It's that time of year where we get a rush of annual offerings from sports video game franchises — with new football, basketball, pro wrestling, hockey and American football games hitting the shelves — and Madden 19 leads the charge just a few weeks out from the start of the NFL season.
EA Sports' latest offering doesn't really bring a whole lot of new elements to the table, certainly nothing as ground-breaking as the new catching mechanics that Madden 16 brought, nor is Madden 18's story mode 'Longshot' built upon in any meaningful way.
Franchise mode has some nice new features when it comes to developing players — you can choose individuals on your roster to get special attention at practice in between games, boosting their talents faster — and the layout for the draft section is more polished and in-depth than ever before.
After last year’s big changes, Madden 19 feels very safe.
One cool feature is the return of importing draft classes (meaning that at the end of each season when the NFL Draft is about to take place, you can download fan-made files) of either the up-coming college football stars in real life, NFL legends of yesteryear or any other custom players you want.
Aside from a couple of new moves to try and evade defenders while running with the ball, gameplay is essentially the same as last year. It's perhaps a little bit smoother, but if you played a game of Madden 18 with someone, then switched to 19, most people probably couldn't tell the difference.
The main changes you'll find are in the constantly-growing Ultimate Team mode, where you begin with a roster of low-rated players and can grind your way up to having superstars via completing challenges, watching Twitch streams, buying packs (with either in-game currency or real money) or playing online.
The beauty of the mode is the sheer amount of single-player content that is offered up. Many gamers love the idea of Ultimate Team, but are turned off by having to play a large chunk of the games against other humans, which is obviously more stressful and time-consuming than playing against the CPU.
There's plenty of ways to get your favourite players, as well as legends from past years. You start the game with low-rated versions of Hall of Famers such as Jerry Rice or Ray Lewis, and can accumulate training points and upgrades to enhance them the more you play the game.
Running with the ball is a more viable tactic thanks to some new moves.
This is a nice feature that's existed in the past, but it's become even easier to acquire all of the best-known players at an early level, albeit with a lower in-game rating.
Of course you can play against other human players as well, but the ability to go into Ultimate Team and squad up with your friends against the CPU is another nice touch.
Apart from a lack of new features in most game modes, there is one big negative: the story mode.
I thoroughly enjoyed 'Longshot' in Madden 18. It was a fresh addition to the series and I was genuinely excited for what EA was going to do in the second season, especially after it announced that Super Bowl winning coach Bill Cowher and All-Pro wide receiver Antonio Brown (who is also this year's cover star) were going to be voice actors in 'Longshot: Homecoming' as well.
Instead, we pick up with quarterback Devin Wade struggling to make the team with the Dallas Cowboys, and his buddy and wide receiver Colt Cruise struggling to do anything with his life, after washing out of the NFL completely.
Some of the cutscenes are really cool; particularly when they got the cast of NFL Network's TV show 'Good Morning Football' to do analysis and discussion on Wade and Cruise, as though they were real players.
The problems come with where the game takes you, and how you get there. At least in last year's story, you had choices to make and they determined your draft position at the end. Here, no matter how badly or well you do, the outcome is the same.
In one scene, Cruise gets a tryout with the Miami Dolphins. You can score a touchdown with him on every play you get, and he still gets cut by the team at the end. And on the flip side, in every single gameplay component of the story, you can fail over and over again and just restart, with no repercussions.
You spend far, far too much time playing as the Mathis Bullfrogs, Cruise (who now coaches there) and Wade's high school team, whose survival as a team is the main plot of the mode; not succeeding in the NFL with Devin, not making it to the NFL with Colt, just an uninspired, watered-down Friday Night Lights storyline.
If you buy Madden every year, you will enjoy 19. It's just as fun as ever. If you buy the game every few years, you don't need to upgrade just yet, and if you're buying it for the story … then prepare to be let down.
Madden 19 is out now for PC, PlayStation 4 (reviewed) and Xbox One.
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