Madden NFL 16 Community Impressions

[Millennium]

Madden NFL 16 has officially arrived today. Make sure you play a few games and share your impressions with the community!

[prey2god]

The game is sick! 9/10. Best Madden i've played so far. The team did a great job.

There are minor issues, but overall they made the game great again. Haven't had this much fun since 05.

[2_headedmonster]

I like the running. So far i REALLY like the running. The running animations, moves and expressiveness seem right.

I'm currently on the opposite end on the spectrum with the aggressive catches. You know when you're under the rim on 2k, in perfect position to make a decent attempt at a block and get sucked into a canned dunk animation? That's the aggressive catch mechanism. At this early stage i feel like it's the pro-tak of catching.

It's not even that it's OP (which it is with stars) that turns me off, it's that it's not organic. Even with the canned dunks from my 2k example there's still plenty of instances where your independent block animation can be used against an independent dunk animation. I don't find that to be the same with M16.

I bring my safety over, time my attempt on the deep ball and it's seemingly neglected. Now it may factor into the success of the catch, but i can't often intervene with what has already been deemed a 2-man animation if that makes sense. My attempt is usually garnish for an aggressive catch interaction.

When the cpu brings a safety over it seems to be worse, they do very little and lag behind the play waiting on a punched ball. So my 2 man under turns into one on one with a witness.

[Gotmadskillzson]

The Good

Ratings seem to matter way more then ever before. I can clearly tell an offensive linemen with average footwork ratings vs somebody with good footwork ratings. Linemen with average footwork ratings don't get no push at all on running plays and get driven backwards. On passing plays they tend to get destroyed by a high skilled DE.

CPU QB over throw the ball a lot when rushed, which is very nice.

Running the ball can be either extremely easy or hard, depending on the line match ups. I do notice LBs shoot the gaps on running plays a tad bit too good too often. They get through clean untouched if you don't learn to steer them into a blocker or simply cut back across the field.

Play calling must be varied. CPU is must faster in noticing your pattern and shut it down very early.

Passing, we talking passing ?

Passing really is a nail biting experience this year. What use to be guaranteed passes are not anymore. The close out speed for defensive backs can be Deon Sanders like at times. Aggressive catch really is only useful when your WR has a clear ratings advantage over the defender. If they are equal then more often then not the defender will simply knock it out of your hand. I find the possession catch to be the most useful.

One definitely have to learn to use the middle pass and high pass. Passing on a direct line will get you burnt more often then not this year with a LB under cutting your passes. On default speed threshold you get mighty good separation between fast wide receivers and slow corners. Julio Jones burned me quite a bit.

Deep balls are breathe holding experiences. Thankfully for all you no switch players out there, you can rely on the CPU WR and CPU DB to play appropriately. Which is something I do like.

Pass Interference and Defensive holding oh my

Penalties for players are driven by a discipline trait. The choices are undisciplined, disciplined and normal. It works appropriately. You change a player to undisciplined and they turn into a dirty player basically, flags often. Very nice to see pass interference and defensive holding called. It really changes the momentum of drives. Sometimes though the animation doesn't match up.

The bad

Normal speed the players tend to slide and skate around the field. Slow speed fixes this for the most part. Punt returners are brain dead as usual and don't pose a threat. Punts tend to bounce into the end zone more often then not. Commentary is just bad, sometimes they be talking about things that didn't even happen. Like throwing interceptions when you didn't. Going for it on 4th down when you didn't.

Overall

I would give Madden 16 in it's current form a 8.5. All Pro is very competitive, reminds me of All Madden from years ago. I really don't find the need to change sliders other then the penalty ones if you want to see more penalties. Game plays very good out of the box on default All Pro. You get good pressure on the QB, the completion percentage will be in the toilet.

This year is all about playing real FOOTBALL and not playing MADDEN. It also pays to know the people on the team on your team and what their ratings actually are. I have no problem with my CPU controlled defensive line getting to the QB. Depends on what team you are using. Some teams you can get to them with just the front 4, other teams you have to blitz. I find crossing blitzes and overload blitzes to be highly effective this year.

Really all you have to do is play to the strengths of the team that you are using and stop trying to play the same way with every team.

[ForUntoOblivionSoar∞]

Since this is impressions, I thought I'd share my impression on the lighting. Well, all I need to do is post this screen shot I found at the 49ers official forum:



For the first time ever, Madden as captured the lighting effect on the 49ers helmets during a night time game. The resolution is bad because it's from YouTube, but this just looks stunning to me. Especially in motion, because the bright yellow-gold blob thing moves very similarly to how it does in real life. I didn't think they could ever do it, but they captured it. Very stoked about that.

[jb12780]

Played 55 last night 15 quarters, 15 second play Clock on All-Pro and we had a great game. He ended up throwing a TD pass to Austin Seferian-Jenkins with 37 seconds left against my giants. We both threw a combined 5 picks.

Game looks amazing and plays great as well. With a few slider tweaks this game is going to be amazing.

[JBH3]

I spent most of my 10 hour trial playing MUT until last night where I started an offline franchise with Oakland. The game played very well on default All-Pro, but I did increase penalty sliders. I am pleased to see that 4 defensive interference calls occurred in my one franchise game. This is a first in probably 20 years+ of Madden.

Despite losing the game 33-6 for wk1 Bengals @ Raiders, I was happy with the gameplay. It was fun, challenging, and I was in it up until 2 crucial INTs in the red zone.

Complaints:
1. Somehow Andy Dalton made into the kick returner depth chart and was injured in a kick return; out 1 week with an elbow injury. How does this happen. No football game's AI should allow this logic to occur.

2. I must've sacked the Bengals QBs 4x but none of them counted in my defensive stats. Big issue IMO.

[roadman]

I played 3 quarters last night on all-pro and it was difficult to say the least.

The Good

Running Game-

This was a thing of beauty to watch. Following your blocks was a sight to behold, much better than last year. Adrian Peterson run all over me by half.

Passing Game- Very nice animations between WR/DB's. You need to follow your reads quickly or the DB will close quickly and break up the pass. It's nice to see CPU QB's throws off the mark and over thrown. Nicely done here, EA.

Penalties- Only 2 holding calls for 3 quarters. I'll take everyone's word for it here.

Presentation- I don't mind the stat bubbles and I do like the camera following the team out to the huddle from the sidelines. Lighting is very good this year.

The Bad-

Commentary- Need much more improving in this area, although there was new commentary added to the new xp try's.

Presentation- Need to feel more immersed and maybe it's the commentary. I will say the crowd sounded good.

QB Signatures- Still not there where it needs to be.

Special Teams- Same as it ever was.

More to come later.

For now, I'm giving the game a 7.5 overall, but that goes up if they fix the CFM issues to 8 or 8.5 in a reasonable amount of time.