Oh, how the mighty have fallen

[maddog11896]

The chances of someone at Tiburon seeing this are slim to none, but if this even reaches one person on the dev team, I'll be thrilled.

I've been a Madden fan for almost 20 years now. My first Madden game was Madden 2000 on the original PlayStation. It would be 2 years before I got another Madden game, Madden 2002 on the GameCube. It would again be two more years before I got what, in my humble opinion is the best Madden game ever in almost every aspect, Madden 2004 for the PC. It was this game that prompted me to not only purchase every Madden game up to Madden 08 (I did end up purchasing Madden 12, my last Madden purchase, on PS2 on a whim), but every Madden game on PC. In my opinion PC is the best way to play. You have more control over everything, including gameplay if you set up your controls correctly.

But I digress, when I heard Madden 19 would return to PC, I was beyond thrilled.  For the longest time, I've been switching between playing Madden 04, 08 and 12 while waiting and hoping another game would be released on PC. Once I downloaded enough of the game, I was able to play the Steelers-Jags game in London. Having not played a Madden game in 6 years, I was a bit overwhelmed by the gameplay, but overall I loved it. I spent several hours playing this game over and over with both teams. But I was waiting for the game to finish downloading to get to my favorite part of Madden, the reason I bought the game in the first place: the franchise mode. I've always been a big fan of the franchise mode since Madden 04.

I was very very quickly disappointed. What I loved about franchise mode in Madden 04 all the way to Madden 12 were the intricacies. It wasn't "Franchise Mode For Dummies" so to speak. They took their time and added tremendous depth and detail to the games and made it feel like I was actually a GM with the choices I had to make. I don't want to sound like I'm screeching, "Well, back in MY day..." but  from holdouts to custom built stadium customization to the draft system to different kinds/levels of free agents (unrestricted vs restricted and such), it seems like everything has regressed. I can't pick my own offensive, defensive and special teams coordinators, I can't sign a player to a contract extension unless he's in the last year of his contract, there are no holdouts, customization of your franchise as an owner is pitiful, the entire franchise interface is clunky and it is incredibly easy to exploit other teams out of their draft picks, just to name a few things.

Don't worry, I tried to return the game after a few runs through the franchise mode but I was quickly reminded that I can't return the game once I've played over 2 hours in it (90 minutes of those 2 hours was just figuring out what the hell everything is and does). So now I'm stuck with this purchase I deeply regret.

To conclude this rant, I am not saying Madden 19 as a whole is bad. Indeed, I will still have a lot of fun just playing games and pretending the franchise mode doesn't exist. But like many other players, I enjoy being an armchair GM and being in control, and Madden 19 leaves an inordinate amount to be desired. If this is the franchise mode I can and should expect going forward, it seems I've made my last Madden purchase. Thanks for the memories, EA! Looks like I'll be returning to 2004, where I'll lead Brett Favre, Ahman Green and the Packers to glory over the unstoppable Dolphins and Raiders!

In one final plea EA, if by some miracle you see this (hello Mike Young and Ben Haumiller) and you really take this message to heart, I would direct you to look at the Out of the Park Baseball franchise and their franchise mode and how intricate they make it. The amount of detail and depth they derive from the sport and put into the game. That is all today. Cheers!