ESPN NFL 2K5

"Madden has some competition at last!"

Well, another great NFL season is upon us, and people are dying to know whether the Patriots will repeat as Super Bowl champions. Another thing football fans were waiting for was whether a different football game could unseat Madden as the top football game out there. Last year's Madden was a disappointment as the AI was impossibly hard and the gameplay lacked aside from the Playmaker controls, furthering the claim that Madden just updates its rosters every year and adds some irrelevant new features. ESPN NFL 2K5 was highly touted in the run-up to it's release, and it beat Madden 2005 to the punch as far as release date was concerned. Well, let's kick off this review with presentation.

Presentation/Graphics: 10/10
"Oh, wow." Those were the exact words that came out of my mouth when I saw the graphics and the way the game was presented. The game is presented exactly like an ESPN Sunday Night Football game, but what would one expect from a game endorsed by ESPN (I dunno. Perfection, maybe?)? I don't think these are the same two guys that do the Sunday night games on ESPN, but then again, I haven't seen one since the Dallas-New England game, but that's beside the point. The pre-game is awesome, and the post-game would be even better if they had actual footage from the game you had just played, and if they had presented the post-game show like they do in NFL PrimeTime instead of showing the scores and big plays, then this would be perfect.

Graphics in this game are amazing. That's the only word I can think of to describe them. All the players and coaches look like their real-life counterparts, and the you even get reaction on the sidelines and from the fans, something you never see in Madden! The only sideline reaction you get in Madden is from the coaches, and you never see players really express themselves like the ones in 2K5 do. I mean, you see players with contorted faces if they're hurt, and you an also see the anger in their faces when they throw an interception or commit a turnover. And you gotta inclue this: Chris Berman and Suzy Kolber look exactly like they do in real life, without resorting to live film shooting!

Storyline: N/A
What story is there in the NFL season until halfway through or after it? Your goal is to take a team to the Super Bowl and win it year after year after year in Franchise Mode (more on that later).

Sound: 7/10
Ouch. This is the only flaw in 2K5. The commentary is excellent, and some of the analogies made me split my sides laughing, but there is one MAJOR probelm: The commentators say the same thing too many times! I mean, it's fun for a while, but hearing the same thing over and over again makes you wanna do your own commentary like I do sometimes. I mean, you could hear the same thing 3 or 4 times during the game. The real thing that killed the commentary was that Chris Berman didn't sound like he had the intensity he does in PrimeTime. I mean, yeah, he had the immortal names like Ty "I fought the Law and the law won" and Mike "after-dinner" Minter, but he sounded like he was just going through the motions when analyzing the stats. But that's not the real crusher. The real crusher was that Berman didn't have the immortal "He could! Go! All! The! Way!" but he does have some other Bermanisms (as I call them) that he uses on PrimeTime.

Game Modes: 10/10
I haven't seen this many options since I played NFL Quarterback Club '96 on the Sega Genesis! The Franchise Mode is great and more in-depth than Madden's, mostly because you control a team entirely. You get to control what your players do for practice in the run-up to the game, you can take people on and off the trading block and make all sorts of managerial moves that will make you feel like a real owner/coach. And that's not all. You can actually get fired as an owner! That sounds stupid to purists, but it adds pressure on you to win, and if you're the Patriots owner, well, let's just say you had better win.

ESPN25 Mode sounds like Situation Mode, but it isn't. You get to replay 25 great games/moments in football dating back to "The Ice Bowl" in 1967 between the Packers and Cowboys, up to "4th and 26" in last year's playoffs between the Packers and Eagles. I don't know what you get if you complete them all, but a lot of them are very trying, like "Greatest Comeback Ever" from the 1993 AFC Wild Card game, and "Botched Snap" from the 2002 NFC Divisionals, so you should get something great.

An interesting mode I found was First Person Football. Instead of seeing everybody on the field at once, you see from inside the helmet of the player you control, effectively making you that player. I find First Person Football to be kinda like an FPS, but more fun than one. First Person Football is a great mode that Madden would probably benefit from, but probably not.

Gameplay: 10/10
Gameplay can be kinda hard to get down at first. Having played only Madden before this game, I figured it would be the same, if not a little different in somre respects. No such luck. While Madden has 2 turbo buttons, 2K5 has one, which is actually better, and defense is easier to use than expected.

What was unexpected to me was the difficulty of the passing game. Passing the ball is no longer a "pick up and play" system, you actually have to have a smooth relaese, otherwise the reciever won't see the ball coming or the defense will knock the pass away. To pass the ball effectively, you need to find the correct pressure to apply on the button, which adds precision to the passing game.

Extras: 9/10
NFL 2K5 has this cool little feature called "The Crib", which is like Madden Cards, only you don't get ability enhancement cards, you get to deck out your house with your favorite team's merchandise and other stuff like couches, posters, and bobble head dolls. Other than that, extra features are kinda iffy.

Final Tally
Presentation: 10
Sound: 7
Game Modes: 10
Gameplay: 10
Extras: 9
Challenge: Varies
Learning Curve: 1-2 hours

FINAL SCORE:<I/> 9 out of 10

The Last Word: This game could unseat Madden if EA was lazy like they were last year. That remains to be seen, but for now, buy this game! The price tag is perfect at $20.<I/>

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/04