Microsoft NFL Fever 2004 X Box Sports Review

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Value Rating
 0 of 5

Visitors rate this review
4.50 of 5,
2 votes

Price Paid:  $49.00 from eb games

Summary:
Once again football returns and fever is back for one mo gin. Fever is the first party football game for microsoft. It delivers in the graphics department but comes short on gameplay. I belive next year the fever people will get the gameplay right because there graphics are the best next to espn football. I had fun with this game and its hours upon hours of fun. it's a great game the aerial bomb nothing is better than fevers it's a graceful rise and downward spiral to football extasy. The best feature was probably the way you can see your players progress as you go through dynasty. It's a great realistic feature.

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Value Rating
 0 of 5

Visitors rate this review
5.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $45.00 from Babbages

Summary:
Another year of football on the Xbox means another uphill climb for the Fever franchise versus the seasoned veterans Madden and ESPN. With Electronic Arts opting not to include online play in Madden 2004, the door was wide open for Fever to step in and gain the respect of the hardcore online gamers. When the improvements from the previous year are the least of the group, it’s hard to get even a toe through the door.

Live:
The saving grace for NFL Fever 2004 is the addition of the XSN Sports Network to Live. Before even accessing XSN it’s required to register online at the XSN website xsnsports.com. Once registered and firmly planted in front of the television again, a bright future for sports video games is unveiled. Instead of merely playing opponents and gathering random stats, entire leagues can be formed and played out with full stat tracking and message posting. Another step towards bridging the gap between consoles and PC gaming has been fulfilled.

Outside of XSN, standard one-on-one games can be played and stats tracked, with updated rosters available for download as of mid August at the time of this review.

Suggestions:
Microsoft needs to take a step back and focus their efforts on the basic gameplay elements. Get the physics of the players and their AI corrected before messing with anything else. If they can’t do this then Fever might as well take the full turn towards an arcade experience. In addition, many more animations need to be included to stretch the variety. This can be accomplished by bringing in a few NFL players on board to spend a week doing nothing but motion capturing.

Add to your Collection?
I’d recommend picking up Fever for the XSN leagues but that would be wasted with the mediocre, seen-it-all-before gameplay. Microsoft really dropped the ball on stealing a portion of the growing number of online football gamers from ESPN and in my opinion, has left the future of this franchise in jeopardy.

Overall Rating
 3 of 5

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $10.00 from Rented

Summary:
NFL Fever is back. 2004 offers better defense A.I., new read and lead passing and the most robust online experience ever for a football game. Too bad the game doesn't play as well as the new boasts the game offers. It's still a few steps behind Sega and E.A.'s series. Casual fans will have lots to like, hardcore football fans will turn it off at the end of the 1st quarter.

Overall Rating
 1 of 5

Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5,
2 votes

Summary:
This is the worst football game on the market today. Despite the poor reviews at sites like IGN and Gamespot, I decided to try it out for myself. If anything I think they were generous in their poor reviews, because this game blows.

My copy is going on eBay right away. Go rent Fever and Madden or NFL2K, play them back to back. You will never load up Fever again, I assure you.

Overall Rating
 4 of 5

Summary:
I have no idea why some mags/and reviewers say this game is not all that. I bought this game to find out for myself and i must say this is a very good game, I will even say in some ways more fun and xciting to play over my madden '04 copy. Even the graphics and the stadium enviorments really are outstanding in my opinion. I'll just say this don't believe the bad reviews at least try this game i'm sure fever '04 will surprise many people how much fun it is and also it's not the same game Microsoft really worked on this game and it shows, I like this game.