madden has undoubtedly become a joyless cash grab. sure they "improved" ai run blocking in this rendition but even at that run blocks are either completely dominant where all the lineman pancake anyone other than a defensive lineman, useless because of comical game mechanics like how the ai sheds blocks when you as the runner begin sprinting with right trigger, or the improved ai just does what it did in the previous renditions and doesn't contribute to the play(lets not even mention the hit or miss pass blocking when one of the 4 down lineman none of which are running stunts somehow manage to just run by everyone unblocked which is sadly a fairly common occurrence often happening multiple times a game). Also looking at the "improved" zone coverage you can actually see a small change in the short passing game (a RARE improvement) the rest of the passing game especially with contested/plays where a defensive back is close to an intended receiver drive me nuts. players will seemingly catch the ball a second and a half later to be tackled and drop the ball resulting in the most awkward 2 seconds of animation that could not be further from real life situations. it appears that the professional athletes who make a living off catching the ball have never had to make a catch near a defender and most certainly can almost never make a catch while being tackled unless their overall is high (doesn't matter about their catching ratings whatsoever). defensive plays on the ball are just plain jokes. I will also mention how quarterbacks seem to have an incredibly disproportionate ability to fumble compared to everyone else??? and there's nothing you can do about it unless you change the slider for everyone to never fumble again. As someone who loves football and unfortunately their only outlet for that is video games and fantasy football I have put a significant amount of hours into nearly every madden that's released in the past decade I could go on and on with the incredibly shotty gameplay and mechanics but I will sign off with my analysis being madden is not a football sim it is simply a game made for 10 year old casual gamers who's success is completely reliant on monopolistic nfl licensing
