The very first impression is that the menus are an improvement, which should be expected. The menus in sports games should look fresh and new each year as it's one of the simplest ways to make gamers realize this is an all new experience. But that's only semantics.

The first game I played was my Chiefs vs. Buccaneers. It's kind of a tradition for me to match up these two teams as a first game in Madden, so why stop now? The graphics have definitely improved, a very noticeable leap up. Will the game "look" better though due to better animations and so forth? Now that's an interesting question, and one that I will wait for a later article to detail. First blush though is that the game feels and looks better.

The improved presentation is clearly noticeable from the get-go, but as I asked in my demo commentary video, how soon until these pregame intros become perfectly skippable?

The kickoff camera is a nice broadcast touch. The controls feel tighter this year, which means Madden could already be noticeably better in my mind. But again, too early to really get into that.

The Gameflow has been tweaked, as with all other "major" EA features, to become more a part of the game instead of being thrown in your face. However, it seems like whenever a new feature like this is thrown in our face year one and then sort of sinks back into the background a bit in year two, it ends up vanishing from the game completely later on.

The new collision system is instantly noticeable. It considerably changes the game, and lots of new effects come from this singular modification. I'll discuss this more in the gameplay article coming up because some things are good some are bad. But overall, the direction is most definitely positive for the series in this regard.

The OL/DL interactions are better again this year. Still, I'm seeing some stuff that could be troublesome going forward. In reality, the line play has improved during the past several years, but going into this year it still had a long way to go. It's not there yet. I'll detail more in the gameplay article coming up this weekend.

I like the running game still in Madden. The improved line play and taking the focus away from the "turbo" or sprint button were wise decisions. With the tighter controls, the game definitely feels like it's on the right path here.

In terms of the passing game, I do think it's a solid improvement in many areas. Playing as a QB with actual zone defenses in place is a much better experience, although the defense still does not do a good job of disguising coverages. That could be to the benefit to the users, but only if we could have a slider to really tweak how well defenses hide their coverage (or perhaps have the AI do it more effectively as you up the difficulty). It really just feels like the defense reacts quicker to a throw as the difficulty goes up. You are not playing smarter teams, just faster ones. That's all right for many, but I'd rather see the cerebral aspect change rather than the physics.

The WR/DB interactions still, well, they're just bad. That's all you can say about them. This is one of the more fascinating aspects of football, and it's still the same old same old for Madden. Yes, zone defenses are beefed up like in NCAA Football, but who cares if defensive backs and wide receivers are not interacting as they should?

The lack of a player-lock camera on defense means defense is incredibly stale for me. It's boring and a very clear step behind NCAA. Simply put, half of the game is unchanged in my mind, and it has little to no value to the player right now. Player lock was finally something that spruced up the feeling of playing defense on a more experiential level. I don't even know if it's worth talking about defense in too much depth at this point because I'm sure many are simply going to get bored with playing defense if they have played Madden at all in the last 10 years. Of course, I will talk about it, but it's frustrating to say the least.

The player running animations seem improved. However, then I watched the game from a broadcast angle, and they still looked off. From the typical player angle, they look adequate. But I don't think the running animations look as great if they're seen from a TV broadcast angle.

The commentary seems to be improved a bit. I don't want to turn Gus Johnson off quite yet, but how will I feel after 20-30 games? Only time will tell.

Wrapping It Up

Overall, my first impressions are that the game still has some "Madden problems" of prior years, but it feels better in a lot of other areas. It's a very mixed bag for me right now with this game, so we'll see where my impressions go in the coming days.

This is a shallow first run through of things before I get into the meat and potatoes of the game in the coming days. Look for my gameplay piece tomorrow, and then I'll be diving into career and online modes after that.

(The Chiefs won 24-20 for the record, as it should be.)


I'll have a big missive on Madden's gameplay tomorrow. Look for it as it'll be worth your time if you still don't have the game.