When I was in high school I borrowed the NES version of Tecmo Bowl from friend, and for the next eight or nine months it was the only game I played. I was completely absorbed. I took every team in the game to the Tecmo Bowl, their version of the Super Bowl, and enjoyed every, single, game.
Tecmo Bowl was the first football game to have actual NFL players on the rosters, the controls were responsive and easy to learn, while the character models and animations were cool in an ocean of mediocrity.
I loved everything Tecmo Bowl had to offer, but it wasn’t perfect. There were no injuries, there were only nine players each on offense and defense, and there was no in-season stat tracking. There was nothing I could do about the injuries or the roster size for each team, but stats, that was another matter.
I started tracking my own stats in a notebook, taking note of rushing yards, receiving yards, and sacks for each player on whatever team I was playing through the season with. Tecmo Bowl set the stage for every football game to come, including the unstoppable juggernaut that John Madden Football would become.
38 years have passed since Tecmo Bowl captured my imagination and made me feel like a head coach in the NFL. 38 years and dozens of football games later (I have over 70 in my collection alone), as I play through the first hours of Madden NFL 27, the spirit of that football loving, stat crunching teenager lives again.
Thousands of hours, hundreds of virtual seasons, too many failed features to count, and endless promises unfulfilled finds me stunned at the latest iteration of the Madden NFL franchise. Josh Looman and company appear to have nailed the formula at long last, and it’s way overdue.
The last time I felt this excited about a Madden title was back in 2004 with the release of Madden NFL 2005, before the exclusivity deal that killed any other American football game bearing the NFL license or NFLPA license, and with it, any competition to push EA’s creative teams to be innovative. In one mega deal, EA Sports became the de facto publisher of the virtual NFL world, and we as gamers paid the price…many, many times over.
Although there were a handful of Madden releases that were abysmal (2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 were my personal Dark Ages), by and large the game was still entertaining if less than good (NFL Head Coach 2009 was, and is a standout game, even today). Madden still provided a way to kill an hour or two in the evenings, and more or less provided the NFL experience, even if the franchise was a buggy, flawed, Frankenstein’s monster of mismatched features.
Through years of fits and starts, missing features and MUT, players continued to lay down their hard-earned money for mediocre offerings from EA Sports, lamenting the exclusivity deal between the NFL and EA, going so far as to sign multiple petitions and even filing a class action lawsuit. There were other football games; Axis Football, Backbreaker, Blitz the League, Legend Bowl, Maximum Football, and a handful of others, but none of them had the feel of Madden NFL, and that’s what mattered. The other games were good games in their own way however, when you wanted to play an NFL licensed game that played like the NFL, Madden NFL was, and remains the only game in town.
20+ years after EA inked the exclusivity deal, it appears the development team have at long last gotten the formula for Franchise Mode right with the latest chapter in the Madden NFL series.
Madden NFL 27 ushers in a new age of virtual football with the Persona Engine, Dynamic Weather, Emergent Interactions, Interactive Contract Negotiations, Live News Ticker, an authentic Coach Mode, and of course, Sunday Traditions for each team. Other features include an improved “wear and tear” feature similar to College Football 27, momentum shifts resulting from big plays, and holiday specific graphics packages that add a little flavor to the games that take place on Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
Free agency has been revamped as well. Gone are the days of having to wait until the first week of the preseason to round out your roster. Madden NFL 27 introduces two new mechanics to Franchise mode; Free Agent Scramble and Rookie Free Agent Scramble, where you get to bid against other teams to land available free agents following the regular season, and then race to sign the remaining rookie free agents available following the draft.
Play by play commentary and weekly recaps received much needed upgrades as well. The commentary does a much better job of discussing current season events and statistics, and the occurrences of repetitive dialogue happen with less frequency. The weekly recap features Scott Hansen, and it feels more like a real broadcast as Scott talks about outstanding performances, key injuries, and of course highlights from some of the previous week’s action.
Madden NFL 27 is the best the series has been in several years, but it’s far from a perfect game. The Wear and Tear feature has a larger impact on players than seems necessary, Roughing the Kicker penalties are still pervasive, visual issues such as incorrect season stats being displayed during games, and players disappearing from the field during cut scenes. There are also issues of the game kicking players out to the start menu at random, forcing players to reload their game file.
Over all, Madden NFL 27 gets it right, and that’s what matters. The Persona Engine is a great leap forward for the franchise, so growing pains are expected, but the improvements to the game outweigh the minor issues I’ve encountered so far.
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