Madden NFL 2002

"Good First Generation Football for the GBA"

Well after the disappointment that was NFL Blitz 2002 and SI4Kids football Madden rode into town. And he's packing some serious heat.
This game includes:Battery save(be still my heart), season mode and exhibition mode. It includes all 31 NFL teams, plus and All-Madden team and the Houston Texans.

Graphics: Pretty good for a handheld football game. As of yet I have not encountered any slowdown. The game moves fast ; especially considering there are 22 players on screen usually. The animations for the most part are smooth. You can clearly see a defender raising his hands to block a pass, a receiver raise his hands for the catch etc. There are no distinguishing features from player to player.
Sound:Not much here. Madden will occasionally comment with something like ''I saw that coming from up here!'' when someone gets taken down for a big loss. Summerall will chip in with ''First Down'' or ''Touchdown''. The game has the same music though as the Madden PS2 version. The horns blaring when a team scores a TD are a bit annoying.
Gameplay: Ah, the beauty of it all. The game features the same playbooks as most of the SNES/Genesis versions. Which means you can find the flea flicker, HB Pass, and the WR Reverse in your playbook easy. The game offers the option of 4 symbols or 1. The four symbols are L, R, A, and B. Pretty simple. Getting your running game going is a bit hard though. The challenge on ALL-Madden is tough. You might win but it wont be easy and you'll have fun in the process. As for the playbooks; each formation(I-Form, Pro Form, Far) comes with separate sets to run the plays under, a nice feature which adds some strategic elements to it. Its not just a run and gun. Getting the running game going in the final minutes with the lead is huge.
Control:For the most part its right on. However the kicking game is way too hard; especially when compared with the new kicking meter in the PS2 version. I wonder how hard it would have been to use that instead. Defense is a little tricky; it takes time getting used to the fact that L is for tackle.

Hopefully next years version will have full stat tracking; right now it only saves team records; though it does keep tracking during the game what your players are doing. I wouldn't mind seeing a fantasy draft next year either. Still this games a lot of fun and if you love football and remember playing the old Maddens pick this up. You wont be disappointed.
My Scores
Graphics-8/10
Sound-7/10
Control-7/10
Gameplay-9/10
Overall-8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 11/30/01, Updated 11/30/01