Oh, I wanted to love this Madden so much! It's great, but way too far from perfect to warrant a 9.0+.
So I'm not approaching this review from the perspective of a truly competitive Madden gamer who loves the game for its online play. I love the series because it gives me a chance to control a good old-fashioned game of pigskin and especially because of franchise mode, where I can bring my beloved but inept Browns to a place impossible outside of video games: the playoffs.
That being said, let's get to the main point of the review. First of all, this game is really impressive. It's a big leap over previous versions of the series, thanks to the new dynamic animation technology known as Procedural Tackling or Pro-Tak. Despite the name, Pro-Tak doesn't only handle tackles, though it does make that part of the game much more interesting by introducing nine-man gang tackles and considerations of momentum. Instead, Pro-Tak handles a ton of physical interactions on the field in an attempt to create a more realistic game of football. And in many ways, it succeeds.
For instance, tackling now has more physics to it than simply collision detection. In old games, it was far too hard to break tackles, even when a cornerback was lined up against a big, bruising running back like Brandon Jacobs. Now, a quick user-controlled lowering of the shoulders will send that cornerback flying back like a bowling ball. Pro-Tak also governs interactions such as the pass-rush, pass-blocking fight in the trenches, the quarterback's throwing motion (so you can throw while being sacked), and WR-DB jostling on passing routes.
Pro-Tak fulfills the game's promise that you will have to "fight for every yard." Rarely do you go down on first contact, so if you're anywhere close to the first-down marker, you'll be pushing frantically up on that right stick trying to move the pile and get a new set of downs. It's awesome.
This realism extends over to the defensive side of the ball. In old versions of the game, I was way too good at defense because of the ability to use a super safety. That is, since the turbo was so over-powered, you could stay in the box and read the run, often stuffing the back behind the line for a loss. If it was a pass, you could turbo backwards and reach the Cover 2 zone in time to intercept a pass. It's a bit unrealistic: rarely can a safety do both incredibly well, and being out of position is a huge mistake in real football. Well, thanks to the reduced game speed and the greater disparity between speed ratings, most safeties are now 86-88 in speed and just aren't fast enough to recover unrealistically. It's an important improvement, though one that's definitely hurt my game.
But now it's important to discuss the problems of this game. At the core of real football is the battle in the trenches between the defensive and offensive lines. A good pass rush makes passing almost impossible, as your quarterback gets rattled or injured. The problem is that this game struggles to make the distinction between a good pass rush (like the Giants, Eagles, Ravens or Steelers) and terrible pass-rush teams (like the Bengals, for instance). Blocking logic still exhibits the old problems: guys shift away and let someone come unblocked up the middle, or simply let a blitzing linebacker run right around them while sitting back as if waiting for a rush that's never coming from the defensive end who's dropping into a zone-blitz coverage. It's stupid and very frustrating on All-Madden, when you'll rarely get the three seconds of pocket time that they teach quarterbacks is your time window for completing a pass in the NFL.
Since blocking is so troubled, it's no surprise that running the ball is actually more broken than passing. After all, a smart passer can still audible to quick passes or plan outlet routes if they bring a big blitz. For running, however, broken blocking really kills: even on All-Pro and especially All-Madden, you'll be met in the backfield with alarming frequency. It's hard to recover from that, since your back loses momentum and valuable time dodging that first linebacker. It's not easy to average even three rushing yards per carry on All-Madden's default settings.
This problem is only more evident on the CPU side, where I ended up turning CPU skill to 70 break tackle and 100 run blocking with the base difficulty set at All-Madden. Even then, it was not that difficult to hold Adrian Peterson to under 50 yards rushing, while Tarvaris Jackson somehow turns into Tom Brady at that difficulty setting and zips passes all over the field.
And this is ultimately where the game fails: as a simulation. Madden lacks a real resemblance to the true game of football. On All-Pro, it's too easy and you can't lose; on All-Madden (at least for me), I found that quarterbacks were far more accurate than their career completion percentages might suggest, while running backs remained inept. The end result is a game that still heavily favors passing, with a 66-33 or 75-25 ratio pretty much the optimum way to move the ball for both sides.
The one saving grace for this game is the return of difficulty sliders, which allow you to ramp down things like the CPU's quarterback accuracy and boost the CPU's running. Because of this ability, I was not completely infuriated by the game. But without a fair amount of adjustment, it may well be true that Madden doesn't deserve much better than the 7.5 awarded by Gamespot.
As a final note, I'd like to discuss the franchise mode. It's been changed this year, but they haven't perfected it yet. One of the crucial additions to this game is scouting that actually matters: your scouts give you detailed ratings on some of the players' attributes, along with an evaluation of their potential. It's clearly an attempt to redo the system from previous Maddens, where scouting meant nothing and you pretty much drafted based on Mel Kiper's draft projection and your own needs. As advertised by the developers, shoddy drafting will actually give you busts (guys rated 65-70 in the 1st round), while excellent drafting can unearth gems (80+) in the fourth or fifth round.
That being said, it fails in a key way: it's now too easy! When I scouted, I would end up with a list of 10-12 players who looked the most promising. They combined the best current ratings with the highest potential. At most half of those guys would be projected for the first-round, however, and in most cases 4-6 were available from the fourth round and later.
For instance, here's my drafting results from one year:
1.16 - RE Corey Goodman - 12.60M/1Y (4.87M) - 85/B
2.06 - TE Rondell Mabry - 11.25M/3Y (3.24M) - 85/A
2.16 - RG Kennedy Kouandjio - unsigned
3.06 - HB Tashard McDuffie - 4.75M/3Y (1.32M) - 83/B
3.08 - QB Chase Saturday - 8.95M/3Y (2.43M) - 84/B
4.06 - RT Clinton Spencer - 10.00M/7Y (3.99M) - 84/A
4.08 - CB B. Leon - 1.55M/5Y (.10M) - 52/B
4.16 - CB B. Bailey - 2.50M/7Y (.56M) - 70/B
5.06 - SS Marshawn Harrison - 2.17M/7Y - 81/B
6.06 - DT Xavier Pressley - 2.17M/7Y - 72/A
I got the extra picks by trading down in the first round from 1.06 to 1.16, because middle-round picks are actually way more valuable in this game. Guys who are drafted in the 4th round or later generally ask for close to the NFL minimum, so I was getting guys like Clinton Spencer for about $1M/year for seven years. By the third year he was on my team, he was rated a 98 overall and was being paid worse than almost every backup in the league.
And this isn't a highly atypical draft. You can really pull something this good off almost every single year in the franchise. It really hurts the realism of franchise in the long run when you can pay 85-95-rated players $1M/year.
Here's the bottom line: if you love Madden, Madden NFL 10 is the defining experience of the series. It's made so many improvements that you'll really feel like it's worth the money. This isn't your usual year like '08, when the big question was whether Madden NFL 09 was a big enough improvement over 08. 10 is a whole new ballgame. Unfortunately for the series, however, it still comes packed with a lot of the small old flaws. And some of its most ambitious design features (like expanded scouting and the bust/gem potential of the draft) are not executed well enough to actually improve the experience. As usual, we're left hoping that next year's Madden will be the football game for which we've all been waiting and hoping.