Madden NFL 13 (Xbox 360, 2012)

Madden gets a much needed physics engine upgrade but many of it's old problems linger. Having one option for NFL football gaming is never good especially when your only option refuses to correct it's mistakes. A lot of reviewers gave this game praise but as someone who has been playing football video games for a long time I have to say M13 falls short of expectations. Poor blocking and all the other cheap Madden tactics used to give the illusion of difficulty are still here. There is fun to be had, that is until you feel robbed by a computer that cheats you in an attempt to prevent every game from being a blowout. Maybe next year EA will work on the AI and less on fancy promos with Ray Lewis?

I don't want to fall in with line of thought that EA pays off reviewers but I'm not convinced this game even deserves a 6/10. Is every Madden just a roster update? No not exactly but I believe EA refuses to give us a complete football game because they fear the standard they would set for themselves every year. They prove that when you have no competition you can let all your glaring weaknesses hang out and you'll still earn no lower than an 8 out of 10. Well not from this reviewer.

I broke down and decided to try Madden again, I had not tried it in a couple of years, and really, all that has happened is that the in-game play is better, though some of the physics on the player interactions is awful.

And, no more franchise mode! Hell yea, that is what I want, a game that has less features than the old ones! It has combined the franchise mode and the create a player into one, a Connected Careers mode, that essentially dumbs down the franchise mode. You cannot play any other games, only the game that your team is playing. You can't change player positions, even though there are players that have had their positions changed from Madden 12 to 13, like Shawne Merriman, he was a linebacker a few years ago, and he was switched to defensive end, but you can't change him back to linebacker if you wanted to. I can understand not allowing this for the online content, but if it is in offline mode, I should be able to do whatever I want... I feel that EA is just gearing up to release a new Head Coach game, and make it so you have to own both to be able to play games that your team have to play or something along those lines, because MONEY. And SAVE YOUR GAME OFTEN!!! You are prone to have your xbox hard lock when you go into Depth Chart, the recent patches have helped, but it is still buggy...

I believe this to be the one of the best madden games to come out, however the criticize I do have is the running system in this game. The new technology that they rave about in this game make power running almost non-exist. You can not run up the back of you own player and to many time a tackler will hit you with and failing arm and make a tackle. Also the game-face interface is a bit buggy and skin color isn't always actually correct. With that The passing in this game is a step forward and Defenses plays are more realist (in pass coverage). I Feel the running game took a step back with runner falling to the ground to easily and poor rushing set-up though I believe they have the right idea with the running game. The game does a much better job with presentation and Pass control. If you want to throw a ball to the outside/inside shoulder you, almost feels like you can throw any WR open.

I give EA credit for adding some new animations in the game. I primary play online franchise now connected career mode with 4-8 people. When I first saw how it gave individual players XP points allowing us the opportunity to upgrade player's ability by game performance (weekly & season goals) I was happy. What a mistake! We have people intentionally beefing up low rated player's stats & making them all-stars by week 8! I have seen guys who have player's ability maxed out in 1 year! I have guys who can now score over 100 points a game with a rookie QB on all madden settings & human settings turned down! The offense is too powerful & the defense sucks!

Gameplay is actually fun compared to previous ones. The new ideas for franchise and careers mixed in is nice as well. Great flow to choosing a player career. You can put your gameface in it too. Due to some low reviews, on the 16th of October, the EA team will be adding back a lot of features for the game due to some consumers complaints about the game. Features that really have nothing to do with the gameplay. Google Madden 13 October patch. This years game was all about the updated gameplay and for me that's all I needed. Money well with spent. The game doesn't get old.