Madden NFL 2004
by EA Sports
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Video Game Reviews of Madden NFL 2004
Customer Review: Great Game
Summary: 5 Stars
This game is awesome! You can create your own team and player. Great graphics. Realistic. Buy it if you like football games.Customer Review: owner mode aggravation
Summary: 3 Stars
Nothing is more frustrating with this game as it is to build your franchise into a powerhouse and then have the game take it away. for being 10 mill in the negative, creditors foreclosed on my franchise. And it happens everytime i try to build a team, without fail, as soon as you got your team rigth where you want it, the game takes it away. Its aggravating as hell and because of it, this one loses 2 whole stars. The gameplay is the usual 5 star variety, the graphics are phenomenal and the online play is improved over last year. Cheating was a big problem (its amazing how many people would quit as soon as someone put a field goal on them). Now, the problem has been addressed making it harder to boost ones record by cheating.
alas, i wish the owner mode was never introduced. It is as addicting as it is maddening. They need to introduce some kind of financing or bank loans or something. After putting 10 seasons of drafts and trades into the game, to have the comp steal your franchise is the dumbest thing this game could do. The so called advisors are useless for helping manage finances and in fact you really have no control at all. Raising or lowering prices on tickets and other stuff is a token gesture that has no bearing on the big picture. I was 40 mill under the cap and still lost the team. Basically, owner mode is a big waste of time. If your going to improve on the franchise mode (which is annoying too because no sooner are you ready to make your championship run, you are fired and the next season, the team you built will go all the way)do it right. Make the options count for something .
Customer Review: Noticeable improvement over Madden 2003
Summary: 5 Stars
Madden 2004 is a little better than 2003 with minor tweaks and updated rosters. It is a much more noticeable difference. I recommend Madden 2004, because there is more moves, owner options and the ai has improved with blitzes and other things. It is good now that it is $20, I bought it since I had Madden 2003 and bascially Madden 2003 now sucks after playing Madden 2004!!!! Do yourself a favor and upgrade to Madden 2004 while its cheap. I can only say that the instant replay went downhill, everything else went uphill.Customer Review: Great game, despite it's flaws
Summary: 4 Stars
I haven't played an NFL sports title for just about 10 years now. (Last one I played was ESPN NFL 1994 on the Sega Genesis.) I'll spare you my mumblings about how different the games are today (duh).This game really irritated me at first. The biggest and most glaring flaw would be the weird number of fumbles you get from people returning kicks. I've had motionless punt returners fumble the ball on a fair catch, it's so bad.
Then there's the penalties system. Of course, except for offsides, it's almost totally random. You are free to go in and adjust the sliders to determine how often these penalties get called. But it's still a serious pain in the ass when you're 3rd and 17 and miss your 1st down because of a holding call that was randomly applied to your play.
The sum total of this stuff will sometimes give you a feeling that the game is very much being decided by random factors, and this can be really aggravating, especially if you put some time into practicing and get good at the game elements. You can be left with the feeling that it doesn't matter what kind of skill you have, because maybe you'll get a major penalty for holding, not get the first down, and then fumble the ball (on a kick return) to your opponent that will run it for a TD. You can throw the controller, you can call the game a POS, but you still can't take those 7 pts off the board.
After playing a lot of games vs. the computer and vs. a friend online, I'd say that there is a feeling that the randmoness evens out a lot. So you'll have a game where you get a penalty on a return, wind up on your 15 yard line, and then your superstar back will fumble the ball at the worst possible moment and give up an effortless TD to your opponent. And this will lose you the game. But then the same thing (or worse) will happen to your opponent. In fact, I've seen much worse thing happen in game. (Like for example, the CPU fumbling the ball on the kickoff twice in a row, giving up 14 pts.)
If you see yourself more as the coach of the game - someone who just has to deal with the fact that this stuff does happen - then you just adjust your strategy. This is what makes the game frustrating though - you're both the player and the coach, and when you're the player, it leaves you feeling like you should be able to control more of the outcomes.
So skilled / obsessive gamers who sit down and run practice plays for an hour a day are going to find out what I did: Just because you've got the skills on the play doesn't mean you're gauranteed an easy victory. And your game strategy has to reflect this, or you're going to lose a lot of games. "Stuff" happens, and if your gaameplan doesn't include the "stuff," you're in trouble.
I gave this game only 4 stars, not because of any of the gameplay stuff, but because, like every other EA sports title, the interface is a mess, the EA sports website is a mess, and both the online and game-packaged documentation is a mess. I've seen chimps on ritalin with more organizational skills than the EA sports guys. This stuff is such a chronic problem for them that I can't give any game they make 5 stars if they're going to keep neglecting this stuff.
Despite all this I've really come to love Madden 2004. The teams look awesome on the field and the game really feels like a football game. In the end the randomness has only made the game better for me. When it's 21-17 and you get that TD you need to take the game - and you get it despite a big holding call and an injured WR - you really feel like you've fought and won. And that feels great.
Customer Review: The best of the best gets better
Summary: 5 Stars
When I first turned on Madden '04, it blew me away. First of all, it has a great soundtrack with the likes of AFI, Bubba Sparxx and Blink 182. The graphics are stunningly beautiful and the details are flat out impressive (Ricky Willam's hair, Kyle Turley's tatoos). The stadiums are impressivley detailed and the gameplay is flat-out amazing. Also, it has easy controls, though not as good as 03's.The franchise is also the best ever! And this is Madden for godsakes! The revolutionary "Owner Mode" is fun and challenging, for example, you can have a good team that will attract fans, but you can't be a a-hole owner like Jerry Jones. (Tip: if you give out $1 beers, your fan support will go way up. You can also hire coaches. The only bad thing about Madden on computer is that there's no Madden Cards. NO MADDEN CARDS!!
So whether you're a first time Madden gamer, or you've been playing since '87, you'll love it.