Like most EA Sports games, it throws you into the action, literally, from the outset, you are placed in the last Super Bowl, Steelers vs 49ers and your goal is to win. From there you are whisked to a sleek menu system filled with a myriad of options and gameplay modes.

Off the field, the name of the game is accessibility. While series veterans will have no trouble feeling right at home on the grass, newcomers will find plenty to like and devour in the wealth of tutorials, training drills and pop up video-esque tips and tricks popping up throughout the game.

Even though budding Monday night gridiron warriors may find a lot to like in terms of the defensive side of the game, the enhanced options, focusing on the more practical side of things, are a welcome addition.

Quarterbacks can now rifle hotly contested high jump throws or low tosses for a higher percentage catch rate. High-risk run-after catches are also an option, with an added chance for athletic leaps, garnering players a highlight reel moment. Receivers can also use possession catches to give the ball a much-needed boost of protection when in the midst of heavy coverage.

"Even though budding Monday night gridiron warriors may find a lot to like in terms of the defensive side of the game, the enhanced options, focusing on the more practical side of things, are a welcome addition."

There is a wide array of offensive maneuvers this year and the handy tooltips help a great deal, not only in getting the hang of these new moves, but also countering them when on defense.

Visual splendor abounds in Madden NFL 16, which is definitely one of the most striking, in terms of graphical prowess, football games to date. From the post play details to the uniform subtleties. Unfortunately, the visuals, as advanced as they are, are still lacking in comparison to other EA Sports franchises, such as FIFA and NHL which sport near broadcast quality.

New modes are the name of the game in Madden NFL 16. One of the more interesting additions to the franchise is the Draft Champions mode. You could probably be forgiven for thinking of it as a replacement for Madden’s Ultimate Team mode, (which is still here). The major difference between the two is the fact that the Draft Champions mode is based and focuses on fantasy football.

After choosing a coach, you’ll move through 15 rounds of drafts. Each round gives you one selection of a possibility of three players, at randomized positions. The fact that different players will come up every time you do a draft means that you’ll get a completely different team every time, and trying to build the best possible team while still playing to your team’s strengths, can be addictive.

The strength of Draft Champions mode lies in the unpredictability as to which players will be available for you to select and when. Do you elect to draft that mid tier QB in Round 3, knowing that he’d be a great addition to your short passing strategy, or do you wait it out for one of the final rounds when you may get a chance at a legendary QB like Elway or Favre?

The menu interface this time around, while keeping with the precisely laid out geometric squared design that has become something of a trend lately, nonetheless, feels cleaner than last year, with main modes at the centerpiece of the menu system upon startup, whereas secondary options and modes can be accessed through the right panes. This is nice because it doesn’t immediately overwhelm you with options.

"Visual splendor abounds in Madden NFL 16, which is definitely one of the most striking, in terms of graphical prowess, football games to date, from the post play details to the uniform subtleties. "

Practice mode continues to be a viable option for trying out different scenarios and complements the Skills Trainer perfectly, where you can focus on more specific plays, such as attacking coverage and run conceptualizations.

Also one of the most notable features this year is the sheer amount of tutorials. Sure, there’s the basic stuff if you just want to get the hang of the basic gameplay, running, passing, etc. You can just learn the basics and leave it at that, but if you want more in depth info, it’s a veritable Madden-pedia, every position, what it does, recognizing whether opponents are blitzing or covering, and what kind of blitz or cover they are using.  In terms of tactical comprehensiveness, the game is no Sun Tzu, but put in enough time and effort, and you may just become something of an on field general.

Hidden away in the tutorial mode, may be one of the game’s best-kept secrets. The Gauntlet is a deeply challenging, yet addictive mode where you’re given six lives and forty levels that have progressive difficulty that range from normal training drills to boss fights involving gigantic players and hurricanes. It’s quite difficult; in fact, think of it akin to Mortal Kombat’s Tower of Pain, a true test of skill. The difficulty of the mode should be evident in the fact that last year’s Madden game featured the same mode, yet less than 200 people worldwide managed to conquer it.

Madden Ultimate Team mode functions almost exactly like the more popular FIFA incarnation of the same name. Its conception is deceptively simple; earn enough money by playing matches and completing challenges. You then spend that money on packs of cards containing shiny new players (or buy them from other players online, alternatively), and then reorganize your team so you can win more matches. It’s a vicious, (but addictive!) cycle.

Luckily, it doesn’t feel like grinding, thanks to the massive amount of content in Madden’s Ultimate Team. Wherein the FIFA version is conceptualized based on online matches, Madden’s version has over 1000 single player challenges, ranging from intercepting a pass, to winning a game where you’re playing against a team of legendary players.

"Hidden away in the tutorial mode, may be one of the game’s best-kept secrets.  The Gauntlet is a deeply challenging, yet addictive mode where you’re given six lives and forty levels that have progressive difficulty that range from normal training drills to boss fights involving gigantic players and hurricanes. "

Organizing your team is as easy as selecting the best team option and sorting your team out by best overall team, or best team based on players that suit your team’s play style. Alternatively, you can hand select each player for each position if you’re a more hands on player.

If you are the hand picker type, sorting your players has never been easier. From the binder, you can sort players by a wealth of filters, like quality, positional coverage, and even how recently you obtained them. You can even sort set items into Panini-esque books, and completing sets is satisfying and addictive.

With a focus on accessibility, and an eye for additional content, both new and fresh and old favorites, that have been updated for the new year, Madden feels like a return to form, a breath of fresh air that the series has sorely needed. More evolution than revolution, perhaps the most thought provoking question concerning this year’s Madden, is where does the series go from here, and will we be along for the ride?

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

The NPD Report for August 2015, covering hardware and software sales in the United States, have been revealed. EA’s Madden NFL 16 was the top selling game for the month and this was pretty much expected according to the NPD Group’s Liam Callahan.

“Madden NFL 16…maintains its status as a key video game franchise, ranking as the third best selling franchise to date (since 1995, when NPD began tracking VG sales).”

It should be noted that while physical sales for games on Xbox One, PS4 and Wii U were up by 34 percent, Xbox 360 and PS3 sales were down by 51 percent. “New launches collectively declined by 16 percent compared to August 2014 launches. While titles that launched in June trended favorably compared to the performance of June 2014 launches, July launches also declined by 42 percent.”

Another oddity was the presence of not one but two Call of Duty titles – Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare (10th place) and Call of Duty: Black Ops Combo Pack (eighth place). “Call of Duty has two games within the top 10 this month, with Call of Duty: Black Ops Combo Pack performing favorably with increased sales versus prior months. This may be related to the Call of Duty: Black Ops III multiplayer beta that occurred in late August across PS4, Xbox One, and PC.”

Other noteworthy highlights include Gears of War: Ultimate Edition at third place, Rare Replay at sixth place and Until Dawn at seventh place.

Supermassive’s Until Dawn may have received a strong critical response on release and debuted in a great position in the UK. However, it only managed to hit second place in sales according to Gfk Chart-Track. It was The Coalition’s Gears of War: Ultimate Edition which debuted on top in the midst of several new releases for the week.

Disney Infinity 3.0 and Madden NFL 16 also debuted in the past week at third and fourth place respectively. LEGO Jurassic World tumbled to fifth place followed by Grand Theft Auto 5 at sixth while Dishonored Definitive Edition managed to score a spot at seventh on its debut. Minecraft: PlayStation Edition, Batman: Arkham Knight and Minecraft: Xbox Edition occupied the remaining spots in the top ten.

This week’s sales should be even more interesting since games like Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain and Mad Max have released after much hype. Which one will remain supreme in the UK? We’ll find out next week so stay tuned.

While Madden NFL 16 overall seems to be a good product, and one of the better offerings from the series that we have had in a while, it also has had a troubled launch, with reports of bugs and glitches that hamper the play experience cropping up almost immediately after the game’s launch. To EA’s credit, they have responded quickly, announcing that a patch that resolves these issues will be coming soon as soon as possible.

The new patch will also break the traditional October first update cycle that previous Madden games have suffered from. The full list of fixes coming in this patch includes:

• Random encroachment coming out of the huddle
• Severe ratings regression in Franchise
• Ratings being boosted to absurd levels during Franchise games
• Broken SuperSim that gives QBs a number of carries that rivals starting running backs
• Custom playbooks not always appearing
• Draft classes that come in too high in certain attribute categories

Madden NFL 16 is out now. Stay tuned for more coverage on the game.

Look, I don’t care for Madden, I don’t care for sports games, and I don’t care for American football. But man, this new trailer for Madden NFL 16 has me in splits, and has me seriously considering buying the game this year, simply because of how great this video is.

The new trailer features Dave Franco, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Julio Jones, Rob Gronkowski, Colin Kaepernick, Antonio Brown and Rex Ryan in a live action short that simply does not take itself seriously. It injects some of the fun and charm back into a franchise that has been marked with a declining trend in recent years.

Madden NFL 16 will be out on Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and other platforms. EA Sports is promising a whole host of new features and improvements that will improve the game over its past few disappointing outings.

Stay tuned to GamingBolt for more coverage and information on the game.

As is per the course for Electronic Arts’ E3 conferences, it talked at length about its yearly sports titles which includes FIFA 16, NBA Live 16 and Madden NFL 16. Check out all of their trailers below if you happened to miss them when, say, the Twitch stream died near the end.

Perhaps the most stunning change comes by way of FIFA 16 which now sports Women’s National Teams that you can play as. Separate motion capture was done for female players and the actual in-game result is actually very well done. At some point afterwards, EA brought out football legend Pelé to speak at length about the game as well.

Check out the trailers for the respective release date of each title and let us know what you thought of the conference in the comments below. We’ll continue our E3 coverage today as Ubisoft and then eventually Sony arrive to reveal their upcoming releases. Stay tuned for more information in the meantime.

E3 is almost here, and EA’s press conference, which will be held on Monday afternoon, is just about three days away. Ahead of the conference, EA has released a full list of the games that they will be showing off at their conference, so we don’t have too many unreasonable expectations.

Of course, as always, remember the caveat- this list won’t include any surprises or ‘one more thing’ reveals (or they wouldn’t be surprises, now, would they?), so don’t be disheartened if you don’t see a game on here that you really wanted them to announce.

So personally, there are three games on there that I am even remotely interested in. Of course, things like Mass Effect 4 may (and probably will) be announced at the conference itself. E3 kicks off this Sunday. Stay tuned to GamingBolt for full coverage.

The list is:

• FIFA 16
• EA Sports FIFA for Mobile
• Madden NFL 16
• Madden NFL Mobile
• Minions Paradise
• Mirror’s Edge Catalyst
• NBA Live 16
• Need for Speed
• NHL 16
• EA Sports Rory McIlroy PGA Tour
• Star Wars: Battlefront
• Star Wars: The Old Republic

Like clockwork, EA Sports has taken the wraps off of Madden NFL 16, this year’s edition of the long running sports game franchise. The new game will, according to EA, include new visual features to enhance the game; more improvements will include new two man interactions (such as receivers and defenders now shoving off each other, or getting into more realistic scuffles), and an expansion of the multiple field cameras system from Madden NFL 15, in an effort to make the game resemble a real life broadcast more.

Long the flagship posterboy of the EA Sports brand, Madden has fallen behind in recent years, and grown completely stagnant, overtaken in terms of sales, mass appeal, critical reception, and innovation and forward movement by EA’s own FIFA franchise, as well as their other sports games to a lesser degree. Whether or not this year’s game marks a departure from, and reversal of, that trend remains to be seen.

Madden NFL 16 launches this August on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

The so called infamous Madden curse aside, being on the cover of EA’s marquee Madden NFL series is considered to be a pretty huge deal. It is also generally viewed as an endorsement of a player’s relevance, performance, and perception- who the cover athlete will be, therefore, is something that generates a fair bit of discussion each year, and is something that a fair few people seem to look forward to.

And if you were curious about the cover athletes for this year’s Madden NFL 16, the following development might (or might not, depending on where you stand with respect to the athletes in question) please you. EA has boiled down the finalists in contention for being cover athletes to a list of four.

These are:

• Rob Gronkowski (New England Patriots tight end)
• Patrick Peterson (Arizona Cardinals cornerback)
• Odell Beckham Jr. (New York Giants wide receiver)
• Antonio Brown (Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver)

You can vote for your favorite right now via Ultimate Team mode in Madden NFL 15.

Madden NFL 16 will go on sale later this year, on Xbox One and PS4, as well as last generation consoles, and the handhelds, as well. Stay tuned.