Out of the digital box, Madden 27 felt pretty good. There are always some warts that need to be addressed. I played through a season of Franchise Mode and started a couple others as testers for certain things (free agency logic, draft feel, and other minutia) – and it was pretty decent.
My first season felt way too easy in some ways. Taking the Browns to a 15-2 finish and a loss to Buffalo in the Divisional Round felt like and accomplishment for the ages in my first season. Over the last couple weeks I put in more time towards the second season and that’s where things got weird, stupid, and infuriating.
Pass blocking has basically become a non-factor. Even with sliders turned up for Human Pass Blocking, defenders are able to run through, around, and any other direction around my o-line for near constant pressure. On running downs (3rd and 4th and short) it is damn near impossible for your line to block with any run blocking urgency.
Adding to this shitshow of sports game programming – CPU Pass Coverage is literally running the routes of my pass catchers BEFORE they make their cuts. Not only do they mind read, they also pick off numerous passes that are well out of reach or placed perfectly.
What somehow makes this worse is the CPU will bounce between giving me a tight game (even with them cheating and my o-line being paraplegics) and crapping the bed completely. I had a super close game against Baltimore just after shutting out San Francisco at Levi’s Stadium and destroying the Cardinals when their rookie QB basically ran around until he got sacked 10 times.
There were moments and still are times when I find this game to be a hell of a lot of fun. However, whatever EA Tiburon is doing under the hood (we won’t even begin to discuss how they managed to eff up Wear and Tear AGAIN!) – They are breaking more than they are fixing.
EA – FIX YOUR F**KING GAME!
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