Madden NFL 18 is a game made for NFL fans, because I am a less than casual NFL fan and boy oh boy was this difficult at first. Here I am working on my Madden back long with the power of EA Play, this game is reviewed on the Xbox One. I'm just going to list off all the game modes to begin with, however I'm only going into detail about the two I actually played. We got the same Madden layout in the menus but we have one brand new game mode called Longshot, that along with Franchise Mode as a coach are the two mode I played. However the game has Ultimate Team, Skill Trainer, Play Now Live, Online Head to Head (at the time of writing this review 10/28/20, people are actually online right now playing it went from 52 to 50 as I wrote this sentence) Open Practice, and Customize.

Lets talk about everything new in Madden 18, Game style, you have three to choose from, Arcade; a fun style with high chance of high light plays, Simulation, the most realistic game style and Competitive is a the online head to head default, where as they say "stick skills are king". Play Now Live you play along with the regular season and the commentary and stats get updated as the season moves along. Franchise Mode got a slight update with a new draft board and the ability to follow along the regular season and jump in at any time to rewrite or relive history. You know have the option to adjust personal management before starting. MUT Squad you can join up to two friends and play online MUT by combining each others deck. Lastly Long Shot.

Long Shot is (to my Knowledge) is the first time Madden as included a story mode. You play as NFL hopeful Devin Wade and try to make it into the NFL, after quitting Football altogether years prior. Joining along in the ride is another NFL hopeful your best friend Colt Cruise. You have no customizable options whatsoever, you can't edit appearance, jersey number, height/weight or position, you are locked into a this 6'4 QB and playing about the early part of his story, I say early part because Long Shot is fairly shot and its only the journey to the NFL and getting to draft night. The mode was a nice starting point and could build into something special if EA decides to go this story mode route. They went with the best style a Point and Click style where you have some say in the mapping of the story, the story isn't fully linear, so that opens the door for replay value because you may want to see the other ways this story ends. The story is kind of basic I won't spoil to much but basically Devin gets invited for a chance to get a Reality TV Show to follow him around to help improve his draft stock. This was actually pretty cool because it showed some of the backstage policy that happen during TV production. When the story is finished you can easily tell that NFL Madden 19 has to continue the story.  The mode is solid, I liked it somewhat even thought some of it did get a little boring. This mode is why I said this game is made for NFL fans, because some of the stuff we had to do/answer I had no idea what I was doing. Some parts you get asked question and I have no idea what the right answer is because I don't follow football, I don't know how to read coverage, I don't know where defensive players stand on defense or what their position is called, so I had Devin a HS superstar QB looking super dumb. This has been my hardest Madden in years, their was an learning curve for me and I wished I played Franchise mode before jumping into this mode, because I would have learned how to play, because my performance in this mode was doodoo, I did not have Devin looking good! I sorry Devin Wade! It did have some cool gameplay moments like completely directing where the ball lands from a throw guiding it into the recivers hands and most of the other plays were QTEs.

Lets talk franchise mode, like every year I build a team with player I know and like, this year no different, I got my QB, Cam Newton, my TE/Favorite player Greg Olsen, got my WR Odell Beckham Jr and new WR Cooper Kupp and I got my defender Chandler Jones and a new defender in the Honey Badger, Tyrann Mathieu. I didn't go as crazy as I did in the past because Madden has this thing where they still use the salary cap during trades outside of franchise mode I didn't feel like dealing with that so I stopped at theses guys and put them on the Cowboys. Not really much to say about franchise mode, that I haven't said in the past, its pretty much the same things besides the stuff I said in paragraph two.  You still have four ways to play, Play Offense or Defense only, Pull the Full Game, which is a  minute experience or play the fastest way by doing Play The Moments a 20 minute experience. I wanted to do Play The Moments so bad because its faster, but it was costing me games so I had to play the Full Game, and GAHLEE in the start of the season all my players was getting hurt. OBJ and Greg Olsen missed 1/2 the season, and bruh if felt like I couldn't catch a thing! Running felt really going this year however, I had a run game this year, first time in a while I did good on that end. Eventually, I got the whole throwing thing down and with the help of Long Shot, I actually learned a little bit about reading the coverage. I didn't care for defense at all, I mostly ignored it and put the control down and picked it up if I saw an easy sack or to stop a runner. You might be asking so why not just play offense only? Because that was costing me too! You don't get to play all the offensive plays just some, and some parts was legit just the 1st possession and if you didn't get 1st down it went back to the sim. Games were lonnng in Full Game mode but I had to do it.

Overall, another fun Madden, it would have felt the same as Madden 17 just with some slight changes but with Long Shot it had its standout moment. I enjoyed the soundtrack, and found it pretty wack that that game doesn't have a jukebox so I can see what song is playing! I would recommended this game to NFL fans for that Long Shot experience.

Overall-8.1
Gameplay-8.1
Graphic-9