Game Review: Madden 12
Ever since EA Sports has acquired exclusive rights to the NFL license, it has been accused of abusing its power by regurgitating broken gameplay with roster updates. Fans would complain about pointless mini games, poor defensive AI, unfriendly controls, or unrealistic and game changing animations that would destroy competitiveness. Madden, in the past, used to be one of those games that American football fans would easily rank as the most impressive and fun sports title of the year with a huge fanbase. Even today, hardcore football fans find themselves on the fence about spending their money and time on an experience that has dissappointed them one too many times in the past.
Making a sports sim about a game as complex as football is not an easy thing and EA seems to have enough experience to make it an award winning title each and every year. So when Madden 12 was promoted, the developers stressed a desire to listen to their fans and work on two key things, the franchise mode and collision detection. Thankfully, both areas have been addressed but how well is the real question.
Controls
When it comes to playing a football game, one of the most important factors is the balance between the gamer's skill and the 'auto-help' of the computer. Gamers in sports games always want to feel like their skill is paramount to the outcome of the game. Mess with this balance too much in terms of not helping the gamer and you alienate the casual ones. Too much in the other direction and you lose your core fans. With this edition of Madden, they seem to have found a nice balance of the two.
Controlling the QB is tight and responsive. You will feel the difference in the arm strength, accuracy, and quality of the different QB's as you control different ones. Despite that you will still feel as if you have sufficient control over how they throw the ball.
Running the ball is a bit easier thanks to their most noticable change in the game, the collision system. No longer will you see your RB hit a hole and get magnetized to a nearby defensive player who hasn't even begun escaping his block. You will rightfully see them reach out or begin to break their block and depending on your RB, you'll muscle your way through the contact or get pulled down. Also, the animations surrounding the tackling allows for more gang tackling to happen. At times you'll get annoyed that a break tackle animation where your RB is stumbling takes a bit long or slows him a bit too much but it doesn't seem unnatural. Again this collision system certainly improves the way the actual gameplay happens and leads to more realistic animations and situations on both sides of the ball.
Knowing that I am less prone to remember which button is the Stiff Arm button and which is the Spin Move, I found that I was still able to feel as if I could be slightly competitive. Probably the biggest change I noticed was the default setting of auto-sprint. The intent of this feature is to cause the gamer to concentrate on hitting seeing a hole and hitting it rather than getting frustrated with how quickly the runner hits his top speed if you forget to hold a button down. Remembering the ease of controls for the old school 2K football games, I still feel as if some of the running moves take a bit of getting used to. Hardcore fans will see not see this as an issue though.
Finally, the speed of the game as you play seems to be just right. Moments just before a pass or a catch or a handoff seem to be at just the right speed so that the game doesn't seem to race so fast that one might forget to react to say a defender breaking a block or needing time to switch defenders on the pass. Sometimes it does seem as if the games slows down a bit too much during the passing game but in a way that is a good thing given it gives the defense a chance to switch defenders and the transition not be so jarring.
When it comes to playcalling, the gameflow option remains from the previous season and the feature manages to speed the game play up for those who wish to avoid delving too much into strategy without losing play calling competitiveness. In the past, asking Madden seemed to be a bit of a death sentence at times since his plays would typically be very generic and conservative which would oftentimes negate the strengths of most teams. Still, the use of this feature does not allow for you to actually see the play before you all it. Instead, all you get is a complex name for a choice. Seeing the play you select is only achieved by actually going to the full playbook. On the flip side, you are allowed to edit the gameplay decisions as well as the play book to mirror your desired style of play.
Calling audibles is much easier now. Pressing the appropriate button brings up a quick menu that allows for you to easily call for a hot route, run, pass, deep pass, and such in order to keep your opponent on their toes. Of course, if you are playing against a friend on the same TV, you will still show them exactly what you're about to do.
All in all I think casual fans will see a suitable window for improvement without feeling like they have no chance of success when they pick up this game.
Franchise Mode
EA Sports finally decided to spend a suitable amount of their development time on beefing up their franchise mode. They incorporated some features that added a bit more depth and strategy to the experience that were experimented with in Head Coach '09. The ability to cut players, bid on free agents, trade draft picks, dynamic player performance, evolving team gameplans, player profiles, and player roles add a host of features that make each season different from the last.
In the preseason, you are given the responsibility of cutting your roster in between games. Though this was a highly requested feature, the way it was added makes the feature a bit tedious. If you decide to manually do the cuts, you are simply given the entire roster list and asked to cut a set number of players for the week. There is no coach evaluation of the previous preseason game performance or any kind of diagram that shows the minimum amount of players needed or desired for any of the given positions. There just seems to be very little assistance in making these cut decisions beyond the overall ratings of the players. This added feature just seems to be a bit of a missed opportunity. Scouting options seem to be the best of the added features though. These work out pretty well. As the preseason games go along, the rookies stats are gradually unlocked which does lead to seeing a benefit in the roster cuts. Still, for the remainder of the team, this doesn't seem like much.
As you play through the season, you'll notice the different players improving and devolving according to hot and cold streaks which is a result of the dynamic player performance. This adds a nice unpredictability to each game as your team and the team you play
against. Again, as with the practices, you never get a sense of how your coach or inspirational QB affets his teammates aside from casually checking the team ratings. Even then it is hard to know the exact reason for a player's bonus or penalty. The hot and cold streaks are highlighted by insignias on the player's stat or rating page which is good but most times you have to be actively looking to evaluate the player to know that he is influenced that way. The addition of features like the player roles and the dynamic performance should be emphasized a bit more.
The menu screens are a bit lackluster but they get the job done. Dropping players and looking for that key free agent or trade to improve your team as you go about your season is accessible and you don't feel as if your free agent pool is too small at any time which is great for multiple season fanatics. Within the options is the ability to also adjust how the coach approaches the gameplay for each position on the field. Changing LB's focus to aggressive will show more gameflow plays that have LB blitzes.
The addition of the practice feature to this mode is decent enough. The intent of this addition is to see how well your team plays given certain changes in personnel or strategy. You are allowed to pick the play for each side and then execute the play on either side of the action. As it currently is used, I don't see this as a big addition or benefit aside from seeing how one particular player controls.
Another noticable feature is the create a player or team options which allow for you to create fantasy teams and use them in the franchise mode. That's right people! You can create Willie Beaman and the Miami Sharks for all of your Any Given Sunday dreams!
Superstar Mode
The create a player RPG style mode returns and the biggest change is that you have more control over how the player progresses. Now your play by play performance garners you a set number of bonus skill points or penalties over the course of practices and actual games. Then, you are allowed to allocate these points in the various attributes to improve your player. This mode plays out well enough and you do feel as if you have control over how well your character plays and advances but it feels 
very empty. Since you are able to simulate through games until your player is on the field, most times you can play through almost an entire season in a few hours gameplay time. Also, some of the bonuses and penalties at times don't seem appropriate or properly explained. My created HB had a hard time performing well on the All-Pro difficulty I set up but for some reason, every game he was given a Superstar Tackle bonus. Since an HB never really tackles anyone, I was baffled as to why in my worse games and practices that this bonus was the biggest one I would receive. I expected to see bonuses for how many first downs I got or for total yardage or proper blocking but never did. Sometimes i would even notice that big passing play gains would be overlooked or minorly awarded. Again, this mode seems to be moving in the right direction but needs some tweaking before it is particularly enjoyable or memorable.
Madden Moments
This mode is kind of like replaying some of the most memorable moments of the previous season. Real life scenarios are set up and you are challenged with reproducing a certain stat or comeback. Your performance is then scored and placed upon a leaderboard against friends and globally. For a moment I thought that completing these challenges would award coins that could be used on the famed Madden Ultimate Team mode but I was wrong.
Madden Ultimate Team Mode
This particular mode is interesting in that you are given a randomly generated team (almost like a fantasy team). Then you are tasked with acquiring coins (from online game performance or actually buying coins with money) to purchase card packs. These card packs are kind of like buying football cards. These cards represent players of today and the past. You then use these cards to build a legendary team to battle other fantasy teams. This gives you the opportunity to play as legendary players or collect (eventually through a lot of hard work, trading, or money) historic teams.
The only problem with this mode is that it is entirely dependent upon your online play and money. You can purchase your way to the ultimate team or play your way there. Online fanatics will love this as it is a reflection of their online achievements. Franchise fanatics (which, by the way was the focus for this year's improvement) will see no use in this mode as their time spent there will not grant them any coins.
Online Play
Here Madden 12 shines as usual. There are lobbies, team play, leaderboards, online franchises, and other options make this mode feel very beefy. The new online communities allow for you to gather like minded players so that you can avoid the randomized skill point matchups as your only source of ranked matchmaking. Here you can set up a ruleset (All-Madden with 10 minute quarters) and have games with a filtered group of people. These communities can be any size and can be made private or public. This is a nice addition that makes the online experience a bit less annoying since you can cater the experience to how you want to play and who.
The Intangibles
Madden once again has great in game presentation in terms of camera angles, replays, and such. The commentary is abit off at times but it does a well enough job to make you feel as if you're watching a real NFL game. Sometimes they'll make mistakes like saying an interception is the first of the game when there were clearly others that happened earlier but I'm sure minor bugs like this will be fixed with future updates.
As I said before, the menu structure is serviceable. Finding different options and screens were easy enough and screen transitions had appealing graphical changes so that things felt fluid and epic.
In the end, this edition of Madden isn't quite the homerun that was expected. The additions to the Franchise mode seem a step in the right direction but need a bit more of the RPG style Head Coach 09 features to make it a truely rewarding experience. The collision detection was without a doubt the change that stood out the most making the game feel less cheap and canned. This alone takes the 90 million plus unit selling franchise to a respectable level that may win back some of the dedicated fans it lost in the past. It sure has for this fan.
Final Score: 84 out of 100
Info:
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Available for: PS3, PS2, PSP, Wii, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox360, PC
Website: http://www.ea.com/madden-nfl
Video Game critic and guru, music afficionado, and published poet, BJ is a fan of all things artistic. Believing that art in its various forms is an important part of the path to enlightenment, he seeks to share his perspective on life and art with any Heeder with a open mind.