Game On

Title: Madden NFL 19

Platform: Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4

Cost: $59.99

Rating: Suitable for all ages

Score: 7/10

It's August, so that means it's time for my annual tradition of wondering whether the newest Madden NFL iteration is worth shelling out $60 for. Each year's edition boasts new features, graphical upgrades and the most realistic football action ever -- or so EA Sports wants you to believe, anyway.

One of the big reasons to buy is the updated rosters. Madden NFL offers week by week updates of player ratings and active rosters. If a player gets hurt in real life, he is put on the injured list in the game and can't be played with in online head-to-head matches. If a player has a great week and makes key plays, he'll see his star start to rise in the game to match.

This year, even the commentating by in-game announcers will be updated based on real-life events.

Madden offers four main ways to play the game; Exhibition, Franchise, Longshot and Ultimate Team. Exhibition mode lets you play against a friend alongside you on the couch or against another online player in a head-to-head match. When playing online, your win/loss ratio is recorded and that rating is used to try to find a competitor who matches your skill level.

Franchise mode lets you take on the role of coach, owner or player across multiple seasons. As a coach, you'll scout graduating college players for the draft, sign free agents, negotiate salaries, tweak uniform designs and more. Winning games and achieving objectives grant experience points that can be used to improve players.

For an owner, it's even possible to move the team to another city; and as a player a bad season can see you get cut from the team, with your career now resting on whether you'll be picked up in free agency.

Longshot is a mode that debuted last year, and it's more of a cinematic storytelling experience interspersed with playable football moments. Madden 18 told the trials and tribulations of NFL hopefuls Devin and Colt in their quest to be drafted and signed to a professional team, and Madden 19 has the continuation of that story. It'll take about five hours to complete the Longshot mode.

Last year's Longshot mode featured Telltale Games-like dialogue choices and button-mashing quick-time events, but those have been dropped in Madden 19 for a more cinematic experience than a choose-your-own-adventure. The story isn't too bad, though, and the folksy commentators during games were pretty entertaining.

Last but certainly not least, there's the Madden Ultimate Team mode, which is perhaps simultaneously the most entertaining and aggravating part of the game.

Madden Ultimate Team, or MUT, is part fantasy football, part collectible card game, and it's a complete cash grab by EA.

The premise is pretty simple: Play games, earn digital coins, use those coins to buy digital packs of football cards, open them and hope you find good players within that can be added to your team.

One of my peeves about MUT is that in the past, one of the best ways to earn coins was by playing online against other players. Unfortunately, that's been mostly replaced by needing to first grind through hundreds of hours of single-player games to earn coins and build up a team. For me, playing against the computer just isn't fun.

And for impatient players, EA has a faster method: a credit card. It's a lot like buying packs of football or baseball cards in real life, except that these are purely digital and will be completely worthless by this time next year.

It's also the MUT mode that gets the most attention and updates from EA. And why not? The other modes don't keep making EA any money after the initial cost of the game. Conversely, across its football, soccer and hockey Ultimate Team offerings, EA raked in a whopping $800 million last year.

What makes the pay-to-win model frustrating is that the most fun part of MUT are player versus player competitions, where you compete in post-season style tournaments with a chance to participate in a "Super Bowl" after enough wins. Doing well in these tournaments, and especially winning a Super Bowl, will reward players with lots of free cards. But rather than being purely a test of skill and hard work, it often seems like a test of who has the deepest wallet.

Not only does EA have no plans to scale back the cash grab, they're actually looking to expand the mechanics to their Battlefield or Star Wars: Battlefront franchises.

If your interest is in the Longshot story mode, renting is a good option. Waiting a couple of months for a price drop is also an option for the budget-conscious, and if you have to have it now, just be careful with your wallet and the microtransactions. It's hard to give Madden games a stellar rating, though, until they reform their microtransaction policies and pay more attention to the other game modes.

photo

Madden NFL 19

ActiveStyle on 08/20/2018

Upcoming Events