"Pretty good. Not spectacular, but good."

Intro: It's football. I don't reallly think it needs much of an introduction. This game has been out since '92, if you wanted to know that.

Graphics: 6/10 Umm....I think they only did about half the job here. The fields look great....and...that's about where it ends. The characters are horrible, especially up close. The cheerleaders and coaches look like they were designed to look awful. I gave it a 6 because the stadiums are awesome-looking, and the graphics also move without a hitch.

Controls: 5/10 I think these controls are more confusing than guessing what was in that meatloaf surprise yesterday. I only have two football games (Madden 2002 and 2005) and one game's controls are more confusing than the next. B is tackle, A is run, but only on offense, and...oh, I don't know. You are just going to have to try hard to learn the controls, and then maybe you can come show me.

Sound/Music: 9/10 Nice. Most of the songs are really good (I like "Two timing touch and broken bones" and "American Idiot" myself) and others...are not. As for the sound, probably even better. It's fun hearing people get whacked by other people. You can also choose which songs are going to be playing in a jukebox type mode.

Gameplay: 8/10 Let's see...First off, I would like to note that I don't like football. It's strange that I like this game so much. While going up and down a field for 20+ minutes might not seem like much fun, it actually does get kind of amusing. You start a game off by flipping a coin. The "Away Team" gets to choose heads or tails. If they win, they can choose to defend <, defend >, kick, or receive the ball. If they don't get it right, the Home team gets to decide between those. After that, you get a choice of a few things, called plays. You select one, then that goes into smaller sections (example: QB Sneek would appear when you go to the section Goal Line). Then your team splits up into the formation you set them in. You can also call a timeout at this point, an audible (not sure what that is), or just play. If you choose to do a passing play, then you "snap" the ball and hit the A button to see all the available players you can shoot the ball to. Or if you wanted a running play, then your guy will just shoot the ball to another guy that makes a mad dash to the field goal thing. I apologize if that was a bit confusing, but so is this game, but in a good way.

Replayability: 7/10 Fun for awhile. Put it back on your shelf. Few months later pop it back in. You can also do many, many more things than just play a regular ol' game. You can create a player/fan/team/playbook, play minigames, unlock other stuff, collect Madden Cards (cards that completly tip the game in your favor), among many other things. There is also a Franchise mode, where you can actually set your own ticket prices! How cool is that!?! One bummer about the Frachise mode: it needs an unacceptable 168 blocks on your memory card. So if you have the first memory card that came out (56 or something), that means you can't even save your franchise! And if you got a 256 (or whatever the second one was), you have to give up more than half of it! That just ain't right. Also, there are stadiums aplenty in this game; I'd say no less than 30.

Final Verdict: Buy I think you're going to have fun with this one. I don't even like football that much and I enjoy it. With all that stuff to do, you are going to lose quite a bit of your days of this game, especially if you're a football-fanatic. Besides, what is it now? $20/$30/$40 bucks now? Just buy it. I think you'll like it.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/29/05