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213 of 224 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not a review, just a summary of new features., June 8, 2004
As I said in the title, this is not a review. I just want to save like-minded people some time, and summarize what makes 2005 different from the 2004 title. While this isn't platform specific, the biggest upgrade this year is for the Xbox, as EA and Microsoft have finally settled, and online play has finally arrived via XBLive. I'd like to not assign stars at all, but Amazon doesn't allow for pre-release non-reviews. So I'm assigning 5 stars based on Madden 2004, and the promise of the following new features. It is not meant to be commentary about the 2005 title.
I've done this for NCAA 2005 as well, but decided to adapt it for Madden as well. Everything in here is Madden-specific.GENERAL GAMEPLAY IMPROVEMENTS:
- The hit stick: The Hit Stick is a brand-new control innovation whereby players can attempt to lay a big hit on their opponent by flicking the right stick. They are risky, as a mis-timed hit can be devastating to your defense, but it can all pay off with a huge hit and a fumble or dropped pass.
- Reworked DB play/pass defense: Rebuilt from the ground up, with a focus on man-to-man coverage. Good DBs will now blanket their receivers better than ever before, and "shut down" corners will now play as such.
- All alternate team jerseys are now available.
- Updated player models for more intense realism.
- Reworked stadiums, fans, and environmental graphics.
- New running animations. "Over 1000 new animations added." FRANCHISE MODE IMPROVEMENTS:
- Restricted Free Agents - Allow your young guys to test Restricted Free Agency.
- Preseason Position Battles - Let two players who are similar in talent battle it out for the starting job.
- Player Personalities - Players react to everything that happens to them and if things get really bad for them, they demand a trade. If you're not throwing the ball to your star receiver, you'll hear about it.
- Franchise Tags - Tag players who refuse to re-sign with your team.
- New Realistic Off-season Free Agency - Players no longer only care about money. They now look at your team, the players you have, your team prestige and lots of other factors.
- Weekly Game-plan - Your coordinators provide you with a game-plan each week that contains keys to stop your upcoming opponents.
- NFL Icons - They've acknowledged the stars in the NFL and they become Icons in your Franchise. These players influence free agents and affect morale if something happens to them.
- Practice in Franchise - You can now practice with your current franchise team.
- Improved Team Management - Teams intelligently manage their rosters now. They cut dead weight and sign regular season free agents.
- Name Team Captains - You can now name your team captains every year in Franchise.
- Rivalries - Rivalries are a new addition to Franchise this year.
- Team Prestige - A new aspect of Franchise is prestige. Turn a perennial loser around to become a true powerhouse.
- In-Season Player Progression - Players now progress based on how well they're doing during the season. Breakout players are rewarded for their performance.
- Improved Draft - A ticker, announcer and trading during the draft highlight our draft improvements.
- Change Player Positions - You can change the positions of players in Franchise every season now.
- Storyline Central is a new addition to Franchise Mode this year that focuses on every story that is at the forefront in the NFL. The stories around your team now impact your team. If the rookie RB is pushing the veteran for playing time but not getting it, his morale will drop and it will affect his performance. You hear about the stories three different ways.
1) Newspaper. Every team in Franchise has a newspaper from their local city that discusses only the stories that pertain to that team. We also feature USA Today, which is the franchise's national newspaper. In USA Today, the most important stories from the entire NFL appear.
2) EA Sports Radio. They've added sports talk radio to Franchise, where host Tony Bruno breaks down the week's biggest stories. Each week's show includes call-ins, coach and player interviews, trivia questions and from time to time, Tony will rant about important issues in the NFL.
3) Email. Every week on your PDA, you'll receive emails about everything going on with your team. You will receive emails from players, coaches, general managers, the PR department, etc.
- Create-a-fan: Create your own dedicated crazy fans. To be included during game-time celebratory animations. ONLINE PLAY IMPROVEMENTS:
- Opponent scouting: They've added a new scouting report that allows you to check any player's (online) tendencies. You can look at their favorite playbook and formation, as well as look at how much they no-huddle, call hot routes, and audible. It's meant to try and cut down on the number of games wasted to opposition that cheats or otherwise plays in a manner you're not interested in.
- Quick tournaments: 4 or 8 player tournaments built right into the online system.
- Even team mode: An option that will allow an even playing field, regardless of the 'real world' strengths and weaknesses of two programs/teams.
- Improved leaderboards.
- "Rushing Attack" mini-game, as defined above.
- EA Messenger: Track dozens of friends online. That's all I've come across so far, but it's a factual aggregation of information, all directly from the source. Either Electronic Arts, and/or Phil Frazier the line producer via an interview on EASports, much of the info is paraphrased or even partially or wholly quoted. None of this comes through third parties, or speculation. Given that, this looks to be one of the biggest leaps forward this franchise has enjoyed in some time. Particularly for Xbox fans as they finally get online play, but really for everyone. But enough, I now return you to your regularly scheduled, "tHiS gAMe iz dA bOMb!" 'reviews'.
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79 of 94 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
an honest review...., August 13, 2004
Fun:5.0 out of 5 stars
ok people....let's clarify something, I am not here to bash anyone's game. I am simply writing a review with my honest opinion. Upon doing so, I will be comparing Madden to NFL 2K5 since everyone seems to think ESPN has knocked MADDEN off the top. here we go..........
First, both games are VERY good. No questions reagrding that. Simply a fact! I firmly believe that ESPN got more hype because of the price and the pre-realease, if you will. For the price, the game is excellent. Simply because we all want to spend less.
ESPN gets kudos for the graphics of the overall game. Madden could take a few pointers from this aspect of ESPN. Some of Madden's players look like they have their shirts on too tight (literally). The players look more realsitic in Madden than they ever have. But, ESPN has great graphics with life-like looking players.
Graphics winner: ESPN
Next is presentation. The presentation of ESPN simply beats Madden hands down. The fact that you can watch ESPN and the highlights of the games is very nice to add to a game for football lovers. Madden really has added nothing to compete with this until this 2005 release. The Bruno show has a nice little touch to this game, it's more personal with interviews with actual players and their real voices, real call-ins from listeners to the show, and Bruno even talks about your teams progress and news around the league. This helped Madden out in a large way, BUT, ESPN still comes out victorious. The little things ESPN added such as measuring for close first downs, panning over to the bench seeing the player talk on the phone to the upstairs booth, and a player holding a number one up and saying "hi, mom!", is a nice touch, but not mandatory. But the whole watching ESPN as if it were the show itself and the highlights, news, injuries, signings, and scores with stats shown as they are on the real show, is simply the best feature ESPN has to offer and is the main reason for my choice on the presentation.
Presentation winner: ESPN
Next is gameplay. One word...MADDEN! ESPN cannot contend with the gameplay of Madden. It just can't be done. When you think Madden, you think football! Why? Because the man KNOWS football. The passing is very good, the running is decent, and the added new feature of kicking a game winning field goal is at its finest. ESPN's kicking is horid. One swing up the bar and your kick is off, not to mention the arrow for your direction moves while you are kicking the ball, which is quite absurd. Madden offers the 3 action sequence for kicking, which is a lot better and more realistic. Hit X to start it, hit X to get high power, hit X again to get accuracy. In the game winning field goal of Madden, your view is directly behind the kicker, your heart pounds (the controller beats for you) and you hear a heartbeat for it, then you kick as you normally do and the entire play then is in all slow motion. Very nice feature they added there. The passing game is better because when you drill a pass, it is literally drilled as it should be. ESPN has a small drilling of the ball, but still seems to float longer. Rushing is pretty equal for both games. The defense options alone for Madden are out of this world. You have the new hit-stick which can lay your opponent out on the grass. Plus all the additional options for coverage and linebacker assignments and front line assignments makes playing defense so much more fun and realistic. The punt returning and kick returning are much better in Madden. ESPN only lets you get about 5 yards on a punt return and an average kick return on kickoffs, I have yet to break one! Madden is more realistic because if you follow correct blocks, it can spring you...you know, like REAL football. Now the movements of the players are a bit more realistic on ESPN versus Madden. The crowd has better scenes in ESPN, but Madden has create-a-fan, which I think is better, even though the scene shots aren't all that great. When it comes to maintaining a team, they are both identical. ESPN does have the historic games mode where you can play actual games like "The Ice Bowl", "The Catch", etc., but Madden has something similar on the collector's edition. The only thing with ESPN having this is that it was a clear rip off from EA Sports College Football. One thing I did like about the punting on ESPN was the skycam view. Madden really needs to adopt this. Not that it is a neccesity, but a nice add-on. ESPN has it where you can actually train during the week before a game, lifting weights, watching game film, etc. Madden has the classic rushing attack, precision passing, etc., which gives ESPN a better heads up on this as well. My question is: Do you really want to play a game to be watching sportscenter and having your player lift weights? That's just a little much for a video game. This is why I give Madden the overall victory here. Madden is more about gameplay than features and presentation. Granted, if the two company's were to team up on this, they would make one heck of a game. But, as a true football fan, I understand that it's more about the actual game of football than the little extras that can be added to fool those into thinking that a game is better. ESPN is a great game, especially for the price, but Madden wins this hands down. As I said previously, I believe the hype for ESPN came solely from the price of the game. If you release ESPN the SAME DAY as Madden and make it $50, it wouldn't even be thought of. ESPN did market it well in bringing it out earlier and lowering the price. But, sorry ESPN.....Madden gets my vote.
Final Round results: Madden with a late round T.K.O.
Oh and P.S.- Madden has NFL STREET in the special features section, which allows you to play the actual game, not in its entirety, but enough to tide you over until NFL STREET 2 comes out!
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Different this year, but still good, August 16, 2004
Fun:4.0 out of 5 stars
From Madden 2003 to Madden 2004 I felt like very little changed, and in 2004 we got Franchise Mode. That was fun with all its bells and whistles, but for those of us who only buy one game a year, and play it anxiously for 12 months and awaiting the next installment, it truly only provided for about 9 months worth of fun.
So here I was awaiting 2005. With all its bells and whistles, and claims of a better defense, I was excited.
The first thing that truly rocks about the defense is the ability to pick the defense for each player. I am a huge Bengals fan and was able to hold Ricky Williams to 8 yards of rushing in Miami, and I attribute that to this new defensive mode. Now, that is kinda unrealistic, but at the same time its great for me!!!
The hit stick is a lot more easier said than done. Half the time I found myself completely missing the guy I was trying to hit, or I would crush him, yet he still wouldn't fumble. Here and there you get lucky and nail em at the right time and the ball flies out, but its not that often.
The graphics are better, and the definition and body tone is good, however the players often times run through each other on the cut screens. That looks very Madden 2001 ish, but that's okay as long as it doesn't happen in the gameplay.
I love the storyline mode. That is very cool The email's from players are fun, and the Newspaper articles are awesome. The radio show is cool.
The biggest dissapointment has to be with the music. Usually there are a few decent songs chosen, but this year it just sucks! Way too many cheesy punk/pop songs, and rap songs. Wouldn't that be great if in 2006 they stuck to one style, and made it like a classic rock lineup?
Lastly, hopefully next year they will change the cut screen at the end of the game. That has been the same for 2 years now!
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