Axis Football 2019

In its current state, its impossible to recommend this game at a 30$ price point. The Franchise mode is its main selling point and while it appears to have depth on the surface, it's extremely easy to manipulate the franchise features to your advantage. I started as the lowest ranked team in the league (Washington Senators) and within 3 seasons I had a Tier 1 team built and won the league championship. Draft and free agency are stacked with high rated players that the AI teams never seem to pick up and trades are easily manipulated to go in your favor. There are no bonuses that have to be paid out upon signing and you have a ridiculous amount of cap space every season. No career stats for players, either. On top of that, if you keep your training facilities well maintained you'll pretty much never have to worry about injuries. (During all the seasons I simmed through I never went into the playoffs with any injured players) Games themselves just aren't worth playing. The mechanics are sloppy at best and coach mode is just flat out broken. Most teams don't have their own home stadiums. At the beginning of each game (even in franchise mode) you have to select a stadium to play in and you have to decide on what the weather will be, so no random weather putting a damper on any aspect of your team's game plan. That being said, the game does have potential. The team names are interesting and the college-style ranking system is refreshing. Disappointed to see that the developers rush out a new version of the game every year... they could do this game a lot of justice by switching over to a 2 1/2 to 3 year release schedule. We need a non-Madden football game with a franchise mode that isn't about number crunching and endless menus, and this game could very well be it. A lot more attention needs to be paid to the finer points in this game because, while good in theory, most of the features don't stick the landing. Drop the price down to 10$ and I'll change my recommendation to a yes.

This can be a good buy, but don't expect it to be something it's not. Don't buy this game if you're looking for a graphic gameplay simulator. It's too clunky for that. Buy it if you want a franchise mode with an easy interface and a slight visual component. For years, I've been on the hunt for a front office game with a deep franchise mode, fictional leagues and decent visuals. Logos, faces, games. I'd be fine with N64 level graphics or "electronic football" from back in the day. I've played Front Office Football for years and while it's amazing in its depth, it's text-only and an eyesore. Pro Football Strategy has an excellent Tecmo-like 2D simulator you can spectate, but beyond playcalling, there's not much depth there. OOTP is working on a football game that sounds very promising, but who knows when it will come out. So I'm going with this for now. Historical career tracking for players is something they definitely need to add. I'll get by without it for now because it makes me adopt more of a "What have you done for me lately?" approach that I think is closer to the truth. The franchise mode depth and UI make Axis a good buy for me. As far as gameplay goes, there's just not enough meat on the bones. I will just simulate.

Franchise season 1 - The Portland Devilcats buy a slew of high priced free agents on the open market in a gamble to win the tier three championship and advance to tier two. Losing means my team will go bankrupt... I make it to tier two. My offseason allows me to improve slightly by uncovering a couple of hidden gems in the draft - I power through tier two and win the championship. The next offseason gifts me nothing meaningful. Season three tier one... I am undefeated halfway through the season when I realize that my entire secondary will be gone or incredibly expensive if I win the AXIS Bowl. I trade away my starting cornerbacks, my best linebacker and my starting QB and running back as well as a D lineman and my best O-lineman. I also trade away every draft pick for the next two years - except the first rounders. In return I piece together a secondary of younger cheaper, but still talented fast ballers on longer contracts. I also own the first five draft picks in the next draft. After barely winning the axis bowl I drafted a generational level QB, RB, LB, O lineman, and D Lineman - and put them all on 6 year contracts. I rebuilt my entire team on the fly in the middle of a championship season and started a dynasty. It was fun. The football is almost as fun, but now I only play about 1/2 of the games and sim the rest. If this experience sounds like what you want - an arcade football game with a deep franchise mode, then I recommend Axis 2019!

This game is absolutely atrocious. I uninstalled it and requested a refund after 8 hours and was denied (gosh thanks Steam). Like many others, I really wanted this game to be an EA buster. It is not. I was not expecting graphics or glitz. I was hoping an interesting franchise mode could carry mediocre gameplay. It REALLY does not. The mechanics are not just bad, they are simply completely broken. Shame on anyone making this game out as more than it is. Shame on Steam for acting like it has a friendly refund policy. Good luck to Axis, I wanted this game to be more, I wish you the best, but at this point count me out.

I really want to like it and I kinda do but there are still too many issues for me to play it full time. One thing that really bugs me is the number of interceptions. I'm seeing at least 7 per game, and that is on the low side. Some games as many as 15. And this is not me being a bad player, I'm talking just a regular cpu vs, cpu game. QBs will generally complete anywhere from 30-80% of their passes, but the weird thing is nearly all the incompletions are from dropped passes or interceptions. Very rarely you might see an overthrow, under throw or a pass thrown out of bounds. There’s no spike to stop the clock, either. Receivers drop WAY too many passes, sometimes even when they are wide open with no defender around. It happens in real life to, but not to this degree. For some reason they still haven't corrected the offense always moving towards the same endzone that has been there for 4 years now. So if the defense intercepts the ball at the 5 yard line, do they get it there? No, they go all the way to the opposite end of the field and start their possession there. It's weird and should have been fixed years ago. Overtime is also weird. It basically just keeps adding 1 minute to the 4th quarter until the time runs out. So if it's 2nd down and the time runs out in the 4th quarter, the game just adds another minute to the clock and now it's third down. If a team scores, the game doesn't end. The other team gets the ball and it's business as usual until the time runs out. It's weird. There's also issues on punts where the receiving team's players will run into and basically intercept the punt from the punt returner. Roster management needs to be improved. Your O-line are all listed as OL, not C, G, T like they should be. Same with LB – no MLB, OLB, ILB. Same with DL – no DE or DT. Same with DB – no CB or S. Same with RB – no FB or HB. We really need the actual positions to make sure the right players are being assigned to the right spots. Ball carriers are very fragile and will drop to the ground at the slightest touch from a defender. Broken tackles don’t seem to exist in this game. I really think these are the types of things that should have been fixed before spending time on updating franchise mode. What's the point of playing a franchise if the on-field action has so many issues? For example, cpu time management. If a team is up by 20 in the 4th quarter, why are they still throwing the ball nearly every play? It makes no sense. There’s no kneel down play, so it’s either run or pass even though you should be running out the clock. The lack of a kneel down also shows up in the kicking game where returners will always try to run the ball out of the endzone even if they are 9 yards deep. Just kneel down. The slogan for Axis Football used to be “Your game, your team, your way”. It’s not really that way anymore. You’re either stuck playing the franchise the way they set it up with the weird tier system (this isn’t soccer, guys) or you run a series of exhibition games and keep track of things in Excel or some other program outside the game. Even if you did play the franchise, you’d have to keep prior season stats in Excel because you can’t see them in game. That being said, there are some things the game does well. It's a thing of beauty when the QB hits a receiver in stride with a pass, although it is rare since most times the receiver completes his route and just stands there waiting for the ball. The running game, which was a problem in prior versions is pretty good this year. It's rare to see a guy carry the ball 15 times for 8 yards. Happened a lot in prior versions. The game shows potential but after 4 years there’s still a lot to work on, and I'm starting to wonder if the lingering issues are ever going to be addressed. So my hopes for next year are: 1. Fix the offense always going toward the same endzone 2. Fix the ridiculous number of interceptions and dropped passes 3. Use actual positions instead of OL, DL, DB 4. Give us an option to play a 32 team NFL style league without the tier system

The game is a good step. I bought it to support the Devs. The game is very basic in most areas and surprisingly deep in others. Overall If you want to support the Devs for the next version Definitely pick it up. But if you looking for a Deep gameplay and teambuilding this isn't going to be for you.

So... where do I start. I guess I'll start with the franchise mode. You cannot play more than six seasons with one team. It is impossible. The game will not let you continue your franchise and will just freeze up. Not even to mention sometimes when you press "start next season" It'll bug out and you'll have the same game, and schedule as you did last year. Overall it's fun but its just extremely de-moralizing whenever you've built a juggernaut and then you have to start alllllll over again. Now, other than those annoying issues I mentioned, the franchise mode is very deep. Much faster and more organized than Madden's by a long shot. Trades can be difficult, scouting the right player so you can save money by paying a rookie as opposed to a 34 year-old veteran. It can be very strategic and may be hard at first, but is fun nonetheless. As for the gameplay, there are still some really really really annoying bugs. At kickoff, if you're not selecting the player who is receiving the ball and you're on some other player, when the kicker kicks the ball it will teleport you inside of the receiving player and force you to return a kick with a lineman who's speed is a D-. Sometimes when you pass the ball, the receiver can be wide open, and he will duck in a very strange and jacked up motion and completely miss the ball. The AI can be hard, but they don't even try to prevent 2 point conversions. Some of the tackling isn't quite there yet, but it is an improvement over '18 I would say. To summarize, if you're not to keen on spending $60 on a scripted madden game, which has been to be quite honest, terrible in recent years, and you are willing to put up with some issues until they presumably are fixed, then i recommend this game. As there are NFL mods to make it feel like the NFL.

Coaching a team in franchise mode was my goal - learning how to build a football dynasty is a lot of fun. There are one or two shortcomings, main one being (currently) that the passing game (in Coach mode) does not seem to be working correctly. Looking at some forum posts, it seems like this is about to be fixed in the latest edition coming soon. I hope so because I enjoy playing this game and if the kinks can be knocked out of it, it would be pretty addictive