Rough at the start......addictive once you get into it...
If you are a fan of the Madden series and think this is just madden with a bit more franchise mode thrown in....your wrong.
In essence what you have here is one of those management sims that those other companies make about Baseball or Soccer or something.....but its done using a much more graphical interface and actual 3D while the game is going on graphics. You dont control the players. You are the coach. You do all the behind the scenes stuff like balancing rosters, adjusting depth charts, running practices and focusing on players who need it the most and more.
If you come into the game with the right focus on what to expect you will be like me and at first be a small bit underwhelmed. But.....as you play it more and actually make your way into actual games the whole thing starts to really get addictive.
It's not like normal football games where no matter how bad the team is if you have some "Skillz" you can still score and do whatever you want. You have to be savy on drafting and signing free agents to try and better your team. Even more you have to practice the players that need it. Your LB's not at the top of potential? You better run some RB vs. LB drills!
There are a few annoying things to point out that are the main things bugging me so far. First of all as all reviews point out I hate how the schedule locks you into certain activities and you can only do certain things. For instance there are all these "Office Hours" time periods. Typically 2 a day. You on average only have room to do about 4-5 things a day. During these "Office Hours" you cant do much of anything except adjust your depth chart or read email.
For instance....Currently Im up past my 3rd preseason game (about 10 hours play time). I was noticing I only have like 49 guys on my roster (Phins). So I want to go look at the Free Agents available..... Wrong. You can only do that during a "Sign Players" time period of a day. I look at my schedule for a week and everything is full with practices and meetings.
I have like 15 "Office Hours" in the schedule....I probably need like 2 of them. Its very aggravating that to go sign a new player I have to cancel a practice to do it and cant use my "Office Hours" for it. Very annoying..but you learn to work around it.
The other thing that was a bit awkward is that they didnt have the trades up to date.....for instance. Im playing with the Phins. They dont have Culpepper. You also have to do the draft that just happen. Well I wanted to get Culpperpper to sorta make the team be similar to how it is now in RL.
I Offered the Vikings my 1st , 2nd and 3rd round picks for him and they said no....lol. So its impossible to get him. I ended up having to settle and trade Houston and stole Carr away.
Anyway if your like me and always had an interest in those francise sim games but never got into them because of the simple graphic nature and not wanting to just deal with numbers.......this may be what you have always wanted. Im enjoying the game more then I thought I would.
I really hope they perhaps add some patches to deal with a few issues....if not I really hope this series continues with a sequel.....as a first try its a good try at it.