R.I.P Madden
User Rating: 9.6 | ESPN NFL 2K5 XBOX
I've been of fan of the "2K" series since Dreamcast. In fact that game was the reason I purchased a Dreamcast. I like many of you have been a madden fan, well since there was a time to be a Madden fan. Other games tried, and other games failed. Finally football fans have a real choice as to which game to purchase, and frankly after playing 2k5, there is only one choice, 2k5 is the new king of football games. First off the graphics on the game are downright gorgeous. The player models are spectacular and the fluid animation used really brings the game to life. I was playing the other day and my Father thought I was watching a game on T.V, that's impressive. If you read the gamespot review you know about The Crib system and the fact that you can now prepare your teem each week for their upcoming game. You know about the changes to the running game where you can no longer stop on a dime and go for broke (unless of course you were Barry Sanders or Walter Payton, in real life that is). So i'm not going to go into that stuff. What I want to discuss is what seperates this game from Madden. The announcers. The announcers in this game are amazing. Yeah if you play the game 500 times you will notice repetition but they don't repeat as much as Madden does. They don't make bone head calls like Madden does ( then again that's why we love Madden, he's like Yogi Berra). What is so impressive about the announcers is that they not only call the main action. They will point out a key block that allowed your running back to dash 50 yards. They'll pount out the key block that allowed your receiver to get the first down. During a replay they will circle players out of position which allowed your tight end to be wide open. That in and of itself is what makes this game truly phenomenal. I was never more impressed with a football preseantation than I was when I play this game. There are of course minor problems which will come into play. Receivers tend to drop some balls when they are wide open (the high profile receivers won't, but any scrub playin in the NFL will catch a ball if wide open, for the most part). The defensive backs seem to be too perfect in their timing to break up plays sometimes, and the game is too easy on the rookie difficulty setting, and very hard on medium. The game is only $19.95 and I can't imagine a single person not willing to shell out 20 bucks for a top notch video game. There is finally a Madden killer on the block, and it's only a matter of time. People sometimes say beauty in a woman will attract you, but her brains will keep you. Halo/Halo 2 will attract you to the Xbox, games like Knights of the Old Republic and NFL 2k5 will keep you. 
