The strategic side of the game is also enhanced by analytics data streamed in from the Madden community. Playbooks don’t just show you the name and playart anymore. Now there’s text that communicates data on the plays themselves: How often the team in question uses them, how frequently they’re successful, and so on. The series has always been good about suggesting plays, but the new flood of data points - much like the improved Skills Trainer - helps players understand why a particular play is effective. While the game doesn’t provide a wealth of new features, it certainly improves upon the many it already has, which is plenty good enough for this reviewer. As for the action on the field, I suppose that the jury is still out. Madden NFL 15 is a monstrously complicated game, and trying to fix its various issues is sometimes like playing whack-a-mole. Try and fix man coverage, and you'll inevitably make passing too powerful, or you'll break blocking, or one of a million other things. Going in, I was half afraid that I would be grabbing two dozen sacks a game with the new minigame-like pass rushing techniques where it's possible to time out the snap and beat the blocker to the quarterback. Frankly, I'm still afraid that will be the case once I've had a couple more months to really get used to the timing, which is the sort of thing that happens a lot in Madden. 

 

After playing nearly 200 games last year, what I couldn't help but notice is a massive handicap on the team that was losing in each and every game: moving the ball was harder, and turnovers were aplenty. Of course, that sort of momentum shift is realistic and reflects on the game of football itself, but the level of severity was atrocious, because no team panics when going down by three points in the first quarter. Madden NFL 15 balances that much better this year. Player confidence plays a key role in how each player performs, so one player's dropped pass or miscue won't directly affect the way that the entire team is playing anymore; still, if you have a pick-throwing machine like Tony Romo or Jay Cutler, then you have more important things to worry about. Madden NFL 15 is as deep as ever providing oodles of options for gamers online and offline to keep you rocking the gridiron well into next season.

 

Not only are all your favorites like Connected Franchise and Ultimate Team back and provide players with the meat of the game, but for those of you who are new to the Madden franchise or haven’t played it in a while the game does a great job of teaching you football with the game’s Skills Trainer feature. Here you will go through rigorous drills on both offense and defense teaching you the basics, but as an added bonus EA tossed in a new option in this mode called The Gauntlet. In The Gauntlet your real Madden skills are put to the test as you are pitted against 40 increasingly difficult challenges testing all facets of the game. What’s more after every five levels completed you take on a boss stage that puts a crazy and unique twist on the typical proceedings. The Boss stage will have you doing various insane challenges like kicking 110 yard field goal or even trying to score a Super Bowl touchdown while dodging not only players, but cameramen, sound engineers, and even your own teammates.

 

Simply put, Madden NFL 15 is a near-flawless football title.  My one gripe is that the game has some insipid commentary at times. But other than that? Madden NFL 15 is an All-Pro. The new features and the retuned physics engine make this year's version a must-have game for any football lover. While last year was about making a football game that ran on next-gen consoles, this year is about making an excellent football game that exploits the power of next-gen consoles. Improvements to offensive and defensive gameplay, better player models, better (and more adjustable) camera angles, a fun and challenging Gauntlet mode, and tutorials that teach beginners about the game of football breathe new life into a series that had, honestly, started to get stale. Madden NFL 15 was fun and engaging from the minute I started it up. I didn't want to stop playing, but I had to, at least for as long as it took to write this review.

 

Overall just remember that making coins takes time. Unless you have a LOT of real life money, and can just blow that on Madden, then you will want to take your time, and buy packs as you make money, and sell them on the auction house. You will slowly build coins, and slowly be able to create an unbeatable team. But as I said this does take time, and takes a decent amount of effort.