My previous experiences with madden were primarily on the PS2 and the last I owned was 09 on the PSP, so now I that I have an up to date non-Nintendo console for the first time in a good while, I thought I'd see what had changed with Madden. As you can probably guess, the answer is "not all that much." Well, not all that much except it now runs like dogshit. The damn main menu brings the PS5 to its knees and both performance and quality mode hitch like hell despite not even being all that impressive-looking compared to what this machine is capable of. It's clear that the yearly cycle of Madden has taken its toll, and I imagine something this rushed and barely functional is all the developers could manage while ensuring the next one releases on time.
It's sad, just about the only novel addition I've found is a mode reworking the Create-A-Team of old into a loot box-driven affair. I would've tried this out more to assess if it has any value at all but this is where the menus struggle and inappropriately overlap each other the most, a few jpegs with players' faces on them clearly being too much for the Playstation 5. I spent most of my time playing a custom career and planned to log this as completed once I got a ring in that, but I just lost interest after my goofy creation John Darksouls' third season. Didn't character creation back in the day involve a bunch of fun flavor like rolling your parents' professions and such? I miss that. Anyway, this mode is just too repetitive and requires far too much menuing and mindless practice between each game to be worth it. Still, this is where I had the most fun and when you're enthusiastic enough about football it's still a good time. That's the thing: football is fun by default. You'd have to really fuck up to ruin that, and modern Madden isn't yet that much of a disaster.
There are still various projects out there updating Madden 08 for current rosters and such. I'm not going to say that outclasses '24 in every respect, the passing mechanics are a fair bit richer now and for the novelty of being up to date this will probably be what I reach for to play head to head locally, but for the most part 08'll probably serve you about as well and at least the menus will fucking work.
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Side note: This is an example of one of the many reasons intellectual property is bullshit which steals from what should rightfully belong to us all. Football games would be so much better if we weren't stuck with a single company holding the license for the league which is practically synonymous with the sport itself.
It's sad, just about the only novel addition I've found is a mode reworking the Create-A-Team of old into a loot box-driven affair. I would've tried this out more to assess if it has any value at all but this is where the menus struggle and inappropriately overlap each other the most, a few jpegs with players' faces on them clearly being too much for the Playstation 5. I spent most of my time playing a custom career and planned to log this as completed once I got a ring in that, but I just lost interest after my goofy creation John Darksouls' third season. Didn't character creation back in the day involve a bunch of fun flavor like rolling your parents' professions and such? I miss that. Anyway, this mode is just too repetitive and requires far too much menuing and mindless practice between each game to be worth it. Still, this is where I had the most fun and when you're enthusiastic enough about football it's still a good time. That's the thing: football is fun by default. You'd have to really fuck up to ruin that, and modern Madden isn't yet that much of a disaster.
There are still various projects out there updating Madden 08 for current rosters and such. I'm not going to say that outclasses '24 in every respect, the passing mechanics are a fair bit richer now and for the novelty of being up to date this will probably be what I reach for to play head to head locally, but for the most part 08'll probably serve you about as well and at least the menus will fucking work.
-
Side note: This is an example of one of the many reasons intellectual property is bullshit which steals from what should rightfully belong to us all. Football games would be so much better if we weren't stuck with a single company holding the license for the league which is practically synonymous with the sport itself.