football

Okay Okay! Its not as close to watching Football Live on ESPN, but its the best thing on your PC. The graphics are amazing. Simply amazing. Im playing Madden 2003 on my 1.6Ghz, 256MB Ram GForce4 64MB Nvidia and im in heaven. The players move smoothly without any graphical glitches. However there was one thing I found absurd, which was that the players can walk right through their team mates.

The sound is beautiful. The crowd is life-like and their continious cheering really motivates you to score some touchdowns. There is also some In-Game music. If you think thats not enough, then pop in some or all of your favourite MP3's and "Play with the beat".

You also have "Mini-Camp" which allows you to have practice drills which is really helpful. In Multi-Player mode, you can host tournaments and make online-clubs, which allows you to sell or buy players from others online. A really swell idea!

Well thats about it. Bottom line, Madden 2003 is the, I repeat The best football experience on your PC!

I have played three Madden games on the PC: 2000, 2002, and now this one. The previous two were horrible (as you can read my review of 2000 on this website) in every way except graphics. This game, however, has the intelligence to go along with the glitter.

If you play this game on anything except rookie setting, you will be in for a war, and you will not be guarenteed of winning just because you're the human player. The AI in this game is the best of any football game on the market, and it offers a great way to challenge your playmaking abilities. Throw deep everytime and you'll be rewarded with batted balls and interceptions. No longer can you simply run the same crossing route over and over and score a TD on it everytime. If you call the same play over and over, the AI will take note of this, and it remembers you style as well, so you HAVE to mix your plays up and be somewhat unconventional. And that is what football is all about.

Audio? Oh my goodness it rocks. It even comes with the 11 Audio MP3's on the CD so you can put them on your PC, burn them, or whatever.

Now for the flaws: I believe there were 6 or 7 challenges in the NFL last year that were over-turned on the field (real life). In this game, the computer will use ALL their challenges in a game, 4 of them(usually), and, in the 2 weeks I've played, they've NEVER lost a challenge. They typically are used on fumbles. So if you're playing, and the computer fumbles, and you get it, chances are they will challenge and the refs will over-turn the call on the field. And usually, you really can't tell one way or the other because its too close, and in real life, you need conclusive evidence. In Madden 2003, tie goes to the runner. Another gripe that is very consistant with previous games is the amount of injuries. I know football is rough, and I know people get hurt a lot, but c'mon, every game I play usually 3 people get hurt. Most of the time, they come back later in the game or are just out for that game, but it is still annoying. At least it isn't like the 2000 game where, every time you'd simluate a game, 4-6 players would ALWAYS be injured for at last a month, usually longer. THAT was annoying.

The interface is also cumbersome, and you'll spend some time trying to find what you're looking for, but its all there. And, you can't sort the league leaders stats beyond the first category. This is a bug that should be fixed when they release a patch.

But all that is really minor compared to the gameplay, which is the best ever offered on a PC for football. The easiest difficulty is very very easy (I'm talking 49-7 easy playing on 5 minute quarters easy...), but increases radically thereafter.

Go ahead and buy it. I'm not the biggest football fan and I LOVE it.

Frequent lock-ups and total system crashes. This is the only (retail) software that I've experienced these problems with since the days of DOS. When it is running there are quite a few details that give the impression it is a beta version that was never completely finished before hitting the shelves.

EA tech support operates under the "no not us, somebody else" method of problem solution.