I keep thinking that *this year* will be the year that EA finally takes all they should be learning from their monopoly of the NFL video game market (a serious question: Do they actually evaluate feedback from their customers?) and put out an experience that is an actual improvement from the previous year - not just a trade-off. Well, it didn't happen yet again. This year you get the infinity engine that is actually a step in the right direction. The play on the field doesn't feel canned, and while some of the player flopping is comical it doesn't affect the actual gameplay. The trade-off is no franchise mode, and a bare bones off-line experience that is much thinner than any Madden version I can remember, and simply not that much fun. Once again, it leaves me wishing for what could be.… Expand

Until EA gets some competition in the Football realm, we will continue to be lied to and let down. EA did essentially this with Madden 13: Take away all the features you love and change gameplay slightly better. That way in Madden 14, they can put these (or at least a few) features back in the game to claim that Madden 14 is a huge leap from Madden 13. I am very disappointed EA. I will not buy another Madden game until there is a competitive market for you. 3/10 (down 2 points from Madden 12)… Expand

Finally, the game play looks and feels like it should (did it really take this long to get back to what worked in 2000??). But that doesn't even begin to make up for the illogical and unbelievably backwards decision to gut franchise mode. I have purchased this game for years and I respect those who prefer to play online, but franchise was a staple mode....you will hear that connected careers is still franchise mode, but look here...THAT IS NOT TRUE. You cannot edit players, you cannot import draft classes, you cannot control multiple teams...let me repeat YOU CANNOT CONTROL MULTIPLE TEAMS. Meaning...you and your friends cannot be in a franchise together. You can be in an online "league" but you cannot play games of other teams. Even in an offline career or franchise you cannot play any other games except your team's games. I used to like to play all of the big matchups every week to get a feel what it was like to play with different stars...GONE! For a league that sells itself on its stars it would seem to make sense to allow players to play different games on the schedule. Nope. Enjoy playing as your one team with your one created player. NCAA much better...this is an unbelievable disappointment.… Expand

I understand that the coach mode is the new franchise mode, as I'm sure most people who have spoken poorly of the game do, that isn't an argument why it is good. Be a coach mode has taken away fantasy drafts, your ability to edit your players, the ability to trade for anyone reasonably talented (offered a 1st and 2nd round pick for Taylor Mays a 74 rated SS....Rejected) and is just a downgrade from previous years. The gameplay has ups and downs. Runners fall down by getting bumped, and after the place is over people fall down nonstop in ways that no person ever can survive. The computer AI is incredibly stupid. on a 4th and 1 in the fourth down 3 w a minute to go the AI punts every time. Its fine for people who want to play head to head with the computer from time to time (and be assured victory) , but awful if you want the challenge of playing an entire season.… Expand

nice try game is ok need to go back to 12 no way to make your own players and play in the season to way to make a play book the new modes are nice well one is you can play as a players if you play as player you cant play the whole game whats the point in playing then and no way to skip the season and get to the playoffs you cant make your own teams are players and use them in the season

I think this is even cheesier with online opponents then Nba 2k13.

Madden 12 was way more fun. Ncaa was way more fun, hell even Fifa was more fun this year.

There's no reason to purchase this game if you have Madden 12. They have taken out franchise mode and almost all of the great features the previous Maddens had. EA is making it rain for all of these paid reviewers who give it an 80+ score.

Improved graphics? Check. Shiny new physics where players stumble all over each other after each play, knocking each other down in ways that should draw 15-yard penalties? Absolutely. Improving the look of the game is expected when someone releases a sequel. Unfortunately, over the last 10 years, the presentation is the only thing that's actually changed. The gameplay is identical to what it was when I was playing Madden on the PS2. It hasn't improved. The controls are still unresponsive, to the point where I constantly feel like the play I'm controlling is running in molasses.

The announcing has actually managed to get worse. Announcers no longer use players' names, so it's always, "The offense this," and, "The receiver that." I assume they've done this because of two reasons: A) voiceover work costs money, and people will buy this product regardless of quality
B) saying the players' names sometimes sounds stilted

You know what sounds more stilted than inserting the player's name? Replacing "Calvin Johnson" with "The receiver" every time he does something. It's obnoxious. There's no logic to the lines they read, either. I get criticized for throwing a 9 yard pass on first down, and praised for throwing a -4 yard pass on 3rd. I've heard the announcers talk about the "first first down of the game!" four or five times in the same game, usually deep into the fourth quarter. It took one game to hear every single line of generic speech about "The offense" and "The quarterback" (rather than "The 49ers" and "Alex Smith") repeated six or seven times.

Offenses still put up 70 or 80 points per game if you try to play with realistic game lengths. This has been a problem for more than a decade.

Gameplay outside of ballcarrying and passing continues to be shallow, simplistic, and boring. There's real depth to every single position in real life, but you wouldn't know it by playing Madden. Are you telling me they couldn't make RT interesting to play at some point over the last 10 years? Of course not, because that would be innovating. No reason to innovate when you have a monopoly. The devs who design Madden are talentless hacks with no vision beyond coming up with ways to insert and remove just enough features each year to keep people wondering if maybe - just maybe - the $60 might be worth it this year.

It's not, and it never will be as long as EA has a monopoly on the NFL. They continue to polish a turd by making the game more "realistic" by making it LOOK like an NFL broadcast, which would be great if I were just watching it. Unfortunately, I actually have to play it like it's a video game, and EA seems to be treating the "video game" part of their video game like an afterthought. The result: recycling the same unfun garbage every year.

And of course, like everyone else, I keep buying it because I'm a sucker.… Expand

Madden 13 took what i loved and destroyed it. I played franchise mode and created a bunch of friends and put them on random teams. Now the new connected careers left all that out. what is the point of having the option to create players if you can't use them in connected career coach...I wasted 60 dollars, if i knew i couldn't create players and use them, i would have never bought this game and keep madden 12.… Expand

I almost think I have played this game before.

Rented today, this is basically another roster update. If you want to buy a roster update and a one year subscription to online play, this is actually just for you. Not anything wrong with that, either. It is just due to the elongated console generation that these games seem really dusty. Plus, it is almost like EA has a solid hold on the NFL for some reason, I forget why.… Expand

When it comes to sports titles you have amazing companies like Sony Santa Monica and 2K who go out of their way to make their games as deep and customizable as possible to make the game feel as authentic to the real thing as possible. EA on the other hand decided to ditch that model and abandon any and ALL forms of customization. You can no longer edit equipment or rosters in your franchise. Are you a person who enjoyed doing a multi-player franchise with your friends or a fantasy draft or controlling all 32 teams to make roster moves and depth charts 100% accurate to the real world? Well all of those options are COMPLETELY GONE! What you get in Madden 13 is a Connected Careers mode which lacks any kind of depth. This game is not made for real football fans or sim players. It is made for little kids who want an arcade game with no complications but they fail at even that pathetic goal as the menus in the game are horribly designed and take forever to navigate through to find what you are looking for. I have been a huge Madden fan my entire life, now I feel betrayed and ripped off. In the year EA gives us the best gameplay the Madden series has ever had they also remove all the features that make the game enjoyable. Buying Madden 13 is like buying a Ferri with the engine missing. It looks really pretty but it is completely useless.… Expand

This Madden is the most disappointing in the series since the console switch that produced one of the worst video games of all time, Madden 06. Overall it is a big downgrade, Connected Careers is NOT franchise mode, it is a more expansive My Player mode. No Fantasy Draft, can't edit players, can't put your own rosters in Connected Careers, poor and unrealistic physics engine (something they advertise as better, but only makes bodies go flying in unrealistic ways), and overall just not a fun game...I couldn't even force myself to keep playing it. I have never been so disappointed with a game. I do like some of the features in Connected Careers like your Legacy ranking, but a few cool features doesn't help a terrible overall experience, gutting a mode that was key to Madden's previous success (Franchise Mode) was one of the worst decisions that EA Sports has ever done. The game is confusing and a failure to the NFL, they should take away EA's license after playing this game and allow competition so that EA has to stop messing up or they will go the route of NBA Live which has been beaten so badly that it is now being looked at as a download only game.… Expand

This game is terrible and the game designers should be ashamed of themselves. The passing game is unrealistic and the just terrible. The running game was made way to easy. The simulation is utterly retarded and does not know clock management or how to call a timeout. I hate the connected careers and they should just get rid of the entire concept. They need to go back to the original franchise mode and original fantasy draft mode. Instead of completely changing the entire game and making it complete trash they should have fixed the problems from the previous game and made minor improvements.… Expand

I really wanted to like this game...I really did, but it's impossible. They took out franchise mode...yeah really...they took out the most popular feature with consumers who buy the product year after year, well done EA! Still same problems with game play with psychic DBs, but now the RBs slam into their o-linemen and fall down like they've been shot. Also on tackles everyone around the ball falls down in a bazaar fashion almost always with their legs tucked under them like kids do in Pop Warner. Since EA continues to have exclusive rights (through 2014 now) to names and likenesses of NFL players and Coaches no other gaming company will ever push them into making a better product. Please save your money and rent this turd before buying it.… Expand

SORRY! This game was a waste of money. The in game audible modes are horrible, and they keep getting worse. What happened to the madden that you can just kick back and play? I'll spend the all of the play clock time just getting the defense ready on every play. Graphics are great, but game play is where the moneys at. I'm never buying a Madden again, I'll just rent the dam thing to see if it's any good. For now the NCAA is what I'm sticking with.… Expand

Its funny how all the users giving this game scores of 9 and 10 have only reviewed one game. I thought metacritic had taken care of this problem in the past. Guess not. Make has many fake accounts as needed to drive scores up or down EA representativesfan boys!

I've tried, but I can't play this game. A punting glitch makes this game unplayable if you ever need to worry about field position. Punts only go for ten to fifteen yards, so it changes the whole way football can be played. That makes this game broken and therefore gets a big fat zero. I swore off Madden three years ago because of how boring this franchised has become and playing football seasons became secondary to all their tedious mini-game additions. But, they promised me Barry Sanders, and since I haven't seen him since Madden 2000, I really wanted to see how he played and looked with the new upgraded graphics. After finding out how this mini-game works, it turns out that he isn't anything like the real Barry Sanders. Cornerbacks making one arm tackles on Barry Sanders? In the open field, no less! And this is continous throughout the game, so Barry Sanders isn't any different than any other running back leveled 90. The rest of the game? The Save System on this game forces you to manually save after each game and is unrealiable. Same overused lines in announcing, even with two different announcers, that becomes old after the first few games. Game recaps have come down to a half dozen weak twitters that say the same thing over and over and again, just with different names or teams. Tucking the ball in and taking off with your qb never works well even if you are Cam Newton. The new infinity engine does make tackling look cool and yet ridiculous at the same time. Bumping into your own lineman will cause you to get knocked down. Can't import your College player into a draft this year, and making a new character is now more limited. I have to have long sleeves for my QB even though I selected "no sleeves". Maybe that's a glitch, who knows. I did try the EA gameface editor, which is cool to see my face; however I can't get past those neon glowing eyes that I have. . Overall, EA still doesn't put the focus on the franchise season, and waste too much time on mini-games and online competition that we have here a game that doesn't give you the essense of football. The Madden Franchise is still the bottom of the pit experience for a full $60 but the lack of a punting game makes this game unplayable.… Expand

All I played was franchise mode, so in its absence Madden 13 is useless to me. Why does EA seem so out of touch with the fans? I am regretting buying this game as it used up my game budget and there are other games I wish I had gotten instead. So disappointed!

If you are a die hard Madden fan like myself you are going to be majorly disappointed with Madden 13. They have removed every feature that I truly loved. The Franchise mode that I have grown to love is gone. Instead they have add Connected Careers which will not allow you to do the following:

1. No Fantasy Draft
2. No Editing Players
3. No more having friends over to play Franchise Mode because you can only play with one team.
4. No Importing Roster from NCAA Football.
5. No creating a player and adding them to Connect Careers.

There are several uniform mistakes throughout the game. For instance when have your seen the Bears wear orange pants? I will tell you...NEVER! Between the players flopping all over the field, the inability to save your settings for every game, and for not being user friendly, this is the worst Madden ever.… Expand

The game play is better but everything else is terrible. They turned everything into an online requirement for the game to be any good. The connected careers is bad with zero customization and you can't even trade players since most of the players you want to trade for are untouchable.

It seems there are a large number of people, such as myself, who can't play the game because of some glitch that causes it to freeze 100% of the time in offline CCM (maybe online CCM, haven't tried because I want updated rosters). And I just bought the game - which means EA has released 3 patches without fixing the problem.

I googled it, found out a lot of other people have the problem, and tried all the suggested fixes (short of wiping my HD which is WAYYYY more trouble than its worth). I SHOULDN'T HAVE TO DO THIS FOR A CONSOLE GAME!!!

EA, and Madden, is the WORST.… Expand

I love my Madden....read my review of Madden 13 that I posted and e-mailed to the EA Forums and customer service. Josh Crow Thabet M Aljayousi Ryan AllDay Duffy


Popped in my new Madden disk that I picked up on midnight, and was pumped to start a franchise with my beloved Patriots...and couldn't find it anywhere. So I googled it, and saw it was replaced with CCgame type. Check that out, and realize It takes 20 minutes to boot up a game in coach mode...and you can barely edit anything...and you can't even fantasy draft?!?! So I figured...ok...I'll try the player aspect of it...and go from there. So I make a RB and get pumped to play...and so far, I've gone half way through the season...and ALL I FRICKEN DO IS RECEIVE PUNTS AND ATTEMPT TO BLOCK FIELD GOALS?!?!?!? I literally spent 2 days of playing this game ONLY PUNTS/KICKOFFS AND BLOCKING FIELD GOALS... in till I decided to end my relationship with this game. I always have in the past, bought a Madden at midnight, play the game religiously with friends in franchise mode in person, or just screw around in franchise mode for months on end. This year I haven't touched it since day 2. See a problem here EA?!?!? I tweeted them my feedback, and all they said was "@zolenski Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us." I responded with if there was any plans to even consider a fix...and I received no response. It's crazy that the whole internet is on fire about features you didn't even really have to change, that you totally cut from the game. I don't play online because of lag, and because I suck against 12 year old gamers....So now I'm forced to play exhibitions in till I stab my eyes out, or read all these damn "Tweets" you shoved in my face in this god damn CC mode you made(which isn't half bad IF IF IF you left Franchise in) I chose the trade it in so you guys lose a sale with someone buying pre-owned unless you guys decide to actually acknowledge the community as a whole, as it seems you guys were more persistent this summer then ever trying to get user feedback to make this game better. I bet if you stated in May that you were taking this out completely, and the other option was just barely remotely close to it...people would have gave you enough time to wake you up from this steaming pile of garbage you spoon fed your fans.… Collapse

In typical Madden fashion they took away features so they can add them back as innovations in the years to come. This time it was editing players and fantasy draft, which is pretty much a game breaker. Without fantasy draft, playing with friends becomes difficult as it is hard to find evenly matched teams in the same division without the benefit of being able to draft everyone yourself. Player editing although less important is still annoying, since people have come to expect the ability to be able to move a player from left to right defensive end or outside linebacker to lineman and vice versa. Of course, had Madden done any research whatsoever they would have known how important many users find this feature.… Expand

Where to begin. I've been a loyal Madden fan since about its inception. I'm probably dating myself, but it's almost half of my current life span that we are talking about here. My formative years have in some way shape or form been reflected in Madden's evolution.

In terms of actual head to head hours that I've logged over these years, I would say it goes into the multiple thousands if not more. Many of the friendships I value to this day have been formed over rivalries centered around the many iterations EA has released. To find anyone that has experienced more of a lifelong passion for this series would be a true challenge.

For me to come out and say that this years Madden is absolute garbage would be the understatement of 2012 for me. I literally played one match versus my lifelong friend who has played against me multiple hundreds of times. We have had a life long Madden rivalry. Life long. And that was the final game of Madden for the both of us. It was so utterly unrecognizable. I personally had zero impact on one single defensive play. It was all just nothing but AI taking things over and arbitrarily deciding who won each down. I just want my money back. As someone who has been there since the Sega Genesis days, all I can say for this Madden is that it's time for this franchise to hang it up. It was a good run. Year after year there was the hope for something new, something engaging, something that fulfilled the desire of every true football fan. This version if anything, makes me honestly dislike not only EA, but football as a sport. The no fun league has transcended into a video game form.

PS WTF happened to the fantasy draft??? That was probably the most fun version for a football nerd like me. Playing GM and drafting a team all on my own. Nothing compared to that and now it's gone. It's a freaking video game, let us as gamers have the option to play out a fantasy franchise on our terms. EA took this away and left us with a game that lacks any imagination. FEA. FEA. FEA. FEA. FEA. FEA.… Expand

Madden 13 has once again been able to completely baffle it's fans, both old school and new. In a year where they should have simply fixed the AI, line play, general gameplay with physics as an addition, and fix Madden 12's franchise issues., THEY BRING IN A COMPLETELY BUG RIDDLED OFFLINE MODE. They take away features that were in last years game that the user could have easily used to fix these issues. They combined Head Coach 09 with Madden 12 and force it all online so much so that they didn't even notice a duplicate number bug in the offline mode.

The gameplay is amazing but that's not saying much when you've done physics in your other games. The implementation into Madden should have been near flawless, but comes off as amateurish when you start seeing choreographed triplets on the screen. The infinity engine may provide natural collisions but everything else it seems is still scripted and not so neatly concealed to the Madden veteran...the guy who the game is intended to sell some copies to year after year, not some paid critics who only play the game 2 moths out of the year... I wonder how many critics managed to activate their online pass, or are in online leagues. They can't be solitary offline Madden players because that portion of the community is vocally ticked.
http://www.operationsports.com/forums/madden-nfl-football/

In closing, a smart person would have baked connected careers until Madden 14, when they had ample time to test it and refine it for both an offline and online experience. Instead the game only works online...

… Expand

Everyone giving this game positive reviews are either A. Fanboys of Madden, or B. Paid by EA to make sure the word doesn't get out that the game SUCKS! The new physics engine is a joke! While the multi-tackling is cool, it's NOTHING new in older, better games! The things that made Madden still tolerable before, like Franchise mode and fantasy drafts have either been completely removed, or replaced by inferior JUNK! Connected Careers IS NOT FRANCHISE! Don't listen to the morons who try to pass it off as such!

You can't edit players in ANY kind of franchise mode. They have a scrub that didn't even make my team's final roster as the #2 WR over solid vets, and VERY good rookies!

The animations look ridiculous. Players bend over backwards, players drop to the ground like they were just shot in the head when they run into their own teammates on the field, and shedding a block by the computer is next to impossible on default modes. EVERY DB in the game is the next Deion Sanders. In the 5 games I have played, I have targeted Calvin Johnson in single coverage, with steps on the DB, and out of the 4 times I've tried this ALL FOUR were picked by scrub DBs who, instead of catching up to Calvin like would be required in real life, were able to instead just LEAP higher than Calvin could possibly leap, and intercept a pass that SHOULD have went 5 yards over their heads! JUST RIDICULOUS!

Can someone explain how running in the 2k series was FANTASTIC, yet the makers of Madden can't figure out how to make running more realistic?! I guess the ONLY moves a RB makes in real life are a jump left or jump right in real life?! There should be more realistic juking, running, etc. It's NOT SMOOTH, it's NOT REALISTIC, and it flat out SUCKS! I have had Madden every year, since they decided to buy exclusive rights and leave us no choices... And unfortunately they are happy to just re-use tons of old code for many things, and then implement WORSE, MORE BUGGY, JUNK, while taking out the features that made the game a usual "7" or so for rating.

Bottom line = Play last year's Madden and manually upgrade your rosters or just pass altogether, THIS GAME IS JUNK!… Expand

Probably the worst 60 bucks you'll spend this year. Enjoy fantasy draft? Too bad. Enjoy offline franchise mode with friends? Too bad. Enjoy customization? Too bad. They literally removed everything about this game that I enjoy and added in some **** leveling system that has absolutely nothing to do with football. Screw EA.

It's the same thing as NFL 12. Except no Fantasy Draft. Do everyone a favor and get NFL 12 used for 20 bucks if you don't have it. It's the exact same thing anyway. The only good thing I could point out are the physics engine and the Graphics.

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME!!!!!.. I'm thankfull I rented instead of buying... you can only do seasons in career mode and then YOU CAN'T PLAY THE SUPERBOWL!!!!!

This game is horrible. The players fall down over each other like they are drunk. I have a really good record online but I can honestly say this game is complete trash. Do nor waste your money. Just for an example I played a guy the othr day and he recovered three onside kicks back to back. I still beat him but lets be honest I challenge anyone to find one game in NFL history that this has happened in, Anyways here is a link to more people that think this game sucks. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120829110622AA3idnF… Expand

The Madden series is so unrealistic and lame. If you hit the triangle button to intercept a pass you cannot have defender go threw receiver to make int. The receiver had a better position to make play. EA is a lazy company and the programmers do not know how to do their job.

I only played Madden for Dynasty mode. It's gone. Cannot play created player unless you only want to play one position. No fantasy draft for a playable fantasy football. Me and my roommate would draft a team each and play out a few seasons. Gone. There is nothing in this product for me anymore.