Madden title since '09 (on the PlayStation 3), I will admit that I had a dull ache to get back into game and mix up my skill-set against other gamers online. However after the 3 hour skill-training session on Madden, that self-delusion was swallowed with a rather violent reality check.
The modern Madden games have gone from a topical understanding of the different playbooks/play-styles of each franchise into full on tape-study. Can you identify a concealed blitz package? Can you figure out which audible play to call to take advantage of the showing defense? Will you have enough time to wait out your receiver coming free before the defense collapses the pocket? If the answer to any of the questions is, "Uh, or I'm not sure…" you will be eaten alive. It did not take long to switch the difficulty setting from Veteran to Rookie just so I could actually be competitive in games.
The end result, Madden '15 is a fully self-aware football simulator that enters a much more involved analysis of strategy/counter-strategy than you will ever see in a pick up and play title. That's neither a criticism nor a feature – just a cold hard fact.
I foresee that the casual gamer will find themselves well out of the element, even with all of the assistance features turned on.
The online suggested plays make for a brilliant addition as you can see success/failure trends on play-choices in similar game conditions. Some of the other integrated online features are the weekly challenges and rosters that are practically forced on you when you login – nice to know that the team is very active on keeping the experience as up to date as possible.
The enemy AI is definitely much craftier than in previous years. The AI was much quicker in keying in on my personal play-calling preferences: slant and short-pass patterns, running packages if using zone coverages, and always going Jumbo package up the middle on 4th and short. You call the same play with any frequency, and the computer will attack it with rabid ferocity. It certainly means that you're going to have to use a a diverse playbook and definitely leave your comfort zone every once in a while.
The most touted of the new features in this iteration of Madden is the defensive play. My old trick was to always play as a linebacker and just turn every defensive play into a blitz variant and pray that I didn't get burned for exposing part of the field. You usually would play defense with 1 of 2 expectations – to either mitigate the damage that the AI would give up on your behalf, or just try and sack the quarterback on every play despite how stupid it may be situationally. The majority of defensive snaps, I now play as a defensive lineman and instead let the AI handle the zone/man-to-man coverages for me. As long as I play my position intelligently, we tend to do well but if I blow my assignment I will get burned. On running plays, I'm more inclined to feel that I've let my AI teammates down instead of the other way around if I fail to pick up the tackle.
There are a few other new bells and whistles for long-time players.
You can switch between going no-huddle, standard play calling, and chewing clock for those times at the end of the game where you are trying to seal the win. The defensive camera views are a vast improvement in allowing you to better see in front of your character and try and anticipate the play as it happens. The Madden Ultimate Team returns with a bit of stream-lining from previous years – although there's only 1 "deck" or team to manage this time it still just feels like an opportunity to make micro-transactions in a console game.
Despite the immense amount of work that goes into the game, there's always a few warts – the Tiny Titan character being the most funny of the ones being embraced by EA Sports. There's some minor stuff with AI characters moving in the way of other characters prior to the snap (at no point can I ever remember a quarterback being the first person lining up and the lineman having to move around him to get into position in any game, but it happens 1 out of every 3 snaps in the game). The coaches have been animated in this iteration, but their facial expressions on close-ups seem completely disassociated with the action in the game. (I'm pretty sure that no coach would be smiling after a team just gave up a 65 yard running play with 3 missed tackles.) So that could use a little more fine tuning.
All in all, I enjoyed playing Madden a lot – I may have to raise it back up to "buy annually" again like the NHL franchise.
- Tazman
The Good:
- Defense is starting to get fun to play
The Bad:
- 3+ Hour tutorial? I can't recall a longer tutorial not appearing in a Civilization game
