Madden NFL Football 2004

Posted Sep 5, 2003 by TBO.com

Updated Jan 14, 2008 at 04:25 PM

System: Sony PlayStation 2

Also available for: Nintendo GameCube, Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation, Windows PC, Game Boy Advance

Publisher: EA Sports

Reviewer’s rating: B+

ESRB rating: Everyone

Game type: Sports

Kind of like: “Madden NFL Football 2003”

Best feature: If you have a PS2, “Madden” is online. There’s nothing quite like getting your butt kicked by some 12-year-old stranger who goes by the nom de guerre Whosyerdaddy.

Worst feature: If you’re not a hardcore gamer or a fanatical NFL fan, it’s hard to justify spending $50 on what is essentially last year’s game with updated rosters.

The bottom line: Competition tends to produce great results, and “Madden” finally has some in Sega’s “ESPN NFL Football” (the game formerly known as “NFL 2K3”). It seems obvious in retrospect that ” Madden” had grown smug and complacent before Sega’s upstart franchise emerged a few years ago and started pressuring the old man like Simeon Rice on third-and-long.

But EA Sports is up for the challenge, and this year’s version of “Madden” bursts at the seams with additions and improvements.

Most important are the game-play tweaks, including upgraded play-action fakery and a new “Playmaker” feature that lets you make key adjustments to defensive coverage, receiver routes and blocking assignments both before and after the snap.

Other new extras put a sort of “Sim City” spin on the game’s big-picture modes. In “Owner Mode,” you operate your franchise with an eye on the bottom line. You can relocate to a new city, design a new home in “Stadium Builder” mode, make personnel changes and even set prices on everything from hot dogs to parking to big foam number-one fingers.

Last year’s “mini-camp” feature has been expanded into a “training camp” mode, which allows you to improve players’ attributes by executing various drills.

Another neat feature: Owners of EA’s excellent “NCAA” title can export each year’s graduating class into “Madden” for the NFL draft.