Summary

It's difficult to review a game in a series. The inevitable result is that one is forced to compare the game to previous incarnations. While this inevitably focuses on those that have played the prequels, it leaves in the cold those that are picking it up anew. This game is ONLY for those that have not played previous Maddens. I've spent the better part of the past week playing it and I've come out disgusted and frustrated by the lack of improvement over the previous game and several inexcusable steps backwards, which I will get to. Madden is a series of games that have been coming out, year-after-year, since the mid-90's. It is an enormously popular series that this year set opening-day sales records on the PS2 and XBox, and then arrived for the PC over a month later. The gist of the game is that it's a rather open-ended football simulation, with multiple different modes of play. The most involving of these is the franchise mode, in which the player controls one or more teams for up to 30 years - playing or simulating games, scouting and drafting new players, hiring and firing coaches and free agents, and setting ticket, merchandise, parking, concession and advertising prices in an attempt to make money and stay afloat financially. Your game-to-game success in franchise mode is determined by a number of factors; player ability, coach ability, and morale. (Morale is a new feature in 2005, which I will cover in the gameplay section.) If you decide to play the games, then you become a factor in the team's success. If franchise sounds too involving, the game offers quick matchups and several mini-games that will drill you on certain gameplay mechanics in order to improve your own ability to play the game - these games include such things as trying to run for as many touchdowns as possible, throw passes through hoops to hit receivers in stride, kick as many field goals as accurately as possible in a short time span, and so on. They are really little more than diversions and are included in the franchise mode in training camp, where they give you the opportunity to improve your players before the season starts. Most of the modes can be played online if that's your poison. Disclosure: I haven't tested the online portion, because in Madden 2004 you had to pay. I assume it's the same deal this year, but I have yet to test that. The online feature is a nifty one, but be prepared to deal with disconnects when you are winning, people cheating, and loutish behavior. Hey, it's the internet, right? What did you expect? There are other improvements - some are useful like the ability to switch defensive assignments prior to the play, but most are cosmetic, such as the EA Sports Radio feature, which is just kind of annoying (I'll get to that, too). Overall, the game took a step backwards. None of the recent PC versions of the game are any good, 2005 is not worth the $30 increase in price over 2004 to justify purchasing it.

Sound

The music that ships with the game is terrible. Bad rap, bad rock, bad hip-hop. Turn it off and set it to your MP3 directory. The game also comes with some announcer guy named Tony Bruno, who runs a radio show. Or at least is supposed to run a radio show. I can't tell. I'll hear an interesting segment from time-to-time (there are a lot of them), but it keeps switching back to the crappy music. I'm not sure why this is. The sounds in the game are good, as always. There seems to be a greater variety of sound clips from the announcers, but Madden still says really stupid things (like he does in real-life, I guess). Good action sounds and crowd noise, and if they patch the radio show, it could be a great feature.

Gameplay

The gameplay is wickedly different depending upon the mode in which you are playing the game. The gameplay in the actual, team vs. team game is a mixed bag. Player movement is impressively fluid and there are a variety of options over player control; you can choose to play any one of the 11 players on your side of the ball or just let the game run those players without your help. The flaw, as I see it, is the AI. On lower modes it is an incredibly easy game, and scores around 70-7 are not uncommon. There is a steep difficulty curve as you go up in difficulty, and at higher difficulties the game seems to cheat. Your receivers rarely get open in the highest, and you have about two seconds to pass before the entire defensive line collapses on you. Defenses are vicious - they learn your strategy quickly, making the classic bread-and-butter-play strategy meaningless. I've had all three linebackers line up over the TE before, because they KNOW I'm going that way (due to my over-using a certain play). And don't bother trying to stop a team from scoring with 2 minutes left in the half. They generally can't be stopped - your best bet is to just run out the clock when you have the ball. Overall, the gameplay is quite good in-game. It is only in the franchise mode where this game falters. 2004 had a train-wreck of an interface in franchise mode, as it was inexplicably programmed in Shockwave and was buggy, twitchy, and generally amateur. 2005 is far more streamlined as far as controls, and the result is a more satisfying gameplay experience at first. The "Storyline Central" feature is nifty, writing articles about your players, the team's happenings, and a couple other things. Sadly, they are all useless articles that state little more than the obvious ("Decision Time: Harrington to start at QB") with short, stupid blurbs that basically repeat the headline ("Joey Harrington won the job as the Lions' starting quarterback"). As a starting point for what to deal with, it's okay, but not great. The other tweak is player morale, and to be honest, this one had me the most excited. But they mucked this one up, too: very few of your players ever get upset, and they still sign anyway. For example, Mike McMahon, back-up quarterback for the Lions, started pouting that he wasn't starting. I traded him, he was released, and I resigned him. In all my playing, he was the only player I EVER had with low morale. Some are just content, but they're rarely unhappy. But for some reason, EA Sports decided this was a challenge upgrade and gives you two things to compensate for the morale: an indicator bar that basically tells you the minimum amount a player will sign for, and a ridiculously high salary cap. It's very hard to go over the cap (you could easily do it intentionally, but that doesn't help), and not uncommon to have $15 to $20 million in cap space. There are several advertised features that are just plain left out of the PC game. LEFT OUT!!! Did you get excited about being able to name team captains? I did! Too bad they forgot to include that. The morale, as already mentioned, doesn't affect the game much. Progression, which now happens every five or six games, is now much harsher. I drafted a quarterback with an 80 rating, and he never improved, even starting with a 90 running back and 5 over-90 linemen. Running backs improve better, but don't expect much in the way of improvement past the first year for any of your players. The draft is both improved and worse. The game allows you to slow down the draft so that it gives you between 20 seconds and a minute (I never timed it, frankly, but there are two settings) to make trades as the draft goes along. The computer offers trades, but its really stupid about it: I've gotten quite a few offers to trade me THEIR 1st rounder for my 4th and 5th rounders. Bad AI, fun at first, but eventually it gets frustrating because it takes away any challenge. There's also an annoying problem - as the draft goes on, you cannot look at your scouting reports UNTIL it's your turn to draft. Unbelievably irritating. I've harped on the gameplay here because it's hard for me to focus on the good - if you've never played franchise Madden before you will probably be overjoyed at all the options available to you. But Madden 2004 offers pretty much the same thing at a much cheaper price.