As you know I'm new to all things NFL, so no doubt you've all already posted your thoughts, but with Xmas coming and having been a good boy all year (sssh!), I'm wondering whether to go down this route. Just seen trailers and it looks awesome, although I fear I might end up spending 5 hours per day on it, and that'll have to come btw midnight and 6am! :O

I would be more interested in the management side (think it's called 'franchise').

Anyone got any thoughts or experiences of these?

The thing I enjoy most about the NFL and all these games is learning about the 1000's of plays and deciding which to play etc. I love the look of choosing the plays on the game and seeing how they pan out with real 3D players!

Anyway, your thoughts (as scathing as they no doubt will be) would be much appreciated!

jh

I haven't played this version, but if you are new to the NFL I would recommend it.

It would probably be a fun way to learn the rules, etc. of the NFL.

Haven't played any of its latest iterations, but in my experience the franchise mode was always very underwhelming. It's supposedly better with 17, but since EA refuses to make its products for the PC I won't ever even get a chance to find out.

I can't even begin to tell you just how much I hate that EA has a monopoly on the NFL license, because they've done nothing with it but produce just this one game with updated rosters every season. They made a brief foray into the management side of the sport with Head Coach, but that was a heap of rubbish. They never followed up because it didn't sell well, but it didn't sell well because the game was total garbage. With the Football Management series being so popular there has to be a market for an NFL equivalent, but that won't happen until the NFL finally lets other game companies start licensing its product. But considering EA pays something like $50M+/year for its exclusivity, that won't likely ever happen.

I still play Madden 2001 on my N64 .. so yeah .. I'm out of this discussion.. lol

Fwiw .. 3 players are still in the NFL.

Janikowski, Vinateri, and QB 12 with New England (Brady).

I play madden 17 and personally love it.

I mostly play franchise (this seems to be a thing for me lol)

The difference of quality in CFM this iteration is much higher than years past. It's pretty immersive. They added a lot of cool little stuff.

Having played most recent iterations of this game, 17 has the little things that make it worth.

I play most of the Madden's when they come out and this one seems to be in the upper half in terms of quality. I don't play much online besides with friends and draft champions but franchise I always do and if you can plan with a few friends to do an online connected franchise it's much more fun.

Quick question:
I downloaded Madden for Mobile last night and had a look.
I didn't like the constant winning packs and opening packs and saving sets etc - is that just a mobile thing or would I see that in real Madden?
Also, I was only playing one drive and either scoring TD/or not then it would say complete, well done here's a pack of cards!

I would prefer to forget all the **** that goes with it and just get on with the stuff we do here; choosing plays to match players etc.

opening packs isn't something you do on the real game. If i had to explain madden to you i would compare it to playing fifa vs Football manager. FM is an awesome in depth game that pretty much has it all. Fifa has much less realism but it has enough that makes it still fun. Plus fifa you get to play. So madden is the same way, it's fun to play and have a franchise but it's not going to be as real like FM.

Yeah EA is the worst. That exclusive deal they have with the NFL has set back "football games" a decade at least. If there was real competition, I have to imagine there would be MUCH better football games out there.

I agree with everything you have to say except, I would add that "NFL Head Coach 09" is one of my favorite football games of all time. It has it's issues, but as far as NFL sims go, I haven't found much better(Except maybe MFN). The roster management has a ton of depth and you can really build successful teams with completely different schemes. It's fun to experiment with different game-plans and whatnot. Also the draft is alot of fun if you're a football nerd like me. Now don't get me wrong, it's not some perfect game, but a quality NFL sim seems like it's nearly impossible to find. Every year Madden's franchise mode is an epic disappointment(not that I buy it every year, I only buy Madden every 5 years or so, and it's still the same game lol). If they made an updated "Head Coach" I would buy it in an instant. I don't even need fancy graphics and all that, I just want a deep intelligent sim... is that so hard to ask.

I'm thankful I found MFN, because this is the most challenging football sim I've ever played. With the opponents being ran by actual people the trades, free agency, and draft are all more fun. I just wish this game had a little more depth/strategy to the "X's and O's".

if OOTP releases this summer we should get a bunch of guys here in a league like 75 on it. My brother's and I grew up playing OOTP baseball and I highly anticipate the release of a football sim