Madden NFL 25 - Playstation 3

Since a bunch of trees block my view of outer-space to the east-southeast, I'm unable to subscribe to DirectTV (and therefor, the NFL Sunday Ticket package). So if I want to watch anything besides the Cardinals or Cowboys on a fine Sunday in AZ, I'm heading to a sports bar. Which is alright once in a while, but I really don't want to spend every Sunday throwing down $50 - $75 on beer, wings and brats, then walking home. So I got into an every-other Sunday routine, then just put up with the broadcast games on off weeks. Even to watch the games online, you had to have DirectTV's dish setup and subscribe to the Sunday Ticket package (approx. $225 - $300 without the introductory specials). Yeah you could usually find some pirate stream and suffer through the buffering and random disconnects, but that's more frustrating than fun and I'd just as soon watch the score updates - or cruise on down to the sports bar... again. Then I gotta schlep my work stuff back over there Monday morning and there's not even any leftovers in the fridge! Ripoff. Well, those days are over with MADDEN NFL 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION! You see, MADDEN NFL 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION is a card enclosed in a box. On that card is a code and a website address. What you do is navigate to that web address, put in that code, and Bam! All the games. You can even download an app for Android or iOS tablets and phones and watch on the go. My preferred setup is a laptop behind behind the HDTV, hooked in through an HDMI cable. Picked up a $20 Logitech remote mouse/keyboard setup for the coffee table and I'm watching football like a boss. You can do picture-in-picture, quad screen, full screen... all that stuff. Switching games is as easy as moving your cursor towards the top of the screen. All the game scores slide down and you just grab the game you want. You can also load your fantasy football roster and get on-screen notifications if you're into that stuff. The connection is stable, switching is fast, and I've experienced zero buffering through the first five weeks of the season. I hope DirecTV continues to offer this as long as they retain the rights to out-of-market NFL games. It's a hell of a deal at $99. Oh yeah, this thing also comes with a video game. Apparently this "Enhanced Edition" of that game comes with extra players that you can't get in the Standard Edition, so I was able to sell it for $60 and I don't see that being a problem next year either. So for a net of $39 a year, or even the full $99 (if you actually want the video game), I highly recommend MADDEN NFL 25th ANNIVERSARY EDITION.

Every year I say I'm not buying the new one...there's just not enough upgrades to justify the purchase...yet every year I do it. Madden 25 was all about the Sunday Ticket for me though. It gave me the ability to watch Eagles games every week from California. Although by the end of the season they were being nationally broadcast, so I didn't need the Sunday ticket. Either way, this year's game HEAVILY favors running backs, but it is very fun. Easy to pick up and play right away, a little harder to get full mastery, and if you put it on All-Madden, you can get a great challenge. The Sunday Ticket, it's great when it worked properly. I think the issues were more with Direct TV's site though and compatibility issues with a Chromebook's video capabilities. Overall, well worth the extra $40 over the regular edition, and in all honesty for someone who's team doesn't usually get air time in their area, worth the $100 price tag on its own without the game. I might not keep buying Madden every year, but if you don't have a recent year, then buy the newest one when it comes out, if you wait 2 to 3 years in between buying Madden games, you will see bigger upgrades between the versions you pick up...but they are great games with great quality to the gameplay and perks they add in there. Sunday Ticket...I hope Google buys you and Direct TV just gives up on their terrible product and worse customer service!

I like playing Madden NFL video games, but I don't get them every year. I mostly like to pick up and play offline games or play offline franchise, and while I can get pretty into the games and the general manager aspect of it, I'm probably more of a casual Madden player than a hardcore Madden gamer. So feel free read on if you are looking for that point of view. After playing Madden NFL 11 into submission, I finally made the move to the newest entry in the Madden NFL franchise upon the release of Madden NFL 25. While I really enjoy it so far, I'm still adjusting to the differences between it and the game I've spent countless hours playing over the last couple of years. Here's a few of my initial impressions: 1) The graphics and in-game presentation are very well done. The visuals are much more lifelike and like an NFL game on TV. What I did find disappointing were the coach models and the generic head scans for players and other extras. EA still doesn't seem to have solved the weirdness with the way some coaches appear, like the unnatural shoulder and neck anatomy, odd skin textures and questionable head scans. Head scans for `everyman' players and sideline extras are also exactly the same from years prior, which is another area where I was hoping to see improvements. 2) The controls are familiar, but come with new additions like the Precision Modifier for ball-carriers and quarterbacks that adds another level of control. When you develop the touch to make that last tackler miss with a nasty combination juke or drop a pass right over that top of a linebacker into the soft spot of the defense, it's much more satisfying than it was when you did the same with a simple button tap or press. There's also a sprint button with stamina meter, which is a nice touch from the press-and-hold-forever sprint button of editions past (although, I have to admit that I still prefer the auto-sprint feature of Madden 11). And maybe the most welcome gameplay difference for me is opposing quarterbacks will pull the ball down, evade pressure and take sacks like their real-world counterparts, rather than standing tall in the pocket at all times, then magically throwing incomplete passes at the very last second once the pressure gets to them. 3) One downside for me is the CBS-centric animations and commentary team. It's not they the do that bad a job, but I'm just not a fan. I would personally prefer Madden to more closely mirror Fox, NBC or ESPN. There also seem to be fewer sound bytes to call players by name, which was a nice touch in prior games, especially once you start adding computer-generated rookies. Now, they simply refer to the average player as "player" and use generic language like "it looks like an upper body injury" even after the injury is diagnosed, which really set back the in-game analysis. 4) Navigating the menus and various interfaces can be a bit frustrating and exhausting. This is one of the areas where I prefer substance over style. Coming from the fast and responsive Madden NFL 11 navigation where I had basically developed muscle memory in my hands to get to where I need to be, this is the most jarring aspect of Madden NFL 25. Rather than simple menus and lists, the game has image panels for menus and relatively long load times between actions. Roster management and statistics are also less-than-intuitive, with an in-line indicator and yellow highlight bar that makes it more difficult to read what is on screen and compare numbers and attributes between players. All in all, these elements look good, but they are very dense, and the performance leaves something to be desired. 5) There's a ton to do. I haven't even touched most of the game modes, but it seems much more robust than previous Madden games, at least the ones I have played previously. In all fairness, I haven't explored Madden NFL 25 as much as I should have to write a thorough review, but I have played enough of what I have played prior to say that it was a good purchase. I can't speak to your reasons or interest level in considering Madden NFL 25, but I would give it a recommendation. I think there is a lot of value in the game for the $60 you would spend. I certainly expect to get my money's worth out of it - and may still be getting my money's worth out of it when the next Madden game is released. Good luck!

So I've been buying Madden for many years, and this is my favorite in terms of realistic-ness and overall flow. Plus I got 17 weeks of Sunday Ticket which is awesome. Here's the breakdown: Gameplay: Think Madden 13 but smooth. power running isn't it's forte, but hey, that's the NFL now. Offense and defense is fluid and I like that there are "precision" skill moves now. It's nice that linebackers can't swat 40 yard bombs over the middle anymore also (cause I mean, cmon, Clay Matthews isn't going to swat a 50 yard bomb from Stafford when he bit on play action). Passing is much nicer now too. Brought back the whole receiver icon will fully light when the player is ready. Routes also actually matter also (I've found that in previous versions, you could exploit horribly be doing either screens, slants, verticals, etc). Franchise Mode (RIP): Still have connected careers - so doesn't look like we're going back ever to the old way (I personally hate scouting and doing ALL owner / coach tasks). Can do a fantasy draft now though which is nice. Owner Mode: OMG don't do this - I don't know who thought me pretending to be Mara or Irsay or someone is fun. My desire to change concession prices ranks pretty low. Player Mode: Same as Madden 13 - can pick high, low or undrafted, make your own, play as a current player, etc. Same progression model as last year as well. Overall: I have logged too many hours already in the game. Worth the money in my opinion if you get this before week 3 of the regular season (otherwise just get the regular version). Another positive is that like the NFL this year (so far, yeah it's only week two) most teams are about even with each other, minus the really bad teams. Makes for more fun in opinion since there are no clear cut Super Bowl caliber teams (like real life!)

UPDATE: Direct TV is down on gameday... This ended up being a complete rip off. While I was kind of excited for this years madden it ended up being a bug filled mess. If you are familiar with SimCity you know that EA server problems are not new, Madden 25 isn't that bad but disconnects from the server even while playing in single player modes. So much of the game requires server interaction that the fact that connection to them is spotty at best well that is just a flat out failure. There are so many bugs and problems its hard to list them all but one of my favorites is after uploading a Gameface for career mode, well your player won't have eyes. Some will probably say well it is a bad picture, etc. Nope same image used that looked amazing in Madden 13, now without eyes. Franchise mode is back in theory but it is massively scaled down and to be honest is no where near as fun and all encompassing as the older PS2/Xbox days. How does a game backtrack so far? Gameplay - Has the typical Madden issues but overall I still think it is solid. Like the runner modifier but it can feel overpowered at times especially with top tier backs like Adrien Peterson or Arian Foster. Still I like the updates to the audible system and the ability to change formation pre-snap all very good additions. Again, the polish is lacking. Often even in offline games against the CPU you will get random in game slow downs (some people have reported outright game freezing - see the EA forums). If there are issues when you are playing the CPU then you know a game has serious problems. Graphics - I think Madden 25 once again takes a step back. While the facial models are quiet good and I think the game does a better job at distinguishing between various body types. Still the game looks inferior to Madden 13, one example I can give is Victor Cruz and Hakeem Nicks look to be the same skin color (dark brown) in this year's Madden. A quick google image search will show you that they aren't anywhere close to that in real life. Overall - Still worth the purchase because of the Direct TV code that is included which lets you watch on your computer, tablet, or phone can run as much as $299.95 (Direct TV MAX package, the regular package does not include streaming options). So even if you buy the game and throw it out you still come out ahead. The gameplay is improved over prior years but the lack of polish and attention to detail really cripple the game. If the game isn't fun right out of the box or if it is a few patches and server updates from being actually playable then I cannot consider it good. Unfortunately, Madden 25 falls into that category but perhaps after several updates the game may be fun to play but as of now it is merely a fancy box for the NFL Sunday Ticket code.

I have gotten most of the maddens over the years and once again I see the exact same flaws in the new version. Graphic wise it is great as usual, although you still have issues of coaches looking completely different up close and far away. The players look good and so does the field. Then we come to the gameplay where the problems begin. The menu's are horribly slow and not intuitive at all. For instance if you want to resign a player you see no relevant stats on the resign screen except his attributes. There is no way to see his stats unless you back out and go to a different menu all together then you have to go back to the resigning screen which is the only screen to allow you to offer contracts. This wouldn't be so bad if the menu's weren't so slow and clunky. Then you have a glitch that says you don't have enough money to offer the contract when you clearly do. Over all the menus are just super sloooooow which is annoying. You have the option to be a coach\player\owner. I don't care for the player mode because the Computer AI is horrible which you only control 1 player so I did the coach mode first. Which was what you would expect but it does not allow you to do the fine tuning stuff like setting jersey prices and food and upgrading your stadium and all that jazz. Which is actually pretty fun to do. So you might as well player owner mode instead of coach mode because it allows more control and does all most everything coach mode does. The only thing I see that owner mode does not have is the option to upgrade your coach using points which gives you things like more points for your players so they gain exp faster. When you take the field you have the same errors from last year. Out of bounce is often not called out or in. Meaning you can be easily cheated out of a TD in the back of the end zone. You can challenge plays which is stupid because it's a video game run by a computer that should call the perfect game. The fact that it blows calls like out\in and will not over turn simply means it's cheating. Sorry madden but you replay system makes it to easy to see that your cheating me out of a TD or that the computer AI was out. Then you have precision passing which works perfect in practice, but in the game it seems like all my QB can throw is a underthrown bullet pass. Which is highly annoying because instead of hitting the back shoulder when my WR has 2 steps on the CB it's underthrown and knocked down\picked. If you lucky enough to get it to work there is a obvious graphical glitch that does not allow your WR to catch a pass in stride and keep running full speed. He catches and slows down like he's in quick sand while the defense does not. It also happens when you drop back to pass, you swill sometimes see\feel the game slowing and your WR is simply not able to run his route leading to a incomplete pass because he's moving like he's in quick sand. I also found that the games just take forever to play, even in the very fast mode the games take to long. There are far to may times when the clock does not run because they are showing to many replays. If you try and hit X to skip and go faster you often run the risk of calling a play by accident. For me I did not see a difference in fast\very fast modes. Mainly because there is no way of cutting back on the # of replays shown. As far as play calling I find it best to just use Madden's pick which gives you 3 choices. If you let the computer call the game it can call some truly awful plays at times. Leaving you to try and navigate to the right play on your own which can be confusing at times. The running game plays like it always has I don't see any huge holes like they advertise. Although the computer AI will often have huge holes to run thru. There are a lot of combos you can pull off now that allow you players to make moves which makes it easier to run if you can pull them off. So if that's your thing you may like that, but I usually just find myself trying to do the basic moves as It's easier. I really wish I had rented this game first as I may not have gotten it. But it's pretty much the only football game as usual and this year Amazon has the anniversary edition which gives you Sunday ticket on you mobile which is AWESOME and worth the price alone just for that.

The game is nothing too special in my opinion. New rosters are always somewhat fun to me though. I would say the gameplay is a slight downgrade from last year, but I am still not used to the new version. In a month I could like this new version more than the old since I will be used to it by then. That's usually how it goes. Just seems too easy to run and too hard to pass when in reality it is the opposite in my opinion. I buy Madden yearly though and always enjoy playing online. But really....who cares about the game? The value comes in here with the Sunday Ticket deal. Just do exactly what the insert with your game says to do and BOOM! Sunday Ticket is on the laptop. Be sure to bookmark the login page, save your name and password in more than 1 place, and DO NOT change them. The video quality was normally good (I'd guess 80-90% of the time it was HQ), but it did go to low quality sometimes for apparently no reason at all. The fantasy stats update thing didn't work. It said my firwewall blocked it. I don't care about that anyway. It also would not let me do full screen PiP or full screen multi-game layout. Again, who cares? Since my Ravens played last Thursday (sort of) I watched RedZone nearly all day Sunday on my big screen in full screen with a HDMI hookup. Flipping between games didn't cause an issue either. This is the real deal. This is not some foreign stream. This is legit DirecTv Sunday Ticket for the entire season. Worth much more than the extra $40 to get it with this game. Hopefully they make improvements on the vid quality and stability next week (but like I said, it was 80-90% HQ). Update week 2: The Directv site was totally down until 10:55pt/1:55et in week 2. I was PISSED this morning. After that it was ok for the rest of the day, but man was that 1st hour frustrating. Just clicking refresh over and over. I swear next week this better not happen again. Update week 9: This has turned out to be a great deal. Nothing about the game is "perfect", but what game is? The game is very fun and the DirecTV deal is well worth it. No issues with DirecTV since week 2. Could the video quality be better? Maybe a little, but it sure beats illegal streaming. Very pleased.

I've been using the direct TV package that came with this game for the season so far on my tablet and it is awesome. The quality of the picture on the directv app through the tablet has be superb. You can't watch on multiple devices at once, or through your playstation, but as long as you are ok with those restrictions, I think the 100 dollars I spent for this was worthwhile just for the directv part. I haven't played the madden series in a few years, and I am pretty impressed with how far it has come. The Madden Ultimate Team is a really cool new feature that combines collecting football cards with Madden... a very addicting combination. There are still the frustrating parts about the game... such as the difficulty to stop offenses when playing online and occasional issues with lag when playing online, but overall I am really happy and have put quite a few hours into the game.