Madden 15 - Review
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Game Information

Release Date: August 26th, 2014 (NA) August 29th, 2014 (EU)
Platforms: PS3/XBOX 360/PS4/XBOX ONE
Developer/Publishers: EA Sports
Genre: Sports Simulation
Ratings: E for Everyone

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Synopsis

Have you ever wanted to feel like you where an NFL Player, with all new camera angles and defensive strategies maybe this is the game for you, the one that will make you memorize plays and help you understand the game of american football that much better with the all new Madden 15.

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Game Modes

Welcome to Madden 15 folks, we got plenty of game-modes many returning and somethings new to look at. What we will be discussing is: Play Now, Madden Ultimate Team "MUT" , Connected Careers and Online Head To Head keep in mind this game has even more game modes, from practice all the way to a skills trainer to spice you up with the new defense and to brush up on your passing skills so you don't throw too many interceptions.

Play Now

Obviously the returning mode that you better hope would be there, here is the mode to practice on a robot controlled team while you wait to play online head to head or maybe you can't get online and you are going to focus on playing with a few friends, doesn't matter! This game mode introdouces all 32 NFL Teams with there current 2014 Rosters and which are being updated weekly depending on there performances they can drop or they can rise. As they are updated weekly they update until the after the superbowl where it determines which team ends with the highest rating cause you know... SUPER BOWL VICTORY and who could have the lowest, depending on player performance and your standings. This game mode has been featured in all maddens and is the one to play if you want to practice on rookie difficulty, pro , all-pro or if you can handle the all-madden bots, which I can't even to be honest.

Madden Ultimate Team

This game mode is crazy, imagine your favourite trading card game but.... With football? This has been a great popular feature that is in sports games all around. NHL, FIFA you name it! So how this starts is you pick your favourite team to rep and you get a captain from the team and a bunch of random players from the NFL + your favourite teams jerseys and the stadium, great! So in this game mode the objective is to build a team based on overall and your teams play-style which have a few: Speed Run, Short Run, Long Pass, Short Pass, Ground and Pound for offensive It doesn't stop there though! Once your cards get to a overall of 85 you can introduce a second one and yeah this one is Defensive these include: Man Defense, Run Stuff, Zone Defense, Pass Rush So can you handle the blitz coming from your worst-nightmare? Let's hope so! You can go to the Auction House to purchase cards with your hard earned coins from challenges or head to the Trading Center To trade cards to get your new favourite ones. All to create your own ULTIMATE TEAM.

Connected Franchise

This part of the game is infact the money maker in my opinion, you get three choices for this and this is also Career mode or Franchise mode however you want to look at it. It all starts with one question. Player, Coach or Owner? What does that mean.. Well you get to pick which you'd like to play as first we'll start with the players. A player is the person who plays and you will only control this person with whatever they do and you'll get to pick teams, demand release and even improve confidence levels and your own stats after every practice or game. You are able to create a new player who isn't in the NFL so probably yourself, play as your favourtie current player any posisition except kicker or punter, dang! Or you can play as an old NFL Legend and try to make there legend come true again. This is my favourite as you get to experience that one posistion and you get to see the stats and it's just great overall the main aspect is this for myself.

Next up we'll talk about a coach, basically it's like ultimate team minus the cards and trading and coins and all that junk! You start with your base team and you can do the NFL Draft, trade with other teams or pick up free-agents and kick off any player you want from your team. It has a boat load and guess what if you aren't performing right with your team the owner is able to kick you out of there and let's just hope you get a job elsewere. This mode is fun as you can participate in the NFL Draft picking upcoming legends (who are generated per season never the same guy!) and build your dream team. Tired of your lack of offense? Give it a kick with Peyton Manning and Calvin Johnson AKA Megatron. If you want to experience the NFL as a coach offering contract extentsions to your favourite players or even getting rid of the worst you can do so.

Finally we have the owner mode, it's exactly what was described above plus a few extras. One of them is controlling the merchandise you are able to set prices for your stadium prices, ticket prices and all merchandise from foods all the way to jerseys of your top players. The more you make the more funds you get which can help with future renovations. But what does that mean? Well if your stadium is old and your fan-base wants you to get a new one you just better. You are able to upgrade your teams location and even move them elsewhere if you'd like. For example I am the Buffalo Bills and decide to upgrade the stadium we are able to stay in Buffalo or we can go all the way to LA, Toronto or even England to make a new team with a new uniform and new name, becoming a new franchise. A prime example is if you move to Toronto you can be known as The Mounties Jeez isn't that great?

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Graphics

The graphic style of Madden 15 is something truely to be honoured, madden may not improve the style of the game every year but they impress with the graphics even on the next generation systems. With the audio and sound it really makes you feel like you're at the game, and provided with more realistic camera angles you can feel like you're looking straight through the view of your favourite teams Quarterback.

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Gameplay

The game has some good game-play, but it is basically based on your own opinion. People preferred dragon ball raging blast 2, due to its free-roaming in the arena. As this one you have a limit to where you can walk to and how your moves work. The kai charging in this game isn't explained good enough as you have to do many combos to be able to use your super attacks/ultimate attacks, usually the charge button is up/down, but instead that just charges your dodge moves for when your enemy uses there ultimate or super attacks. If you can get use to this game-play the game is really fun and enjoyable. Especially when you play as your own character. You can unlock clothing/hair styles/moves/power-ups to strengthen your character making them the ultimate saiyan. Who wouldn't want to be a saiyan?

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Recommended For..

I would recommend this game to any sports fan who enjoys football or is trying to get into new sports. By playing these it helps you understand games more often as you can learn coverages, plays and see what a team might do. This is coming from someone who gained a lot of knowledge. I have played madden games since about 2008 and every year I learn new coverages and plays and when watching those games on TV you can learn the routes and coverages that are being used it's great when you know exactly what is going on!

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Controls

This game provides easy controls, being the same every year depending on your game-mode it will have certain controls. If you're within "MUT" Otherwise Madden Ultimate Team you control the whole team starting with the snap of a QB on offense. When he snaps you move with your left stick and throw with any one of the buttons on the controller. By pressing Y you will be able to catch it when you switch to that character, simple don't you think? These control's basically transfer over to head to head and your normal play now functions and in your career if you decide to be a coach or an owner. The only time where it is different is within your career if you play as a player.

For example, if I am a WR I will play based on how the ball is snap and run my route and press A to catch it, and my main button would be the right trigger on the xbox, to be able to sprint and the B button to spin and the right stick to be able to juke. There is many combinations you can do with this.

For Defense it is a bit more complex you can press down on the RS to play as one player which is called player-lock which is a brand new feature, you will focus as this one player from a great camera angle. With each defensive player you can time a snap and hopefully bring in that QB Sack. To do this you'd press A or X whichever it states as the ball is snapped and move with the left stick to get off the offensive line, and run towards him. That's also a brand new feature in this game. You have your usual defensive components also with X to tacke RT to use stamina and Y to intercept if you think you could do it. Much like offense but while playing for the other side of the ball.

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Final Ratings

Story: N/A
Graphics: 10
Gameplay: 7.5
Overall Rating: 7.5

Overall, the game deserves a 7.5 Not going by average but lowest rating. The game doesn't really have a story that can be affected unless you count a great career where you never did a bad thing then that would be a 10/10 this games graphics improved a lot since Madden 25, but the gameplay was as bland as the year before that and the year before that. If they can find a way to spice it up and make it different I am sure the game will sell more then it already does and bring back the old fans.