As the best-selling
football franchise on the market for an umpteen number of
years, Madden NFL is a name that is known by the masses as
representative of some of the best football you can get on a
video game console. Last year's Madden NFL 2004, in
particular, is revered as one of the best installments EA has
ever brought out--which ultimately makes it a tough act to
follow. For this year's edition, Madden NFL 2005, defense is
the name of the game. Nearly all of the additions and tweaks
made to this year's game fall squarely into the realm of
defensive football, and they're all great new features. The
downside to this high emphasis on one particular area of the
game seems to be that the remaining aspects of the game (of
which there are many) are generally only slightly improved or
altered, if at all. In many ways, Madden 2005 is just a bit
too much like last year's Madden for comfort--but it's still
a truly excellent game of football all around.
A big addition is the new defensive hot route system. Similar to the offensive hot routes, you can now redesign a defensive player's assignment at the touch of a button. Want to push a linebacker into deeper zone coverage or bring a safety in for the blitz? Simply highlight the player, and tap the right analog stick in the desired direction. You can also give better pre-snap assignments to your defensive backs now. Individual presses and pullbacks on receivers can be performed, and you can also lock a corner on to a specific receiver, thus preventing mismatches. Finally, you can now also adjust how a defensive lineman attacks the offensive line without actually having to shift your whole line. What all of this amounts to is a far more user-configurable defense that actually makes playing defense much more enjoyable and strategic. The strategy works beautifully, since the defensive artificial intelligence is generally very, very good, and it performs your changes perfectly. If you're adept at defensive playcalling and are able to make good reads, you should be able to dominate on defense--at least against the CPU.
Madden NFL 2005 is as
robust as it has ever been, though not all of the preexisting
modes have seen too much in the way of changes. We'll start
with the franchise mode, which has easily seen the most work.
The big, new presentational change to the mode is the
addition of sports radio host Tony Bruno. Billed as EA Sports
Radio, the Bruno-hosted show actually plays at the start of
each week, and by listening to the show, you'll hear
interviews with players and coaches, hear Tony take calls
from irate and occasionally idiotic fans, and hear little
tidbits about things happening in the NFL. For example, we
encountered one scenario where quarterback Mark Brunell was
benched early on in the season in favor of Patrick Ramsey. Of
course, Brunell was not pleased with the decision, which Tony
was quick to report. The dialogue is occasionally a little
jittery when Bruno discusses specific stuff related to your
league scenarios, but the more generalized bits, like the
phone calls, are pretty entertaining.
Your players' morale is centered primarily around playing time versus rating, it seems. If you've got a good player who is riding the bench, he'll quickly become despondent. Doing things like shifting player positions around can also adversely affect morale if a player doesn't want to be moved from his current position. Furthermore, losses of big-star players will pretty much bring your entire team into a funk if you aren't able to find a suitable replacement. Some players also just seem to have a natural tendency to become problem children, such as the always entertaining Terrell Owens and the periodically whiny Ty Law. Player personalities also play into contract negotiations, because sometimes teams will have certain intangibles that simply appeal more to a certain player, like preferable weather or a level of prestige that is just that much more attractive. All told, the storyline features seem to fairly accurately represent the sort of media hoopla and personality-driven drama that surrounds the NFL year after year, and though not everything it has to offer is super-useful, it's very cool nonetheless.
In terms of onlinefeatures, Madden NFL 2005 marks the debut of Madden on Xbox
Live. For anyone who has immediate concerns about the online
issues found in last month's NCAA Football 2005, we're
pleased to report that we ran into none of the same problems
while playing Madden. In fact, both the PS2 and Xbox versions
performed just fine under normal playing conditions, and we
barely even ran into any lag. All stats and records seemed to
track perfectly. As far as features go, most of the same
stuff you'd expect from online football is front and center
here. You can join EA's setup lobbies on both systems (or
just do the quick match, optimatch thing on Xbox Live), and
you can create and join various matches and tournaments. New
to the online mode is the rushing attack minigame, which
works just as it does offline, so your point scores make up
the leaderboard statistics. You'll also be able to track your
online career in your EA profile, which is a little like ESPN
NFL 2K5's VIP profile system, except that you can't download
other people's profiles.
Madden NFL 2005 is still Madden. It's another excellent game of football that continues Madden's long legacy as one of the best in the business. The defensive changes made to the gameplay are likely going to set the standard for football games in the years to come, and the additions to the franchise mode easily make the mode the best of its kind. It's unfortunate that the other portions of Madden NFL 2005 aren't quite as improved over last year's installment in the series as these key areas are, but that small quibble shouldn't stop any Madden fan from running out to purchase yet another highly accomplished game of football in Madden NFL 2005.
