Bradley Boyer

This is one of my favorite games I've ever played. It's casual, but there is a strategy. It's just fun and enjoyable to play and progress. It's also not overly complex and doesn't take 40 hours to learn the mechanics. It's seriously probably in my top 5 all-time favorite games.

Madden as a series is a perfect example of why free market competition is good. Unfortunately, console football has a monopoly held by EA Sports. They churn out garbage every year, and they don't care because they have no competition. People are forced to buy it or have no ability to play a football game on the console. You would think that, just from a reputation standpoint, EA would try to make it halfway decent. Nope. It is SO boring, just like the last ten Maddens. If they are going to implement "advanced" features like how to try to catch a ball, it has to be functional to work. I would personally like it better if they just went back to standard/basic controls rather than forcing in new concepts that are unworkable. Just give me passing option buttons, a juke button, and a hit stick button. There is no way you can stop an opposing computer offense. And the game is slow and not at all fun. I'd give the Madden series as a whole a "zero" if I could.

The hype with this game is to be expected. Lots of money goes into "reviews" by these large review websites. This game lacks character, and it is basically BoTW all over again, with a few additions that do nothing for the game. I am getting to a point where Nintendo hardware is so far behind it's competitors that it detracts from the game. After playing PS5 games, this just looks depressing. The trees and the scenery are not only graphically challenged - they are dull and bland. There is no color in the game. My daughter and I played Immortals: Rising Phoenix for PS5 not long ago. It is basically a knockoff of BoTW. While it isn't as good as BoTW was, it is on PS5, so the scenery and colors were at least exciting to experience. Coming back to this is disappointing. The dungeons are bland. The gameplay is identical. For a series of this caliber, there really needs to be a "new" feeling when a new game comes out. Part of the fun is learning and discovering all over again. That doesn't happen here - it's the same game as before, but not nearly as fresh or fun. Sad to say it. The reviews on this by the bigger websites are shameful. I'm not saying they have to give it one star, but 10/10 across the board? At least appear to be objective.

The beginning is a 10/10. The middle is an 8/10. The ending is a 3/10. Without spoilers, the premise is a very intriguing idea, but then it just kind of lagged and ended unexpectedly and without clarity. I enjoyed a good portion of it, however.

The worst part about any Far Cry game is the never-ending repopulation. It's just unrealistic. I mean, it's unrealistic that one person could take out 50 people to begin with, but that's kind of what makes it fun. It makes you feel like you're accomplishing something. The constant regeneration is just crazy. We got Rambo over here taking out hundreds of soldiers over the course of an hour while we try to figure out how to complete the mission and getting it to stop. Rather than having tons of NPC combatants, why not have far fewer and just making killing them harder? It's not fun to continuously take out hoardes of stupid soldiers who are helpless against you and keep doing the exact same thing. The rest is all recycled from Far Cry 3-5. Of you've played them, you've played this.

Madden will never be any good until people stop buying it. I'm old. I played Madden 95. It hasn't improved since then.