It’s that time of year again: school is back in full swing, college football is on the horizon and, of course, Madden is back.
If you’re like me, the annual release of Madden means football season has officially begun, and this time, EA Tiburon is swinging for the fences.
While most NFL offenses this year will focus on the passing game, Madden NFL 17 puts the spotlight on the running game. Madden overhauls the animations around the ball carrier, including new jukes, spins and a quick time minigame to break out of tackles.
Running the ball feels more physical, and running over a defender at full speed with Adrian Peterson feels more rewarding and visceral. At the same time, it’s balanced, so don’t expect to be juking out defenders with Frank Gore or trucking linebackers with LeSean McCoy.
The running game is also where Madden’s new player– friendly changes are most evident. If you play on the rookie or pro difficulty levels (the two lowest), you will see new graphic assists, including a path showing which direction your ball carrier is heading and button prompts on the best move to perform to avoid tacklers.
You can let the computer do all the fancy footwork while you simply steer the player.
The new-player love continues over to the defensive side of the ball. With auto-flip for plays based on how the offense lines up, defensive linemen adjust to offensive line shifts and defenders adjust more often to fill gaps in the run game.
However, there are still plenty of new features that will impress die-hard fans and football junkies alike.
The greatest change is the complete overhaul of zone coverages. While previous Madden games had only three underneath zone coverage assignments, there are 10 in Madden 17.
The developers also improved the artificial intelligence of how defenders execute their assignments. You can now assign a “force defender” and “crash
defender” to attack the run game more strategically. Throw in the new gap assignments, and the defense balances out with the changes made to the running game.
Madden didn’t forget special teams, either. To set power and accuracy when kicking, you now have to press a button three times, similar to golfing video games. When aiming your kick, you change the arc and direction and have to hold it in place, which increases the difficulty.
Developers also claimed they tweaked the mechanics around blocking kicks and punts to represent a more realistic frequency of blocks. But I have yet to see any blocked field goals or punts.
In a move that Les Miles will appreciate, they have also added more trick punts and field goals.
Moving over to game modes, Madden Ultimate Team, Draft Champions and Connected Franchise all return. There are several minor changes made to both franchise and MUT, which have been met with positive response.
The most significant change is the addition of “play the moments” in franchise mode. This allows you to only play certain key situations in a game, including, third downs, key drives and red zone situations.
The rest of the game is simulated to a realistic degree and reduces the total play time of one game down to about 20 minutes. I am in love with this new feature, and I think you will be too.
It feels like the Madden team made a serious attempt to improve gameplay this year. However, I still have my grievances.
The graphics look exactly the same as last year’s, most in-game menus also look the same as they did five years ago and the new commentary is boring.
AI blocking both on-the-line and downfield is still terrible, running can be overpowered, and load times are a bit too slow for a next-gen title.
There have also been widespread reports of bugs, glitches and online play not working. On my PS4 copy, I encountered several bugs and experienced soft crashes about six times. Hopefully, a potential patch, rumored to come in early September, will solve these problems.
With balanced gameplay and solid feature additions, Madden has nailed it this year and is definitely worth the buy.
EA Sports released 'Madden NFL 17' on Aug. 23.
