I'm as Madden as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore

EA usually saves it??s most blatant hack jobs for consoles where it's less likely to draw ire. 

FIFA 14 on Vita was a reskin of FIFA 13 on Vita which was a reskin of FIFA Soccer. Before you s?nark about "aren't all sports games?" no, they are not. They have perceptible changes beyond roster updates. In this instance, that was not the case.

Same when EA re-released FIFA 12 as FIFA 13 on the Wii.

Or when FIFA 13 on 3DS was re-released as FIFA 14 on 3DS. The $40 videogame contained "no updates to gameplay or game modes," only "updated kits and rosters." So that's when you can snark about it? being a roster update.

Except that snarking isn't sufficient, be?cause this is just bullshit. Stop re-releasing the games.

Madden 15 is better than its predecessor, but not on PS3 and Xbox 360. These versions have some of the improvements that you can read about in my Madden 15 review, so it's not a complete re-release. But a lot of them are missing, including its only saving grace, the new defensive view and player lock mechanics. And everything still looks fuzzy and Jim Nantz's horrifying, cor?rugated face is a weird juxtaposition to Phil Simms?' slathered-in-vaseline soft glow.

It also runs horribly. It is slow. I spent lots of time angrily thumbing through Twitter while waiting for games to end, to begin, for the week to advance in franchise. Outside of slow loads, the UI is clunky and even non-responsive. This includes out of game bits, but also the playbook in-game, where sometimes you'd pick a play and the ?game would freeze for a bit, long enough to leave you wondering if you have to get up and reset the thing (never did, to its slim credit)? and often enough that making it part of a drinking game would be hazardous. 

I'm mostly sorry I couldn't have had this up for launch last week and saved some people who read the positive reviews of Madden 15 from buying a junky, janky and inferior version. This is what we get when an exclusivity deal (between EA and the NFL) is in place, thanks to our fatal love of football. EA knows it will still make money and so it?? does. 

[Photo]

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There's a team called the 'Redskins' in this game, which is super racist!

Madden 15 on PS3 and 360 is bad garbage that EA shouldn't get away with releasing.

Alright then, onto current-gen.

Madden NFL 15 (PlayStation 4 [reviewed], Xbox One, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360)
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
Release: August 26, 2014
MSRP: $59.99

It is interesting how strong perspective is at making Madden NFL 15 brought to you by Under Armor™ Dental Dams (Protect THIS house!) feel different. It's a trick, really. The new default camera zooms in and angles more towards your players' line of sight than Tim Tebow's God's bird's-eye view. Thankfully, the camera angles can be adjusted via the directional pad and you can go right back to ??that series standard view and think, "Good, things are familiar and that makes me feel safe."

If you are feeling radical, though, try out the new defensive camera (while on defense) for a third-person, behind the back angle from your defender's point of view. I also recommend locking yourself as that player so as to avoid disorienting camera angles when you t??ry to shift to a DB after a throw, unless you must get every hit yourself (fumbles are in vogue this year).

Me, I mostly stuck t??o playing on football's best defensive line (St. Louis). Hitting sprint at the snap gives you an indicator of your timing ("perfect" or "late") and now you know one button is for finesse moves and to disengage, one button is for power moves. This new camera does make defense fun. Piling up three to five sack per game (with one player?) is fun, though maybe cruel.

The defensive view can gum up Madden NFL 15 brought to you by Tang™ (make SPACE in your pantry), particularly when opponents are running the hurry up. Rather than default to your last play (on offense or defense) and requiring yo??u ?audible out, the hurry up zooms in on obscuring close ups of the quarterback and offers you three other plays (like the traditional play call screen), or the option to opt out and return to your original play. You have to pick one of these four options before you can see all the players lined up proper. Occasionally this led to, when I finally got back in position, the camera view switching back 180 degrees, which is disorienting. A couple times I found myself offsides.

Small price to pay, though, for making defense fun. The close up perspec?tive, combined with a tackle cone (like the QB vision cone, but good) also makes it easier to judge distance, not whiff on tackles, or effectively disengage a blocker to drag down a running back (or mobile QB). 

The other thing Madden NFL 15 brought to you by Bengay Spermicide™ (Nukes the swimmers AND burns the glans!)  does right is o??ffer a decent, albeit annoyingly branded Skills Trainer, which it forces you into immediately (though you can skip it). Combined with additional information on the play call screen (suggestions for what t??ype of plays work against what types of defense, notes on how often team's run certain sets on certain downs and distances, etc), there's a decent attempt at teaching new players the systems, buttons and rules of football. 

Then o?f course there are niggles and legacy issues. Defensive backs are turned up in the Richard Sherman era, making a lot of picks, especially undercutting shallow routes. This is partly because receivers (still) won't try to muscle toward the ball. The only time I remember one coming to the ball was when he was sitting -- completely uncovered -- in a curl route in the endzone. The one time I want a receiver to sit there and catch the ball, he ran out of the endzone (on 4th and goal) to catch the ball, locking me in an animation and leading him to get tackled before I could turn him back into the endzone. 

The first thing I do in Madden brought to you by Verizon Wireless Prison Cells™ (Your inmates will be LOCKED IN to these plans!) is go into the settings and turn the commentary volume off because it is (still) horrible. At least it is a passive assault on the player. Worse is th?e forced pageantry, the "presentation" elements that slow the game for no reason.

When I jump offsides, I don't need (or want) to see my player look grumpy for 7 seconds, and then the coach look angry for 5 seconds, and then the referee do stupid hand gestures for 1?3 seconds, and then the two possible results of the penalty for 6 seconds, and then an opposing coach look happy for 3 seconds, and then be asked to call another play. I just want to play a football game. Don't even show me replays. There's an Instant Replay feature if I want to see something again. Don't make me mash the X button and stare bug-eyed at whomever's in the room with me for 30 seconds until the stupid halftime pageantry is over.

Halftime is one of the parts of football nobody likes because football isn't happening. Why don't you put a commercial after a ?touchdown, then another 15 seconds later after the 2 yard kick return while you're at it? (Please, don't.)

NFL Blitz just had an Extra Point play that you'd press and it'd immediately say "Here's another point!" for a second and then the opposing team would already be receiving a kick off. You don't have to be that quick, but show some hustle. I'm sorry some underpaid, under stimulated artist had to realistically render Andy Reid's mustache bristles, but I don't ever want to ??look at him. 

Madden NFL 15 brought to you by Crazy, Concussed Joe's Discount Corporate Billionaire Wig Refinery™ (We PASS the shavings onto you!) also makes a big deal about putting quarterback accuracy "at a premium??," but I ran into the weird happening of QBs, even junk ones, regularly fielding completion percentages in the 90s against me. Maybe all the sacking and run-stopping led to too many short, high completion percentage plays, but I found it odd how I'd dominate games, but the opposing QBs would be 19/20. And I, rarely using top QBs, didn't have accuracy issues (just hawking DB issues). Actually felt a little easier to put certain kinds of touch on the ball. 

Mostly, offense feels the same. Running on friends seems to work fine, but running on the computer is a nightmare unless you a) do the bad-football-thing of running laterally and turning a corner up the sideline, or b) catch the defense in a bad set and then no-huddle call the same play over and over, picking up ten yards at a time and going all the way down the field. You don't have to be Jon Bois to break Madden. Someone already figured out how to stand still and not get tackled for over a minute. More will? come. I also recommend leaning on tight ends, five wide sets, and general open field manic running (nothing as bad as playing against o??ld school Mike Vick, but, still).

I still want nothing to do with microtransaction-laden Ultimate Team. Connected Careers is still dull in Owner Mode (halfhearted management sim) and filled with unnecessary gimmicks in the rest (don't worry about Con?fidence, just dump XP direct into player stats and win games). Load screens and game sims are still long (I don't even watch the pre-season; I don't want to play it), though at least the cluttered UI doesn't hitch at every button push in the PS4 version like it does in the PS3 version (makes upgrading players and everything else a nightmare?? on last gen).

Madden NFL 15 brought to you by the NFL's classist, uncaring, voracious appetite for profit and general moral failure as a multi-billion dollar business built on the backs of broken, mostly forgotten workers™ takes its existing defensive framework and makes it not suck. This lets me hit quarterbacks more and release the aggression that wells up when I see any of the in-game advertisements. The rest is Madden 25, but less hideous.

The post Review: Madden 15 appeared first on Destructoid.

lol

Madden 15 is out. I will write mor??e ??on the game this week (preview: the PS3 and 360 versions are a shady cash grab and missing new features). 

Until then, let's have some fun. 

This is Titans linebacker Christian Kirksey. He is not 1' 2" in real life, but anything is possible in Madden.

Here is a defensive lineman being plucked from the fie?ld by God before God decided he's not into football now that Tebow isn't playing.

Here's an orgy, I think.

The post Madden 15 glitches: 1 foot tall players, rocketing linemen, & more appeared first on Destructoid.

Dueling celebs, Lady Gaga jokes, women in hot pants, hologram football players

I bet the people involved had a lot of fun shooting this offbeat Madden 15 commercial. It's also an obviously expensive production (beyond the celebrity costs) meant to be "weird" and, hopefully, shared (viral) ove??r the Net.

And when you're trying that hard to be weird, it's a bit like people who describe themselves as "so random." This is a millions-selling product released at a premium, annually, in a monopolized deal with a league that makes more money than the MLB, NBA, and NHL combined.?? And wants to more than double that take, to $25 billion/year, by 2027. Enjoy your $14 Bud Light while it lasts, because it won't be that cheap forever.

The post EA spent tons of money on this ‘kooky’ ‘viral’ Madden trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Sorry! O V E R

I wanted to fit a "Red Warrior is about to die" joke in this trailer for Madden's new Gauntlet mode. I got as far ??as "?Redskins is about to die" before I started watching this video and was greeted with an over eager, discordant voice over.

Bosssssss levelsssssssssssss.

Who thought this was a good idea?

The post Who is yelling? ?in this Madden trailer and why, why, why appeared first on Destructoid.

Seriously, what's he doing?

Seattle Seahawks star cornerback Richard Sherman won the vote to be on the box art of Madden 15. What exactly he's doing on the cover, well, tha?t's anybody's guess.

Does he wan?t a high-five? (If so, gotta go higher, Richard.) Is he telling everyone to "Stop, collaborate and listen?" (No, because I took the time to watch the video, and Vanilla Ice doesn't put his?? hand out.) Ever the controversial fashionista, he probably just wants to show us his nifty glove.

Yeah, that's gotta be it.

Madden '15 [Amazon]

The post Madd??en 15 cover wants you to sto?p in your tracks, or something appeared first on Destructoid.

Let me know there's at least one person reading this that cares

Amongst all the E3 hubbub about games like, Mortal Kombat X, Destiny, and Halo 5, let's not forget that August will bring us our annual Madden. Teasing what will be brought to the show, the Madden 15 E3 trailer implies, to me, that this year's g?ame will have a particula??r focus on defense.

Featuring the lauded C??aroline Panthers' middle linebacker Luke Kuechly, the video plays a radio casting of the Panther's January playoff loss to the San Francisco 49ers, while Kuechly swears to not fail next season. The actual gameplay clip in the trailer shows the Panthe?rs going up against the Seattle Seahawks, who were statistically the best defensive team in the 2013 season. A lot of defense going on.

In other news, Madden 15 will feature athletes' tattoos which were oddly missing in previous games in recent years. According to Polygon, EA is really trying to cover its legal bases, requiring ?NFL players to have their tattoo artists sign waivers before featuring their designs in-game. This apparently was in response to legal cases where EA was being periodically sued by tattoo artists whose work would show up in games uncredited.

Why tattoos are just now returning to Madden with Madden NFL ??15 [Polygon]

The post Madden 15 will feature player tattoos, releases? E3?? trailer appeared first on Destructoid.

Early and often

Who on here deserves it more? Mayb??e Jamaal Charles for being on the Chiefs? Well, that didn't get Steven Jackson any cover appearances for the decade he toiled away on the Rams. And for context, I am a Rams fan advising you to vote for Seahawk corn??erback Richard Sherman. 

Not that any of this matters. Just more Madden 15 marketing. I just support Sherman after he was unfairly lambasted by old guard _(racist) sports writers.

You can vote daily if you like.

The post Vote Richard Sherman to the Madden 15 cover appeared first on Destructoid.

I bet you saw that coming

So, last year was Madden NFL 25, and this year is Madden NFL 15? I can't wait for Madden NFL -5. Integers are fun, kids.

Anyway, here's a self-import??an?t trailer. Reminder: this is a game. It's a game of a game.

Madden 15 is coming to PS4, Xbox One, PS3, and 360 on August 26 in North America, August? 29 in?? Europe. Voting for the next cover player begins May 8.

The post Madden 15’s overly serious teaser to remind you it’s coming appeared first on Destructoid.