Recs.
Updated
Madden NFL 19 is an American football game with iterative improvements over the previous titles in the long-running franchise.
SpecsUpdate
Pros
Pro True-to-life gameplay that accurately simulates the NFL
The gameplay in the Madden series excellently plays out just like the professional American football league in real life. You get to play as teams from the current year's league, with rosters that are up-to-date with the latest players, including the biggest celebrity names. The actual NFL rules are in play as well, where you control your quarterback while on offense, passing to other players in order to score, or managing your defensive players when the other team has the ball, working to tackle them and earn turnovers. If you're a diehard fan of American football, then Madden NFL 19 is a great way to live out the experience of being in the NFL through a video game.
Pro Responsive and organic controls for maneuvering your players
The latest update to the long-running Madden series gives you more freedom in how you control your player when he has the ball. You can change your speed while running to throw off opponents, such as hesitating to force the other team to stop while you find an opening and make a run for the touchdown. You can also side step the defense, spin around other players, and pretty much pull off the same types of moves that you see in real life from players out in the field. This makes the game feel like much more of a simulation of the sport with the way you have much more natural control over your team members.
Pro Photorealistic visuals
Madden NFL 19 is a great looking game. Players look true-to-life, with their exact proportions, hairstyles, and girth of their muscles matching how they are in actual pictures. You can see the sheen of sweat on their arms and see the ruffles in their uniform as they get tackled. And the weather is nice too, especially with how snow shows up on the field in patches and uneven patterns just like in real life. Just like with every other new Madden game, the devs did an incredible job with improving the graphics, keeping the technology advancing forward.
Pro Continues the story mode from Madden NFL 18
Madden NFL 18 had a pretty decent story mode that followed the careers of two best friends, with Madden NFL 19 continuing from where the last game left off. It's a nice change of pace to play through a dedicated story mode in a sports game, helping to show the more human side of the league and the types of things that many players go through, in trying to balance their private and family lives with their time out on the field. While it's not exactly a sweeping and intricate narrative, it's an interesting little bonus.
Cons
Con More or less still the same old Madden
Honestly, if you've played any one Madden game, you've played them all. Aside from a few tweaks and experiments here and there, this is an annual franchise that banks on selling the same experience year after year. The graphics get better, and they keep the roster up to date for the current year the NFL season, but there isn't much else that they can do with a sports game that's meant to simulate professional American football. If you don't want to fork over the money to pay for this game when you've already played and enjoyed other Madden titles, you won't miss out on much.
Con Weird clipping issues
There are some strange instances where players' bodies, or sometimes just their limbs, clip through each other in ways that clearly look bad. It happens a lot during tackles and sacks, with players tumbling around over each other on the field. Their physics just look off, clashing terribly with the polished graphics and weather effects on the field, and pulling you out of the experience.
Con Occasional game crashes
There are some major problems where the game will crash, forcing you to boot everything back up to try and get back your lost progress. The devs should be able to put out a patch that takes care of this issue, so you may want to hold off on getting the game until then.
Con Bland story mode
Even though it's great that Madden NFL 19 continues the well-received story mode from the last game, it doesn't really live up to expectations this time around. Getting to see the two best friends deal with their real-life struggles is still intriguing, but other than that, things feel really forced and generic, and it's way too short, taking about four hours to finish. They continued the story for the sake of continuing it without innovating or keeping things interesting. It's too bad, because they could have done a better job building on the sadly novel idea of having a dedicated story mode in Madden to change things up.
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