#3 Madden 17 Review

Electronic Arts have released a game in the Madden NFL series every year since 1989. In 2006, EA signed an exclusivity deal with the NFL that legally made them the only company that can produce an NFL licensed football game. They haven't had another game to give them competition in ten seasons! This has caused them to become lazy and complacent with their innovations and gameplay elements. As a result, the general reception of Madden has been negative over the last few seasons. This brings us to our latest edition; Madden NFL 17.

There isn't anything that really jumps out at you with this year's edition. However, there are lots of improvements to the gameplay that have made Madden 17 a much better game than its 16 predecessor

For starters, the run game has been given a makeover. This year you have more control over the ball-carrier with new speed moves and highlight moves, which allow you to better use the best parts of your particular player. The blocking schemes are a lot more like real life and AI offensive linemen don't miss blocks nearly as much.

In the passing game, we see some improvements. As with last year, you have the aggressive catch, run-after-catch, and possessive catch types. The aggressive catch was severely overpowered in last year's game, but in this year's addition, it is significantly turned down. Still, you'll still see some crazy catches like this:

Defensively, we see many improvements. New to this addition are the gap assignment aspects. This assures you that your artificial intelligence- controlled players know where they are supposed to play. In addition to that, Madden 17 added an outside contain and cutback player into the defensive AI. These tiny improvements make defense a lot more fun to play than in years past.

The presentation of the games is slightly improved, and we see our games starting to resemble actual broadcast more and more. There isn't a real half-time show yet, but we see highlights of the first have being reflected upon.





There still isn't a true career mode for an individual yet and that is this games biggest downfall. Every other major sports game has one, and Madden is about 5 years behind in this regard. They have been extremely lazy with this. The community has wanted a career mode for a long time now, so give it to us!!!

Connected Franchise is more or less the same experience as last year. Repetitive and lacking innovation. One new thing we see is the concept of weekly practice for particular concepts (for example, exploiting cover 2). For the most part, it's the same old thing.

Graphics wise, Madden 17 looks damn good. The Current-Gen consoles play very well and look sharp and crisp.



All in all, the gameplay improvements make this game a step up from last years addition, but the lack of game modes and innovation make it still another disappointing  year from EA sports.

7/10 Overall Score