EA Tiburon yesterday began to reveal some of what will be different about Madden NFL 13‘s gameplay. The big focus of this year’s title is the passing game, which makes sense both because the NFL is becoming more pass-centric and because my team (the Jets) is increasingly reliant on the rushing game. The changes sound good in theory, though as someone who still plays last year’s game a few times every week, I can’t help but take issue with the post-release support Madden 12 received.
A new Madden is released each and every year like clockwork. Call of Duty may be the target of gamers wanting to lash out at annual releases these days, but Madden was doing it more than a decade before Call of Duty 1 ever hit store shelves. Years ago it made more sense; while there have always been criticisms about too little changing from one game to the next, with no better way to get new rosters into the hands of players, a full retail release was the way to go. Nowadays that feels like an archaic method of delivering content to players, yet it continues to happen — and the game suffers for it.
