The 4 Best and Worst Things We Know About Madden 18 So Far

[Lexicon]

I'd take Longshot out of "Worst" and replace MUT Squads with it in the "Best" category. I think Longshot is going to be really well done and engaging. I will never care about co-op play, especially in MUT (I'd put it in the worst because it seems like a lot of folks who wanted this feature back don't want it to only be in MUT, so that sucks for them)

Franchise Mode not receiving anything major (which yes, we have been told by the devs that this is the case) is certainly the "Worst" of the things we have found out, and it's not even close for me.

All I'm pretty much looking forward to is Longshot. Don't care about new engine until they show me something dynamic they can do with it, don't care about target passing, don't care much for coach adjustments, etc.

[fballturkey]

No CFM improvements is the worst thing overall about the game. Target passing is a dead feature if it removes ratings but it isn't "bad" in that it doesn't impact me in any way since I'll just turn it off. Longshot is a massive waste of resources but again, I can just not play it. CFM being stagnant for another year is what really hurts the game.

[Grey_Osprey]

As others have mentioned, the lack of improvements to CFM, specifically the non-gameplay aspects, has to be the worse. The fact that this is due in part to taking away resources for Longshots and NBA Live is like adding insult to injury.

[Darth Aegis]

I now like that you can press a tight end this yr. I'll hold out to read the CFM blog before I read further into that one.

[ps3veron]

What about core gameplay guys? And the sheer lack of videos or any promotion! August is coming in hot and I haven't seen anything official out there yet. *

[Honni]

While I understand that not everything is great with the new Madden iteration each year and everyone has to decide whether they want to pay 70 bucks, but:

take a look at what a pile of hot mess the NHL franchise is. I'm happy that there is Madden which is a very solid game itself. You can't say that of NHL for several years now. They fix/introduce one thing but take out other stuff just to re-introduce it later and sell it as 'new feature'. The game doesn't have an in-depth franchise mode (it's VERY, VERY shallow), no roster sharing, no cool missions in Hockey Ultimate Team like they have for MUT (yeah, I play it only offline and don't buy a pack with real money at all but it still makes fun). You could go on.

I think Madden 18 will be very good fun again. At least for a guy from Europe like me who isn't such an expert in Football like North Americans.

[DeuceDouglas]

Best

Legacy Issues

We don't really know what they are yet but regardless this is something they should be trying to hit on every single year. Every year new problems come up but it's the problems that make you say "that's still an issue" that are the really frustrating ones. So even if there are still some big ones, getting rid of a significant portion of them is a really good step forward and should impact the game in a positive way greatly.

Frostbite

Definitely agree with this. Only good things should come from it moving forward and I'm glad to see things like player intro's and stadium shots returning from M12 because of it. Visually the game looks great this year and the capabilities with Frostbite should greatly exceed anything we've seen before with Madden.

Worst

CFM

I don't know how this didn't make the list. I understand nothing is really left of the horse except bone dust and but it still needs to be beaten. I didn't think it could get much worse than last year with the abysmal feature set they rolled out but this year really took the cake. Essentially kicking 65% of your audience to the curb for the year because of Longshot and, of all things, NBA Live is ridiculous to me and yet somehow so fitting for the trajectory of CFM since it's introduction.

I was tempted to put Longshot and the 3 settings in the worst but I'll wait and see on those. Longshot just because I'm not sold that the return on investment is going to be equal the amount of time and resources they put into. I don't think they should have ever said they've been working on it for four years because that is going to create some sky high expectations when you consider a game like GTAV had five years of development. There's going to be a lot of people that enjoy it but I won't be touching it all.

And then the three settings just because of the potential they have to absolutely turn the entire community on itself. We haven't even released yet and it seems like every day the two sides are at each others throats over something new and now we're starting to see the devs even showing some angst with the community over it. On top of that there's people within their own communities also going at each other over trivial things and I just think it has the potential to make an already toxic environment even worse.

[kjcheezhead]

I'd add MUT squads to the worst along with no CFM improvements. A lot of negatives for me in madden 18 and the glimpses we've had doesn't show frostbite changing the game from 17 all that drastically either.

I generally pass on madden or buy used but follow the series because it's football. Some years I get sucked into the hype and am scouring red boxes to give the game shot. This year's game however is the easiest pass since madden 11.