Here is a question this grizzled veteran of sports gaming never thought he would have to ask.
Is Madden worth it any more?
Sacrilegious, yes. But there comes a time in a man’s life when he does need to ponder if there is room in his life for yet another year on the virtual gridiron.
The answer had always been yes. Madden was a phenomenon — such a cultural landmark there is a brilliant four-part documentary on the game — and arguably the deepest, most accurate, most reliable sports game, year on year on endless year.
It was fun, it had variety, it could be both challenging and rewarding — what more could you possibly want from a game?
Maybe it was something to do with over-familiarity, having played the game every year for ... gulp ... 28 years.
Maybe it was simply getting old and having too many other things to do and play.
Perhaps, though, it was contextual, as I realised I had spent way more time in the past 12 months playing both Retro Bowl (mobile, fun, simple) and College Football (feels fresher) and that maybe I had my fill of American football through those titles.
Long story short: I just don’t know about Madden any more, and possibly I need some time to see if it will ever grab me like it once did.
It is still a very impressive game, let’s be clear.
Once a Franchise guy, I have found myself pulled more and more into the world of Ultimate Team, which has struck the absolute sweet spot in terms of offering you just enough of a challenge and just enough rewards to keep coming back.
For a really strong sense of how the game performs, though, you need to play a few seasons in Franchise mode.
What immediately appeals is the work EA has done in both the presentation of the sport and in the intricacies of the action on the field.
Player likenesses are getting frighteningly good, the stadiums and the sound are really quite spectacular, and pretty much every graphic element is on point.
NFL obsessives will relish the action on the field, too. Upgrading game physics and animations has been a relentless focus for the developers, who spend millions to translate real-life data into a game, and while I am far from an expert, you can just feel the results of that when you scramble with a quarterback, look for a seam with a running back, or play as a defender and hunt down a ball-carrier.
For me, though, Franchise has lost some of its appeal because of the desperate search for ultra-realism.
It is not too difficult to get a bit confused when you have things like "Playsheets", "Ability Goals" and "Knockout Goals" lobbed at you constantly, and the scouting/drafting mechanics are way more complicated than they need to be.
Importing the wear-and-tear system from the college game made sense but, again, it almost turns things just a bit hectic.
The thing with Madden is that if you love it, you love it. It’s a vastly impressive game in its own right.
It just feels a bit ho-hum for some of us this year.
