Hey look! It's Madden '01 seven years later!
After 7 years... absolutely no fixes, just a new feature every year. This year, it appears that the developers decided that blocking was overrated, and reduced Off Linemen's AI to zero just for kicks and giggles. Blocks only last until your running back is handed the ball, which makes for an interesting game of "Dodge the 6 defenders" every time. Defending the pass is still laughable. Instead of actually trying to "defend" the pass, your CB will forget he's not the Wide Receiver and go into a catching animation 5 yards from the man he's supposed to be covering. Animation, animation, animation... the worst part of madden. Players are too busy going through the animation to react to anything. Once my CB went through a "scoop up the low pass" animation and didn't recover until the WR was 15 yards downfield on his way to the endzone. Once all 4 of my Def Linemen did the exact same spin and fall down animation at the same time, looking more like synchronized swimming than football.
Superstar mode remains all but worthless, with no control over your coach's playbook choices, who apparently has never seen a game of football in his life. 2nd and 15 with 4 seconds to go til halftime? Down by 3? Take a knee sounds good.... what? Even the new kicking system, which is better than simply pressing x, is flawed. As a master of Tiger Woods Golf and no stranger to a hole in one, I'm a tad dismayed to see my kicks come off as "good" time and time again. Madden is slowly becoming more and more like NFL Blitz... which is never a good thing.