Madden NFL 2003

"A Football Gamer's Dream"

I'm not much for small talk, so I'm going to go right into the review.

This Madden game probably has some of the most developed graphics in a football game up to date. The players are highly detailed, as is the field and the crowd. And the crowd, the crowd was one of the most realistic crowds ever seen in a sports game. They were still flat and moved up and down, but they had a curved look to them. The face of the players gave detail, and even movement. Most were fine, but some looked really screwed. Like McNabb, he had a lot of wrinkles. Looked kind of weird. But they improved on him, since in some versions of Madden(PS2), he was white. Also, the tackles have a lot of detail. I'm not sure about other games, but Madden seems to capture every movement of every motion and every tackle. Usually the tackles are good, detailed, and cool. But every once in a while you will see such a bizarre tackle you want to just turn it off. But the graphics are good either way.

The sound was horrible. The PS2 version had it topped in sound, but the GameCube just didn't do good on this. One could argue the Nintendo 64 could have done better in sound. But the GameCube didn't give good sound like a disc should of. I think the main reason is they had trouble mixing the crowd and the announcers. Whenever the crowd would cheer loud, the announcers were blocked out and barely able to be heard, then a load of static would occur. Luckily, this problem can be fixed in the settings by putting the crowd volume down and the announcer volume up. Plus the game makes the sound from the players very clear. That can be put down too. Sometimes tackles seem a little TOO loud.

A major flaw with this game is the amount of memory card space it takes up. Basically, on a regular 59 block memory card, franchise mode takes up the whole thing. To be able to save everything, you need to buy a bigger memory card. Luckily, I've discovered a way around it. If you have two memory cards, you can save profiles on it, and just save the franchise on another. It's how I use it now. But maybe buying a bigger memory card would be better. Profiles are basically used so you can earn tokens to buy Madden Cards. There are many types of Madden Cards, most of them give ratings boosts to certain players. But there are also cheat cards that give you good advantages. Getting five yards for a first, 25%/50%/75% tackle breaking, better catching, etc. Also historic player cards. These cards unlock many historic players like Warren Moon and Tony Dorsett.

Now we come down to probably the best part of the game. Franchise mode. A quick analysis on Franchise Mode: Franchise Mode is simple. You select a team, and coach them through 30 consecutive seasons. It has an off-season, rookie draft, NFL Draft, ability to trade, and the free agent market. It is the most developed form of season mode ever in a football game. At the beginning you choose to put the salary cap on or off. Salary cap is when your team has a limited budget. You only have so much to pay to each player, so to put one player on your team, you must have enough money. To get enough money, releasing a player or five can get you money. But there is always a cap penalty, usually half of the money you're getting. And some of the better players won't sign with you unless you pay them enough money and at least a two year contract. Pre-Season is for developing players. The better they do, the higher their stats raise. The computer will put in all of your second string people in the second half of the four pre-season games so they can develop a little. Then the regular season comes, and you play. Each game starts out with analysis on a player or two, and then the coin toss.

When the playoffs come, only the best teams make it. Then the best from the AFC and NFC go to the Super Bowl. You would think because it was the Super Bowl, they would put a lot of work into it, right? WRONG! No effort what-so-ever was put into the Super Bowl. Maybe some different commentary lines at the beginning, but that's it. Halftime is still the same lame cheerleader show, which is horribly bad. Then when you win, a little music plays and that's that. The game also has the Pro Bowl. The NFL All-Star Game. Then the off season.

The first option in the off-season is viewing the retired players. Players retire in their mid 30s or even later. So if one of your good players retires, it would be best if you found a good replacement. The next option is the rookie scouting. Rookie scouting is really advanced. You search for college players in each position you want, and mark them down for evaluation. You have fifteen choices. So you look through all of the rookies and at their info. It will tell you what they're good and bad at and their proposed draft choice. So if you're going for a Wide Receiver, you would look for someone with good hands at most. After you scout the rookies you want, then you advance to the next part. This tells you the results of the tests they were put through, and an analysis of each player. It will tell you if he is good or bad. Then you select the main rookies you want to scout and proceed.

The next part of the off-season is re-signing players. Look through all the players on your team and decide if you want to re-negotiate a contract. If their years left is 0, they can go up as free agents if you don't resign them. Basically, sign the people you think fit. If you have the salary cap on, make wise decisions.

After the re-signing of players, it's the free agent signing. This takes place over a 30 day period. Look at all the free agents and decide if you want to sign them. They won't sign with you right away though, so after you make all of your proposals, it will say the team proposing to that player and the proposal, and then you go to the next day. If you made a good offer, he will most likely sign with you. But poor offers can be topped, and he would sign with someone else. Once you have all of the players you want, skip the rest of the days and proceed to the NFL Draft.

The NFL Draft is the last part of the off-season besides re-ordering the depth charts and signing your picks. The worst teams get the first picks. This is where you look at all of the rookies you have scouted and decide if you draft them or not. Make wise choices, and be sure to look at all of their stats.

After the Draft, you must sign the people you drafted. Make good contract negotiations and have a new member of your team. After this the computer re-orders the depth charts and you start the next season.

Another great aspect of this game is player progression. Your players stats will drop, fall, or stay the same depending on how much you use them. At the end of the pre-season, it shows you progression. If you use your rookies a lot, their stats will likely rise. Building great players is one of the most fun parts of this game.

In Mini-Camp, you must complete drill's in a certain amount of time or get a certain amount of points to earn a gold medal, which gives you a Madden Card. Drill's range from offensive running to defensive tackling. Each difficulty gets a lot harder, but it will make you overall better at the game.

This game was one of the most fun games I have played in a while. A definite buy for any football fan. The #1 selling Pro-Football Franchise game just got better.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 03/19/03, Updated 03/19/03