football

Madden NFL 2004 is the ultimate football game. The gameplay is magnificient, the franchise mode is exciting, the soundtrack is great, the commentary is wide ranging, and the game is just presented perfectly with excellent control and graphics.

PROS
-great graphics
-cool music
-creative commentary
-variety of gameplay modes
-interesting franchise mode
-good control
-Create-a-team (including create-a-stadium) and Create-a-player
-lots of fun
-addictive (or should that be a con?)

CONS
-If you play for too long the soundtrack repeats
-can be a little slow
-front office duties in franchise mode can be tedious

Bottom Line
-Buy it

I've been playing Madden since the Super Nintendo days and while I've seen some disappointing sequels in the famous series, this year's version is probably the largest annual upgrade ever. While the game has added brand new GM features that allow you to control ticket prices, coach hiring, stadium building and other fun stuff, it has also improved the AI by leaps and bounds. In particular, the secondary plays much better than Madden 2003. Unfortunately, if you truly want to experience Madden the way it was meant to be played, you need to play against humans. Unpredictable strategy, smart motioning and audibles, and jukes that will shake you out of your shoes are what make human opponents so much better than the CPU. And this is the one negative aspect of playing Madden on the Gamecube. There is no online play! The PS2 and PC version have it but for some reason (it may be because Nintendo only has a slower 56k modem) the Camecube does not. It's a shame because as good as Madden is, if there is no online play, you are limited to the guests you can bring into your own house instead of having plenty of online opponents available at any given time. The eternal football sim battle rages on and everyone has an argument why their title is the best but I've tried all the popular titles and I still believe Madden is the most realistic football simulator out there. Just keep in mind that this game assumes you already know a lot of basic football techniques and strategy and while the game can be easily learned, it takes years to master. If you are new though, the Gamecube version does include a Madden 101 mode that will teach you some of the game's basics. In my opinion, Madden is still the best football game available, but it loses its value on the Gamecube because most versions offer online play.

I just don't see the quality product that everyone on Amazon is gushing about here. My experience with Madden was: frustratingly slow load/save times; confusing key interface on menus, poor menu design and interface; VERY annoying soundtrack filled with one-off; nearly unlistenable; basically idiotic, songs played at 1.5 time (why must every song on a videogame be played at a slightly too-fast speed?); an offseason mode in the Franchise game that takes about half and hour to complete; the graphics seems, to me, to be worse than Madden 2003, at least in terms of player appearance; the "Training Camp" mode takes FOREVER and is really annoying; and the much-touted "Owner Mode" isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

Also, the sheer amount of memory this game requires is a HUGE discouragement. Basically, you have to pay for the game AND another 20-40bucks for storage space.

This series is seriously overrated.