Madden NFL 24

Here is my take from a 39 year old who grew up loving the jets on N64 with Curtis Martin and the Z button being the Juke move that broke players ankles like crazy and then played most Maddens until 2016 then stopped mainly because they put in designing your own plays and having your own playbooks then stopped that. Some things you must know. 1.) i rarely play it online 2.) Ultimate team is not something i get into because it just feels like those PTW "free" games on a mobile ap that means whoever has the biggest wallet wins. 3.) i enjoy playing franchise mode 4.) i play on simulation 5.) I dont use the sticks for much of the hitting or ball placements except in rare occasions as its just to much to relearn all the time Its a solid football game. Its far from perfect and there can be a lot of things that could be improved, but its got the players in the NFL, its got stats, whether you agree with them or not is subjective, tit plays well. I run the game on my laptop and i use my Refurbished deck, which the only reason i even got it was the sale price and the additional 20% refurbished version was a steal for this madden game. I do have to run it in streaming mode but once i run it in streaming mode the deck controls work perfectly and its fantastic. Now if they made it work fully just on the Deck Alone... i feel like they might hit another market out there. I say all this so you understand, i run the game on my LAPTOP gaming computer with 16 gigs of ram a 3050 and a I5 CPU, that streams the game to my Deck and i just turn the deck to 10 fps and watts to use it as a controller only and get 6-8 hours of battery off of it and watch the game on my laptop or use an HDMI cord to plus the laptop into the TV and play it that way. I don't experience input lag, in fact this is the first madden in such a long time i can remember enjoying the running game A LOT in. Blockers picking up blocks is a huge thing. Having a shitty blocker in front of you with bad awareness or run block stats is really noticeable. (Makes me really wish they would put more love in to the full backs so that they would be as effective as they are in game but small gripe) The running in the game is just crisp. the days of tacklers just brushing against you to tackle you while engaged must have stopped a while ago. The holes open and close in zone running schemes in ways that feel like you can pick the hole and run through. The passing can seem pretty interesting as i have seen line backers vary their depth against the same play, albeit very rarely but i have seen it, and the speed of receivers and route running ability is still pretty damn paramount. I quite enjoy taking the game, and just playing it. Its not a game i want to buy at 70$ USD, honestly id buy it at launch if they made the single player game 30 or 40$ USD at launch and sold the multiplayer separately. Madden to me is best played in the house with people around so that if you want to talk shit or be bitter you have to do it face to face. Want to try to run out the clock? take the verbal barbs of being called all kinds of names for "not playing the game". This game is not transcendent or some kind of perfect football game by any means but for fans of teams... especially those teams that are not playing great in a season it certainly quenches the thirst for sure. I wont bu the game at full price maybe ever again, but all these reviews that say its terrible? Just don't buy it for a few years and keep playing the same one, eventually the game will feel good again. Its not an every year purchase unless you want to chase that ultimate team money sink...