ESPN NFL Football

"Good arcade football. Could have been great, though."

There's two kinds of football games: Sim, which EA's Madden has cornered the market on. They're the best at it, and they're what every other company aspires to be. And there's arcade football titles. Some are more arcadey than others (read: Blitz). ESPN, formerly NFL2K, is a hybrid of arcade and some sim, but it's leanings are mostly towards the arcade side, which is good because they do it so well.

The question everyone needs to ask themselves before buying ESPN is if it's worth 50 bucks. Well, if you hated the inept defensive AI, the unrealistic tackling(15 foot leaps), and the linemen chasing down WRs and RBs in the openfield from NFL2K3, you'll find ESPN much more to your liking. The AI is only slightly better, but the huge leaps and the speedy linemen are gone. So in this regard, the game is big improvement over last year's title. Add in a better integrated ESPN license, and that just adds to the appeal.

Graphically ESPN is unmatched by the other football games on the market. From the presentation to the player animations, Sega is the best.

The audio is ok. The commentary, which often falls behind, is better than Madden for the most part, but like all sports games, it gets very repetitive. The in game stadium music is cheesey junk. The on-the-field sounds, however are great, and are benefitted greatly by the 5.1 audio.

Gameplay. Very arcadey and fun, but also very flawed. As I mentioned above, Sega fixed some of the complaints from last year, but introduced a gigantic new issue: the tackle breaking by WRs and RBs is way beyond realistic. It's actually downright comical at times. Anyone that's ever watched Warrick Dunn knows that he doesn't break tackles. He avoids them with jukes and spins, and dives. But in ESPN, every WR and RB is a powerback, snapping tackles with ease. Extremely unrealistic, and affects gameplay negatively. There's also a new First Person Football feature(wadda wadda waaaaaah), but it's just a novelty. Playing in this mode(it's not a configurable camera view. You either play the entire game in this mode or not at all) feels extremely gimmicky, and the players control of the game is neutered. The classic video game football angles all work to perfection, but if you don't like them, Sega smartly allows you to create your own camera angle.

As they've done in the past, Sega has smartly stolen ideas from the competition. This year you'll notice a new Strafe button, which helps tremendously on defense against the run. Hurdling tackles is now automatic (thank you Sega), and it's button has been configured as a head-smash. This is a great move, but basically renders 3rd and short plays a non-factor. You can simply choose an FB smash play and use the head charge to easily get the yardage. The animation for it is great. Also, Sega is now the best at short yardage animations. Your guy will actually push his blockers forward rather than just spinning or bouncing off them. It's time the competition copy that from Sega.

Unfortunately the Franchise mode hasn't changed much. It's pretty standard, bare bones stuff. Anyone that's played Owner mode in Madden will be greatly disappointed in this. But if you only buy football games to play the game, you won't care. There's a new feature called the Crib. Basically it's a ripoff of Madden cards, but implemented better (like taking an alarm clock and putting a radio in it). Again, if you only care about playing football, you won't care about the Crib. The novelty of hanging banners and posters wears off quickly.

Sega needs to pay more attention to their User Interface. Where's the autosaving, Sega? Where's the intuitive menu design? Yuck.

Sega also promised 720p support for HD owners, but it didn't make it despite being advertised on the box. A nasty online glitch will hang your game unless you turn off dolby digital support (goodbye awesome audio).

If not for the tackle breaking, the lack of advertised HD support, and all the other little glitches, ESPN is a solid 8, but in its current form I give it a 7. Sega has much to improve on, and hopefully sales of this years game will be high enough to allow them to put out another next season.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 09/22/03