Graphics: ****
Spectacular! Outstanding! Unbelievable! Awesome! Excellent! Perfect! The players look real. The stadiums look almost-real. (Not perfect- Heinz Field has a poster of Pittsburgh outside of one end and there aren’t any ramps on one side of it, but overlook it.) Even the Create-a-Teams and their logos and uniforms look real. This is exactly what “next-generation graphics” are supposed to be. Fantastic! Incredible!
Sound: *1/2
Well, the hits and crashes do sound real, but the crowd doesn’t. It has sounds of “Yeah” or “Oh” repeated over and over at times. It sounds fake. Sometimes Madden will say the same phrase five plays in a row. The music is pretty good, although some stadium music is from last year’s version. A below-average effort.
Gameplay: ****
It can’t be beat! You have full control over any player, including a blocker if you wish, and you can even make amazing sideline dives for touchdowns and grab tipped passes for your own Immaculate Reception. The passing game is so good, you won’t want to run, until you do. And then you realize how great the running game is! Stiff-arms, jumps, and dives? Wow!
Controls: ***1/2
You have full control over any player, as I just mentioned, to do numerous things, such as ripping the ball out from an opponent, shifting the line, calling different audibles, pump-faking, diving, jumping, stiff-arming, sprinting, blocking, tipping, and even showboating! All at the same time! One complaint: if you have the ball and are sprinting with your thumb on A, you can’t switch to the C-Stick to stiff-arm, but that’s only minor, for a loss of half a star.
Difficulty: *1/2
It really depends on what team you’re using and what level of computer you’re playing. It’s very easy if you create perfect players and play against Rookie level CPU, as I do, but if you’re the Bengals against the All-Madden level of the CPU using the Rams, you’ll get beat. Kicking is a bit more challenging, but once you learn it, it’s a piece of cake. Not very hard, really.
Create-a-Team Mode: ****
Superb! I could go on forever about
this mode, where you make your own team, choose a NFL team’s roster to
use, choose colors and styles for the uniform from the helmet to the socks,
choose from 55+ logos and 5+
stadiums, make your team name (some
team names can actually be said by Pat Summerall, one of the two
announcers, and the referees during
the game, including team names that aren’t even given as suggestions for
the logos, like Sharks), and location and climate, and put this team into
a season or franchise or even exhibition mode. Beautiful and excellent!
Two-minute Drill Mode: ***1/2
Another great mode for this game only,
the Two-minute Drill lets you have three timeouts from your own 20 with
2:00 to go, and you must try to score. You choose your own team and the
opposing team and play on the road. You get points on a different points
scale for each play that is called, from 0 to 3500+ for a long
touchdown. If you score a TD or field
goal you get the ball back at your own 20 and keep going. A turnover ends
the game, as does not converting on fourth down or missing a field goal,
or getting sacked for a safety. After time is up or the game ends otherwise,
your points are totaled up, bonus points are added if you played a harder
CPU level, and you see if you made the high score. Four players can play
this mode. My only complaint would be losing the ball on a turnover. I
guess it’s only right, but one bad pass or tip of a pass ends a game that
could be going so well. One tip: always go for two if you know a good play
that will work even half the time. Two completed two-point conversions
equal five extra points. That means you can rack up a lot by going for
two and getting it most of the time.
Training Mode: **
Ever want to learn more about I-formations
and corner routes? Then this mode is for you. You even get points towards
your Madden cards for your profile in this mode. Madden will teach you
how to successfully run a certain play. After a demonstration, you try
to pick up some yardage, or even break it open for a 30-yard
touchdown! But some downsides: you
can’t try each play more than five times for Madden card points, you can
only throw to the certain receiver(s) that Madden mentioned and that have
their routes marked orange if you want points, and you can’t run a QB draw
for a TD on a pass if you want points. Good features? You get maybe 190+
points if you try ‘em all, you get good practice, you can skip Madden’s
speeches if you want to play fast, and you can get bonus points by making
moves like jumps, stiff-arms, and dives. A good-and-bad mode.
Custom League: ***
In this mode you make your own league
and play games between your own select group of teams (from 4 to 16) and
play for the championship! This is great if you have a whole bunch of friends
who want to play in a
league only against each other. You
can have four or eight playoff teams, depending on how many are in the
league, and can play on a round robin
or double round robin schedule, which means you play every team in the
league, one or two times. I wish there could be divisions, conferences,
and schedules related to your
division and conference, which could
promote rivalries, but they don’t have that. It would also be nice to be
able to simulate a whole bunch of games at once if you want computer teams
to fill up part of your league, if they’re playing each other. You can
forfeit games, but why? Offering draws would be nice, especially with a
rule that a computer with the same or worse record than yours will accept
it but one with a better record won’t. But that’s minor. You can even have
a fantasy draft of the best players in the league being picked by each
team in a draft before the season starts. You then have the playoffs as
well. Overall, a great mode.
Tournament: **1/2
This is like the custom league, only with playoff games instead of a season. You can play single or double elimination, with double letting a team lose once and still be alive, as long as they then win through the losers’ bracket to get back to the winners’ bracket. Not as good as the custom league, but still good.
Franchise: ***1/2
This is one of the best modes in this
game, letting you make your own coach, use your Create-a-Team if you
wish, make salary cap, trade, and free
agent decisions, and even draft players after the season is over. You can
control your team for 30 seasons. Multiple users can play at once. Some
downfalls: you can’t control computer trades, which means you can’t get
Brett Favre for Raleigh Roundtree. You also can’t create players in this
mode. But in Season mode...
Season: ***1/2
... you can do those things for a first
season, and then make your season become Franchise mode after the
first season. That makes Season mode
a great place to start out. You can make perfect players and build up
your team, while hurting other teams,
and make your team all ready for the Franchise mode. That makes
Season mode great in its own way. Its
only downfalls are the inability to trade for draft picks in that first
season, having a coach you may not
want, and that it may make things a little too easy on you. But that’s
only minor too.
Madden Cards: ***
These cards are won by completing many
mini-tasks during games and winning points by completing them.
You then use these points to purchase
a pack of cards (100 per pack). After doing so, you may use these
cards during games, trade with another
user (you must have a profile for this mode, and so must another user if
you wish to trade or risk cards), or risk cards in a game against another
user, with the winner taking
all. Some are meaningless cards like
Matt Hasselbeck’s ratings receiving a 25% boost for one play, to getting
unlimited timeouts or a 5th down, unlocking a perfect team, unlocking a
stadium, bringing back an old-time player with great rankings, or many
other awesome things. I like those rare good cards, but those other meaningless
ones are more frequent. They are rated gold, silver, and bronze by how
long or how useful the card actually is, with some cards being available
in all three categories, such as 5th down. It can be bronze (one play),
silver (one quarter) or gold (one half). That explains the usefulness of
each card. You
can also view records (like longest
pass and stuff like that) here. A good mode on the whole.
Practice: ***1/2
Ah, one of the best parts of this game.
Practice any play with any team against any team with any play used
by the other team at any spot on the
field. That means you can practice kicking onside kicks and trying to
grab them with your opponents set up
for a deep kick. You can also try blocking a punt on your opponents’
half-yard line or go for a 65+ yard
field goal. It’s fun. One bad thing: you can’t make your own plays. In
the NFL Blitz franchise, you could make your own offensive or defensive
play. In this game, you can’t do stuff like a squib kick, an onside sneak,
a double reverse, an option play (a throw by either the running back or
a receiver), or a snap to a different player besides the QB. But that’s
only minor, as I keep saying.
Exhibition: ***1/2
Another great mode. Just play a game.
Nothing fancy here. You can set up weather, wind, and the stadium
but can’t put the wind in a certain
direction (you can’t make the wind going straight ahead or straight
against you, it may be side-to-side,
or it may be straight ahead or straight against you) or really have the
weather affect the game much, except for visibility, but that’s minor.
It’s still great.
Quick Game: ***
This is a quick way of playing between the two Super Bowl XXXV teams (Ravens and Giants) or any two teams you want as default teams to play in this game. Not bad at all.
Situation: ***1/2
This is a great mode. You can set up any type of situation possible: a big deficit for a team to come back from, a real Super Bowl-situation, a long field goal attempt to win or lose, or anything else you want. You set up the teams, home team, time, quarter, points, timeouts, and field position. Too bad they couldn’t have predetermined situations in which if you win you get Madden card points. Oh well. Only minor, of course.
User profiles: ***
Here’s your own stats and records in games you’ve played.
Settings: **1/2
Set up penalty rules, quarter lengths,
controller settings, camera settings, music and sound volume, and
other crazy stuff.
Memory Card: no stars
By this I mean how much space the game takes on your memory card, and if you wanted one thing saved from each mode, it would take you at least five memory cards. Wow! That’s $75 right there!
Replayability: ****
Sports games last forever, unlike your adventures and RPGs! I’ve even played my NES 10-Yard Fight game 15 years after it was released! This one may last as long as the GameCube as well.
Fun Factor!: ****
Hey, football’s the most fun of any
sport that is translated into a video game. In fact, it’s made for video
games. It’s something that unathletic people who can’t even jump can become
the quarterback, take the
hits, watch the replays, make your
own NFL games, and more. It’s great.
OVERALL: ****
Perfect! Not only the best football
game ever made, but the best sports game ever made. Fantastic! It’s
worth every penny, believe me. Now
I know you feel that I rig this Review because it’s a football game, but
I’m going to sometime review a different football game, which isn’t as
good. This one is the best of any
football game ever made, as I said
before. It’s NOT the best game ever (just like Pikmin and Final Fantasy
VI AREN’T!!!), and I’m not saying that
at all. But sports games last longer than adventures and RPGs, so it’s
really worth buying. You’ll want to buy at least two memory cards for it
(because a season takes up one
full card), and you’ll have dreams
about whether you should go for two or kick the extra point in your next
game. It’s addictive. It was the best
game on the GameCube, but Super Smash Bros. Melee had to come!