My dude puts up something like 350 yards and 4 TDs in the second half en route to a blowout to win the national championship, and the following offseason, Old-School Coach comes over to tell me that Tommy is coming in as the starter because 'he's a better fit for the offense,' and perhaps I could consider changing positions to play my senior season or enter the draft. It's the national championship game, and Tommy put up three points in the first half. For context, we'd been part of a weird, alternating, dual-starter system the whole season, and every game my created player started, he put up sick numbers in blowout victories. I would've probably enjoyed it more if some of the things in the story didn't feel like forced left turns that made my eyes roll into the back of my head.įor example, there are several moments when my created quarterback has to take over for my frenemy/rival/brother-figure Tommy at QB when his heart condition flares up and makes it too difficult for him to play. At times, it was a heavy slog through a storm of football clichés, like the Old-School Coach Who Doesn't Believe in You and Time To Prove You Still Have It. The overall storytelling in Face of the Franchise was generally fun and engaging, but it was also insulting to me as both an experienced football fan and someone who absorbs all manner of tales. Each response can lead to certain boosts (or subtractions) to the attributes to your player and others. Instead of playing every game and going through every practice every week of the season, Face of the Franchise focuses on playing key games and moments, and choosing dialogue paths during cinematics that can influence the type of player you'll be and the kind of personality you'll have. It couldn't help but hear a few faint echoes alluding to Jackson's experience during several trips in the game's retooled story/career mode called Face of the Franchise, which now takes you through a season of high school, two quick seasons of college football, the NFL combine, and what was, for me, a short-ish NFL career en route to the Hall of Fame. To those reading this who don't follow sports, yes, that's a thing. Jackson, who has played QB his whole life, had been infamously asked if he would consider a shift to another position during the draft process. I've already stated my belief that a game's cover athlete is indicative of where that year's game is trying to go, and Madden 21 can't do much better than Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson, the reigning NFL MVP who has evolved into one of the avatars of newer, modernized and diverse football thought as well as one of the faces behind the changing narrative of the Black quarterback, a decades-long odyssey that has involved everything from questioned intelligence to coded language in an attempt to steer them to play another position.

The people of 'sports nation' need places to go, and for better and worse, Madden 21 does its best to give them a place worth visiting. We are in a world where every day for the past few months, sports networks have been rebroadcasting football games from the past with the knowledge that people will watch them, just to experience the spectacle of football in stadiums packed with fans. Madden NFL 21 arrives to us in a sports maelstrom of social-justice boycotting and pandemic-induced uncertainty, which - ready or not - makes its release one of the most important in the franchise's history.

Madden nfl 21 ps5 review