Madden NFL 2002

"Going, going, and he is... TACKLED AT THE ONE YARD LINE!"

Well, I've never been a huge fan of football, but I was always a fan nonetheless. I watch football from time-to-time, but I love playing the games. Now, when I say games, I mean the Madden series. It's just that good, y'know? It was going great up until this game was made, and then it just flopped. I was disappointed in this game.

Graphics - This is a good looking game. I like the design of the players, but nothing overly great. I wasn't surprised by any huge amount of detail or anything. Just the common graphics for the Game Boy Advance, really. The menus are just what I wanted, really. The same menu used by EA Sports since... well, since I can remember. But no huge amount of effort is put into making the menu, so there's nothing there that will save the marking of the graphics. The 'Select A Play' screen looks a little squished, but you can't expect something better on a GBA screen.

The left 'sidebar', if you will, looks fairly good. Just plain ol' white with the team's logo on it. The actual plays are as detailed as they ever were, showing the right amount of description. That just about does it for the select a play screen. The actual football games look good, like I said. The movement is smooth, though sometimes I noticed the collision detection lacks at some points. The actual field is good enough. It shows the yard numbers clearly and the end zones look good. After selecting the play it shows the '1st and 10' or whatever, and that's a nice addition, if only minor. And the play clock is quite visible in yellow numbers in the top right corner.

Sound - This was... heh. I can't help but to chuckle at it. The ''EA Sports... It's in the game'' was muffled and a little staticy. I don't know if it was just my copy of the game, but it wasn't good at all. The menu music was just... icky. I understand you can't have great tunes on a hand held system, but they could've made something better than this. Something to fit the funky style that they use. And when playing the actual game, the fans are almost completely silent. When playing the Superbowl I expect the fans to be cheering as loud as possible, yet I can barely hear them in this.

The quarterback, when 'hiking', sounds like he was kicked in the nether-regions. The voice is high pitched and sounds almost like a girl. I understand that people have voices like this, but you expect a quarterback to have a deep, gruff voice. Ah heck, you expect most ''jocks'' to have voices like that, right?

Gameplay / Controls - The gameplay can get frustrating at times. The menus can get quite annoying. Think, in a major game, it's your last play. If you make the field goal from twelve yards you get to the Superbowl. However, you select the wrong option. Okay, no sweat, right? So you click ''B'' to go back, but guess what? ''B'' selects a play and doesn't let you go back! So instead of making the easy field goal you accidently have to run the ball in, but you get tackled and they win. That's enough of that game, right?

Well, I wish that it would end the review. But the gameplay gets worse, really. On the PlayStation versions of the Madden series throwing the ball was easy, simply because there were so many buttons to have for the players. But not on the Game Boy Advance. You hike the ball with ''A'', which is common sense. Then you bring up the throwing options with ''A''. Then you have to throw it using ''A'', ''B'', ''R'', or ''L''. Possibly ''Start'' and ''Select'', but I haven't played enough of this game to get a good feel for throwing yet, nor do I plan to. Not all of your receivers are covered, so you have less options to throw it.

By the time you find someone open there's a left tackle jumping at you and blocking the pass. Sure, games are supposed to have difficulty, but this is just... stupid. Apart from this the controls are straight-forward. ''A'' to select things in the menu, ''B'' to cancel, etc.

Rent or Buy? - Definitely rent it. If in some slim chance you like the game, then you can shell out the $50 for it. I suggest just skipping out altogether and spending your money on something worth it, though.

Replay Value - If you're like me in thinking this game is bad, it'll just sit on the shelf collecting dust. But if you do find that you like this game then you'll get a lot of replay out of this, simply because it's a sports game. Either way, I hope you have fun.

The Numbers -
(Marked out of 10)

Graphics - 7
Sound - 5
Gameplay - 5
Replay Value - 7
Overall - 6

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 09/29/02, Updated 09/29/02