Over the weekend I got a chance to play the Madden 17 game trial. I haven't played a Madden game regularly for a couple years. I just got a little fatigued of the series, even though football is my favorite sport. So I went in to this trial with relatively low expectations. I ended up being surprised by how much I enjoyed playing Madden again. I'm not sure if it's because football season is right around the corner, or because I took a break from the series.
Graphically Madden looks fantastic. Player models are the best in the series and overall it's a very pretty game to look at. Gameplay has been restructured a bit with a new juke system. I recommend playing the tutorial to get comfortable with the new control scheme. Madden did a good job with making each team feel different to as. For example when I played with the Browns I had trouble running the ball due to a poor offensive line and running back. So I had to rely more on quick passing. But when I played as the titans with a better running back and offensive line. I stuck to a heavy run attack and utilized more play action passing. In past Madden games I felt like someone could play the same way with any team. I'm really happy that they added certain play styles for each team.
Defense is also a lot more fun this year. In previous Madden's defense always felt like a chore. But they improved upon it with front seven gameplay. Previously manually rushing the passer was very difficult and hardly ever worked. It's still not easy to do but it's easier to get user sacks than previous Madden's. Controlling cornerbacks is also much easier. It was nearly impossible in the past to cover receivers manually with corner backs. Now it's possible, I got several user interceptions while playing. My only complaint about the gameplay is the number of dropped passes I encountered. Receivers were dropping the ball with out a defender in sight to often. I don't like seeing unrealistic drops happen with regularity.
Madden's most popular game mode is ultimate team. It has always had the best ultimate team set up compared to the other EA games. From my brief time with the game mode it's still EA's best ultimate team mode. Madden has by far the most reasonable prices for players and offers the best reward cards for offline play. Madden is the only sports game where I enjoy playing the computer. Mainly because the computer actually plays football, unlike the online community who go for it on fourth down inside the twenty. So I think Madden is definitely worth getting this year. I think it's a huge improvement from the last couple games.
