It’s so sudden that it’s hard to believe and sets the tone for the rest of the story. At the start of the story, Colt’s estranged father shows up to drop off a sister Colt never knew he had. While Longshot homed in on Wade’s personal life, Homecoming places its emotional weight on Cruise’s backstory and personal struggles. Colt Cruise, also returning from the previous game, is out of football entirely, making a living as a musician while he waits for an NFL team to give him another chance. The story picks up with Devin Wade, who returns from Madden NFL 18, in Cowboys training camp, fighting for a roster spot. Longshot is more of a memorial service than a homecoming. Bottling up the ball carrier in the open field is no longer as subject to chance. Hit stick tackling, and tackling in general, feels less unpredictable. Madden NFL 19 doesn’t feel much different on defense. That makes the game less focused on passing, giving players more choice when deciding how to advance the ball. The run game is still a challenge, and you’ll still feel like you ran into a brick wall from time-to-time, but you can also push your way through blockers to gain crucial yards. You’re far less likely to fall when weaving in and out of linemen near the line of scrimmage. EA calls this feature “One Cut,” and it works as advertised. Rather than chugging along at full speed, you can lay off your speed until you get near a defender and then cut quickly to blow by them. Managing your acceleration has become a more interesting hook. Running with the ball benefits the most from the changes. Madden NFL 19’s biggest addition, “Real Player Motion,” makes movement a tad more realistic. Madden 19’s moment-to-moment gameplay is highly polished but you might find the changes hard to notice. You’ll notice crisp player animations, realistic player models, and stadium lighting that looks picture-perfect. This year’s iteration takes a more refined approach to using the Frostbite game engine, which was introduced to the franchise in 2018. Year-to-year tweaks rarely feel like they change the Madden experience, but over time, they add up. In fact, the excellent core game makes the dismal Longshot mode stick out more than Terrell Owens skipping his own Hall of Fame induction ceremony (though the former wide receiver is on the cover of the Hall of Fame Edition). Yet franchise mode, the bread and butter of the Madden experience, is largely the same, save for the (appreciated) addition of custom draft classes.ĭespite the problems, EA Sports has come close to perfecting Madden’s video game translation of real-life football, so it’s hard to complain too much. Ultimate Team has received meaningful changes to the progression system and offers more reasons for non-competitive players to jump in. Madden’s two major staples fare similarly in this identity crisis. Yet the second year of Longshot, the story-driven campaign mode, is so bad it made us replay last year’s to confirm it was as good as we remembered (yes, it’s still wonderful). Now in its second year running on EA’s Frostbite engine, Madden looks and plays better than ever. Madden NFL 19 is an excellent football sim.
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