Madden NFL 15 Review (Xbox One)

Madden NFL 15 opens with a bang as players are dropped in the middle of a potential 2015 NFC Championship Game involving the Carolina Panthers and the Seattle Seahawks and they need to think fast and remember their previous experience with the game in order to win while controlling Cam Newton.

It’s an intriguing way to introduce the title and to quickly show how the new focus on defensive moves works, while also impressing players with the graphics quality that the game can deliver on the current generation of hardware and offering a good intro to the rest of the Madden NFL 15 experience.

Story

As any other title in the EA Sports lineup, Madden NFL 15 allows gamers to choose a team, probably the one they love or admire in real life, and then guide it to victory or to at least an above average performance by using all the tools that a manager and player has in the real world to extract performance from the organization.

The game simulates all the teams, and the player has info on coaches, the history of the league, and every tactical elements associated with it, which means that it’s easy for the player to create his own storylines or to recreate some from the real world.

The Connected Franchise mode is as deep as ever and gamers can now get access to a number of new choices for game preparation, gaining experience for their player and improving their morale, before experiencing the impressive actual games that Madden NFL 15’s engine can generate.

Gameplay

Madden NFL 15 is a simulation experience that aims to capture all the nuances and possibilities of American football with a high degree of realism and with a set of game mechanics that allow players to recreate real world moments and to develop their own fantasy scenarios.

For this year’s installment, the focus is on defensive features because EA Sports wants to make sure that there is a clear equilibrium between the two elements of the sport, with the studio drawing inspiration from the previous season of the NFL and the way the Super Bowl played out.

The change that has the biggest impact is the cone that appears every time a player can try and execute a tackle, which shows two types of possible moves and makes it easier to play a solid defensive and to avoid too many mistakes.

This is coupled with more intelligent teammates in order to make it easier to read the offensive intentions of the other team and move to stop them as soon as possible, but EA Sports has also introduced a new level of variety of quarterback passes to make sure that the Madden NFL 15 remains balanced.

Ready to catch

When it comes to the offensive, EA Sports has introduced a new way of calling plays, which makes it easy to choose how to proceed based on previous favorites, community choices or favorites, while offering a chance to scroll through the entire catalog for hardcore players.

Madden NFL 15 games are fluid when the teams are well-matched, and there are plenty of moments when the title manages to recreate some of the best moments fans have seen on TV or experienced in person.

The mix of solid core mechanics and accurately researched player stats means that all teams have a clear personality and style and the wealth of options can sometimes make it hard to decide which play to run.

One of the biggest issues with real world American football is that, despite a prescribed length of 60 minutes, a game can last close to 3 hours, depending on a variety of factors, with only a small percentage filled with interesting action on the field.

Madden NFL 15 does not entirely manage to streamline the process, and while the dedication to realism is commendable, there are times when I wanted less reaction shots and more focus on the actual gameplay.

The data-driven presentations before the snap and the info offered once a play is over are great, but scanning them takes time and, from a point on, all the numbers start to blend and it’s hard to base decisions on them.

I’ve also found that successful passes can be hard to deliver and that even the computer seems to opt for a log of running plays in order to compensate for the extra defensive elements added to the title.

There are also some small issues with animation, and players can sometimes move their limbs in weird ways, but that’s to be expected given the impressive array of ways in which they can interact.

Graphics and audio

Madden NFL 15 feels like a video that has been rebuilt from the ground up in the graphics department in order to awe players and make them wonder how thin the line between the virtual and the real can become.

Gamers will initially notice the presentation, which has been reformed to make the entire user interface, all the transitions, and the information panels resemble match casts on television, which will immerse fans in the atmosphere but can also sometimes feel a little ponderous and over dramatic.

Once an actual game starts, Madden NFL 15 will once again impress with the fidelity with which it recreates stadiums and the look and movement of players, with a lot of the faces actually scanned into the game.

Less successful are the reactions that those on the field have to the important moments of a play, because their faces sometimes move in unnatural ways and the expressions seem more like of real world moments than reproductions.

Defensive move

It was also hard to get accustomed to the increased number of cameras that EA Sports has included, which in theory are designed to make it easier for players to find one they are comfortable with based on what kind of moves they favor.

The new title also has pre- and middle-of-the-game shows based on real world templates, but while they are well produced, I suspect that a limited number of gamers will watch them after they spend more than one full week with the experience because the time they take up is better spent actually playing.

The sound design of Madden NFL 15 has the same quality as the graphics, with carefully captured and recreated noises for the stadiums and the actual action and a lot of commentary for each play, but the soundtrack does sometimes feel a little too bombastic, more suited to a war movie than sports.

Multiplayer

Madden NFL 15 is a great experience with other players and the developers seem to be focused on making the Ultimate Team mode as popular as it is in FIFA 15, with a redesign that focuses on achievable objectives and on rewards for simple in-game actions.

A new Binder function makes it much easier to organize a team and to decide whom to bring into a match depending on the situation and easy-to-explore stats.

I suspect that the inherent complexity of Madden NFL means that Ultimate Team will never become as popular as in other series, but the mode is engaging and can eat up hundreds of hours for dedicated players.

Of course, the easiest way to experience the multiplayer of the new game is to simply get another human being on the coach and start a versus match or to go online in order to find an opponent, and here the solid match engine delivers the same performance as in single-player modes.

The Good

The Bad

Conclusion