Madden 15

Madden 15 begins with a bang, putting the player in a highly scripted opening sequence in which you must control Cam Newton as he navigates the challenging Seahawk defense in the NFC Championship.  This all takes place before the player has even reached the main menu (it only happens the first time you launch the game), but I thought it was an interesting attempt to make the intro sequence more immersive (no more FMV with a Madden rap).

After completing this sequence, there is an option for a skills trainer to get the player acquainted with the new changes to game play.  I thought this was nice, but largely unnecessary for those familiar with Madden 25 or its immediate predecessors.  Once finally onto the main menu, I started a franchise and was pleased to see an option to immediately sim to the playoffs, which saved me from the tedious task of advancing every week manually, one at a time.  While it took some time to sim through every game, it was nice to be able to click a button and walk away before finding my Patriots in the Wildcard game against the Chargers.

Once in the actual game itself, I was immediately impressed by the graphics and the silky smooth frame rate.  Even the crowd animations are improved.  Despite some long load times, upgrading to the PS4 clearly presents its advantages.  As Tom Brady took the field, I was treated to some nice video highlights of his from last season.  The game itself was a defensive struggle, with my (not unusual) challenge of having long, grinding drives that result in few points.  After this rather boring experience, with multiple picks by each QB, I advanced with a 7-6 win.  There are now commercials have been inserted between the first and second quarter (for the Verizon halftime show), with the sponsor changing each game.  I liked the fact that the highlights from the halftime show used actual key plays from the game, and gave the option to view these at any time from the options screen.  The only issue that I had was that some of the commentary was just plain wrong – with the announcer saying that there was a kickoff return from a touchdown at one point, something that never happened.
The divisional match up was at Baltimore, and once again I struggled with ball control, throwing two picks.  Thankfully for me, the Baltimore offense was abysmal (or stifled by my “great” D).  I managed two scores this time, including monster 13 and 16 play drives, leading to a 14-3 win that set up the championship game in Denver.  Once again, I was able to put together some long drives, along with a pick 6 from Jerod Mayo and a safety by Vince Wilfork, leading to a 26-0 shellacking.

This all set up the Super Bowl match up between the Patriots and the Seahawks – the actual Super Bowl match up in reality that year.  While I fell behind 0-3 early after my long opening drive stalled with a goal line stand at the 1 yard line, a TD late in the 3rd quarter put me back up for good.  I was able to tack on a field goal in the fourth to cement a 10-3 final.  In a somewhat strange finish, despite losing by just one score late in the fourth, the Seahawks opted to punt the ball with 2 minutes left and allow me to knee out the clock and win the game.  Whatever.

Despite some wonky stats and strange clock management, I viewed Madden 15 as a small but steady improvement in Madden 25.  The emphasis on defense kept the scoring low, but that may have been more a result of my style of play.  Much of what I liked about that game remains intact, with upgrades to animations and graphics to improve game play.  Overall a fun experience, but still with some bugs, and probably not as good as Madden 2005 or some of the earlier greats in the series.