Madden 10: A Review of the Game

I've had the newest version of the Madden series ever since it was released a few months ago.  I'd been waiting with anticipation ever since I'd heard about the newest game feature, the online franchise mode. 

Now that I've had a couple months to play it, I thought I'd let you know what I see so far.  Also, if you've noticed anything about the game that other readers might be interested in, please add it to the comments section of this post.

Gameplay

One of the great aspects of sports games is that the gameplay can be tweaked and adjusted from year to year, because the whole game doesn't need to be reinvented.  In Madden 10, the gameplay has been improved even further, with better animation of gang tackles and ability for defensive backs to defend balls in the air.  As of this point, I also haven't found much in the way of gameplay glitches, althought manually pass-rushing with a decent defensive end was a little too easy on the All-Pro difficulty, but got much harder on All-Madden.

Game Modes

As I mentioned above, this year EA decided to add a game mode I've been wanting for years, the online franchise.  For those of us that like playing franchise mode with all the trades, free agents, and ability to build your team over time, it has always seemed odd that we couldn't play the franchise with a few close buddies in the same league.  Unfortunately the online franchise doesn't have all the features of the regular franchise mode, probably so EA could iron out the bugs of letting us interact with CPU-controlled teams without the other players online at the same time.

Best Improvements

I didn't think it was possible for the gameplay to get any better, but it has.  The running back movement is better, the catches in traffic are more realistic and the pre-snap adjustments have improved.  My favorite new adjustment is the ability to crowd the line and show blitz, then drop into coverage.

The addition of more detailed ability rankings such as breaking down passing accuracy into short, medium and long passes along with passing on the run and the ability to sell the play action fake.  It used to be too easy to sell the play action to the defense.  Additionally, the further delineation for receivers with catch rating, catch in traffic and spectacular catches, makes the receivers even more unique.

The Wildcat formations and plays are great.  I'm happy to see that EA got on board and added these, for any team that used them last year.  It's a nice change of pace and proves that once again, the team at EA is keeping up with trends in the sport from season to season.

Biggest Areas for Improvement

For some reason, the Madden development team has never quite figured out how to make the decision engine for the trades work properly.  It's still way to easy to trade a 34-year-old player with an overall ranking of 75 and a nobody with a ranking of 60 for a player picked in the first round with a ranking of 75 but all the potential in the world.

The new feature, that forces you to mash buttons, just to win a fight for a fumble, is ridiculous.  Fumble recovery is largely random in real life, so why do I have to pound on the buttons in a skill-less battle?

The lack of any free agency in between seasons or salary cap on the online franchise was a major miss.  If EA was worried about the logisitics of managing free agent signings, they could have done it with a round-based system like the draft where each team had a set number of offers to attempt each round.  The lack of salary cap completely removes a fairly major constraint from the game.

Buy Madden 10 on Amazon.com

Final Ratings

I'd give the game a solid 4.5 out of 5 controllers.  It would have been a 5 if they had added a few extra features to online franchise mode.  That said, they've kicked it off, it will only get better from here.