Madden has finally come back to the good old days after a dreadful 06
There is perhaps a lot of good news about this game, and the good news overshadows the bad news. One of the good news is, you can finally challenge plays again. That's not all, but Create a Player has also made a return to Madden, and this time, it's more in-depth, but not exactly in a good way. After you create your player, you have to take drills to determine it's attributes, and this is perhaps very bad news. The reason why this is bad news is that once, you were able to make the attributes all by yourself, but in this version you have to take drills, and if you do poorly on the drills, it can make your player bad. And what I mean by bad is that your player can go all the way down to the 20's range in attributes, and this happened to me. So this is simple advice: If you want to create a player, you have to be not just good, but you have to be a master at mini-camp drills in order to make your player an All-Star.
And this is more good news. Superstar is finally back, and this time, it makes it's debut on the Xbox 360. Although Superstar on the 360 isn't as detailed and in-depth as the current-gen console versions, it has enough to at least make satisfaction. In the 360 version of Superstar, the camera will go up close to your player, and even if you play WR, RB, CB, etc., the camera is always up close to your player. Some of you may like this feature, while some will not. And during games, you're able to edit your player's attributes over the course of the game, and this includes gaining stamina and toughness. But don't be fooled: The attribute gains during games are not permanant. And 1 final feature on Superstar mode is the influence level, and influence is determined by how well you play, but it can also be affected by how the other players on your team perform.
Last but not least, the other good news add-on to this year's Madden is Mini-Camp. Some of you may not care about mini-camp, but without mini-camp, Madden can be a completely different game, even without you realizing it. Mini-camp this year doesn't just include QB and RB drills, but it also includes 40-yard dash, Bench Press, Coverage (WR drills), and Blocker (lineman). The mini-camp drills in this version of Madden aren't the city-to-city drills like in the current-gen consoles, but it's an all-in-one mini-camp. But this version of mini-camp is actually more fun than the current-gen versions, as there are add-ons in the next-gen.
The franchise mode in this game isn't as good as you expected it to be. The owner-mode option is this game remains absent, and you only play franchise games, and the off-season. Since this game is without owner-mode, you aren't able to fire coaches, hire coaches, make add-ons to your stadium, move your team to a new city, etc. Still, franchise mode is pretty decent, but it's not the best.
The achievements in this game are harder than you think they are to achieve. An example of an achievement in this game is "Season Record-Sacks" and even that will only give you 20 gamerscore. The rest of the achievements are off of Superstar and Franchise stat records, but they're also on Madden Gamer level.
One final add-on to this game is Madden gamer level. Madden gamer level mainly tracks everything you do in this game, but the increasers of your gamer level are games, mini-camp, Superstar+Franchise games, etc. The ultimate goal in Madden gamer level is to reach level 50 (the highest level), but this level will take a lot longer than you think it is to reach. Madden gamer level mainly builds up slowly over a long period of time.
To be honest, this game is underrated. In my opinion, it's argueably one of the best football games I've played in years. Combined with next-gen power along with returning features, it's really positive that you'll be satisfied with this version of Madden until next year's version comes out. But with some of you that want everything, not just most things, but everything, in a football game, you might not be completely satisfied. For the conclusion: If you enjoy football games just for the football games and want a good amount of features, I would recomment this Madden easily.