-
Gameplay
-
Graphics
-
Replayability
EA Sports brings one of its most successful franchise sports games to mobile platforms. Lead your NFL team to the Super Bowl one week at a time with the Solo Challenges mode or show off your Madden football skills to your Facebook friends or random players in the Head-2-Head matchup mode.
Get ready for some Madden football with the new mobile version of one of the most popular and successful EA Sports franchise games of all time. Madden NFL 25 combines the engaging virtual football game with the now defunct Madden NFL Superstars trading card game on Facebook. Once you have created a new account or synced your Facebook account with the game, you will be directed to an optional, interactive tutorial designed for you to get accustomed to game’s new Touch Controls.
Afterwards, you can select your favorite team and will be given a 26-card starter pack filled with low-rated offensive, defensive and special teams base players. As you play each game, you will earn experience points and coins, which can be used to purchase higher-rated players through card packs and auctions. You can also buy the card packs along with “limited-time offer” bundle packs, play packs and more Energy to play more games often with real money.
The game has three game modes: Solo Challenges, Practice and Head-To-Head. The Solo Challenges mode allows you to play a series of themed challenges including competing against the reigning Super Bowl champion, the 2012 Baltimore Ravens, or rising superstars from the NFL Draft Class of 2012. This mode is filled with numerous single-player objectives to increase your Madden mobile skills and free reward cards upon completing each four-game season. The Practice Game mode allows you play a full exhibition game against an NFL team, one of your Facebook friends’ customized teams or the Featured team of the week.
Before each game begins, you will have the options of setting the stadium location (Home, Away, Super Bowl), quarter length (2 ½, 3, 4 minutes) and difficulty level (Rookie, Pro, All-Pro, All-Madden). The Head-2-Head mode allows you to play a game with three-minute quarters against a Facebook user or a random opponent. This mode functions on a turn-by-turn basis and you will only get to play offensively. The plays your defense selects during your opponent’s turn on offense is solely dependent on the plays you have available.
Madden 25 mobile is a great improvement from Madden 12 for mobile platforms. As far as the gameplay is concerned, the graphics run smoother, the controls are easier to use, the play call screen is more detailed and you can see more of the field with the game’s widescreen camera view. This game uses the same tackling/Hit Stick graphics engine as seen on the PC version of Madden 07 and beyond, right down to the touchdown celebrations. The new, simplified, touch-screen controls make the game easier to play without dealing with an overhaul of on-screen action buttons.
It’s no surprise that this game uses a lot of elements from the console version such as the multi-square menu screen layout and a bottom-screen scrolling ticker displaying NFL scores and key stats from your favorite team’s most recent game, future NFL game dates and in-game tips and tricks. Madden 25 also has more to offer with its multiplayer capabilities by immersing social media and actual NFL storylines and recent milestone moments with the traditional Madden game. I like how this aspect allows users to not only play against Facebook friends and other users, but also compete and bid in real-time auctions for higher-ranked players against other fantasy owners. This game will also save your progress by automatically pausing your game anytime you exit the app.
As with every new version of Madden, with every new feature that is added, something has be taken away. In this version, the drawbacks are the lack of audibles, offensive and defensive Playmaker controls, customized hot routes and, more importantly, lack of quick loading times. While Madden 12 is only 11MB large and ran at a normal pace during gameplay, Madden 25’s massive 1.16GB plus size will come as a disadvantage to impatient users. If you haven’t played the game already, you will immediately notice that the lengthy waiting times occur before the game begins, between plays, between play calls and at the end of each quarter. Because of this issue, I would advise running this app on a mobile device with a high-powered, Quad-core processor and high memory to avoid slow waiting times and sluggish and jumpy graphics during gameplay.
Even though this game does not have the same stunning, realistic 3D graphics or next-generation presentation along with the rest of the features seen on the console version, Madden 25 still has excellent graphics, is enjoyable to play and piques mobile gamers interest by allowing them to continue to play as their favorite teams and players and make big offensive, defensive and special teams plays on the gridiron against actual opponents. This game is free to download for Android and iOS devices in their respective app stores.
App Name: Madden NFL 25
Developer: EA Sports
Market: Google Play, iTunes
Cost: Free
