It is really a shame that there is only one football video game. In 2004, Electronic Arts obtained an exclusive license from the NFL and NFLPA, essentially killing all competition for the John Madden Football series. It has been bad news ever since, and while the Madden games are rarely bad, the lack of competition from the once proud 2K series, among others, has caused the pace of innovation to stagnate and, more importantly, has locked football video games strictly into the “simulation” realm. Madden presents a fairly similar game with fairly marginal upgrades from year to year, generally using the “All-22” perspective, but the most important thing is always that official license which allows them to use real names and real statistics in the campaign.
Tecmo Super Bowl 2018 Review: the gold standard in arcade football still holds up
