Review: Madden NFL 10

What’s this? An Englishman reviewing Madden, proposterous. I know, it might be odd but I had to bite the bullet on this one. I think all of you readers (along with myself) would have rather had Ryan review this. After all, he is American. Alas, he’s busy reviewing about a million other games for the site so I decided to tackle this one, hence why it’s taken so bloody long! So, sorry for the delay, but I have done my research and I know this “Hand-Egg” business like the back of my hand…ok not that well, but I have some knowledge of this and previous Madden titles. Dare you trust my verdict? I wouldn’t.

Madden has been around for absolutely ages (see, I told you I had done my research). Now in it’s 21st year, the fan base for this game is as strong as ever. As with all EA Sports titles, each year there’s a bunch of updates to make the game more realistic. Not knowing the game very well, I can’t really comment on those, but i’m sure they’ve done as intended. What I can tell you is, from an outsiders standpoint, this game is fun. If you want a sports game you can just have a good time with, you won’t go far wrong here. The game certainly welcomes newcomers, something that certainly helped me.

Immediately, I dived into the ‘Franchise Mode’. Mainly because it was the career mode and it’s what i’m used to playing in FIFA. The set up is fairly easy, I picked a team (I went with the Eagles, but quit and swapped to The Giants) and proceeded to work my way through a series of menus before getting into a game. The menu system was a tad overbearing at first, but after a while I got used to it and gradually found my feet.

I got into the game and was, once again, bombarded with menus and options. Being the newbie that I am, I chose to ask Madden (I mean, his name is on the box he must know a thing or two) and proceeded to do this at every opportunity. This is where the fun kicked in. The game is really good. The controls are responsive, the AI was, for the most part, good and I loved what I was doing. It felt natural and this is someone who’s never played American Football in their life.

The game looks fantastic too. I mean, EA games, in general, are known for looking good, but this was stupidly good. Players looked and moved fairly realistically,  the stadiums looked great and the presentation was, pretty much, top notch. The only major problem I had was with, both, the commentaty and the half time report.

Commentary seems really unatural. There would often be a lot of accidental overlap between Madden and the other commentator and it ended up sounding really bad. That said, i’m used to FIFA’s commentary which many have proclaimed to have “the best” commentary of any sports game. However, I don’t just play the one sports game (I play NBA 2K too) so I know that this was bad and not just me being used to so much better. As for the half time report, I thought the concept was cool, but it was not done well at all. Once again, the voiceover sounded almost robotic and the fact there wasn’t a sliver of commentary over the replays of your own game was just plain idiotic.

Aside from ‘Franchise Mode’ there are a bunch of options here to entertain fans. A lot of it really didn’t appeal to me personally, but I can certainly see how fans of the sport would love a lot of this stuff. The best mode I found was the ‘Online Franchise’. It’s the standard franchise, but playeed online with a group of friends, or in my case, random Americans. This idea was great, it’s executed really well and there’s a lot going on outside of the game that would keep people playing for ages. If only something like this would come to FIFA, myself and Ads would love it.

First of all, I realise this was a terrible review and that, basically, it was the story of a bloke from England trying something new. I have to say that I enjoyed my first proper Madden experience and think that fans of the sport and the series will certainly enjoy it. There’s a plethora of modes to play through and the ‘Online Franchise’ mode is really good. Hats off to EA for making a game that’s not just a sports sim, it’s pretty acessible and bloody good fun. The only thing that lets it down is the commentary and that stupid half time show. There are a few AI glitches here and there which pulled my score down a little too. On the whole, the game is good and, if there’s any football (soccer) fans out there looking for a new sports game to check out, make it this one. Me? I’ll be sticking to FIFA.

8.5/10

Secondary Comments – Chris Malley

Like Anthony, I too had no experience of American Football and/or Madden. I went into this expecting to hate it and, well, I kinda did. It just didn’t grab me. I was confused by the stupid ammount of menus and options and I couldn’t really get to grips with it. Once I got going, I thought it was fun and playing online against Anthony was pretty cool, but it’s not for me. I’m sure fans of the sport and the franchise (‘scuse the pun) will love it. Football you play with your feet is the one i’ll be sticking to. By the way EA, what’s with that commentary?

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