Madden NFL 18 Retail Impressions

[Hoops737]

Quote: Originally Posted by josef

Yeah. Good point. And I'm thinking the Saints should be a little better on Defense this year.. Anyways what difficulty are you playing on? I haven't played enough with them yet to see things like that. I'm playing on All-Pro and got Lit Up by Lamar Miller last night with the Saints Defense. Lol. It was kinda fun to watch actually.. to actually see a good RB look like a good RB.. I'm enjoying the game so far.

I'm on All-Pro and have been getting torn up by everyone. Don't think I've had one game where they haven't scored an opening drive touchdown with minimal effort so maybe it is realistic lol

Gurley torched me for a buck 38 when I played at LA and Brian Hoyer killed me too. Might try Seattle's D to try and feel a difference

[SSVHerz]

I played early access and enjoyed the game, so I said screw it and got GOAT earlier this week. Never been a big MUT player, but will try the game mode this year since I got all the "free" stuff added. FUT ruined UT for me, so this will be my first journey back into the mode as a franchise player.

In my experiences so far, CPU receivers seem to catch everything and are wide open frequently. Admittedly, I've been playing as the Redskins and Browns. This may say more about their defenses this year than anything else. Even so, I've had plenty of drives against decent teams where I've stopped them cold.

With the Browns and Redskins, I've put together some impressive drives. At the same time, I'm awful at offense and throw a lot of interceptions. Kizer looks like a great quarterback, but he has a tendency to miss guys who are completely wide open. Cousins can do the same thing, but not even close to as often. This is completely fair in my opinion. Running feels a lot better this year, but the d-linemen have a tendency to shed basically every block - even mediocre ones.

One of the biggest annoyances I had last year was how slow the menus were. This year the menus are lightning fast. Loading into a game takes some time, but jumping out and around the menus is lightning quick.

Longshot was a huge surprise for me. The story is actually really well done and I enjoyed every minute of it. I felt so dirty liking it given how meh I felt about The Journey last year and how everyone reacted online.

Overall, the game looks and feels great. The game definitely is M17 2.0, but last year's was a great experience for me so I'm 50/50 on how I feel about that. The improvements have been nice enough for me to enjoy the purchase so far. That being said, I'm anxious for a nice set of sliders.

[cable guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by DeuceDouglas

For anyone interested here's some averages for the games I've played on default All-Pro: User PPG: 29.0 Plays per game: 65.7 (430 pass, 425 run) Completions per game: 20.1 Attempts per game: 29.7 Pass TD: 20 (1.53 per game) INT: 22 (1.69 per game) CMP%: 67.4 % Pass YPG: 245.4 Sacks: 43 (3.3 per game) Carries per game: 32.7 Rush YPG: 167.6 Rushing TD: 13 (1 per game) YPC: 5.1 CPU PPG: 27.4 Plays per game: 59.3 (444 pass, 327 run) Completions per game: 21.4 Attempts per game: 30.4 Pass TD: 23 (1.77 per game) INT: 24 (1.84 per game) CMP%: 70.3% Pass YPG: 289.8 Sacks: 49 (3.7 per game) Carries per game: 25.1 Rush YPG: 120.4 Rushing TD: 13 (1 per game) YPC: 4.8 Everything except the PPG is based on 13 games. I've played 15 on Sim default All-Pro but left to the main menu before getting the stats for two of them. Take it FWIW which isn't much, just my experience thus far.

Looking these stats, everything does look pretty darn good.

Except, like you said, ppg

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[cable guy]

Quote: Originally Posted by Hoops737

I'm on All-Pro and have been getting torn up by everyone. Don't think I've had one game where they haven't scored an opening drive touchdown with minimal effort so maybe it is realistic lol Gurley torched me for a buck 38 when I played at LA and Brian Hoyer killed me too. Might try Seattle's D to try and feel a difference

Sounds good. Run a game with Seattle, and see if there is a difference. They run a Cover 3 alot I believe. I'd love to hear if there is a difference

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[adembroski]

So the hour or so of Longshot immediately after the HS game is lame as hell. The coach has no personality, the producer is a cartoon character, and it becomes pretty clear Wade has an IQ somewhere between his shoe size and his jersey number.

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[bad_philanthropy]

My wife got me Madden. Was going to wait, but turned on the PS4 and it had d/l'ed. I should have told her. Oh well.

Played Longshot first so I could be informed critic.

I don't get the praise at all, but maybe I'm just too old and jaded to be impressed by its angle. I thought "The Journey" was ham-fisted wannabe auteur material, and this is no different. I don't know who was ultimately in charge of concept and art direction, but the execution of these elments in Longshot feel like a film enthusiast's interpretation of film-making--or at least a naive film school project. It's an art to convey a natural realism, and the attempt at it in the mode comes of as pretentious.

It was nice to see a glimpse of NCAA football on this gen, but other than that, there is no value to telling a cliched story with cliched cast of characters speaking amateurish dialogue via this medium.

I do really like interactive movie, storytelling, and walking simulator games, but Longshot has the same problems as "Life is Strange for Me." It's just too stilted and awkward to the point of being cringeworthy. If EA wants it to be compelling, they need to hire someone accomplished in blending these mediums.

[Equinox831]

Well I've only played 2 games on All-Pro sim so far, but it visually looks incredible. As far as gameplay is concerned, it's Madden.. It's VERY offense heavy at this point in the game. The zone D is, as everybody else has said, very soft and easy to exploit. Running the ball reminds of Madden 17 at launch as well which isn't a good thing. It hasn't fully reverted back to the stretch run going for 75 yards every couple of times you run it, but the new blocking system makes 8-10 yard gains on the majority of your runs very possible.

The 2 games I've played so far have been against the Packers and Patriots.. It's pretty easy to tell when you're going up against an elite QB so far cause they've absolutely torched my defense. Again that has a lot to do with the softer zones because I've seen some egregious blown coverage that's led to some pretty awful touchdowns. Brady threw 2 70+ yard TD's against me on intermediate routes towards the sidelines against a cover 3. That shouldn't happen.

One thing that has really improved are the WR/DB interactions. The new animations looks amazing and I have a lot more confidence throwing into coverage this year, especially when I can throw to a talented wideout like Julio Jones. Last year you would really get punished for trying to fit a ball into a tight window at times, this year you can really trust your guys to go up and go get it. I threw a nice fade to the corner of the endzone for Julio Jones and he went right up and over the DB to reel it in. Later in that same game I managed to zip another ball into the endzone to Julio, but this time it was on an out route. The timing had to be perfect and the window was tiny, but Matt Ryan was able to get it in and Julio was able to fight for it and bring it in. The whole interaction looked great and there's definitely more of a 50/50 feeling. There are times where I can't tell who actually came down with the ball or if it was an incompletion or not until the very end of the play and I like that a lot. Feels way better.

I need to get some more games in, but right this second it's definitely an improvement over last season, but it needs some work in the slider department for sure before the gameplay can really shine. At least the game is really damn pretty.

[tetoleetd]

Quote: Originally Posted by bkrich83

So he can't have an opinion counter to yours. Got it. Sent from my iPhone using Operation Sports

thats not what i said. but keep defending the people who accept mediocrity in games if you want. just know that as long as enough people like him exist, we will keep getting games that are just slight upgrades over the previous year's game rather than having the developers push to make drastic improvements that take the game to the next level.