It’s that time of year again sports fans: it’s football season. It’s that time when hope springs eternal in 32 cities across America, and when the cracking of pads and the smashing of helmets can be heard at every college and high school throughout the land. For gamers, this means only one thing: it’s time for Madden. And whether you’re looking to bring the Lombardi Trophy home to Titletown for the fifth time, or to bring a once proud Bay Area team back to the promised land, the new features in this year’s Madden can bring hope to even the most jilted football fanatic. Yes, even you Lions fans.
There are a number of modes for players to jump into this year when they fire up their new copies of Madden NFL 12, but the core of the experience is still the franchise mode. This mode is traditionally this writer’s favorite mode, and this year is no exception. This year, players will start each season with 73 players on their rosters and will get to make cuts after each preseason game until they have a standard 52 man roster. Unlike past years, rookie stats will not become fully apparent right at the beginning of the preseason though, so cutting younger players early is discouraged until a more complete picture of their potential is revealed.
At Halftime we're doing snow-angels!
Also new in the franchise is the way mid season scouting is handled. Players may still import draft classes from NCAA Football into Madden, or go with a random group of players. But now instead of scouting every week, players can only be scouted at set intervals during the season, and only once each. This forces gamers to scout more players, including players that they might not pick until later in a draft. During the offseason, players can be scouted at the combine and again at their own Pro Days, allowing gamers to get a more in depth look at some of the players they’ve scouted previously. Gamers who take advantage of this properly will be able to cast a wider net at draft time, meaning that they’ll have more knowledge to pull from when they make their picks.
Completely new to this year is the new Free Agent Bidding process. Unlike past years where gamers just needed to hit a magic number to get a player to sign, this year they must bid on players. Once a bid is placed, a clock begins counting down until that player signs. New offers can roll in, but the clock doesn’t stop. As such, gamers may find themselves in bidding wars for that coveted free agent that they want to get their hands on. The process is fast paced and exciting, and like a real life auction, can quickly get out of hand as the $58 Million in cap room that might have been saved up quickly disappears. Luckily, gamers have the option of frontloading or backloading contracts, as well as balancing them out over time in order to make deals work in the best way possible for their team’s needs.
This Dolphins cheerleader squad's not getting it's own TV special
Another feature offered up this year is the popular My Player mode, which will also allow gamers to import Legends from NCAA Football 12 to continue on into a pro career. Gamers who enjoy these “My Player” modes will find a lot to like here, as they can live through the experience of being drafted, fighting for a starting spot, demanding a trade, etc. While this mode may not be as deep as the Franchise mode, it’s still an enjoyable experience.
Also returning this year is all the online features from past years, including the very popular (in our offices at least) Online Franchise, where you can join a league online with a group of friends. Players may also participate in ranked matches, or just friendly games online as well, including co-op games online. We found very little issue with the online aspect of the game, as lag and connectivity seemed to be optimized well enough at launch.
Also returning this year is the Madden Ultimate Team mode, where players can acquire a number of cards to build a team up. While we appreciate the creativity of this mode, cards often must be purchased with coins….coins bought with real money on PSN or XBL. While the mode can be a bit of fun, it does, at it’s core, feel like we’re being nickel and dimed a bit by the experience. This is a trend that we’ve been noticing in a number of EA Sports titles, whether it be having to pay extra for recruiting help in NCAA Football, or having all of the gear in Tiger Woods unlockable for a price. At the end of the day, we feel like a game that costs $60 should be complete right out of the box unless the content being added is actually an expansion or legitimate DLC of some sort.
800 MS Points and no bubblegum?!?!?!?
On the surface, not much has changed in the gameplay department since Madden NFL 11. But gamers who look beneath the hood will find a whole new tackling engine to play with. For those that picked up NCAA Football 12, the new tackling engine will seem very familiar, as it’s the same engine at it’s core. Most tackles will now seem more physics based, although they are at their core still based on a number of canned animations. But the new tackling feels much more lifelike than it has in past years.
Another improvement this year is in the way that the Gameflow option has been implemented. Players who enjoyed the new playcalling system from last year can continue to use it, including having the coordinators describe the plays directly into their headsets. For those who are more “Old School,” the Conventional playcalling can be turned back on via the settings screen, taking gamers to the traditional three boxes they’ve come to know and love. As traditionalists who’ve been playing Madden since it’s first incarnation, we tend to prefer to call our own plays, and appreciate the fact that we don’t have to jump through hoops this year to do so.
This bit may take a while....
However, the defensive shifts are still not as intuitive as they’ve been in past years. While the new controls introduced last year may make sense to a more casual audience, hardcore Madden and NCAA players will find themselves wondering why something as simple as defensive shifts aren’t handled the same across both games. By comparison, the offensive and defensive audible system implemented last year is still in place and is much improved over previous iterations of the franchise and is an area that the team at NCAA could take some notes on.
Overall we’re enjoying our time with Madden, but we do have some areas of concern. While it may always be sunny in Philadelphia, it is apparently a lot more rainy in the Meadowlands (and everywhere else). We found that the game’s weather seemed to be disproportionally tuned to “bad,” as 14 games into a season we had more than 3/4 of our games in the rain. We’re not sure if this was just a random weather generator not being very random, or if it’s a bug that needs to be fixed, but we found it frustrating to say the least.
"Dream Team," huh?
Another issue we have is with the game’s presentation. Frankly, there’s just too much of it. The new player introductions and halftime cinematic are neat the first couple of times, but after about three of four games we found ourselves skipping past it to get to the game. We’re also not overly thrilled with the game’s commentary as it does seem more repetitive than usual this year, and occasionally devolves into open mic night at the football game. Lines like, “He got rocked and the ball rolled” may illicit a chuckle the first time, but while jokes in real life sports broadcasts are occasionally welcome, in sports games the repetitive nature makes comedy a hard sell. There are also a few obvious mispronunciations of some players’ names (it’s Kiwanuka, not Kiwanuku), and the over the top nature of Gus Johnson’s play-by-play can occasionally make the commentary feel disjointed as lines are sometimes thrown together with vastly different emphasis.
Overall, we’re very pleased with Madden NFL 12. While we have some issues with the nickel and diming we’ve seen in a number of EA Sports titles in the past couple of years, and while we feel like the experience is a little bit too heavy on presentation, we can’t help but find ourselves playing this game rather consistently…..just like we always do. The new tackling engine really improves the experience, and the changes to the franchise mode really create more of a sim atmosphere. Despite all the changes, both good and bad, Madden still fits like an old glove.
Overall Score: 8.5/10
