After fourteen years of dominating the football videogame landscape, being the first game ever inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame, and almost twenty million copies sold, it would have been very easy for EA Sports to release a retread of last year's game. Thankfully, EA wasn't ready to rest on their laurels, and they were determined to better their most profitable sports series in 2004. Significant additions have been made to the already incredible franchise mode, the new Playmaker moves give even more control over the action, and Owner Mode makes this year's Madden almost a cross between a sports game and an RPG. Is it football perfection? Not quite, but you'd be hard pressed to find another game capable of competing, let alone beating this football juggernaut.

With Madden, it all begins with the gameplay. Similar to EA's other series "NBA Live" and "NHL", EA has now made use of the oft-under appreciated right analog stick. I was skeptical about the new Playmaker control at first, simply because I thought it would be more of a distraction than something which could really benefit my game. Well, I was sure wrong about that. Playmaker control allows you to shift your offense or defense before and after the snap of the ball, without tipping off your opponent. It's also helpful to let your teammates know who they should be blocking when your heading up field, and when used properly, can allow you to break the defense's back with a big gain.

One reason why it's so effective is because it's so simple to execute. Moving the right analog stick in the direction you want your teammates to block for you, or which way you want to shift your D to protect against a breakout pass has never been easier. Adjusting receiver routes is another option, should you notice the opposing team's player is cheating against the run or playing your man very tight. Likewise, if the defender is playing a soft zone, you can instruct your man to run five yards and make a curl for an easy pickup. If those pesky defenders are chasing down your QB, you can call off your receiver's current route and get them to come back towards you. It's a great way to get out of a sticky situation when your player is on the run.

The already gargantuan franchise mode returns with a host of new improvements to even further enhance the replay value. Owner Mode has gotten a lot of press, and rightfully so. It puts you in charge of running the team, not only paying your players but other cool things like setting your ticket and concession prices, hiring your entire coaching staff, and marketing your franchise to the public. It's almost ridiculous how much there is to do off the field. If you choose to jack up the prices on parking and seating, fans may respond by not turning up to the games, and low attendance means low revenues. There's also a board of directors who weigh in on how your managing the team and what changes you could be making. Most of their suggestions are rather redundant, like "Our concession prices are on par with the rest of the league". Still, they do occasionally provide you with some extremely helpful tips you may not have thought of before.

Has the public been shunning your squad for too long? No problem, you have the option to pull the plug on the whole operation and move your team almost anywhere in the continental U.S., or even places such as Canada or Mexico. However, moving a team doesn't just happen overnight. You'll have to plan ahead by designing your own stadium, including where to position the scoreboards and box seats, and then you'll have to get the necessary funding for such an enormous project. Once you've cleared the financial aspects, you'll have to conjure up some new uniforms. There's dozens of colors available, and you can edit everything from the uniform's look to the style of the player's socks. Now you're all set to challenge the other thirty-one NFL teams, but the game's improvements don't stop there.

The Training Camp mode incorporates last year's Mini Camp mode right into your franchise. Training Camp gives nine of your key players a chance to better their attributes by running various skill testing drills such as QB Accuracy, DB Swat Ball, etc. You'll notice the effect the ratings boost has on the players too, as they can move into position faster, stay glued to the opponent's receiver, or increase your QB's arm strength. It's also useful for developing your rookie draft picks much quicker than usual, and it gives them a fighting chance so they can keep up with the pros.

In my mind, the single biggest change from Madden 2003 to this year's version is the game speed. In last year's game, after you'd called your defensive play, you could run to Starbucks, grab a large cappuccino and make it back with more than enough time to spare before the ball was finally snapped. Madden 2003 was often painstakingly sluggish, and games took forever to play, even with quarters set at three minutes. Mercifully, EA has cleared up this glaring problem. Games that took forty-five minutes last year take a little more than thirty minutes in Madden 2004. Once the play has been whistled dead, the playbook screen immediately pops up and you’re ready to choose your next play. Then the opposing QB moves up to the line of scrimmage, and with barely a pause to breath, hikes the ball and the next sequence is underway. It's amazing that the few seconds in between plays really adds up.

Other new inclusions to this year's Madden are "the most realistic playbooks" from all thirty-two NFL teams, with specific team formations and trick plays. Personally, I've never looked over the Packers' playbook, so I can't testify to how realistic they are, but I'll take their word for it. The Online scene has also been bulked up, where players are rewarded for actually completing games and the Fair Play mode was designed to eliminate the cheaters from last year's version. Many people would pause the game and wait for their opponent to quit, thus giving them a bad reputation in the online community.

Rounding out the interesting new additions is the trading block system. It basically speaks for itself; you can put your underachieving players on the block and what you'd consider getting in return with the hope that another team needs what you don't want. This feature would be entirely pointless if the computer never made a move on your players, but with patience, eventually a CPU controlled team will show an interest if the player is of some quality. But all of these additions would be meaningless if the on field action didn't live up to the changes off the field, but Madden retains its football supremacy with another superb on field display.

The overall artificial intelligence is relatively similar to last year's game, though your defensive teammates are much more reliable than before. In Madden 2003 they tended to gamble a little to often, getting caught out of position and were left hanging out to dry. Their third down stopping rate was equally brutal. It seemed that even when you had the computer in third and long situations, the defenders always caved in on third down. That flaw is no more, and it's a lot more fair to the user and won't create as many volatile cussing spouts as it did last year.

The majority of the gameplay has stayed the same, something that didn't really appeal to me. I'm not asking for a whole new game, but despite the new Playmaker control, it just doesn't feel all that different from 2003's version. It may have some wondering whether they should really fork over fifty bucks for what is essentially the same on field game as the year before.

Don't get me wrong, Madden is consistently the most fun and realistic adaptation of NFL football, but after playing 2003's game into the ground, I want something more than just Playmaker control to warrant a purchase year after year. This isn't a huge deal, because I'm still going to pour a lot of hours into Madden 2004, it's just that it will lose it's replay value a lot faster than last year. Other quibbles I had was the fact that when you use a created team in franchise mode, for some bizarre reason, it disables the Owner Mode. This renders the new feature entirely useless, because I almost always use my own whacked out created team after I get tired of playing as the Pack. Other problems are that other features like Mini Camp and Two-minute Drill have seen no new enhancements, making them merely carry overs from 2003.

Graphically speaking, there's really not a whole lot to say. The player models still don't look quite as good as those found in "NFL Fever", but that may be more to do with the hardware capabilities of the X-Box versus the PS2 than anything else. Players this year sport a variety of new tattoos and hairstyles like Ricky Williams' dreadlocks, even further adding to the realism. The stadiums look and feel like their real NFL counterparts, and players' uniforms will get dirty when it's raining and you see their footsteps if the ground is covered in snow. There's nothing truly astonishing about the graphics, but it's a combination of the little things that make them look so great.

Probably the game's biggest downfall is in the sound department, though I imagine most of you saw that one coming. Al Michaels is quite frankly, the most accurate and entertaining play-by-play man in the business, though you wouldn't know by listening to him spew out one monotonous line after another. As for his color commentator John "Boom!" Madden, he has all the thrilling excitement of a presidential address. About 60% of all his lines have been taken from the previous year's game, and there's virtually no interaction between Michaels and Madden. Madden also has the distinctive ability to point out the obvious, and he does so with extraordinary consistency in this game.

Here are a couple of examples of what I mean. After I'd been flagged with a fifteen-yard face-masking penalty, Madden promptly states in his utmost serious voice, "I don't think that was part of their game plan". It gets better. Remarks such as "The only thing worse than a turnover, is a turnover that leads to a touchdown" inspire unintentional laughter from the user. One of my favorites was his brilliant analysis after the CPU was devastating me in time of possession, "High powered offenses aren't very high powered when they don't have the ball". Unfortunately, because this is Madden's game, it's not like EA's going to be getting rid of him anytime soon.

So, to bring this outlandishly long review to a conclusion, "Madden 2004", despite it's overly familiar gameplay mechanics, still remains the franchise to beat this season. The additions off the field such as the new Owner Mode will definitely add even more replay value on top of what is an already exceptional package. The game continues to be the benchmark for realism in a sports videogame, and the small but important adjustments every year will ensure that Madden's dominance isn't showing any signs of slowing down. From the dynamic and practical Playmaker control to the millions of things to do in the franchise mode, football fanatics will undoubtedly be celebrating what is evidently another Madden triumph.







Recommended: Yes