Agnew's Mind He's got a long journey ahead of him.

My Madden 10 Review

    by Matt

As a self-titled Madden connoisseur, I believe I am the only Agnewsmind.com staffer that can write a complete review. While I have not been playing Madden since the beginning, I feel that Maddens from pre-2000 are irrelevant. My Madden debut came on the Super Nintendo in 1994 with Madden 95.

Yeah, this was first one that incorporated a license from the NFLPA AND the NFL. This was a BIG deal back in the early days of video games. Otherwise, you would be playing as the Eagles but with made up players....like in Madden 94.  In addition, the big new features were: high stepping and selectable end zone celebrations.

No need to analyze these old, crappy games. One funny note to point out is Madden 96, EVERY player is African American -- even the kickers and punters. There's nothing like playing San Fran vs. Dallas and watching Troy Aikman and Steve Young as African Americans in the prime of their career.

Fast forward to 1999. I bought a Sega Dreamcast on 9/9/99 -- it's much publicized launch date. With this system, debuted the NFL 2k series which was meant to battle with the Madden franchise. In the beginning Madden was not available for Dreamcast so you were forced to get NFL 2k if you wanted to play a football game. As a next-gen system, the graphics blew away anything I ever played. The game play was near flawless.

NFL 2k was the first football game to simulate a football game presentation rather than an actual football game. Yes, so in other words, it was the first game to try to imitate a football game on TV and you had control. For the first time ever, commentators seemed real. They actually sounded like they were doing the game you were playing instead of saying the same 5 things over and over again. PLUS, STATS!! Yes, I love stats during a game. I love seeing that Donovan McNabb has thrown 5 interceptions in my game and a graphic on the screen telling me that.

The following year Sega put out the best football game I have played (I mean the most fun) NFL 2k1. This game had it all ...almost. More stats, more animations, special moves and an easier running game. Ironically NBA 2k1 is also the best NBA game of all time.

Fast forward a few years.... the Dreamcast died due to lack of third party support. Remember they didn't even have Madden? What a shame. The NFL 2k series continued as Sega continued to put out games and eventually locked up an ESPN license (prior to their involvement in broadcasting NFL games). In my opinion the Dreamcast was like Billy Gunn in 1999. Got a great push, destined for greatness, but the timing was off. I took a leave of absence from video games 2001-2003. Let's just say they were not a priority at the time. In 2003, I had a Playstation 2 and wanted to make a return to the Madden series. I heard great things about the upcoming Madden 2004 and decided to give it a shot. I bought it the day it came out.

Being a SimCity fan, I loved the new Owner Mode. For the first time, you were responsible for the accounting of your favorite NFL team. Not only did you have to re-sign and sign free agents, draft college players, hire coaching staffs, and execute on the field, but now you had to make enough revenue each year to keep the payroll high. You could control how much parking on grass vs. parking in a lot was. Also, if you were an owner for the Eagles you controlled how much cheeseteaks cost. In Green Bay, the merchandise shops sold cheese head blocks or whatever. For the first time ever, you could save your game and pick up right where you left off. Never before had that been done.... awesome. No more quitting, saving your franchise, and having to replay what you were doing. This year marked the first year you could relocate your team! Yep, if the Eagles fans were giving me crap, I would look at the list of who wanted an NFL franchise and I built a stadium from scratch and designed my uniforms. I can't tell you how many times I relocated the Eagles to Mexico City.

Madden 2005 was the SAME exact game as 2004 with the exception of the Tony Bruno's radio show now showing up in print form. You could review the headlines of the USA today for NFL stories or the Philadelphia "Examiner" for stories relating to the Eagles. This was cool since players would demand trades or contract extensions. This also marked the year of 2k dominance. The buzz in the video game world was that finally Sega's NFL 2k series had finally beaten Madden with NFL 2k5 -- regarded as the best football game ever by many.
In a Vince McMahon twist, Madden bought an exclusive license to put out the only NFL game creating a monopoly. Madden 2006 was born. Hopes were high. Of course if they knew their history, they would realize that no competition does not lead to better games. Look at Vince. The new "QB vision" was met with hate even though you could disable this feature (idiots)

So now, it's 2005 and I have Xbox 360. The first system that has HD capability adds another element to the Madden franchise.  The graphics were insane. I remember playing it at Agnew's house on the 100-something inch TV. Wow. Of course, since it was a launch, it was a brand new engine and in a sense was starting over. All the little extras were GONE. You were lucky they put in a franchise mode....barely. All the bells and whistles were gone. While it played nice and looked incredible. All the other things that made the game fun for me were gone. There was a lot of room to "grow into" the next gen system. GREAT. Glad to know that they are starting over on the SIXTEENTH Madden game. People who still had PS2 and Gamecube and the old Xbox had a completely DIFFERENT game. It was like, yeah I got the best game, but I'm missing out on the party. The older gen's had all the franchise options that the new one was missing.

I barely remember Madden 07. I think I downloaded it or something. Not much better. Madden 08 was horrible...but only because I  had the Wii. Possibly the worst game ever.... just because of the graphics. Ironically, I read that it is the best next-gen Madden yet. Of course.

Madden 2009 marked the return of my Xbox 360.. my fourth one...due to my bootlegging. It was pretty good. It was the first time John Madden would not be featured in the game as a commentator across every platform. Chris Collinsworth and John Hammonds take over and do a great job. Come to think of it, I don't think Madden has been in the damn game for the last 3 years. Who knew? Anyway, it was better than the first 2 Maddens I played on the system so I loved it. People said it was a step back from Madden 08 but I never played that one so it was great to me. People complained about the rewind feature. Yep, you throw a typical McNabb pick? Rewind. If you are playing on Rookie Mode, you could rewind that play and do it over. Hahaha. People hated that. I also hated the challenging in this game. You sometimes could not challenge otherwise challengable plays. If that wasn't F'ed up enough, when they show you the replay during the challenge, they'll show you a replay 50 yards away for from an angle that doesn't make sense. Great. I'm challenging if my guy was inbounds and the camera angle is from a lineman on the ground at the conclusion of the play. They did improve the snow conditions. No more are the days when you play in the snow and it just looks like a dusting. Now you see a good amount of snow and having flurrying during the game with the yard lines dug out. Cool.

Oh yeah, so here's my Madden 10 review:

When I first played this, I thought it was one of the worst in the series. The commentary is almost exactly the same with Collinsworth and Hammonds.....but yet got worse? How? It's choppy and doesn't flow together. Initially, the game play was choppy and slow. The graphics looked horrid. This year they cut in with cut scenes in between plays. The coaches will yell at you if you did something wrong.

The QB will yell at his WR if he throws a pick. Those graphics are not the best. I'll take it. I'd rather have that than nothing. FINALLY bells and whistles added to the Franchise Mode. We get a weekly video show that highlights the games of the week and upcoming games. Also, they announce the players of the week and where your team is in the standing. Sure, it's awkward and sometimes redundant but it's a start. After reading all the negative stuff online, I admit it's not that bad. I enjoy it. I played the game 6 more times. After adjusting the sliders and even losing a game against Agnew (he cheated with codes) online, I've changed my mind. It's possibly the greatest football game ever. I mean that in the sense of realism. The running game is realistic... including the up to 9 man gang tackles.

The commentary still sucks like I originally thought and the kickoffs freeze up. I love the stats and graphics on the screen. The passing AI is way more intelligent than any other Madden I played. Add in close yardage measurements, CORRECT challenges and good camera angles, flags, red flags, and cool pregame/postgame action scenes. All the online reviews HATE the halftime show... I like it. It's the extra things that sucker me in.

My Top 3 Football Games Of All Time:
1. Madden 10
2. NFL 2k5
3. NFL 2k1

I can't wait to play another game... oh yeah, I can't, my power has been out since 7:30 last night.

By the way, this game does NOT include Britney Spears, Megan Fox,  or Erin Andrews NUDE!