Buy Cheap NFL 15 Ultimate Team coins - Even football starters will find the methods to dig deep into the games expansive, sometimes intimidating array of options

As the game begins, we’re treated to a flash-forward to the final minutes of a hypothetical 2015 NFC title game between the defending Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks and the Carolina Panthers (maybe a bit of a stretch given the offseason the Panthers recently suffered, but I digress). The Panthers defense forces a fumble and Cam Newton takes the ball on the Seattle half of the field with time running out. Will Carolina finally break through into their second Super Bowl, or will the Seahawks move on to defend their title? 

 

American football is man-chess. To the casual viewer, sure, it looks like a bunch of dudes throwing their full weight against one another in a race to carry an oblong ball 100 yards. That is a big part of it all, but there’s so much strategy going on though. It’s just very easy to miss when you’re not a student of the game. That’s one of the key things EA Tiburon set out to fix in Madden NFL 15. Even football novices will find the tools to dig deep into the game’s expansive, sometimes intimidating array of options. And the game is better for it.

 

Being able to battle at the line of scrimmage to try desperately to get a sack really adds impetus to every snap. Rather than simply leaving it to the AI to duke it out for possession, the player now becomes an important part of the action. The only issue is that unless you’re playing on All-Madden, sacks are far too frequent, but hopefully a patch can address this. There’s been a high barrier to entry in the Madden series, but 15 comes with an excellent tutorial that even well-versed players could learn a thing or two from. Not only does it teach basic controls, but also more in-depth concepts like reading defensive set-ups. It’s a great addition that’ll have you feeling like a true tactician rather than randomly hitting X, Y or A.

 

Along with the new physics engine, the game modes themselves have been upgraded. Madden Ultimate Team and skills trainer have been given among the biggest facelifts. MUT still caters to diehard fantasy team players and will continue to allow card packs, trades, the collecting of better players, and so forth. It’s just all more detailed-oriented, as well as slightly disorienting. Contract signings, solo challenges, line-up adjustments, flashy things in the screen, some guy talking about sets and binders - you name it, they got it. Fortunately, there’s an instant help option, which partially adds assistance. 

 

Also to be filed in the ‘influenced by FIFA’ category is Ultimate Team. This mix of card-collecting and match-playing has been a work-in-progress since first debuting in Madden 10, and remains more unwieldy than the version offered by its ‘soccerball’ cousin. Part of the problem is that a 53-man roster lacks the intimacy of an 18-man squad, so it’s harder to connect with individual players - making the early hours within ‘MUT’ a passionless grind.

 

Moving on, the crowd isn’t perfect as of yet, but it looks like an actual crowd from a distance with enough variation to keep things interesting. I really wanted to see if I could find something that we could use as an example of where the visuals fail to live up to their “next-gen” expectations, and ended up only being able to find one: Up close, blades of grass look too much like shredded paper than actual grass. If that’s not being nitpicky, then I don’t know what is.

 

So far, this is the most fun I’ve had playing a “Madden” game in awhile, and that doesn’t figure to change. I just scratched the surface of all “Madden NFL 15” had to offer in time for this review, and the new defensive gameplay gives this edition endless replay-ability. It’s refreshing to see the franchise taking a big step forward after listening to the fans, and hopefully this step forward is on a new path to continuous improvement. For now, I’m going to be thoroughly enjoying “Madden NFL 15” and all it has to offer, but a little part of me already can’t wait to see what they do next year.

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