864th played so far
Genre: Sports
Platform: Various
Year of Release: 2009
Developer: EA Tiburon
Publisher: EA Sports
I’m not sure I’ve really enjoyed any previous American football games before. In fact, we played the original game in the Madden series before, John Madden Football. Madden NFL 10 was the most recent iteration when the first list was released, with it being one of the annual sports games that survived the first purge.
At this point the series has been established, which (based on previous experience) doesn’t always make for the most accessible game, even if it is the best, and I expect little different here.
Our Thoughts
It’s odd that the first notable thing about the game, before we get into any real gameplay, is that it is sponsored by Snickers. It’s on the loading screen, it’s mentioned in all of the preambles and it keeps showing up – a bit more subdued, but that first minute pushes it really badly. It’s not something you’d expect a big sports franchise to need, yet here it is. Reading about it, it’s now a series staple, and while these games sell for less than a pound now, these would have been released as a full price sports game – not something where you’d expect you need it. I guess it’s the future for some of these games, but you’d expect to see something come back in its favour.
When I got into the game, it ended up making more sense than I thought. While I don’t get everything that’s going on, I could make out what I had to do in most plays. I got to focus on one character, could play with where I was throwing the ball for each, and I started to get a feel for the ebb and flow of the game, winning ground and moving around. I wasn’t good at it, but it made a bit more sense and I didn’t feel as disoriented as I get with these games.
The franchise set up helped with the meta game. You can create your own league, and play multiple teams in there – giving you options for each of them, both for the team set up, training budget etc, or to play the matches. I didn’t dive too deeply into controlling lots of them as that became insane, but it seemed deep enough to stay interesting. It would help a lot if you want to play it with a group of friends.
While the game looks good – as you expect for the sports games of this era – I was a bit surprised with the soundtrack. It was very rocky, with some punk elements – not the type of music I’d associate with football. It’s not the most suitable for the series and I am curious what the reasoning was here.
Final Thoughts
Madden NFL 10 doesn’t stand out as an amazing sports game – it’s where many others are. It’s more accessible than most, though, and I’ve started to understand the sport better, something other sports games haven’t really managed to do before