I’m a hardcore gamer who knows nothing about football — here’s what I thought playing Madden the first time

Like a lot of shy, introverted nerds, I don't know anything about football.

Advertisement

So when publisher EA Sports sent us a review copy of Madden NFL 16, the latest entry in its juggernaut annual football game franchise, I experienced a roller-coaster ride of emotions: fear, shame, and anxiety. 

Here's a sense of my experience with the sport:

madden nfl 16 catch
Madden NFL 16 for the Xbox One. Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
  1. I got talked into playing in a fantasy-football league with friends last year, where I drafted six kickers. I figured the more kickers the better, because ... you know. "Foot"-ball. I still don't fully understand why I was wrong.
  2. I played NFL 2K for the Sega Dreamcast at a friend's house once. I somehow managed to call a field goal on the first play. It did not work out, and we quickly switched back to Sonic Adventure. 
  3. A lot of people are mad at Tom Brady, for either inflating balls that were deflated, or deflating balls that were inflated. It is not clear to me. 

But a friend of mine made a good point: I may not know anything about football, but I do know a lot about video games.

Advertisement

Lots of games, from Mario to Assassin's Creed, start from the assumption that you've never played before, and gradually introduce you to the core concepts and mechanics as you go. 

So I can't tell you if Madden NFL 16 is an accurate representation of professional football, though our friends at Tech Insider say it's the most realistic portrayal yet. But can I tell you if it's any good, especially for new players?

It turns out that I can, and that Madden is a legitimately fun game. Plus, it gave me a whole new respect for the sport.

Here's how it went down: 

Advertisement

When you first turn on Madden NFL 16 for Xbox One, it drops you straight into a simulated, cinematic version of next February's Super Bowl 50, which it apparently guesses will be between Pittsburgh and Arizona, with no warning. This is the video-game version of that dream where you're back in high school, and there's an exam that you didn't study for, and also you're naked.

madden nfl 16 super bowl 50
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

After that, it prompts you to choose a team. I went with my hometown San Francisco 49ers, because Levi's Stadium is down the street from this place where I once got an amazing Belgian waffle that was fried and sugared like a churro. Sadly, that place is not simulated in this game.

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Fortunately, Madden offers a series of tutorials that introduce even the novice player to some fundamentals. Unfortunately, they assume you already have a working knowledge of basic stuff, like how many points a touchdown is worth, or what a "down" is. (It's how many tries you have to move the ball 10 yards. You're welcome.)

Thu_Sep_10_17 43 05_PDT_2015
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Seriously, even the loading screens are full of "advice" that's a lot of meaningless gibberish to anybody not intimately familiar with the language of football.

madden nfl 16 loading screen
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

The first thing I noticed in gameplay: This game is really pretty. EA includes a bunch of licensed player likenesses in the game and has been releasing more as free downloadable upgrades.

madden nfl 16 cleveland browns
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

No, seriously, it's really pretty. Even if the soundtrack, featuring artists like Method Man & Redman and Twenty One Pilots, sounds like a frat house threw up on a Spotify playlist.

madden nfl 16 coach
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Sometimes the animations can get a little awkward, though.

madden nfl 16 tackle
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Also, there's a lot of bizarre real-world advertising in the game. Gatorade sponsors the in-game tutorials, and sometimes it just straight up shows you a Papa John's commercial in game.

madden nfl 16 papa johns
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Eventually, I decided to learn by doing with the game's Franchise mode, where you get to take a team from the preseason (apparently you play football before the wins and losses count?) all the way through the Super Bowl and the following year's draft (which is where you pick new players).

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

At first, I didn't really get the "flow" of the game. I just kind of went with it. My base assumptions: If I have the ball, I need to get it as far away from me as possible, which is made more difficult by the haters on the other team.

madden nfl 16 catch
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

But if the other team has the ball, it's your turn to be a hater. Take them down!

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Madden comes with dozens upon dozens of complicated plays, theoretically taken from real NFL playbooks. Luckily, the game gives you suggestions on what to run, largely based on what other Madden players do in the same situation — a neat bit of online functionality that EA Sports seems to update constantly. I'd be totally lost otherwise.

madden nfl 16 plays
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Eventually, I started thinking about calling plays like Pokemon: Try to match your strengths to their weaknesses, make your move, watch how it plays out, and then adjust your strategy accordingly for the next time.

pokemon yellow
Pokemon Yellow

With that as my baseline, I started to get a deeper understanding of how football is supposed to be played. Once I grasped just how important it was to place my passes where they can do the most good, I developed an all-new appreciation for the quarterback.

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

As the quarterback, you have to be aware of everything on the field at once. You have to figure out who's open, and who's well positioned. But if you take too long, you get sacked. Hard.

madden nfl 16 tackle
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

I still don't grasp all of the intricacies. The controls are obscenely complicated: Carrying the ball on a running play requires pushing the right trigger to run, the right bumper to protect the ball, the A button to do something called a "stiff arm," B to spin, which is a good trick, and the right analog stick to dodge, strafe, or hustle. On defense, I counted at least four different types of tackles.

madden nfl 16 catch
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Plus, the game throws lots and lots of information at you. It's in the name of making it look more like a sports broadcast, but it can get overwhelming. Especially with the announcers shouting the same few inanities at you, including the immortal "Things are about to get started at this one" at the kickoff of almost every game, which is the pinnacle of nonsense talk.

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Under the hood, it's ridiculously complicated. You can manage each and every one of your players, including how they're developing any one of their 50 different stats, from speed to reach to strength. You also need to manage stuff like your team's salary cap and scouting new players coming up from college leagues. Speaking as a one-time Final Fantasy nerd, it's seriously the most intricate stats-based game I've ever played.

madden nfl 16 rpg
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

I started learning how to make bigger, bolder plays and figuring out when it was time to run, pass, or even fake a field goal, which Business Insider West Coast Bureau Chief Matt Rosoff had to explain to me why that's even a thing. It worked! Once.

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Even those bizarre running controls started making sense to me, and I was able to start punching through the defensive line. Also, I learned what a "defensive line" is.

madden nfl 16
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

Madden NFL 16 also includes a fantasy-football mode called "Madden Ultimate Team," which provides a series of bite-sized challenges that earn you virtual packs of trading cards that unlock players of the past and present for your dream team.

madden nfl 16
Note that the Cowboys' Tony Romo is the quarterback of my virtual team, mostly because EA gave him to me in my first pack of players. Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Those challenges are actually really fun and take a lot less time than the hour-plus it can take to play through an entire game. They're drawn from real-life highlights from the 2014 season: The first level is reversing the Seahawks' catastrophic last-minute mistake at the Super Bowl, which I fixed first time out. Take that, Tom Brady, whatever it is you did or didn't do.

madden nfl 16 ultimate team
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

The real issue with Madden Ultimate Team is that it works kind of like an iPhone game: You can (but don't have to) spend real money to get in-game players. It's a little more acceptable in a smartphone release, but Madden NFL 16 costs $59.99 at retail, making this a little hard to swallow.

madden nfl 16 matchup
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger

Still, on the lowest difficulty setting, I've so far been able to ignore or have the game automatically handle a lot of the complexity, and I've actually had fun! I may not be a total football freak, but at least I feel like I finally understand the sport's appeal.

madden nfl 16
Note the score here. Not to brag. Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Advertisement

One last thing, though: This game has a straight-up racial slur. Does anybody even check these things before they go out?

madden nfl 16 redskins
Screenshot/Matt Weinberger
Video Games Football
Advertisement
Close icon Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.