ZacharyNeal

I waited until the first patch came out to write my review. In my experience with this game, I've come away pretty pleased with how it's played. The balance between offense and defense was my main worry coming off a defensive year in Madden 15. I was a bit worried of the overtilt BACK to the offensive side of the football. However, the WR/DB interactions are very balanced. You have a chance to take those one on one shots down the sideline, but the ratings definitely dictate who is coming down with the football. Furthermore, the defensive system really rewards the user for calling the right play/making the right adjustment. I rarely, if ever see WRs coming down with the ball when it's thrown into double coverage. This is a vast improvement from Madden 16 where you could "box out" defensive backs with big WRs regardless of their rating (Chris Matthews of the Seahawks before his big game in the Super Bowl comes to mind). Now, your WR better be up to snuff, ratings-wise when you take that shot. I will say that the size of the WRs and DBs in the interaction needs to play a bigger role. Small, but excellent WRs like Antonio Brown are playing much much MUCH bigger than you see them play in real life. Fullbacks target blocks MUCH better this year, so 2-back undercenter offenses are much better this year as well. My biggest beef with the game is actually the errant passing underneath. Too many times I'm seeing my QB airmail drag routes/shallow crosses in a clean pocket with no pressure and a wide open WR or check down RB. It's a little too frequent for my taste but definitely something that you can get used to by keeping balance in your offensive system. Draft Champions is a great tie-in mode to Madden Ultimate Team. Playing and winning 8 games of Draft Champions will get you two free elite players towards your MUT team. Which is very nice. I would prefer this mode be accessible offline to play vs. friends, as well as offline to invite friends to matches. It would become a major mode in my rotation if there were a competitive online leaderboard to track my progress/my friends' progress. Madden Ultimate Team,again, is stealing the majority of my playing time. I love the mode. This year, I saw that the pack odds are a little bit better. Still could be improved. Hard to imagine spending $60 on the mode and not getting major bang for the buck. This year I've taken a "no money spent" approach after my first bundle that I purchased, and I've found that I am doing alright with my coin bankroll. Currently winning games at 81 OVR with over 200K saved up. Not too bad. Would still like the leaderboard to reflect actual record in terms of W's and L's rather than coins earned (i.e. who has the most time to play the game regardless of win/loss record). I'm in the 300s, rank-wise but maybe 2 or 3 people in the Top 100 have a record anywhere near my 82-5 record. All in all, it's not that big of a deal.

So this is easily the first year that I have been floored by Madden out of the box. The Seahawks winning the Super Bowl was what we needed as players of this series to enjoy playing defense again. I really believe that EA is making leaps and bounds with this title. From the shading of coverages, to the protect the sticks feature, EA Tiburon is giving us everything we need to combat years and years of offensive installations/features into the series. This is the first year since the implementation of the hitstick that you genuinely notice defense impacting the game. Gone are the days of seeing only Seattle and San Francisco. While they will remain popular, the Cardinals, Patriots, and Panthers all boast interesting squads to add some unique flavor to your game this year besides seeing Lime Green vs. Scarlet Red every game. Offensively, QB inaccuracy makes you FEEL your QB. Last year, Josh Johnson (back up QB for the Bengals) ran around slinging the pill like the next coming of Fran Tarkenton. This year, you notice weaknesses in every QB not named Brady/Manning/Rodgers/Brees. Those guys are electric in the pocket and rarely miss. Russell Wilson thrives in the pocket and on the run, but can be erratic at times. Kaepernick has taken a step back. Of course, via roster updates, this can (and will) change. The pass rush is much more effective. Guys disengage with their blocker and get into high pursuit of the QB. Whether you are a manual rusher or let the CPU rush for you, the time in the pocket is a lot less than in the past, where you could literally stand in the pocket vs. a 4 man rush for 7-8 seconds and wait for coverage to break down (which required about 2-3 seconds at most in Madden 25). Coverage in this year's game is much better. Zone coverage is much more aggressive and jump throws over the middle. Man coverage was overpowered last year (2 Man Under) but is toned down in Madden 15. Overall, I'm very very pleased with the work that EA Dev Team put in on this title - it's a very large step in the right direction!

This Madden brings in a new "Run Free" system that while very fun to utilize, is very overeffective. The novice player will certainly enjoy the freedom it gives them when playing. The zone coverages are still fairly slow to respond; but an improvement to Madden 13's zone coverage. All the added option plays make team playbooks seem more authentic. Overall, this early **** game is very enjoyable for me!

NCAA Football has revamped it's hot route and audible systems to better represent what you see in real life. Smell blitz? Hot route your slot receiver to a hitch. DB backed off too far from your flanker? Put him on a smoke screen! With many new blocking schemes (Dart, Cake, Midline, Trap, Counter) for the spread option, you may choose to use this new "Run Free" feature! NCAA Football has come a long way over the past few years, and now heading into the XboxOne generation, the future looks promising. This game has sustained replay-ability, and seems to be a more realistic representation of what we see on Saturdays!