Madden NFL 2003

"A game that will make your loved ones jealous of the time you spend with it."

While I have played past versions of Madden, never have I been so impressed or enthralled by one of their titles. I always considered my knowledge of football to be complete. In that I knew the rules and I knew how to score, everything else was always just happenstance. When my friends and I played past versions of Madden, I would find one defense that worked sometimes and just use it all the time. I had no idea how to use audibles or set up an effective offensive strategy that would result in a turnoverless game. This game taught me quite a bit about the game I thought I knew. Now when I watch football on TV I see the same kind of lineups that I use on the game being used by teams. The cool thing is, when I see a certain defense work against a team, I can go play the game and use the same defense against the same team and it will stop them just the same. Ok let’s hit the meat and potatoes:

Gameplay=10: Super duper fun here folks. If you don’t know football you can start by playing the Football 101 feature. You pick your team and Madden will walk you through what is going to happen on each of the types of plays in your playbook. Then he lets you practice the play and tells you if you are doing it right. If you need more practice, then you’re in luck, because they included a practice feature where you pick your team and your play and run it against any defense as much as you want. Don’t have time to play a full game, then you can do either Situation mode or Two Minute Drill. Situation mode lets you decide every factor in a game from weather, to time, to score, to ball position, it’s all there to orchestrate whatever kind of game you want. Two Minute Drill allows you to pick your offence and your opponent and go at it for two minutes. You get tokens for completing passes and runs. You get even more tokens for scoring touchdowns. The game brings you back to the 20 yard line every time you score so if you’re good you could end up having 5 or 6 drives in two minutes. At the end of the two minutes it tells you how many tokens you have accrued. What are all these tokens for, you ask? They can be used to purchase packs of Madden Cards. These cards contain game cheats, hidden players, and hidden teams. There are 328 cards total, so that amounts to quite a bit of hidden stuff. Personally I like this element of the game, rather than the old method of getting extra stuff (looking up the player create codes online) this lets you only have the good stuff once you’ve played the game a bit. Another way to get cards is the Mini-Camp feature. It lets you run certain drills in a city and collect a trophy for it, once you have a trophy you can play a special game situation that applies the things you learned how to do in that particular drill. If you complete the game situation then you can get a card. Also as you unlock the game situations you unlock the ability to complete the drills on a harder level and then the game situations on a harder level. This feature is huge, but it’s not the main one. When you are finally ready to play a game, you will be treated to nothing short of the full NFL experience. The handling is awesome and the controls are simple to master. You can choose the level of play, so you can really destroy the other team or actually have a challenge. That’s especially nice, sometimes you just want to blow a team out, I’m talking like 91 – 0. While you play you can also complete Madden Challenges which give you tokens to buy… you guessed it, more Madden Cards. There are a lot of Madden Challenges and they range from basic stuff like, get 3 tackles with one defenseman, to advanced stuff like, complete a 90 yard pass. The more the difficulty, the more tokens you get. Your play level also determines the tokens, those that complete challenges on the Beginner level get some tokens, but if you complete them on the All-Madden level then you get quite a bit more. There is also a host of things you can create to even more customize the game. You can create your own team, your own players and your own playbook. All of these options are so in-depth that I cannot describe them now; I can only hope you get a chance to try them out.

Story/Franchise=10: I left one mode out of the above. I figured that since there is no story to go along with this game, that Franchise mode would be a good equivalent. Franchise mode replaces the old Season mode. The way it works is as follows. You pick your team and your coach. Then you can setup the roster how ever you want. Propose trades, pick up free agents, create players, or create or adjust your playbook. Once you and your team are set you can play the pre-season. After the preseason is over, you can see how your younger players have progressed. The first time I did this, I added 6 points to my second string QB’s overall rating. Of course after the preseason comes the regular season, this is preceded by the playoffs, if you’re good enough. During the regular season you can earn awards and if your players a good enough they can be named to MVP and Pro-Bowl lists. Then if you made it to the top of your conference in the playoffs, you can go to the Super Bowl. After that though you go through next years draft and your team repeats the cycle. This can be done for 30 years, allowing you to build a dynasty, if you’re good enough. Along the way your veterans will retire, players will get hurt, and if you start to suck they won’t re-sign contracts with you, it’s all part of the game in real life, so Madden brought it to you in the game. Well a team can’t actually win the Super Bowl 30 years straight in real life, but that’s an embellishment that I’m sure you won’t mind if you get a chance to do it in the game. To top it all off, you can export your team to school your friends in single games.

Audio/Video=10: Rather than just have canned guitar riffs, the Madden people actually ponied up the dough for real songs to be included in the game. Some of the songs are actually by bands that I listen to, which really impressed me. The commentary is really good, but after a year or two in your franchise you will probably shut it off, they do eventually repeat themselves. The game sounds are really realistic, to the extent of making you cringe sometimes, because it sounds like your favorite player is going to be injured forever by the hit he just took. The graphics are impeccable. I didn’t know they could be this good. If you have seen the screenshots, they pale in comparison to what you actually get with the game. The helmets look absolutely real the way they shine in the sun, it’s just nuckin’ futs people.

Replayability=10: Franchise mode is obviously replayable in and of itself, but when you throw in all the other modes and features I talked about above. There is always something to do. If you play 3 games in a row and want a break you can go do some drills in mini-camp or fool with your madden cards trying to get some more, there is just tons of stuff to do. Playing with friends in single games is also pretty awesome. A word to the wise though, once you have unlocked the ’91 Lions team watch out. Their offence is good but their defense is unstoppable, they will eat you up, most literally.

Buy it or rent it?: If you like football at all, buy this game, it is the best I’ve ever seen. If you don’t like football then you probably aren’t reading this.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/10/02, Updated 09/10/02