I don't know what the community was actually looking at when they made the assumption that the play now ai was different from Connected Careers Mode. I assure you that after playing multiple games, the CPU is still horrible, and the ai quarterback still struggles to make the right decisions on any difficulty setting. Even with sliders the gameplay is still as awful as it was in Connected Career's Mode. The question is why are there so many threads posting multiple sliders for different game modes, and what in the world did the development team mean by saying they fixed an issue where Offline Gameplay AI/Logic did not match the logic in Play Now. What they meant by that must have been they type in a blog that they fixed it to shut up the ignorant testers, but in reality they couldn't find anything wrong with it. So to recap, I tested the game on all of difficulty settings, and used Charter's gameplay sliders yet it still plays like the pile of garbage it was on Connected Career's Mode. By the way, don't give me a uninformative comment about how my copy must be different. We the Madden community have the same copy and the same problems. :(

thewinner622

If there was a competition on who could make the worse presentation in a sports game. Madden would destroy it's competition. Over the seven year period of next gen football. Madden has had four new commentary teams. All as equally as bad as the other.

[B][U]The Radio Guy-[/U][/B] [I]2006-2008[/I]
This alone commentator lasted from 2006 to 2008. The name of this mysterious dark figure is unknown, but he sounds particularly like the San Diego Chargers' radio host. He was a man of few words, but when he spoke he showed the type of natural sounding emotion that we have never seen in a Madden game. Thank you mysterious stranger!

[B][U]Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth-[/U][/B] [I]2009-2010[/I]
Dear Tom,
We don't hate you because of your lack of emotion. We hate you because we think you're a robot who is going to kill us in our dreams. Cris Collinsworth was the star of Maddan 09 to 10, but all good things don't last forever. Except for Cris's lines, they never change.

[B][U]Gus Johnson and Cris Collinsworth- [/U][/B][I]2011-2012[/I]
We asked for more emotion, and boy did Madden deliver. Gus Johnson was an over-inflated balloon waiting to pop. In fact, he would pop at the most strangest moments. "And he returns the punt. TO THE FORTY FIVE YARD LINE!!!" Gus Johnson was an updated robot. He has the ability to raise his voice whenever he wants unlike Tom Hammond. Cris Collinsworth was the essence of watching a Dane Cook stand up act. You like what you saw at first, but then he really starts to tick you off.

[B][U]Jim Nantz and Phil Simms-[/U][/B] [I]Present[/I]
I don't know why EA Sports thought it was a good idea to put the most hated color commentator in Phil Simms as one of their commentators for Madden 13. Phil Simms just gave me one more reason to hate Phil Simms. I don't know what's worse with this team. The fact that their so unspecific, or Phil Simm's constant critiquing of my punt returns! The Madden team was so happy to tell us that the commentators actually reacted on what was happening in your CCM. They didn't tell us that it's impossible to know what team Jim Nantz is referring to when he said that one of us are on a 3 game winning streak. This is the worst commentary debut ever in the Madden Series.

thewinner622

If you happen to have time on your hands, type in Madden 13 casual fans into Google, and you will find the two most ignorant reviewers you will meet in your lifetime. They complain that Madden is too complicated. That they're too dumb and lazy to actually go through the content. One reviewer even goes as far to say that you will need a college degree to fully enjoy this game. I completely agree with him, there should be a special edition of Madden for the very special people like you. People like you really get under my skin. Don't ruin my fun just because you can't tell the difference between a run or pass play. You're the reason why Gameflow ever existed. The Madden team consistently ignores their hardcore fanbase because for some reason you decided to review a football game when your not even a football fan!!! I'm tired of people making companies dumb down things. The playbook is like a college textbook you say? Maybe you shouldn't have drop out of college, and started working on column for a news site that nobody knew existed.

thewinner622

What I've figured out over this long weekend is that you really don't need 11 players when your on defense against the cpu on All Pro(The "simulation" difficulty). I took my free safety out of bounds through out the whole game, and continued to watch the cpu controlled player Matt Flynn throw incompletion after incompletion. By the way, I always play the free safety because the cpu can't gain one yard in the run game if I play a linebacker. On a positive note, when I took a 31-0 lead in the first quarter the Seahawks started to pass it more, which is the most dynamic thing about Madden 13. Not the Dynamic Player Performance advertised in Madden 12, which just makes the horrible cpu that much more horrible. Why I don't play on All Madden you ask? Because after the forth fake punt the cpu magically converted successfully in one game I decided it wasn't for me. Considering that I decided to make a little debate on which ai was worse. BackBreaker or Madden 13?

[U]CPU Passing[/U]
[B]Tie[/B]

If both companies goal was to try to make the ai quarterback incompetent to know the difference between the lob pass and bullet. You both can pat yourselves on the back.

[U]CPU Running[/U]
[B]Tie[/B]

I would have gave this one to BackBreaker, but it seems the runningback has a tendency to run backwards a lot. In fact, both companies succeeded in having the ai runningback do everything but run forwards.

[U]CPU Blocking[/U]
[B]BackBreaker[/B]

Madden 13's blocking is just one big scripted mess. They don't need to tweak it, they need to completely revamp it. BackBreaker although not great was dynamic

[U]CPU Defence[/U]
[B]Madden 13[/B]

Probably the best thing about Madden 13's ai. Good defenses play like good defenses. Super linebackers was address from Madden 12. Overall, nothing to really complain about on Madden 13's ai defenses.

[B]Winner: Tie[/B]

Am I saying that BackBreaker was a better football game, obviously not. It was one of the worst games I've ever bought. In terms of ai, Madden 13 and BackBreaker both lose.:nchuck:

thewinner622

When EA Sports presented us Online Connected Careers mode, they were essentially sticking a knife into one of it's most loyal fanbases. They no longer care about this useless cpu control teams. Our consumers now have people to control those franchises. EA Sports doesn't care that the cpu control team's progression doesn't work property. They don't care that you can't save your schemes. They don't care about player editing(They do care about fantasy drafts apparently). They don't care that the ai during gameplay in Connected Careers is broken. They don't care about the ai in general. In fact, they don't care so much that the new patch that just came out gave their offline Connected Careers Players a new present. Every cpu control team doesn't want to win anymore! I had an average of three teams that went 8-8 make the playoffs every season!!! Happy birthday you bunch of lonely losers.
A real Madden player goes online to face a complete stranger in an unrealistic match of cheating and annoying headsets. Am I saying online is horrible. No, I think it's fun to play against friends once and a while. What I'm trying to say is Madden is moving into a direction which I absolutely hate. Catering towards the online community, but neglecting the ai logic. Their new formula is to put new flashy features on the box, but completely ignore the most important thing in a sports game. THE AI.

thewinner622