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4
Great

Madden NFL 22 - Review

Steps forward
Score: 4/5
Reviewed by Oliver VanDervoort on Xbox Series X/S - August 18, 2021   

Madden NFL 22 had a lot on its shoulders. It's not an understatement to say that it needed to be very good, in order to save the franchise. People were outright angry about Madden NFL 21. Even when EA updated the game with next-gen tech once the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S launched. 

In reaction to that anger, the company made it clear it was going to do a better job this time around. For the most part, Electronic Arts delivered. 

Franchise Mode Has Real Improvements

The part of Madden NFL 22 that dew the most ire over the last few years was the franchise mode. Many people believed it was nothing more than a reskin. That's why EA touted the changes to the franchise mode more than anything else. It turns out, they did a very good job with the offering, though there are still some things that need tweaking here and there.

The first and biggest change is the weekly game plan. This is where you can get in there and decide what you want to focus on, both on offense and defense. Once you decide what you want to focus on, you can also choose three players on your own team that you want to focus on in practice. The goal here is to make them that much better and see them improve faster than normal.

When you take over a team as the head coach, there are also in-week events like press conferences that can control how you and your staff improve. The way you answer questions will lay out goals for the upcoming game. Attain them and you're going to see the team get that much better. Fail and you lose "coach points" and don't get to grow your staff.

That's only the appetizer. The main course is how everything goes down in-game. 

Playcalling is one of the big parts of how game plans play out. When calling the defense, you can select to go with several different playcalling approaches. You can still rely on your defensive coordinator and offensive coordinator to suggest plays. You can also go outside their suggestions and pick plays that are part of the game plan. And then of course, you can just select your own plays if you think that is going to work best.

Then it's time to try and win the whole damn thing. One of the biggest changes in Madden NFL 22 is the momentum swings. The goal of this is to clearly make it feel like a real game, where one team gets on a roll and starts to look unbeatable. The game does this by have different special abilities to be unlocked depending on how one team is operating. 

Perform poorly and you might find that the downswing on your kickers meter is going to go faster, making it that much harder to hit kicks. Or you might not even see a receivers' letter above their body when you're running a passing play. Perform well, get hot and you opponent will be hamstrung with those kind of features.

The final way in which the game highlights momentum is that if a team is really struggling, the pre-snap look will be all distorted and wavy. It appears this is supposed to reflect a team that is nervous and a bit out of control.

It's an interesting concept and it seems to work. In one particular game, I took over the Cincinnati Bengals and went toe-to-toe with the Chicago Bears. I made some bad decisions early and found myself down 17-0 early. In previous versions, it would be all about adapting how I played and I would be able to forge a big comeback. Could even roll to a 41-17 win. 

In Madden NFL 22 things just kept getting worse. a 41-7 loss ended up the thing. 

That doesn't mean that things are perfect in the franchise mode. There are still some weird glitches where I was supposed to get 250 yards passing, broke off a big run and for some reason that yardage was credited as part of the total passing yards. There are also mistakes with the play by play where one team will throw an interception and the announcers will claim it was the other team.

On their own, these aren't big problems. In fact, they're quite small compared to the improvements, but they also take players out of the realism of the game. Still, there's very little doubt that the franchise changes make the game better and more fun to play. It's also pretty clear that's where the focus was in Madden NFL 22.

Face of the Franchise Continues To Backslide

While there are real improvements in the franchise mode, other modes included in the game are even more pointless than they were a year ago. That's especially true of Face of the Franchise, which seems to mostly be an after thought in this version of the game. 

Yes, there were changes and tweaks but for the most part, it's still a weird mode that is supposed to put players in the shoes of an up-and-coming star. It still seems like this is a mode that is just to be played on the side if people need to take a break from the franchise mode or Ultimate team. Still, it's included in the game and drags it down to some degree. 

When the mode was first introduced it had promise. When it started letting players actually play college games, it was improved upon. However, these days, the mode just doesn't seem like it matters much. 

All in all, Madden NFL 22 took some big steps forward. It's not a perfect game. It's not a five star game. It is however among the best of the last few years.here's hoping EA continues to take steps forward in the coming years.

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