Madden 16 Review – Are You Ready For Some Football?!

Another year, another Madden. Has the game improved enough to warrant another buy this year? Or can you stick to last year’s version of the game? Check out this honest game review to help you make your choice!

The game starts you off in a fictitious Super Bowl, Cardinals v Steelers, and introduces you into some new concepts for the game. I don’t think you can actually lose the game, I won because I followed the directions. After you win you can go right into skills trainer which is VERY helpful for new players, or people like me who haven’t played in years. Even if you are a veteran you should do the skills trainer to learn about the new catching and defending options.

Two the newest game play additions come with the receivers and the secondary defenders. First off we will cover the receivers. They now have three different ways to catch the ball, Aggressive, Run After Catch(RAC) and Possession Catch(safe catch). Aggressive catch helps you catch the ball when you are already covered by jumping above them to catch it. Run after catch is exactly what is sounds like, grab the ball and keep running. Safe catch is just that, alot higher chance of catching the ball but not much of a shot to run. Admittedly the aggressive catch is a bit over powered at the moment and people like to spam it with Four Verts alot.

On the defending side of the ball we have the Play Ball option or Play Receiver option. If you play the ball, you are risking them catching it but also more like to get the take away, this has to be timed good or else the receiver will catch the ball. Playing the receiver is the safer option which allows you to knock the ball out of the receiver’s hands more often than not, even if they do aggressive catch. Both are welcome additions to the game.

Connected Franchise returns with a new feature known as Drive Goals. When you start a game up in Connected Franchise you will have objectives to complete on both offense and defense. Completing these will net your team some XP and a confidence boost while failing doesn’t have any negative effects on your team. Scouting for new players has also been stream lined (thankfully). You will now be shown the players highest skill right off the bat so you can decide whether or not this is a player you want to go after. Another welcome addition because scouting used to take alot of time.

Now we move into what most people will be interested in, Madden Ultimate Team. Solo challenges make a return this year allowing players to build up a great team without spending a cent on the game. That being said, most people will opt to spend a $20 as opposed to going through the hours of solo challenges. It really comes down to if you have the time to do it or the money to do it.

Something that irks me about this years Madden is how you don’t see the opposing teams overall when you are loading into a MuT match. This year all you see if the top three players on a guys squad and the their key offense and defense plays. I can only assume they did this because they didn’t want people raging about an opposing teams rating compared to their own. It’s a crappy move and they should bring the overall back so we know what we are playing against.

A new addition to the MuT is Draft Champions. This is another good way to get cards without having to spend money. You are tossed into a draft with a pre made team and you have to choose 1 coach and 15 players to improve your team. The players range from low level golds to elites and even throw back legend players. This mode is great because you know you are on par with whoever you are playing regardless of how much money they spent on their ultimate team. Winning will get you Draft Champ badges which can be used to unlock elite players for your actual Ultimate team. You can only do one of these every 20 minutes, if you quit early you will have to wait. Also I made the mistake of starting a solo and backed out, that counts as a 20 minute wait as well apparently.

Here is my issue with Ultimate team match making. Apparently over 80% of the players are STILL in the bottom tier of the rankings. You can end up going against elites while you are still rocking the golds. The match making isn’t terrible, when I win it is close and when I lose it is normally close as well. The problem I’ve come across is the amount of rage quitters. Someone who quits basically denies you your coins for winning against them. You do get some coins still, but is isn’t as much as you would of gotten for completing the game. Their penalty? They lose a percentage of coins they earn in the next game. This doesn’t affect the guy who spends money to get his squad up so he had literally no reason to stick around a game he is losing in. They need to add a time penalty to the quitters to prevent as many rage quits.

Last but not least is the visual and audio aspect of the game. The game looks great and the hits sound amazing. The commentators are a bit annoying, as usual, so you will most likely turn them off. I remember my first hard hit, the guy went up for the ball and I tackled him sending him flipping through the air a couple times. He didn’t get injured but man did it feel good. Oh and with all the things going on during the game, no frame drops or anything like that, which is a bonus.

Overall this years Madden make some improvements to what we know already works. MuT needs some work, again, but players quitting is kind of out of their hands. Normally I wouldn’t recommend upgrading from year to year but this year, you should spend the extra money and go for it.