Madden NFL 25 News Post

Madden NFL 25: Hands-On Impressions from Polygon

07:01 AM - November 12, 2013 by Badboy49er

Polygon has posted up some next-gen Madden NFL 25 impressions. The impressions are from a hands-on experience with the game. Here are a few things from the article:

Proper double teams and pocket formation is in this year's game. The pass rush is better than on current-gen Madden.
Fans are much better at reacting to events on the field, reacting to 40 different types of events on the field with different reactions.
Madden NFL 25 on the PS4 supports remote play on the PS Vita.

What did you think of the impressions? Anything stick out to you?

Game: Madden NFL 25Reader Score: 5/10 - Vote Now
Platform: PS3 / PS4 / Xbox 360 / Xbox OneVotes for game: 54 - View All

Madden NFL 25 Videos

Member Comments

# 21 Armor and Sword @ 11/12/13 12:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Big FN Deal


	Even if this review is spot on, it still seems like very minimal, though needed, improvement. I think it was Pasta that stated it's hard to really tell what exactly they added to next-gen M25 that couldn't have been somehow done on current gen, besides the graphical detail. Not to mention that the reviewer failed to notice any defensive upgrades in the secondary/coverage, even though Rex stated there would be but maybe they didn't play enough. I'm actually not knocking getting the game because the way I see it is that next-gen M25 is a slight upgrade on current gen, so if you can tolerate Madden might as well get the "best" one, if possible. However after going through 9 years of wasted potential, it's frustrating seeing a new console generation launch this underwhelming. All while having EA Tiburon spin it as if all the focus went into game play and under the hood to lay a solid foundation. Problem is that doesn't explain why so many things separate from game play and on field AI weren't upgraded like broadcast presentation and CFM. Also I'm willing to bet the off field/team management AI is identical to current gen, which would completely contradict any claim that "under the hood" was a focus, outside of game play but whatever. Maybe they really bring it next year but I suspect it will be more of the same unless there is a drastic change due to March 2014.

Quite frankly.....the PS2 Launch Madden was underwhleming too. Graphically no...but gameplay...yes. It was not until Madden 2003 that I finally started seeing some real good tangible gameplay and features differences from the PS1. And of course Madden 2005 was the pinnacle for that console.

Again...PS3/360 initial game was clearly rushed out....next gen came so quick IMO. And things did not get good till Madden 10 and now finally with M25 I felt they made a true next gen Madden from the previous console PS2

Everyone should know by now....it takes a few cycles to get things really playing right with sports games.

I know Madden really underwhelmed this last cycle.....but I think they will be far better on the PS4/One consoles in short order.

# 22 Sturzinator @ 11/12/13 12:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 4thQtrStre5S


	"Action on the defensive side of the ball is mostly similar, although we were able to generate a better pass rush than in the current-gen version of the game." I like the creation of a pocket and the fan and sideline action, but it concerns me that generally the, " defensive side of the ball is mostly similar."

This is a big problem, as the defense feels useless and neutered in CG M25.

There needs to be a better balance developed. Human running is overpowered and the defense is too marginalized to be a difference maker, regardless of the presence of elite personnel.

# 23 AmericasTeam @ 11/12/13 01:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sturzinator


	This is a big problem, as the defense feels useless and neutered in CG M25. There needs to be a better balance developed. Human running is overpowered and the defense is too marginalized to be a difference maker, regardless of the presence of elite personnel.

Who knows if this guy would even be able to tell the difference? Sounds like he was mostly commenting on all the stuff EA has been hyping. Let's hope the hardcore group does see a difference. Will it be night and day? Probably not. Will it be playable, definitely.

Anyway, I have the game in my hand only because I went to Target this morning and did the buy 2 get 1 free deal twice. Can't beat a free copy.

# 24 BoCgrist @ 11/12/13 01:21 PM

NBA 2k14 8.9 FIFA 9.1 where is m25? It came out today. Don't think 2k14 comes out till Friday. Somebody post an honest review and not some critic scripted highlight of the back of the box. If it sucks have the sand to say it.

# 25 The JareBear @ 11/12/13 01:36 PM

Edited

Forget it, we will find out ourselves very soon. I have....low expectations, but hope to be impressed!

# 26 Only1LT @ 11/12/13 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by eaw913


	This is ignorance. Do you really think a handful of people not buying the game will hurt them? It will still sell insane amounts of copies because the majority of people buying just want a football game.

It's a general statement and it is accurate. If no one buys the game, it will either change or cease to exist. Unless EA turns philanthropic.

What is silly is to buy a game that you don't like, because you think everyone else will, so your not buying it doesn't matter.

If you don't like the game, don't buy it. Whether it hurts EA depends on how many people do the same. You can't control what anyone else does, only you.

I can't guarantee that you will hurt EA's coffers by not buying the game, but I can guarantee that you will waste $65 if you buy a game you don't like, just because you think others will still buy it.

# 27 The JareBear @ 11/12/13 01:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Armor & Sword


	Quite frankly.....the PS2 Launch Madden was underwhleming too. Graphically no...but gameplay...yes. It was not until Madden 2003 that I finally started seeing some real good tangible gameplay and features differences from the PS1. And of course Madden 2005 was the pinnacle for that console. Again...PS3/360 initial game was clearly rushed out....next gen came so quick IMO. And things did not get good till Madden 10 and now finally with M25 I felt they made a true next gen Madden from the previous console PS2 Everyone should know by now....it takes a few cycles to get things really playing right with sports games. I know Madden really underwhelmed this last cycle.....but I think they will be far better on the PS4/One consoles in short order.

Disagree One Thousand Percent.

I don't wanna get in trouble, not sure if this violates the forum rules now, but, all I am gonna say is look at what "Other Sports Games" are already doing at launch. One was built from the ground up and looks to be insanely impressive, another may have the same gameplay (which was already stellar) but at least has HUGELY overhauled graphics and added game modes, I don't know if M25 even has that.

You enjoy M25 a lot already, so I understand your point of view and understand that we just disagree, not saying I am right and you are wrong, but I do feel the "it just takes a lot of time" excuse is...I dunno, almost inappropriate, frankly.

I am still excited to pop the game in, not gonna lie, despite how tempered my expectations are.

# 28 Archie56 @ 11/12/13 01:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BoCgrist


	NBA 2k14 8.9 FIFA 9.1 where is m25? It came out today. Don't think 2k14 comes out till Friday. Somebody post an honest review and not some critic scripted highlight of the back of the box. If it sucks have the sand to say it.

2K14 actually came out a few days ago. I picked up my copy of that on Sunday. I picked up my copies of Madden, BF4, and AC4 this morning.

I'm stoked! Thursday at midnight can't come soon enough!!

# 29 Only1LT @ 11/12/13 01:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archie56


	2K14 actually came out a few days ago. I picked up my copy of that on Sunday. I picked up my copies of Madden, BF4, and AC4 this morning. I'm stoked! Thursday at midnight can't come soon enough!!

Depends where you get it. Official street is Nov 15th though. Amazon doesn't have it in stock yet, as a for instance. Same with Need for Speed.

# 30 Archie56 @ 11/12/13 01:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Only1LT


	Depends where you get it. Official street is Nov 15th though. Amazon doesn't have it in stock yet, as a for instance. Same with Need for Speed.

I actually picked my copy up at Gamestop. They got an email saying that certain street dates for a few of the PS4 games had been lifted by Sony and they were allowed to sell them early. The other few PS4 games I picked up today were actually street dated for today.

# 31 ABR173rd @ 11/12/13 02:04 PM

I figured I'd post this here (mods feel free to move it if you don't feel is beneficial to the topic).

I just got some hands on time with FIFA Next Gen on the PS4. This game is based on the Ignite engine (as we're all aware) and the majority of improvements for Madden next Gen are selling points for this game as well.

The actual gameplay graphics are improved but were not amazing. The crowd noise did not stand out either, I scored and the crowd noise went up but to be honest if I had not known this was an added feature it was not noticeable. Crowd looks decent during closeups but as some people already pointed out the first time the camera zoomed in there were a lot of the same characters doing the same animations.

The biggest negative I found were to be the cutscenes after a player scores, Madden has given us a lot of close ups of instant replays showing off skin sweat and all that good stuff. The cut scene's in FIFA looked like current gen. If this is any indication-which I believe it is- of what we can expect from Madden next Gen prepare to be underwhelmed.

One thing I forgot to add, I am hoping this feature is in Madden- after scoring a goal the celebration by the players from the default view was natural. The players did not stop and then go into what was a predetermined animation-it all flowed naturally which was pretty cool.

# 32 strawberryshortcake @ 11/12/13 02:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by slgrant


	If you guys want EA to change, the power is in you, the consumer. Get them where it hurts and that's in the pocket.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eaw913


	This is ignorance. Do you really think a handful of people not buying the game will hurt them? It will still sell insane amounts of copies because the majority of people buying just want a football game.

Not sure how that's a statement of ignorance. As Only1LT pointed out it is a completely true statement.

What would be ignorant would be those wanting drastic changes to annually support a product that churns out more or less the same product annually.

If a product does not meet one's standards and if one continues to buy it, that would be considered "ignorant." This would theoretically guarantee absolutely no change to the product.

On topic: I'll be waiting to see what's in store come the 15th through reviews, gameplay videos, and likely a demo test run.

# 33 Only1LT @ 11/12/13 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ABR173rd


	The biggest negative I found were to be the cutscenes after a player scores, Madden has given us a lot of close ups of instant replays showing off skin sweat and all that good stuff. The cut scene's in FIFA looked like current gen. If this is any indication-which I believe it is- of what we can expect from Madden next Gen prepare to be underwhelmed

I am not into Soccer, nor FIFA, so I could be wrong, but isn't FIFA's presentation real-time? It was my understanding that there aren't cut-scenes. This could be why they looked underwhelming to you, because they were using in-game assets?

Again, I could be mistaken, but I could have sworn I glanced at something or other that said this was the case.

# 34 ABR173rd @ 11/12/13 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Only1LT


	I am not into Soccer, nor FIFA, so I could be wrong, but isn't FIFA's presentation real-time? It was my understanding that there aren't cut-scenes. This could be why they looked underwhelming to you, because they were using in-game assets? Again, I could be mistaken, but I could have sworn I glanced at something or other that said this was the case.

I'm not a big FIFA guy either, to elaborate a little further once I scored for instance, the game stayed in the default view and the players were celebrating (looked natural) then the camera zoomed in on the goalie I believe, so not necessarily a cut scene per se but zoomed in real time. The up close shot(s) did not look great and/or nearly as good as the zoomed in shots of RG3 that were displayed by EA earlier on.

# 35 wordtobigbird @ 11/12/13 03:45 PM

Madden definitely needs to take the real time celebration from FIFA. we need to see some emotion in these players postplay. Madden has a couple if animations that you can see if you pay close attention but the camera angles are just horrible. Then they cut to a canned cutscene and players are instantly in different spots. Just hurts overall immersion. But Madden has other things to focus on first.

Sent from my HTC VLE_U using Tapatalk

# 36 ABR173rd @ 11/12/13 04:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RateSports


	Remember that Polygon scored Sim City a 9.5 and The Last of Us a 7.5....

Good point, and some of the hands on reviews seem to be contradictory of each other. In one review the game "feels noticeably different" another reviewer says there is not a much noticeable difference from this gen. I have it pre-ordered and am still somewhat excited, I would say the biggest let down is that Franchise mode seems to be completely untouched. Another positive way to look at it is that this year there will be a shorter time horizon for the second iteration of next gen Madden-which will blow us away!

# 37 roadman @ 11/12/13 04:07 PM

I say this on a yearly basis, the best reviewers are yourself, not some stranger on the net.

With that said, off to my BB to play some FIFA. Our son was a HS soccer player and he loved it.

Just depends.

# 38 Crimsontide27 @ 11/12/13 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RateSports


	Remember that Polygon scored Sim City a 9.5 and The Last of Us a 7.5....

I have some serious doubts that they even played Madden at all, or at least the article writer didn't. We have gotten some decent playing time in, but were under embargo and NDA so no impressions were allowed.

Several things that stuck out for me...

1) Those pictures were released to the media while they were being captured off of a PC, the game wasn't pressed on disc yet for the Gen 4 systems. While the graphics are not bad, those pictures are not whats in the game now. Think basically Ultra quality vs high quality on PCs

2) While there are both positive and negatives they could have mentioned, they just went line by line on what EA has released to the public over the past month. Not one new shred of info was presented, even though there are a few things they could have mentioned.

# 39 HoundsOfHowl @ 11/12/13 04:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ABR173rd


	Good point, and some of the hands on reviews seem to be contradictory of each other. In one review the game "feels noticeably different" another reviewer says there is not a much noticeable difference from this gen. I have it pre-ordered and am still somewhat excited, I would say the biggest let down is that Franchise mode seems to be completely untouched. Another positive way to look at it is that this year there will be a shorter time horizon for the second iteration of next gen Madden-which will blow us away!

I didn't purchase Madden 25 CG for the reason of this game. I am excited for it since I haven't been burnt by M25 yet. Now with that said, I haven't found a Madden game fun and pumped over 10 hours into one since Madden 2011 or 010 (can't remember and even those weren't great, Madden 05 was my last favorite one.)

But with this going to be the only football game on my X1 I will take it and play it. Hopefully we are going to be blown away with M26(2015) I would be very pleased if everything they said they've done on this one is great and they just update the CFM for M26.

# 40 The JareBear @ 11/12/13 04:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ABR173rd


	Good point, and some of the hands on reviews seem to be contradictory of each other. In one review the game "feels noticeably different" another reviewer says there is not a much noticeable difference from this gen. I have it pre-ordered and am still somewhat excited, I would say the biggest let down is that Franchise mode seems to be completely untouched. Another positive way to look at it is that this year there will be a shorter time horizon for the second iteration of next gen Madden-which will blow us away!

Yeah, this is probably the best bet for anyone hoping to maintain some enthusiasm. As long as the gameplay isn't worse than CG, and there are some minor improvements here or there, with the slightly improved graphics, I think people will be satisfied and give EA the benefit of the doubt that M15 will be a big step forward.

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