Fun memories

I remember Madden 07 and the highlight stick. I remember we used to have so much fun tryna stack the tower with highlight stick flashes on the screen doing our best to keep chaining them together. I think the most time I have spent on Madden was 07, 08, 09, 10, and 23. There’s something about 23 that keeps me playing. Yes I’ve played 24 and 25, but they feel completely dead to me, soulless.

Not to mention the depth of 07 with superstar mode. If I remember correctly, 07 you had the parent dna and had to combine them for your player. And honestly it just felt way more immersive. Of course it didn’t have cutscenes and all that, but the amount of content for an old game like that is unheard of these days. You could lose yourself in hours upon hours of playing a good football game that was thoroughly enjoyable.

I played 25 upon release and it literally took me under 40 minutes into superstar mode to uninstall it and never play it again. I re installed 23, and continue to play college 25 here and there.

I don’t know guys, I don’t see any major reasons to get Madden later this year. Could it be the frostbite engine just really showing more and more of how it shouldn’t be used for a sports simulation game? Could it be EA likes stripping features from the game and reintroduce them later? Could it be they have no competition? Could it be because they are still supporting old gen? Could it be cause they care about MUT and do the bare minimum for the actual NFL seasonal side of the game?

One of the things that make me cringe the most though, is those Madden YouTube thumbnails of them forcefully looking shocked from a card pack opening. The fact that videos like that still get hundreds of thousands of views across multiple YouTube channels….I just can’t believe it, different YouTuber same exact expression on thumbnail, same shit ton of views, nothing different other than what the tuber looks like.

I’ll admit it is difficult having complete full knowledge of the amount of detail, features, and content EA has put into Madden as a kid, only to be a 31 year old adult now and brand new Maddens are missing 95% of what those games had. Not only that, but they literally ignore their own history and refuse to put any of that content into their current releases. It’s just MUT and a very bare bones watered down superstar mode, can’t even play as a player in franchise mode anymore…lol taking core things out of the game now.

Dang man, smh…..this is modern day sports gaming. As kids we used to dream about how far Madden will come once we got to this age, and it’s devastating to see it has went completely backwards.