...It’s the ONLY football sim I’ve played. I usually tried to stay away from the sport sim genres as they got very boring to me and were worse than watching them on TV. I remember the madden series all the way back on the Genesis, where I think the first one was developed. I guess because of its wide success, a new Madden for each year kept being published and eventually started spreading out to all the consoles.
When the Play Station 2 came out, Madden 2001 came out right along with it with some awesome graphics and such from what I heard from other people and magazines. Then not long ago, Madden 2002 came out on PS2, and had even better visuals and player models, making it the most realistic football sim out today.
When the Game Cube released on November 18th, Madden 2002 was once again ready to be released along side with Game Cube. Originally, I had planned to get four games at launch; Luigi’s Mansion, Rogue Leader, Tarzan Untamed, and Madden 2002. But I decided not to get the last two because people were telling me they were only worth rentals unless I was a hard core sports fan.
So since I’m not one to yell at the TV because the Colts screwed up or something, I held off on purchasing Madden 2002 and rent it later(along with Tarzan Untamed).
After a long day of wrestling practice, I thought I’d rent some games from Hollywood Video. So since they were having a two for ten deal, I rented Tarzan Untamed(which I’ve posted a review on) and Madden 2002. I actually had original had plans to rent Metal Gear Solid 2, but of course they were out.
We Will, We Will, Rock You!
The first thing I noticed when I came to the menu screen is a Very Easy mode and Normal Mode. In Very Easy mode you just pick a team and go kick some butt, but I used it to familiarize myself with the plays and the way the game played.
Normal Mode
Normal mode is where you’ll find Franchise mode, training, Tournament, and Season, along with an array of options. In Season, you play a full season of games to see what kind of record you’ll have after the last game.
In Tournament mode, you can pick 4, 8, or 16 teams to play in the tournament and you can select which team you want to play as to put in the next bracket. Basically, as long as you win, you can pick who will play to be the champions.
Options
You have a wide variety of options to use like the ability to turn off penalties for the renegade player you are, change sound and wide screen abilities, and change the time limit of each quarter. You can choose between 1 minute to 15 minutes, although I don’t think anyone but hardcore fans will want to spend three hours playing a game like that.
Pick a play...any play
Whether you’re on defense or offense, there are a wide variety of official plays you can use. On offense, you have the different Hail Mary’s called Deep Pass, regular passes that are supposed to be short and quick, running plays where you can split a hole and run through it. Running plays are definitely useful when you’re inches away from a first down or Touch Down.
On defense, there are different Blitzes for each style of offensive play; Run, Pass, Deep Pass, Punt/Kick. You can choose any player on your defensive team that you’d like to use, whether it be tackle of line backer. Using the C-Stick, you can move the defensive line to the right or left, depending on if you can read the running play. You can also use the “L” and “R” buttons to move the line backers over a little either way.
Back to the offense for a sec, before you snap the ball, you can press and hold the “L” button to see where the different runners and receivers are going to be on the play. A strategy with your offense could lead to a good scoring game. Also, there is Odd I formation and I formation and other offensive formations for the running plays.
There is a different set of controls for offense, defense, receiving ball, and running the ball, which gets very confusing. Like while you’re running the ball, you have a certain command set to different buttons like sprint, stiff arm, juke left, or juke right.
If a defensive man dives for you feet, jump to keep the play alive. You can also shake off a tackler and keep from getting tackled. When you’re receiving the ball from a pass, you can jump for it if it’s to high, or you can make a diving catch. Once you’re running, you can even dive to get extra yardage(especially useful when you’re inches away from the touchdown).
There are madden cards, which I have no clue what they do as I’ve not bothered messing with them, but I think I heard that you can unlock old jerseys and such.
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Graphics
I don’t know what the other Maddens were graphics wise, but I do know that the graphics are awesome on my new Game Cube. Between the PS2 screenshots and the Game Cube’s, Madden Game Cube looked a tad smoother than that of the PS2 version, but there’s not much of a difference anyway, because both the PS2 and Game Cube can produce some pretty nice graphics.
Character models looked real enough to me and I’m not going to complain one bit. Since I don’t know how good the character models SHOULD look, but to me they look pretty good. The way they move looks pretty realistic and there jerseys and pants add to the realism.
In instant replays, it looks like you’re watching Monday Night Football because of all the angles that it goes to.
Control
They’re good, but really confusing. Button layouts are different depending on whether you’re offense or defense, and got me very confused. Like the “X” button could be jump on offense, but on defense it’d be dive or used to switch to the player closest to the ball. There’s probably a way to customize the controls in the options menu, but I was too lazy to worry about it.
Other than the diving and jumping, there’s nothing to the games controls besides learning how to maneuver through a mob of big mugs.
Sound
“Yay!” “Boo!” A football crowd’s always a football crowd. You hear whistles and fans that cheer on different teams. You’ll also hear pads crunching, the “sets” and “huts” of football, and the infamous announcer, Jon Madden.
There’s not really any music because the sound effects would drown it out anyways. While playing Madden, besides his voice getting very annoying after a while, you’ll hear it when someone gets hit. It’s not those pansy sounds you hear in some football games, but the grunts and punts like a real football game.
Overall
Unless you’re a hardcore sports, football, or Madden fan; Madden 2002 should be at least rented before you go out and put 50 bucks on it. So if you’re bored and you’ve already rented the other games in the store, then pick up Madden and have your 4, 5, 6, whatever days with a pretty good game.
Play a full season with your favorite team and take them to the Super Bowl, or try the franchise mode and build a dynasty. You can even create teams a...More at eBay
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