Madden NFL 2004 (Xbox)

Even more importantly the defensive AI is better and the biggest gripe from last year - the lack of pass rush from for D line has been sorted out - fortunatley for the health of my controllers the D backs in particular do what they are supposed to !

Franchise mode is great, building your team is harder and more thought intensive, the other modes are more of the same - the new owner thing is a waste of time/memory but some people will enjoy it.

Overall after becoming disollusioned with the Madden franchise due to it going more and more down the 'arcade' route - score 50 points a game and to hell with players who want to put together a decent defence, it has rebounded with a really good game that requires a lot of thought to succed - especially on the higher skill levels

Aside from the new features of the game, Madden 2004 packs in all the traditional joys. The depth of the franchise mode where you control player management is there, as is the huge playbook selection. If managing a team is too cumbersome for you, the game offers the usual modes of play - single games, season, situation, tournament, and the skills based training camp mode. Once you move down through the game menus you'll find gameplay tweaks for anything you can think of. Unfortunately you will have to play with the sliders a bit to find a game that suits your tastes. Penalties are called too infrequently on the default settings, and even when maxxed out some are never called. You can also adjust the characteristics of the players. Just about everything is discussed in the manual, though some advanced moves are only explained in either the pre-game pop-ups or “Madden 101” section of the game.

There really isn't much bad with the game. If there are complaints, they would center on penalties, perceived AI cheating, and the lack of online play. The penalty calling is odd. After the first few games I wasn't getting any penalties so I bumped all the penalties to the maximum. Then I was getting too many facemask penalties. I've knocked those sliders down, but I still don't get a good mix of interference, roughing, or motion calls despite those sliders pegged to the maximum setting. On cheating by the CPU, every so often you'll swear the CPU gets a huge gain, an opportune penalty call, or some other freak occurrence to continue its drive or stymie yours. You really see this in the mini camp game situations. Finally, the lack of online play is inexcusable. The EA corporate line on the Xbox is no online play. That's unfortunate for the Xbox consumer.

Whoever says EA always rests on its laurels hasn't taken a look at Madden 2004. The game has improved secondary play and a new owner mode giving you even more control over the finances of the team. And don't forget the new playmaker control. The advanced controls let you take unprecedented control of virtually every aspect of the game. With it the running game is improved and the defense rises to a new level. All this boils down to one great football game.