The 10s: Madden 2004, 2008 and 2009

I figured I would start the 10s list with the game that will be least interesting to talk about.  A little clarification here, whenever I talk about sports games, I always group them together by generation rather than year.  I think all of the Madden games from this era are great, these particular three just did the littlest of little things better than the others.  These games need to be looked at almost more like expansions than sequels.

Unlike a lot of games I have talked about so far, there is absolutely no doubt the Madden Football franchise is a household name.  It’s one of those series’ that most non-gamers have heard of and a favorite of casuals everywhere.  Of course, it also has a massive competitive circuit that was one of the first true E-Sports leagues to garner attention.  It can trace its roots all the way back to the 90s on the 4th gen consoles and its still a massive cash cow for EA today.  Thanks to some shenanigans in the mid-00s, the gaming giant ensured they would never face any true competition when it came to football games.

But Madden wasn’t always the undisputed king of football video games.  Tecmo Super Bowl dominated the early years, with its real teams, players and stat keeping standing head and shoulders above its competition.  The 4th generation saw a huge variety of football games on the SNES and Genesis.  Personally, I dislike most, if not all of them.  Non-Hockey sports games from this era were almost universally terrible.  Things got better when the PS1, Saturn and N64 came along, but this era had better options than Madden.  The PS1 offered NFL Gameday, while the N64 brought out NFL Quarterback Club.

But then the next generation hit.  A lot of people don’t realize or remember what a huge jump this was and I don’t know if it was more apparent anywhere than with sports games.  When I first saw Madden 2001 and NFL 2K, my mind was blown.  At the time, it looked so much like a real game it would make your head spin.  These games also led to developers experimenting with new modes, like training camp and 2 minute drill and came to head when Madden NFL 2003 introduced franchise mode.  We had seen full seasons before, but an entire 30 year franchise?  That was unheard of.  You could trade, sign free agents to long term contracts and even draft players.  Hell, if you also owned the NCAA game from that year you could import draft classes from your memory card.  

This was when when Madden (and 2K, for that matter) ceased being sports games and started becoming complete experiences.  The Monday Night Football theme is cool and all, but when you powered on Madden ‘03 and were greeted with Andrew W.K.’s “Party Hard,” you knew EA meant business.  So much care and effort was put into every part of this game, from the soundtrack to the menus to the presentation to the gameplay.  Madden ‘04 then proceeded to improve on its predecessor in every possible way.

 

The soundtrack was bigger, better and more diverse.  Want hip hop?  You’ve got OutKast, the Roots (still the nappy roots at this point) and bone crusher.  More of an emo person?  There’s AFI and Yellowcard.  This was also the first time many of us heard Jet and Avenged Sevenfold.  No matter how you feel about any of those bands, or others on the soundtrack, it was unheard of to see this much mainstream music in a video game at the time.  The graphics were a step up too, the players all looked a little smaller but were far more detailed.  The faces were still a little ridiculous, but this wasn’t super noticeable.  Later games improved things even further.

Gameplay was the perfect balance of simulation and arcade.  You really felt like you were in control on each and every play.  Handing off the ball was seamless and your running backs had a full compliment of moves, from spins to jukes to stiff arms.  Passing was simple and your QB could now scramble simply by holding the X button, an improvement likely added as a nod to cover athlete Michael Vick (pre-dogfighting scandal).  Everyone moved realistically and receivers ran their routes to a T.  This still holds up as a real football experience, especially when compared to its PS1 rivals like Gameday 98.  It’s easy to pick up and play and offers a reasonable challenge without requiring a deep, in depth knowledge of football. 

But the biggest addition to the series, at least for me, was the franchise mode. Franchise mode Madden is one of the most underrated RPGs of all time.  I really mean that.  Because I’m a huge nerd, I dreamed of building an NFL team as a GM as often as I dreamed of playing in the league.  I love trading assets, drafting players and building the best roster I can.  I always choose one of the crappy teams and try to build them into a contender.  The sheer amount of stuff there is to do is crazy, from setting prices for stadium merchandise to moving your team to a new city (if you so choose, of course).  This mode gave a game, and a genre as a whole, the depth it had been sorely lacking since day 1.  Later games also added a mode where you could create a player and go through the draft process, which is a unique experience on its own as well.

As for flaws?  Well, there aren’t many, the biggest is probably that there really hasn’t been much added to the series since about 2006.  Some of the additions have were welcome (like the hit stick and playmaker controls) while others have not (like the god awful QB vision).  The A.I. Is a little unbalanced in some of the games.  I found Madden ‘03 in particular to have really bad catch-up A.I., which to me is the scourge of all sports games.  Sometimes, it feels like the computer just decides you are going to lose before you start the game.  Your linemen will just decide not to block or your receivers will drop an insane number of passes, although a lot of that stuff can be altered via sliders in the options menu.  I once lost on a 75-yard field goal in Madden ‘06 which, side note, is probably the worst of the series.  Frankly, more balanced A.I. Was the main factor in rating those specific years as a 10/10.

So, I know I am going to get the “why is this so much better than/wouldn’t you rather play?” Question on just about all of my 10’s, so I am going to proactively answer them at the end of each of these columns.

So, without further adieu, Wouldn’t you rather play:

One of the more modern Maddens:  Been there, done that and they do have some stuff I like a lot.  I love the presentation, with added overlays and draft commentary.  However, I’m not a fan of the restrictions these games put on customizing franchise mode, I feel like the levels of control they provide offer either too much or too little.  But the biggest issue is the gameplay.  The control feels very loose and while the animations and tackling physics are impressive, i feel like player movement has taken a step back.  Ballcarriers can stop and turn on a dime, but defensive players can’t, so its insanely unbalanced.  It’s also way too easy to run and way too difficult to pass.  I rarely, if ever, gain less than 4 yards at a time on the ground.  But if I ever try and run anything other than a quick route, I get sacked.  It doesn’t matter who my linemen are, I can’t hold the ball for more than two seconds.  It just doesn’t feel as much like football as the older games.

NFL 2K5 - A lot of folks insist this game was superior to Madden.  I myself went and bought it on launch day, as it was $20 right out of the gate despite very much not being a budget title. Don’t get me wrong, its perfectly serviceable and does do some things better than Madden.  It has some cool ESPN overlays and the “SportsCenter” segments with Chris Berman were a nice touch.  It allowed you to compete against A.I. Based on the way various coaches, players and celebrities played the game.  It was surprisingly on point too, take on Peyton Manning and his Colts will audible incessantly and constantly let the play clock run down to two seconds.  There was even a scenario mode, where you could attempt to recreate or stop legendary plays or comebacks from NFL history (personally I never touched this mode again after I saw they had included THAT 49ers vs. Giants playoff game).

Unfortunately, I find the gameplay to be unbelievably stiff.  It feels like even the fastest players are stuck in the mud and the running animations are rough and awkward.  Also, I find the graphics to be incredibly washed out and lacking in detail.  Everything has this weird kind of matted look that really takes you out of the experience. I found the game very easy to “break,” once I figured out what the computer was doing I was able to win by running the same stuff ad nauseum.  Madden has a bit of this problem too, particularly when it comes to CPU defensive backs biting on play action, but it was way worse in 2K.  

Tecmo Super Bowl - Quite simply, they are different types of games.  TSB is great, its classic and its probably more fun to play with friends or with people who don’t understand football.  However, it just doesn’t have the level of depth that Madden does.

So there you have it, my first 10/10 is checked off the list.  Madden may not be the most interesting game to talk about, but its certainly quality.  It was a blast playing with some of these old players and teams again and I was a little surprised it held up as well as it did.  This was probably the easiest game to check off the list, but the next one is going to be a trip straight through hell.