izigame.me

I do not write a lot of steam reviews, in fact this may be my first one. The reason I feel a need to write one for Madden 24 is I have never felt more conflicted about a game. I currently have 404 hours this Madden, it being my second one. I would like to tell anyone looking to buy this game why I would not recommend it even after a large sum of hours.
To start, I do not play online. My review has nothing to do with multiplayer metas, pricing or player toxicity. Most of my time is spent in franchise mode because I find it the only viable way to play the game solo. Which leads me to my first topic, super star mode. OH BOY HOWDIE is it bad. I've played a lot of games that very little depth to them but super star mode is a new low. Basically there is a fundamental issue where all the fun was front loaded into the first few hours of playing this mode BUT one would think the idea is to raise a stud into the second coming of Mahomes, Derick Henry or something. After you are drafted you will receive two or three major events and then its just you and a hand full of instance events ever so often. There is no drama like beef with teammates or competition for the starting roll. You can get traded to another team but this seems to happen at random times as I hard carried my team to the playoffs, lost the super bowl and then was traded right after a record setting season. FFS it was like score 40 points a game or loose and I made it to the super bowl. Anyways, Madden's leveling system and game play mechanics really are not deep enough to keep me playing for hours on end and that kitty pool depth only gets shallower the further one strays from the quarterback position. There are no user player traits, level caps in alternate stat categories, and height and weight really only matter when it comes to speed. All of this culminates into a mode that is supposed to follow a self insert football player's career, but sadly is only tolerable for 3 seasons and that is if you are playing quarterback. It would be very easy to improve and add mechanics that would make this a viable way to have fun but a pure lack of effort and creativity is present, spoiler alert this is a running theme with every EA product.
Franchise mode is better but feels rushed at best. My main issue with this mode has to do with the best thing about franchise mode funny enough, the drafted rookies. While the simulated draft is my personal favorite part of Madden as a whole I can not help see the infinite ways it could be improved. To start player personality is not in the game. You know the most important thing about sports besides the sport itself. Like would it kill someone at EA to make some traits that make all players divas, team players, saints, or anything other than models. For anyone who has played this mode imagine if a player had a tag that allowed him to never be affected by negative moral even after a huge loss streak. The inverse could also be a fun example, where the player is super good but he constantly drags down moral. This lack of personality extends to the draft itself. In real life people have fun watching chaotic pick swaps and crazy out of pocket picks in the draft. Maddens draft only allows your team to wheel and deal in the draft. Which is so boring. The only spicy thing that can happen is a team randomly taking the WR you wanted when they have 2 super star WRs already. And that is more rage inducing than fun due to lack of realism. I could spit ball ways to make Franchise mode amazing but I would be here all day if I did. Some minor issues are: Players signing long term low paying deals, Draft pick cheesing, teams making illogical roster decisions, free agency either being super exciting or a snooze, drafted players being way to easy to evaluate, no stopping mechanic for stacking draft picks to the moon, ass instance events, boring stadiums. But hey at least there is more to this mode so I can actually play it for more than a day.
Lastly gameplay and glitches.... Yeah no I would be here for a year but I will list a few of my least favorite: The O line, defenders have instant acceleration, can jump like Jordan and can turn on a dime even if they are a 70 overall, the new aiming system while cool leads to jank moments all the time, WRs not climbing the ladder ever( no joke after 400 hours ive seen it happen a hand full of times), MY PLAYERS TAKING BRAIN DEAD ANGLES TO TACKLE ALL THE TIME.
I sorta ran out of time to give my full thoughts but i hope this enlightens someone to not buy this game and instead give that money to a company that actually wants to make a great product. With how much money EA makes this game should be the elden ring of sports games but it is a giant disappointment start to finish.
Edit: So i wasn't going to return to this but it seems to have gotten more than a few likes. Thanks to all of you! In this edit I would like to cover some of the issues with the core game play, Who knows maybe it will inspire some modder or ea dev to actually tackle the issues. Or i'm huffing copium lmao.
So when talking football the game is built in the trenches and defense. Fundamentally madden struggles with this. O-line men are drafted high in real life due to the position being vital to the offense, everything runs through them and the qb. The O-line really needs a revamp because blockers get lost all of the time. Most of the time they either line up not blocking an edge rusher or glitch out and do not engage the blocker as he runs by to gift your qb an er visit. They also have real trouble blocking runs on the move because running backs seem to go a little to fast for the designed play to work correctly. When it comes to defense everything besides D-line is a little messed up. In real life offensive plays are designed to trick defenses into opening holes in the field and defenders are supposed to make the right decision. In madden this happens some of the time but most of the time it is literally coincidence. Dbs really need a coverage rework and mlbs need to be more aggressive when zone covering a shallow crossing route or something. Shallow crossing routes are just too free without audible calls. I would rather my defenders make mistakes as opposed to afking and making a tackle/breakup after catch 9 out of 10 times
Next I want to talk about something weird but I think its important, Playbooks. I just feel like they do not reflect team identity enough. Like whats the point of lamar existing if the ai runs like two read options a game. Just make the play books more unique or up the frequency of some types of plays FFS because making a mesh with more squiggly lines aint it. Like a red zone play called the philly special would be so sick, I haven't played as the eagles but I will eat my words if it is already in the game but I would bet 1000 dollars it isn't.
That concludes edit 1, Ill rant more later as it is 4 am and i'm a deranged human for writing this.