ESPN NFL 2K5

"Good football but glitchy and the worst franchise mode ever"

SUMMARY:

When it comes to my opinion of a football game, my overall impression is driven much more by what goes on outside the actual game than the gameplay itself. The franchise mode is the single most important factor for me in determing how much time I will play this game.

And as I'll explain below this game has one of the worst franchise modes in the history of video football. It looks pretty at first but soon you realize its like thinking your taking the most beautiful girl at school to the prom only to get there and find its her brother in drag.

Which is too bad because the actual football gameplay outside of some glitches is quite good. And the price can't be beat.

But even though it was only twenty bucks I realize now it was twenty bucks wasted because the franchise mode makes this game unplayable for me.

If the only reason your getting this game is to play against other people than its a twenty bucks well spent. Otherwise put the twenty towards Madden.

THE REVIEW:

I'm a longtime Madden devotee who decided to give this game a try for the price. And while this game has some definite good points I will be picking up Madden when it comes out and probably will never touch this game again.

For me the enjoyment of the games is the FRANCHISE MODE. And quite frankly ESPN falls flat on its face here. But I'll get to that.

My first impression of the game was negative and it seemed hard to follow and control the action. But after a few games I got used to it and have come to the conclusions that this was mostly because the one area ESPN shines in is the actual gameplay. Its worlds above Madden 2004 in this area and is probably the most realistic football to date.

The game preperation is intriguing but its quite time consuming and if you do it wrong you actually end up hurting your team. I toyed a bit with it but usually skipped over it thinking I would get into it more when I got further into my franchise.

I can't say much else positive though.

The first things I noticed were a lot of glitches and just completely unrealistic things. I tried doing a fantasy draft for my franchise. Due to BUG I found that many players were on the draft list more than once and often it was star players like Michael Vick. So I abandoned that and just started normal.

Then onto the actual franchise. At first I found it challenging but kinda fun. It was the most realistic salary cap system to date and it was very hard to make many changes without totally screwing up your cap number.

But then trades that would never happen started flying left and right between computer teams. The Eagles traded Donavan McNabb. Like that would ever happen. Other star players quickly had new addresses as well.

I played the Cardinals in week two. Emmit Smith was returning kicks. Yeah right. As if that wasn't bad enough when I played the Colts PEYTON MANNING was returning kicks. That alone nearly made me quit but I stuck with it because by this time I was starting to get into the gameplay and the game was fun and and good once I got used to the controls. So I played a whole season.

Then came the offseason and the whole game came crashing down with the OFFSEASON FRANCHISE MODE. Madden 2001 had a better offseason franchise mode. The ESPN mode looks quite pretty from the outside but when you actually get into you realize just how ugly it is.

First of all, player progression is preset. Before the season started I traded for Brandon Stokely from the Colts. He started the season rated as a 70 (kinda low in my opinion after how he did at the end of last year but thats another issue). Stokely had 74 catches for 1300 yards and sixteen touchdowns. He was the #1 vote getter for the pro bowl. His progression at the end of the season was -2 to a 68. He GOT WORSE. In Madden he would have jumped to an 80 something at least as a reward for his hard work. To make matters worse one of my bench receivers who caught a grand total of three catches for 16 yards all season improved by 3. It seems that player progression is some magically predetermined number you can't see and players will progress towards that regardless of their actual performance.

Then comes the draft. There is no hint at all of what player will go where. During the season you can do whats called rookie watch and there you get a few draft projections but unless you wrote those down you don't have them anymore. Supposedly you can see Mel Kipers draft projection. I watched it. He had six cornerbacks going in the top 10 picks of the draft. As if that wasn't odd enough then came the actual draft. I had the #11 pick and the #32 pick in the first round. At pick #11 not a single cornerback had been drafted yet despite Kipers projection. But a KICKER had been drafted. A KICKER IN THE TOP TEN OF THE DRAFT. Now we get to pick #32. Still not a single CB had been drafted even though Kiper had six in the top 10 including his #1 overall.

That pretty much ended my ESPN NFL 2K5 experience. I live for the franchise mode and this franchise mode is just plain broken. Which is really too bad because the gameplay rocks.

If playing against your friends is what you want a game like this for then this is a great game especially for the price.

If franchise is your cup of tea by any Madden game of the last few years and you will be much happier.

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 08/08/04