Madden 12 Review: Online Play
By Josh Hill
Senior Writer Josh Hill reviews the new EA Sports Madden 12 in an in-depth 5 part review. All major gaming modes will be explored and reviewed to the fullest extent so you know what you’re buying in Madden 12. EA Sports is in no way affiliated with Pewter Plank or Fansided. In Part 5 of 5, it’s time for the word on ONLINE PLAY in Madden 12
ONLINE PLAY
I didn’t include the online play review as part of the main modes, as not everyone has immediate access to the internet. Many of Madden’s faithful have it in advance for the online battles and league’s that have brought Madden’s play-ability to a different stratosphere. Madden12 returns a lot of the goodies for the update.
First off, if you don’t have access to online content, you WON’T have the most updated rosters. Due to the lockout forcing back free agency, Madden 12 has rosters as they were at the lockout. So Chad Ochocinco is a Bengal, Carson Palmer is still the starter, Reggie Bush is a Saint, Rickey Williams is a Dolphin and so on. There were some last minute additions that make some aspects more up-to-date. his would include Tiki Barber in the free agent pool as well as Terrelle Pryor. He’s not a member of the Raiders, but he is in the free agency pool.
If you do have online access, just update your roster and you don’t have to worry, but if you don’t have internet and want authentic rosters you’ll have to do it manually which took me about 10-15 minutes to do, and this was just with major transactions (Nnamdi going to the Eagles, Kolb going to Arizona, Vince Young to the Eagles, and so on).
I will be brief with Online Play as it is just the same as usual. Take the game mode in the game and apply it to an online setting and you have the feature in a nutshell.
One thing I will point out that is new and cool is a Community feature that allows you to essentially set up your own private online football club. The function serves two real purposes which are brilliant additions and much needed as well. First of all the Community feature allowing you to set up your own club allows you to have a real live fantasy football league, or to join up and stick around players at your skill level.
The other purpose it serves, is to weed out the — less than fun and normal people — who populate the Madden online world. This was a problem with all additions of Madden where you play a game but in the final minute, if your winning or for some other reason, the other guy splits from the matchup. Now, with your own club, you can hold and be held accountable for these bogus actions.
Online Franchise Mode got some beefing up, much of it akin to the beef ups in the regular Franchise Mode. These include contracts, the ability to draft and manage your franchise via converged media (so the EA website or your iPhone).
It’s not a feature everyone can use, but for those who can use it; you’re in fora fun experience. As with all other modes in Madden 12, it’s not perfect and could always use some polishing, but as it stands now the Online Feature in Madden 12 isn’t going to disappoint too many.
Online Feature Rating: 7.5/10
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