Another year to go out and crush bones.OVERVIEW
Are you ready for some football? I said are... you... rrrrrrrrrready? Madden 15 is here and ready for dishing out some more hard-hitting, bone-crushing, nonstop action. As usual, new features have been added to the game so you have to adjust your strategies to come out on top. This is the 25th madden game in the series. Madden NFL 25 (technically Madden NFL 14) only marked the 25th anniversary of the series starting. The series skipped a year after the first game came out and thus this will make it the 25th game and not the 26th.
GRAPHICS - A
This game would get an A+ if not for a certain graphic flaw involving the legendary coaches but more on that in a minute. The game does a good job at capturing the realness of the players and coaches likenesses. The only two notable exceptions are the New England Patriots and New Orleans Saints coaches. Bill Bellichick and Sean Payton are not part of the NFLPA
union so all you will get is an unnamed generic coach for those two teams respectively. The stadiums the two teams play in also look very realistic too and when you want to add weather to the fold then it is realism to the core. The rain for example actually makes the camera a little blurry as if the water running down on it. The snow makes you slip if you are not careful and you can see the depth of the footprints that are made into the snow whenever a player steps in the snow. The wind speed can vary throughout each game and it can affect the flight of the football when thrown or kicked so some kicks can actually travel long distances while others will be blown back by the wind. As I have mentioned earlier. The only major graphic flaw in this game involves the Legendary Coaches. When they wear their caps, it looks like the caps got embedded into their heads instead of them actually wearing it.
SOUND - A+
The only music you'll here for the most part is the main Madden theme and some music that plays when the timeout is called or 2 minute warning occurs. No featured artists songs in this game like you would hear in most other sports games especially NBA and NCAA basketball ones. The other sound that you hear besides the bone-crunching hits and grunts of the football players are the voice announcers. Some o those comments can be annoying but most of the times they tell it like it is depending on what happened on the field. A good example is when a turnover is made via a takeaway (interception or defensive fumble recovery) or turnover on downs (fail to advance the ball or score within four downs) and the opponent scores afterwards, the announcer will make note of that play which gave them the opportunity to make that score in the first place. During an incomplete pass, sometimes the announcers will give advice on how to attack certain defenses like cover 2 or cover 3. In the newly added Gauntlet mode, there is commentary from Cam Newton and he tries to act all hard sometimes with his comments whenever a life is lost or when Boss Mode occurs sometimes.
CONTROLS - A-
The controls lose a few points because when playing against online opponents, the kicking meter seems to lag so if you want to kick at a certain strength, press Up on the Right Analog Stick a second ahead of time to get the desired strength. This applies especially for kicking field goals. Extra point kicks do not suffer since it is being kicked from up close. Another small problem you might have during the game is passing the ball every now and then, sometimes the quarterback refuses to pass the ball on time and ends up getting sacked on what would have been a very good play had he thrown the damn ball. The controls take a lot of getting used to when catching during higher modes most notably the All-Madden mode. You got to hold the Triangle button in order to make some catches. With so much stuff going on, it is hard to concentrate on doing just that. Other than that, the controls are decent enough.
GAMEPLAY - A+
This game throws a whole lot at you from Exhibition Modes to Connected Franchise Mode. There is also the Madden Ultimate Team mode which was introduced the previous year in Madden 25. Whether you are playing against the CPU, a friend offline, or even somebody online, this game is a down and dirty chess match from start to finish. It's all about choosing the right play to counter the opponent's play and capitalizing on it to make it work. There are several solo challenges in MUT to hone your skills and to earn packs for better players to use or auction off. The Connected Franchise puts you at the helm of a player, coach, or owner to see how well you will perform under certain circumstances. I like the Coach scenario because it's like playing the usual game aside from having to assign, cut, or trade players around. The online competition is very solid but sometimes the people you play online can be total bastards if you are giving them a beating and they can't take their loss with class of which they rage quit before the game is over. In MUT mode, that can rob you of some much earned coins because your opponent could not take the heat. Real gamers stay in the game no matter how bad you are losing that shows that you are a true professional.
REPLAYABILITY - Thanks to MUT mode, this game is super addictive. This is one of the games right now that I actually been playing for months trying to build my team up. I won some and lost some but I enjoy the rush of having heavy competitions and seeing how well I fair against the other players around the world. The most addicting part is trying to gather those coins and gather those cards to complete the card sets for more coins and more elite players and badges.
OVERALL - Madden 15 is wonderful. After this showing, I cannot wait to see what Madden 16 will have in store. Of course, I'll try to get an early start this time by buying Madden 16 when it gets released instead of waiting so late in the season to get started like I started here. As J.R. from WWE would say, this game is a total slobberknocker.
Graphics
9 Sound
10 Addictive
10 Depth
10 Difficulty
5
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