Madden 19 - Catch-All - EA Access version is out

How the mighty has fallen. Didn't even think of starting a thread for this until today, as the EA Access version is out.

Played the beta earlier, and the trial feels the same, which is to say, different, ing you have been playing the last few years. MUT is still the best part of the game. I have not looked at Longshot, which is said to be improved.

Is there a story mode this year?

Yeah, Longshot continues. It is supposed to be improved, but I have not looked at it at all. I found last year's to be pretty lacking in the fun department. Apparently this year there will be more actual gameplay.

So Madden is finally back on PC. Awesome. I can't compare this year's iteration to recent years, I haven't played in over a decade, but it feels like a fantastic port to me. There are a few commentary bugs I've noticed but I'm having a blast.

I've got no interest in the story mode, I'm just playing exhibition matches versus the AI and online against my brother. I'll take a look at franchise mode at some point.

I watched a bit of the story last night. And seriously, there is far more watching than doing. By a lot.

I'm apparently 14% through the story, which is just terrible, so far. It seems that the writers have decided to embrace the ridiculousness, so they basically poking fun at how bad the writing is within the dialogue. Even that isn't that funny.

The sad part is that in a couple of the gameplay moments, they do a nice job teaching the mechanics and such. But sitting around for 5-10 minutes watching cutscenes between drills is a really dumb tutorial strategy.

After messing some more with MUT last night, I think I am going to like the way you upgrade cards better this season. Wasn't a big fan of last year's, as it got kind of grindy. Now you collect training points that you apply to players to improve them.

The big takeaway, gameplay wise, is that you need to be freaking aware of what you are doing when you pass now. Coverage is a million times better. Drags aren't easy, and the windows are higher.

Also, I had some crazy good OL play in a game last night on a run up the middle. On the left the sidetone LT, LG, and C all collapsed on the DT and DE, causing a cluster. the other team's LB began to cut around the cluster, but my C saw him, and spun around and and met him before he could get to the HB, just chipping him long enough from HB to hit the hole.

Meanwhile, my RG had fitter out and taken on a MLB, so the HB had a deep hole to run through, but as he caught up to the RG, the RG left that man and continued up field, chipping the safety coming in to help, which left me with just one man to beat, which I did for a 78 yard TD. It was a pretty cool sequence that I meant to record and share, but forgot to go back and save it after the game.

I got Madden on the PC. My first Madden game for more than a decade.

The Dolphins are the 31st and second-worst ranked team in the game. I'm offended.

The worst ranked team in the game is the Jets. I'm delighted.

It looks nice.

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/PyzuKbw.png)

I've been playing as the Browns quite a bit, because after seeing them in London last year and getting some free merch my son and I have got a bit of a soft spot for them. Hey! The marketing works! Baker Mayfield has better stats than Nick Foles. Go figure. Landry and Gordon (because in Madden world he actually plays) are very good options.

Haven't see this in game, but it looks like EA got Tyreek's peace sign into the game.

IMAGE(https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20180804/84838c5f997600b4dd8bf11af4f4f08b.jpg)

IMAGE(https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-sgVyE-PNYgg/WdrxBkc4onI/AAAAAAAAVmM/Vmmd_9hWoW8j10ch9FQrpDRbQlkRvLh5ACLcBGAs/s1600/11.gif)

I wish Sony would allow Access on PS4, I've been wanting to play a Madden for quite a while, but I'm not enough of an American Football fan to often justify the price.

I've enjoyed what I've played so far? Bismarck are you using an Xbox controller on the PC?

I am, yeah. It works well.

Teams with mobile QBs seem infinitely more fun to play than those with pocket passers. Most fun I've had so far is with the Texans, Watson is a beast (and quite possibly overtuned).

After playing a number of exhibition games to get some idea of where to put the skill sliders, penalties and inuries and so on, I finally started my franchise last night as the Dolphins with their first pre-season game against Tampa Bay, (happening this Thursday in real life, sports fans!).

On the second carry of the game Kenyan Drake broke his collarbone and will miss eight weeks.

In the third quarter Frank Gore broke his foot and will miss six weeks.

This is exactly what being a Dolphins fan feels like, so well done to EA for that.

I finished off the pre-season last night with another moment of brilliant Dolphiness.

Leading Atlanta 13-6 in the fourth quarter Bobby McCain intercepts Matt Schaub at our two yard line and looks upfield to see 90 yards of open grass to run into.

He makes it all the way to the Atlanta 10, then tears his hamstring and falls over, four yards short of a touchdown.

Mr Bismarck wrote:

I finished off the pre-season last night with another moment of brilliant Dolphiness.

Leading Atlanta 13-6 in the fourth quarter Bobby McCain intercepts Matt Schaub at our two yard line and looks upfield to see 90 yards of open grass to run into.

He makes it all the way to the Atlanta 10, then tears his hamstring and falls over, four yards short of a touchdown.

Ahhh being a Dolfan. I grew up there in the days of the Killer Bees and then Marino and the Marks brothers - Clayton and Super Duper. I remember going to a game in the Orange Bowl - it was the most awesome thing I had ever done as a kid. It's been a sh*t show since Marino and Shula left/retired/escaped. Not quite the Browns/Lions, but not good. Now I watch quietly and hope, but the post-Shula Dolphins made me go from Team fandom to being a fan of the game and specific players.

Finished Longshot: Homecoming.

Spoiler:

Don’t play that mode.

This game is a stunningly good Dolphins simulator. It's uncanny.

Despite a litany of injuries my Phins went 4-0 in pre-season, squeaking by Arizona and Baltimore, easing away from Atlanta and outright crushing the Panthers, mainly thanks to repeated mistakes from the collection of Carolina Quarterbacks who aren't Cam Newton.

As a long time Miami fan this made me highly suspicious.

Then came the season opener against Tennessee and I went into even more of a "Fry-face" eye squint as we pretty easily dealt with the Titans.

Stephone Anthony ran an interception back for a touchdown to put Miami up 14-7 and on the next drive Reshad Jones picked off Mariotta in the end zone and that seemed to break the Titans' back and the game ended up 31-17.

At this point I'm thinking "I should probably turn the sliders up a bit... but maybe Miami are just better than everyone thought and I should have aimed a bit higher than 8-8 in my pre-season chat with the GM?"

The classic Dolphins trap.

Following week we travel to play the Jets in "New York" and following an exchange of punts Tannehill leads an 80 yard drive, capped with a 25 yard touchdown pass over the middle to rookie Tight End Mike Gesicki.

On the next drive Cameron Wake simply crushes Josh McCown, knocking the ball loose and we recover at the Jets 35!

What follows is back-to-back Offensive Holding penalties negating two first down passes and a drive that nets minus seventeen yards, leading to a punt.

Then Cameron Wake dislocates his shoulder.

Then the Jets score 20 unanswered points as the collection of lawn chairs draped with Dolphins towels that make up our Linebacking corps misses tackles, fails to cover Tight Ends and misdiagnoses screen plays allowing McCown to noodle to almost 300 yards like the second coming of Chad Pennington.

The Defence finally reappears in the fourth quarter and stops New York on three straight drives, but it doesn't mean anything because the Offence stopped working while Gesicki was celebrating in the end zone eight minutes into the game.

Frank Gore gains 21 yards on 17 carries. The final score is New York 20-13. The Dolphins are back.

My Chiefs season opened with a 17-14 win over the Chargers. Mahomes led a game winning 75yd touchdown drive after doing very little else to be fair. Things vastly improved after I stopped trying to hurl bombs for Hill to chase. On the injury front, your Dolphins aren't the only ones in trouble, as we've lost Justin Houston for half a season.

So the last Madden game I played was probably Madden 2003 on PS2 but me and the wife have been watching a load of Last Chance U and now I have an itch to play. I've been reading the reviews for it but they are all written for the audience who buy annually. I have a slight preference to play with up to date rosters but is there any issues for a pretty much newbie to picking up Madden 19? I'd be playing on PS4.

Rookie mode is very, very easy, and the game has some pretty good practice drills. I think it's a perfectly fine entry point, just stay away from all that ultimate team bollocks. The only reason to get an earlier version would be price, as Madden 19 is £55 or your dollar equivalent.

Well, I love the Ultimate Team bollocks. But for a beginner, it's probably not a great place to start.

Madden also has a skills trainer that is very, very good. It will get you up to speed on, just not the controls, but the strategic tools and how to use them. It's probably the best tutorial mode in sports games, to be honest.

Jayhawker wrote:

Well, I love the Ultimate Team bollocks. But for a beginner, it's probably not a great place to start.

Yeah I didn't mean to be so dismissive. I was more or less a beginner myself having not played in so long, and MUT was pretty impenetrable for me, hence my recommendation to stay away.

In terms of how I'm getting on, I'm slowly improving at the game but still throwing way too many picks. I need to get better at diagnosing coverage, but as a UK fan who only watches redzone I don't really have an NFL education to help me there. I'd love a good book that gets into the nuts and bolts of formations, play concepts and the why's and wherefores, but most of the books I can find on the uk amazon store are aimed at complete beginners explaining the rules of the game. I want something more intermediate.

I'm not sure where to start, but there are probably some good youtube videos that covertness. When we were all playing NCAA 09-14, I decided to try and run an option based offense. One thing that helped me wrap my head around it were some videos Paul Johnson, who runs the option offense at Georgia Tech, had done about the triple option.

I'm sure there are videos on a ton of different videos covering various x's and o's. A quick search brought up this guy, although I know nothing about him. But the videos he has might be what you are looking for.

Be warned, deep dives into real football can sometimes have the unintended consequence of making the the video game seem broken or bad. I just try to remember that sports video game are not really that different from sports board games. They are merely taking a slice of what makes football, and creating a game based on aspects of the game they feel like they can use in a game.

kergguz wrote:

Rookie mode is very, very easy, and the game has some pretty good practice drills. I think it's a perfectly fine entry point, just stay away from all that ultimate team bollocks. The only reason to get an earlier version would be price, as Madden 19 is £55 or your dollar equivalent.

I picked up Madden 15 specifically because it was US$5 at Half Price Books. I played a bunch of exhibitions, typically staying in the AFC North (as the Steelers duh). I looked at other parts of the game and really just want to play as my team and occasionally as other teams (playing as KC against the Eagles was a treat). I really want a season mode like in the old days but at least with 15 that's a no-go. Oh well.

Jayhawker wrote:

Madden also has a skills trainer that is very, very good. It will get you up to speed on, just not the controls, but the strategic tools and how to use them. It's probably the best tutorial mode in sports games, to be honest.

Yep! Then I decided to look into the training stuff and hell have I learned more about real football in a few hours than I'd bothered to learn in years of watching football. I hadn't bothered learning coverage defenses, e.g., I know blitzes and man versus zone and the positions and their basic roles, but I didn't really know what Cover 2 was and when Cover 3 might be a better fit (and maybe that's part of being a Steelers fan, :wink:). The training sessions were joyful and really educational both in general parts of American football and specifically how it's codified in Madden 15.

Then I decided to practice. I did some basic stuff for a while, e.g., chose a play, ran it 10-20 times, chose another play, ran it 10-20 times, etc. I randomized defense. But it was when I randomized offense that I dialed in my fun. I don't need all the falderal and hubbub. I don't need team loyalty, and the little bit of narrative glue that a full game of any type provides. I'll get back to that, but right now my jam is just killing it in practice mode. Figuring out a play on the spot, diagnosing defense schemes, adjusting, executing.

I only play against CPU but eventually may jump up to playing with human persons. It'd be cool if you could play a season and match against people who're interested in playing their team when they meet your team in a given season. I expect that's too much logistics to manage sustainably, though.

Does Madden 19 continue the tradition of setting the player’s center-of-rotation somewhere one or two yards from them? There are times when I’m pivoting like I’m a displaced beast.

Also is it as easy to get stuck to your OL while trying to run through them?

If anything I'd say the player movement is as bad as it's been since I started playing madden regularly again with Madden 16. The real player motion mechanics give a heavier sense of inertia so often times it feels like stick inputs are more of a suggestion than a direct command. It can be very frustrating at competitive levels and its put me off of online play almost completely this year.

Oh that sucks. I watched some tournament footage form a few years ago and noticed how frequently it was mentioned that someone had good “run stick”. This suggested to me that controlling a runner is known to be challenging and maybe owes some of that challenge to poor implementation.

I don't find controlling players to be bad at all. In fact, it's about as great of control as I've seen in any football game made.

You do need to stop abusing the RT to sprint all the time. You lose agility and the ability to cut with precision if you are sprinting. And now you use the LT to plant your foot, releasing that as you juke, which gets allows you to use your plant foot to push and accelerate quicker.

IMAGE(https://realsport101.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ezgif.com-optimize-4.gif)

You can also use RB to "get skinny" as you move through OL.

Jayhawker wrote:

I don't find controlling players to be bad at all. In fact, it's about as great of control as I've seen in any football game made.

You do need to stop abusing the RT to sprint all the time. You lose agility and the ability to cut with precision if you are sprinting. And now you use the LT to plant your foot, releasing that as you juke, which gets allows you to use your plant foot to push and accelerate quicker.

IMAGE(https://realsport101.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ezgif.com-optimize-4.gif)

You can also use RB to "get skinny" as you move through OL.

That looks great. Gotta change Le’ Veon’s uniform now, though. More on-point, I 100% identify with abusing turbo and suffering its deleterious effects on movement. I trained my way out of it for the most part, though.

You can still juke without using the LT, but if you do, then when you hit RT to sprint out of it, your player will accelerate much faster than if you just juked. And this is a skill that players have traits for. Le'veon Bell is going to pull this off much easier than Leonard Fournette.

Saw a guy on another forum post his set-up for playing Madden. He had no idea that Madden supported multiple monitor until he tried it.

IMAGE(https://i.groupme.com/1209x533.png.b2db2ae2034f424aac584dcb7157b18f.large)