Madden 25 Ultimate Team

Ultimate Team takes on a different look in Madden 25 with the addition of Team Chemistry, Seasons, and a few others. These new elements may change the way users set up line-ups and plan their strategy for this game mode.

There are 4 chemistry styles for both offense and defense. On offense there is Short Pass, Long Pass, Ground & Pound, and Speed Run. On defense there is Zone D, Man D, Pass Rush, and Run Stuff. Upon starting this game mode you will have to choose a captain along with the play style that comes with him. Although you can change it later, it is better to try to choose one to build your team around. You will also be able to choose a 2nd chemistry (a defensive one if you choose offensive and vice versa) when you reach a team skill of at least 85. By increasing your team chemistry and starting players with the same style, you will be able to unlock team bonuses that will boost some ratings (for example, the run speed chemistry boost elusiveness and run blocking).

1st Ultimate Team Play Through

Head-to-Head seasons are similar to season play in NCAA Football 14. You play 10 game seasons to try and make a deep playoff run and win the super bowl (there are coin prizes for how far you go). I was able to make the playoffs in my first season with a 5-5 record (see photo). I will admit that I tried to

cheese and it didn’t work for me, also my defensive players were pretty crappy in the beginning (which led me to a pretty good pack opening). The best line-up button now looks in your entire roster (including reserves) to fill in players for your line-up. The only issue is that it ignores your team chemistry, so minor tweaks will still be needed.

Packs are set up the same as NCAA Football 14 as well. Bundles are not sold for coins which have been previously rumored and at the moment, All-pro packs (limit to 5) have been seen and along with a fairly cheap gold upgrade pack (limit to one). Getting the gold upgrade pack is essential to upgrading your team pretty early on but was pretty useless for me. If you have the cash open a pro bundle, it will help. If you are low on funds, auctions, trades, and doing solo challenges for coins will help you find the players you are looking for (I earned some special packs that landed me Barry Sanders and Walter Payton).

Here are some other tips to get you started:

- Hold off playing Head-to-Head matches unless you are really good or you are playing a friend with a similarly matched team. Most people have team skills in 80s already.

-Solo challenges are an easy way to earn currency and grab some better cards as well as game experience.

-Keep an eye out on the auctions. You might be able to land some cheap players and sell some of your own for coins. Don’t forget about trades.

Be sure to check out the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/gaming1hunnit for more updates.

Madden 25 - Run Free

Madden 25 releases today on current generation consoles. EA has brought in a few features like the return of Owner Mode. Some of the running game plays model that of NCAA Football 14 with option offenses and pistol formation. The new Precision Modifier allows users to pull off a variation of moves to trick and evade defenders. Sometimes moves get linked together and the ball carrier gains some extra yards. Option offenses and the precision modifier makes running the ball a bit easy, in fact maybe too easy (even on All-Madden). Even with normal run game, it can seem like cake to average 5+ yards a carry.

The Infinity Engine adjustments seem to flow a bit better (on current gen console, I cannot imagine the next gen experience) but there are still weird glitches the tackles look like a pile of players with epilepsy and on other occasions defenders glide across the screen like they have some gravitational pull to the ball. The inconsistency of how the game runs leaves a bit of parody which can either be extremely awesome or depressingly annoying but doesn’t take the fun out of the experience.

The re-vamped Owner Mode allows for a lot of options that effect how your franchise goes. It may sometimes feel like you are so buried in menus (dealing with contracts, prices, stadium upgrades, and the media) that you feel like you’re either missing something or you don’t care until it affects the franchise. Overall, there are enough things to do in Owner Mode to keep you busy (and you should be if you are going to run the NFL’s best team).

This 25^th anniversary edition of Madden still has a lot of the common Madden bugs in previous years but with the improvements to the run game they have gotten a step closer in mastering the real life action (although they probably will never get to that point). I will probably try to get my copy by the end of the week and get some more information to you on Owner Mode and Ultimate Team. Madden 25 gets a thumbs up from me so go out and grab a copy.

NCAA Football 14 Ultimate Team - Disappointing

NCAA Football 14 Ultimate Team doesn’t compare to previous UT modes in other games. In fact, this one is pretty disappointing. You would think that it would be close to the same caliber as Madden’s UT but it lacks some of the same features. It can still be an addicting game mode despite EA having left out some things.

Friends/Trading – This is the most disappointing thing in the game mode by far. You don’t have the ability to trade cards or play your friends directly. I could see reasons for not letting people trade cards (people would cheese on getting the collections and undoubtedly stack teams across gamer tags). Why take away being able to challenge your friends? You probably have that one friend that is always bragging about how ultimate is UT team is and now you won’t get to shut him up because you will probably never play him (unless of course you spend hours trying to get into the same game with him) .

Packs – What is with not mixing up the cards included in Gold Starter packs? Just about every single pack opening I’ve seen across YouTube for Gold Packs have the same players. I opened a few myself and you guess it, the SAME players. As if I wanted to play with the same cards that everyone else will have. All-American Packs seem to have the most random cards and it took me about 10+ packs before I finally got an Award Winning Elite (Red) and upgrade some positions.

Collectables – Other than the Heisman Hopeful players many of the collectable seem useless.  Heisman and/or Legendary (blue) cards are used with these collectables to unlock Heisman Trophy winner but don’t seem to serve any other purpose.

Heisman Trophy Winners – To unlock Heisman Trophy Winner you basically have to go through a UT version of the previous Heisman Hopeful mode. The way I understand it you need the Heisman Hopeful and Nickname collectible (both blue). These get consumed into your collections for and Upgraded Heisman Finalist card (blue) as well as unlocking the solo challenge. Beating the solo challenge will earn you the Heisman Trophy collectible card. This card and the finalist card can both be consumed into your collections for the final Heisman Trophy Winner Card (3^rd Upgrade). Yea, like UT isn’t complicated enough.

This game mode appears way more challenging than it really is. If you are looking for specific cards your best bet is to try to find them in auctions (beware of paying too much if you don’t have the coins). The 3-min quarters in head-to-head seasons is a competition of who can cheese the most before game ends (no one seems to punt, ever). Thanks, for making this so annoying that it is addicting enough not to put down because I want to win and truly have an Ultimate Team.

1st Dynasty Mode - NCAA Football 14

Dynasty Mode is still my favorite game mode in NCAA Football 14. You get to take on the coaching responsibilities of any team, recruit players, and most importantly create and execute your game plan on game day. I have spent hours in this game mode already and I will probably start another offline and online dynasty now that I am more aware of some minor mistakes Ive made. I am going to go over my first season journey with the Oregon Ducks.

First are the coach skills. The different coach skills can have impacts on how your season turns out through recruiting and player performance on the field. Starting from the bottom, I decided to focus many of my earned XP on recruiting and it certainly helped. I had minimal trouble earning enough XP per game to gain the coach skills I wanted faster. Paying attention to the coach XP goals is important to gaining your coach skills. Whatever skills you end up choosing should fit whatever play-style you decided to run. Oregon is a pretty great program already and my coach skill decisions for OC/DC became vital assets in the bigger ranked games. Checking out future opponents and planned recruiting moves really helped me when I became a bit indecisive.

Next is recruiting. Recruiting is the most addictive part of Dynasty Mode and really takes some planning (Check out my previous post on Power Recruiting basics). By seasons end I was able to land two 5-star recruits, a 4 star and handful of 3s, 2s, and 1s. I was overwhelmed by the CPU moves by seasons end. No matter how hard I tried I ended up wasting resources because some programs were able to allocate more points than I could offer and maxed out the bonuses (this is why the coach skills are important). For some reason many recruits did not want to play too far from home (bout 80%) and eventually was the critical deal breaker in recruiting battles. I ended up having to scramble at the end of the season to meet the teams needs as I horribly lost many recruiting battles after it seemed like other schools were getting significant bonuses I couldn’t match (I honestly thought that schools were secretly offering cars or something). I made attempts to gameplan for the recruit visit bonuses but some games were unpredictable thus I lost out on those points. I had a Top CB visit when my secondary a decent game but had he visited a week early when they pulled off 4 INTs, he probably would have committed to Oregon.  I will say that handing out scholarships early, targeting recruits near you state (pipeline states), and the bonuses off visits (significant if you plan well) help. It is tough to gain ground on recruits that seem disinterested from week 1, but allocating enough points, bonuses from recruit priorities will help but realize when you maybe wasting time.

I managed to go undefeated and win the BCS championship barely escaping Ohio State. I don’t think I would’ve been in the title game had I not made my schedule tougher and had some luck with Alabama choking against Georgia. My players won many awards but no Heisman and I sent 5+ guys to the NFL.

I would have liked better luck at recruiting than I did (wasnt terrible but I had Oregon, don’t need many guys) as it seemed like the CPU cheeses with getting some players. Damage control and proper planning allowed me to keep minor missteps from becoming negative impacts to my squad. Hopefully this post aids you in your dynasty. I might decide to upload a journey through dynasty mode via YouTube in the future so you can actually see these things.

NCAA Football 14 – Power Recruiting Tips

NCAA Football 14 has brought a new Power Recruiting system to Dynasty Mode. This uses a point system for week to week to gain a recruits interest in your school. You can check your recruiting board to allocate points to each recruit per week. You start out with 5,000 points as a base with a 500 point player cap per week (10,000 points are given in the off season without a player cap). Other things like scouting and offering scholarships also use points so managing them is important. Checking the feedback on each recruit will help you decide how to allocate your resources and plan for things like visits.

This may seem like recruiting will be easy but it isn’t. It can be difficult to keep track of the progress or lack of progress you are making on your recruits. Here are some tips I found that might be helpful:

Coach Skills – Recruiting coach skills may help you gain more points to allocate each week. Games can also help you gain bonus points based on player performances so adjusting your game plan may be key.

Point Allocation – Focusing more attention on big recruits early may help you sign them or keep you in the running. Allocate points to top recruits (one in which your school isn’t on their radar) early and often may help you gain ground in signing them. Offer scholarships to your top 10 or so recruits early.

Bonuses – Bonus points make a difference.  Current player performances (ex. WR catches), same play-style, and visits all can gain you point points for your recruits be mindful of these.

Deal Breakers – Be aware of deal breakers that may cause a recruit to lose interest in your school quickly. Dump guys you are not gaining ground on unless you want to waste resources to make up drastic differences, you may miss out on other recruits though.

Visits – These are important. Recruits only visit 5 schools. Bonus points can be earned through complementary visits (ex. QB & T vising on the same day rather than a QB & QB as this will lose you points) and great current-player performances on that gameday. Plan out when guys will visit and game plan for bonus points.

Think like the CPU – It will seem like the CPU is cheesing by maxing out the number of points they can on top recruits per week or through bonuses. You can do the same.

Hopefully these things will help you recruit players that you need for team in NCAA Football 14. It does take a bit of planning and time but have fun with it. For some more in-depth information on this game mode check out:  http://www.easports.com/ncaa-football/news-updates-gameplay

Ultimate Team Basics

Ultimate Team has become one of the most popular game modes to you in various sports games including Madden, Fifa, and recently NCAA Football 14. It allows you to assemble your dream roster or “ultimate team” of players to compete against other players and complete challenges. Not only do you get to pick up players but you can also determine playbooks and uniforms. Additionally you can take part in collections where you collect players to access more exclusive content for your team.

This all sounds fun but when you first launch game mode is like getting into a pool when you don’t know how to swim and someone floats you do the deep end and leaves you there saying “gon’ learn today”.

First, they give you everything you need to play your first game, which is much like giving you a bunch of sticks and telling you to make a fire. It may take a bit to organize your team but before tackling your first game here are some tips.

Earn coins – Getting enough coins will help you get the players that you want via store, packs, and auctions.

Auctions – Spend some time selling players that wont fit on your team (even rare cards) for coins then buy players that you want on your team.

Find players that complement your play-style or game plan – Most of the time finding players that complement your game plan give you more chances at success.

Be aware of consumables  - Consumables are useful cards that will help you. Always look out for things you might need and things you don’t.

Collectables – Collectables are a good source for collecting more rare items that could be used or sold for another high profile item you might want.

Now it make take some time to figure out these systems and develop a plan to get the things you want for your ultimate team but once you get the hang of it, it can become addicting. Soon you will be on to having your ultimate team and crushing the competition with you favorite players.

Comment with some of your favorite players to use in UT, and if you have any questions about getting started.