Madden 12 Review

A new Madden game is something football fans across the county look forward to seeing every Fall, and the same is true this year. Because so many are already familiar with Madden, I'm going to take a different approach to this review. Rather than going over what you already know, I'm going to look at the new features that make Madden a must-have game for NFL fans.

Dynamic Player Performance
A new feature called "Dynamic Player Performance" changes a player's confidence and skills by what they actually do on the field. For example, if your running back fumbles when you try to make a spin move, he might be more likely to fumble again later. Or, if your wide receiver misses a couple of easy passes, he could start missing them in bunches. There is a flip side to this of course. If, for example, you make an amazing catch with a reciever with defenders surrounding you, it will give you a confidence boost and make it more likely for the receiver to grab passes that would normally go incomplete.

Defensive Moves

Tiburon Studios has enhanced over 100 defensive moves this year, which should make it harder to score on easy drives using the same play over-and-over. This will be appreciated during online play when you are up against someone that tries the same techniques repeatedly. Defensive players will now recognize and react to plays in zone and man-to-man coverage, and they will break out of assignment when it makes sense. This should make for Madden being the most realistic of any version to date.

Dim lights Embed Embed this video on your site

Harder Tackles

One of the challenges around the NFL last year was in trying to determine what constitutes a dangerous play on a player verses an agressive old school hit. Fortunately, Madden doesn't have to concern itself with the rules and when you see collisions in this years game, they are ramped up a bit. There are more than 100 new tackle animations including gang tackling which should again make for more realistic scenarios. You can also control the point of impact during hits for both blocking and tackling.

Fantasy Football

If you were to put Madden, fantasy football and trading cards into a blender, you can get a quick overview of what Ultimate Team is about. A new feature to this years version allows you to trade cards with other players, and the auctioning system where you can sell cards is still available. There's also a new "Legend Pack" filled with some of the greatest stars in NFL history such as Barry Sanders and Lawrence Taylor.

Playbook Improvement

One of the most requested abilities of Madden players has been to customize playbooks. In fact, it was the single most requested feature from fans according to EA. You'll now be able to select up to 400 offensive or defensive plays from amongst 75 playbooks, to create your own custom playbook. It gives you greater control than ever. It would be nice to see a play editor so that you can design your own plays and I'm not sure why this hasn't been available for so long. Emmit Smith Football is the last game that I can remember having a play editor and that dates back to the SNES.

Player Skills

You can import players from NCAA Football into Superstar Mode, just like last year, but EA has made some necessary changes to the progression system. Simply put, it allows all of your best players to earn skill points in practice and in games. A nice addition to the mix. If you want, you can also add player traits during the creation process. These include behaviors such as fighting for an extra yard for a running back. You can also now trade your Superstar if you so choose which was missing in the last version.

Madden appears to be a candidate for best sports game of the year again this year, and wilth all of the new additions to make the game more realistic, it should make for some fantastic online battles while you are waiting for Sunday to roll around.