So we’re winding down our Madden 13 seasons, granted we still have a good few months to play it whilst the NFL off-season kicks off, but who are we kidding, we can now only think of one thing, Madden ’14.
In fairness to Madden ’13, it was one of the best installments EA have yet released, but still there is much room for improvement despite the games success. I’d be good to hear what everyone else thinks but here are my views on how to improve Madden 14.
– Customisable uniforms would be a great addition that seems lacking in the Madden franchise. Everyone loves playing in their teams colours be it the 1960 Kelly Green of the Eagles or the Powder Blue of the Bolts, but at the same time everyone loves to play and tinker and I would personally love to see an Eagles side suit up in Kelly Green but with the modern day logos.
– The new ragdoll-esque, running into your own players, stumbling and bumbling needs to be dialled down a notch. It’s all well and good having a giggle at your opposing HB getting stuck in his Centers butt-crack, when it happens to you… not so funny. It is rather easy to get ‘stuck’ to your comrades and EA need to fix this quirk.
– I asked for it to be included in Madden ’13 and i’ll ask again, the Franchise (or CCM as it’s now called) experience needs another revamp. Don’t get me wrong i’m loving these new Twitter feeds, but we need things like being able to organise your sponsors, change your stadium, hire and fire GM’s, HC’s, DC’s & OC’s. A more involved draft day experience would be good to, have a CGI Goodell calling out your draft picks (maybe not actually using his voice as he’s no doubt busy, but you getthe idea). A few other ways you could improve it but generally it needs to be a bit more involved.
– Something I wrote about in my review, but the trading system needs to be looked at as it is very unfair. For example you could, as the Chiefs with the first round pick in 2013, offer your 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th pick along with Charles for Peyton Manning of the Broncos and they’ll tell you to do one. On the flip-side you’ll get offers for say Trent Cole and Jason Peters, in exchange for the CPU’s 7th round pick… yeah that’s going to happen. Teams rarely trade fairly, in fact they never trade fairly.
– The Ovr’s of players should change a lot more than they do with current roster updates. If you’re playing in a league and Mike Vick with a 84 Ovr throws 7 picks and fumbles twice come the game’s evaluation he should see his Ovr score drop to say 60 pushing you to start Foles with 69 Ovr. Likewise if you do swap them and Foles lights the place up he should rise to like 85-86 Ovr depending on his performances. This would make it a real fight for positions within the game.
– Again something of an issue is the crowds, who are pointless. They are cardboard cut-outs, they need EA to spend a bit of time upgrading them. You’ve got the cannon in the Raymond Jones Dome, but where’s Eagles fans singing ‘Fly Eagles, Fly’ or ‘Go Pack, Go’ in Lambeau?
– Historically speaking it would be nice to play in divisions of yester-year. Have a crack in the AFL West or NFL Central.
– Where are the powerankings? CCM desperatly needs it. Every week on NFL.com we get a breakdown of the updated powerankings and it would be great to see it on Madden and surely not that difficult to implement?
– A final one for now, but the D and O-Lines still need a bit of tinkering. The O-Line seem to give-up after ten seconds even if the D-Line has still not broken through and the QB has yet to throw. Once that point hits, the D-Line seem to be simply let loose. On the other side of the field as a D-Liner it’s rather annoying being pushed to the ground… every single time you try to bull-rush, EA need to change the Line battles in Madden ’14.
Granted there are no doubt even more issues that i’ll think of, but for a core list if EA managed to crack and good number of the above I would be a happy camper come the release of Madden ’14.
What would you change?
