Madden NFL 2003

"I never liked Andrew W.K. to begin with... oh, but the game isn't bad."

Graphics: 8/10
Not bad for GBA. The graphics are around the level of Madden '94 or '95 for Super NES, and I haven't found any serious issues in terms of glitches or things like that. The wide screen helps somewhat, but it would be even better if the screen were just bigger in terms of visibility. One strange thing is that no matter what the weather looks like, the field and the little referee cutscenes always look the same; I seem to remember as far back as '94 or '95 the SNES version had that fixed. Not falling, mind you, but it appeared in places.

Sound: 5/10
I swear I will never listen to ''Party Hard'' ever again. They made it, poor GBA sound quality and all, the music for basically every menu other than play selection (which just has crowd noise). Other than that, there really isn't much music, if any at all. As for sound, they're your basic grunts and pows. (Why exactly do football players go ''pow'' after a hard hit?) And, of course, there's the often teeth-gnashingly annoying Madden commentary, which fortunately only appears when you're tackled for a loss.

Play Control and Interface: 7/10
Control is generally tight, though the field feels a bit slick when running. Unfortunately, the GBA only allows you to use 4 buttons for receivers, as opposed to the normal 5 or more. Not that I ever threw to more than 2 of them, but still... As for interface, the menus are easy to navigate, and play control works the same as it always has. Also, perhaps it's just that I haven't played a Madden game in awhile, but I believe the sub-formations are fairly new. (And fairly useless.)

Intangibles: 3/10
Time to gripe. Gripe number one is, of course, the challenge. I have formed a theory that the objective of your average football game AI is for both teams to rack up a rather high score for a game... in 3 minute quarters. Of course, if you go to the full 15 minutes, you can easily break 200 or 300 points. Passing is far too easy; the secondary can't comprehend a pass over 20 yards most of the time. Running, on the other hand, is pretty much a lost cause. Occasionally you can scramble for yardage if you wait long enough, but other than that you might as well go deep on every play. Also, there are some technical glitches I came across in the season mode, namely that the game considers week 17 its own season, and resets the standings when you play that particular game. (When your QB is close to 10,000 yards, you want to see that kind of thing. Did I mention passing is way too easy?)

On the good side, the player creation system is rather unique: you have to play minigames to set your starting stats. Also, they fixed the glitch that used to be in Madden games where, if you threw a 99 yard touchdown pass, it wouldn't count as a record, but a 99 yard pass which was stopped right before the goal line would count.

Overall/Rent or Buy?
Overall, a solid football sim, and a good way to waste time. If you find it on sale for $10 (fairly common, actually), and you want some portable football, it's not a bad deal at all. Just don't expect anything spectacular.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 12/07/02, Updated 12/07/02