Good Game Madden, GG
User Rating: 8.8 | Madden NFL 2005 PS2
John Madden makes his triumphant return in this year’s John Madden Football 2005, with his new style, defense. This year’s Madden football has every game mode you’d expect from a Madden game. Exhibition, Franchise, Season, Classics, Simulation, Practice, and Online. One new mode is Training Camp, which is also included in Franchise Mode, which is a series of minigames that help you get better at certain parts of the game. The meat of the game is Franchise mode, which is very tasty; you can play from 20-30 years in this mode and build a low team to the best. Also, player morale and stature are affected by on-field performance, so if they do bad they look bad and get upset. They can be a cancer on your team and make other players unhappy. New features, which are minimal this go with Madden but are still fun. The Hit Stick is very cool; it makes hard hits on ball carriers and shakes them up nicely. An effective hit can cause a fumble. How hard you hit them is based on your speed when you hit the carrier. Also, if you hit them at the wrong angle they will throw you off like you’re nothing. Another new feature is the Create-A-Fan, which you can create your own personalized fan from how big they are to what apparel they wear. The commentary by Al Michaels is solid and the color commentary by Madden is horrid, as usual. Madden doesn’t have very many lines and some are recycled from years past, though the first time you play the game it isn’t repetitive, but it soon is after your 20th go around. The default difficulty is too easy, you may need to adjust the sliders to get it just right. The slider bars have from 1-20 in difficulty and are all fully adjustable. I soon had to set new settings to enjoy it, this is for skilled gamers only. I found there are way too many Interceptions too on the default settings and I was quite perturbed at that. Graphics are good, I think that ESPN NFL 2k5 is better graphically but Madden 2005 is still good. ESPN NFL 2k5 is also better in the animation department. But you have more control over the player and how they animate than on ESPN NFL 2k5. There are tackles where two defenders tackle a ball carrier. Those tackles give you a sense of gratitude because that’s a mark of a solid defense. Online play runs smooth on PS2 but it isn’t as good as ESPN NFL 2k5. ESPN NFL 2k5 feels like it was made for online play as to where Madden 2005 was the simulation for offline play. Which online play is good, but I recommend if you’re into the best online play pick up ESPN NFL 2k5 because it is only 20 dollars and it has better online. Ray Lewis sports the cover this time around and, as usual, whoever is on the cover is rated 99 overall and their team is all 80s-90s. Not to say Ray Lewis isn’t that good but Kyle Boller isn’t worth his 80s rating. Some team’s overall rating is not a true depiction though. Take the Cleveland Browns for example, they’re rated 60s in defense but if you go through player by player they are two guys rated 70s and the rest 80s. The signing and trading in Franchise mode is quite tough, the AI teams are smart. You’d have to give up players of equal or higher value to get players. Sometimes there are loopholes though, like trading draft picks or just signing free agents. In the end Madden has good online play and the best offline play, ESPN NFL 2k5 has good offline play and the best online play. It’s depending on which one you want to spend your money on. You can buy them both if you are a football junkie. Graphics – 8 Sound – 7 Gameplay – 10 Replay Value – 9 Overall: 8.8 
