This year, EA have taken an ‘interesting‘ approach to the launch marketing for their latest instalment of the yearly Madden franchise. As you’ll see from the trailer above, they’ve continued their ‘movie’ style approach from last year going for a Kung Fury/spoof 80s action style that shows little of the actual gameplay off, but focuses more on showing off the fun side of the action. All in all, this actually goes against the main changes in this years release, which seem to have moved the game even further over to the simulation side of the spectrum, rather than the arcade-a-like they’ve been accused of being in recent years.
The main new feature introduced this season relates to updated passing mechanics. Rather than a Quarterbacks throws being limited to their force/trajectory based on how long you hold the button down for, you now get the choice to add modifiers to affect how the ball is thrown. Bullet, lobbed, low and high/jumpball passes are now pulled off by a combination of button press length and a modifier button. This adds another layer of complexity and strategy to the passing game that just hasn’t been there in previous editions of the franchise.
It’s not just the Quarterbacks though that have received a control system upgrade, but defensive backs and receivers on the other end of the play also have more options. Receivers can now press a button to make either a possession catch where there is a higher percentage chance of the catch being made, but at a sacrifice to any extra yards you may gain, RAC (Run After Catch) catch where the receiver will attempt to make the catch and turn straight up field for more yards at the loss of ball security/protection from defenders, and the aggressive catch where the receiver will attack the ball and try to catch it at it’s highest point. This last one leads to some of the more impressive catches you’ll see in the game, but also increases the likelihood of the defense making a big play on the ball/player as well.
To balance these options out, defensive players now have the option to attack the ball and go for the big interception, or play it safe and play the man, and try to prevent the catch from being completed. The timing window to press these buttons on both sides of the ball is fairly tight, however the game does make a decent effort in defaulting to the most appropriate type of catch/defensive play based on the situation if you’re not quick enough to the change player and react/make the decision. This new interaction between receivers and defensive backs, along with tweaks to the animation systems for running backs and tackling leads to the on-field action looking and feeling more realistic than ever before.
Outside of the on-field action, all the usual staple game modes of the series are here along with the whole new Draft Champions mode. Here you are given a squad of average rated players and the opportunity to draft in players over 15 rounds to fill out the roster and shape the team the way you want to play. The mode starts with you picking your head coach (and subsequent playstyle), and is then followed by 15 rounds where you are given the choice of picking between 3 players each round to fill out the roster. This adds a surprising amount of depth and luck to the mode that is missing from the standard Ultimate Team style gameplay.
You might get to the 12th round of the draft and still not have a better running back from the original one given to you when a player rated 82 at the position is available to pick. Do you take him as you’re running out of rounds to get a player at the position, or do you pass, pick the higher rated defensive player who fills a hole elsewhere and hope another better running back comes up in the final couple of rounds? Add into all this the occasional round where you’ll get to pick from some of the legends of the sports past, then you have a game mode which provides near endless replayability and a fun, yet challenging take on the usual Ultimate Team style gamemode.
If you’re new to the sport, there is a fairly comprehensive training mode built in, which will coach you through the game from the very basics of the controls all the way through to the nuances of the sport, such as reading defences or running the read option. Whilst there have been some improvements to the game as a whole as listed above, there are still some problems with this years title. In game presentation and commentary still lags way behind every other major sports title with limited camera angles and constantly repeating commentary which hasn’t moved on from last years release. The kicking game is also the same as in previous years and even with the new Extra Point rules introduced into the NFL this season, it’s still far too easy to successfully make every field goal and extra point or put each punt inside the oppositions 10 yard line. Load times have also increased and getting into the games main menus can take several minutes from the Xbox One dashboard.
This years version is also littered with bugs at release, some of which make staple modes like Franchise unplayable at the time of writing. There are issues with game crashes, defensive players giving away penalties by randomly walking into the offensive line after coming out of the huddle, super sim giving 15-20 rushes to the QB, overly boosted player ratings in-game during Franchise mode and various other problems. EA have released a statement saying these issues will be patched shortly, but no date has been forthcoming. Yet, even with these issues at launch, Madden NFL 16 is easily the finest American Football title released since NFL 2K5 and the new passing mechanics and Draft Champions mode are enough to warrant a purchase for long time fans and newcomers to the series alike.