NFL Head Coach
by EA Sports
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Video Game Reviews of NFL Head Coach
Customer Review: Leave Head Coach in the locker room
Summary: 1 Stars
I have always loved the "business aspect" of an NFL Franchise and when Head Coach was released, I thought I had died and gone to heaven
One of the things that irked me, is you were automatically assigned to a team. There was no way (at least that I could see) where you could pick the team you wanted to coach for
But after one day, I was ready to un-install it. Now this IS a great concept for a game, but I think it's "too detailed" and can be quite fustrating if you're just a casual gamer (like I am).
Everything pretty much consisted of "Point here. Click there". The next "day" it was "Point here. Click there". Talk about being bored to tears.
This is no way, shape, or form what I thought it would be, and while I do not like things overly-simplified, nor do I enjoy over-micro mangement, which is what Head Coach is. They take a great concept, and micro-manage the hell out of everything as simple as making a phone call to an agent
I know that's the way they do it in real life, but I enjoy playing games to ESCAPE from real life. It's just too over-the-top micro-management.
So my advice is to leave Head Coach in the locker room and get Madden instead
Customer Review: Falls Short
Summary: 2 Stars
As a fan of past football simulations from the Commodore 64 days with HEAD COACH to the weak but fun FOOTBALL MOGUL series, I was excited to learn that EA sports was going to make a NFL simulator. Now, EA really upset me a year ago when they took the NFL license and killed the best football series ever, ESPN 2K. But I was willing to give them another chance with HEAD COACH. The verdict: I am still mad at EA.
I installed NFL HEAD COACH and already had a problem. It was telling me my DirectX wasn't up to date, so I had to go to the EA site and hunt for a fix for it. Once installed, I was ready and excited to play out my life as a head coach.
I was pretty happy for a while. Even though it seemed tedious, the day to day was fun but I couldn't wait to get to actual coaching. I signed and drafted players, kept my staff and started spring training. While I was sad to see little options on talking to players, the practices were fun and I could see improvement in the players.
Then came the pre-season game. Oh my...this is where the game fails. First of all, you can't save mid-game at all. That is a big no-no to me. I sometimes can't sit and play for too long. Then, the AI in the game was horrible as my QB who is a pocket passer, would run a lot and I could make easy plays often. And subbing players was a nightmare because you had little time to do it.
I haven't made it to my second pre-season game because honestly, the in-game coaching was terrible and boring. This has all the workings of being a good game but playing Madden 06 as a coach is better than this. I hope they do release one next year. And even though this has my favorite coach (Cowher) on the cover, it will just go with the rest of my Steelers collectables for now.
Customer Review: Not Meant To Be Exciting Folks
Summary: 4 Stars
This game isn't meant to be as fun as NFL 2k5 or Madden. It is meant for you to simulate the life of a NFL coach. It is a very tedious game, and very slow paced. You have to do everything from interacting with the owners, scouts, and other coaches. You evaluate free agents and the up coming draft. You then have to formulate your gameplans and strategies for the season. You select the plays, formations, and the lineup. Is this game boring at times....YES! It's not and never gonna be as fun as playing Madden, but that's not its purpose. Everyone has a purpose Mr. Anderson..enough Matrix! The purpose of this game is for you to see the headache of being a head coach in the NFL. You have agents and owners calling your, and I've had players requesting meetings. Then I have my coaches unhappy with me for not following their suggestions. This game is boring but rewarding, if you've ever wanted to be a coach. I hope EA does this for college football as well, because that could be more interesting. If you want non-stop excitement, forget it with this game. But if you want to see the headache a coach has to go thru for a season, then I think you'll enjoy the strategic elements of this game. My first season I took the Vikings to a 10-6 record and a first round loss to the Cowboys. Currently I'm evaluating the talent for the draft and signing free agents for season two. Not fun but a great strategy game for football fans! Customer Review: A bad port of a bad console game
Summary: 2 Stars
I really wanted to like this game, I really did. I was very forgiving for a lot of things, but as time went on, I simply realized the game is just not fun. I love strategy games, sports manager games, and Madden's franchise mode. But there are just too many things that NFL Head Coach does wrong that it really clouds the few ideas that the game does right.
I like the game's use of assistant coaches, talking to agents, scheduling practice, and I love the dynamic draft. One of my few critiques of Madden's franchise mode is how the draft zips by, and you can't slow the game down to see which players went where. NFL Head Coach goes team by team, and even has suggestions from your scout. Awesome, and adds to the drama of draft day, as you wonder if a top player you've been scouting and need will make it to your pick in the round. I also enjoyed making my own custom head coach, and having an office.
With that said, there are just too many things that this game does wrong. Some you may have heard these before, but I'll repeat, just to emphasize what many have said already:
1. The interface is one of the worst I've ever experienced in a game. This is classic laziness of a developer to copy and paste a console interface for the PC. The button colors are "surprisingly" the same for a PS2/Xbox gamepad, but the keyboard buttons are extremely unintuitive. Also, every fact on your players, and the league in general, is contained in subwindows and deeper sub-subwindows. Ok, this is tolerable, barely, but to get back to the main screens, you need to go in reverse through ALL these screens instead of using a shortcut. It becomes very tedious. Finally, the game inexplicably forces you to go fishing for information about each player, instead of just using the simple, elegant design used in Madden. I don't mind the game using Madden's designs if they work well.
2. The scheduling of tasks is way overboard. I understand what EA was going for here. They want people to really consider this a hardcore coaching simulation. Let the casual players play Madden's franchise mode. Ok, fine. But the use of tasks that force players to roleplay a coach's schedule hour by hour is pointless. Players want the interesting parts of coaching, not the tedium of "office hours" that limit you to a certain number of actions per day. A more effective break down of time is required. I hate to refer back to Madden again, because I understand they wanted to create a different product, but "different" does not have to imply tedious. There are plenty of sports management games out there (The Front Office series, anything "Mogul", the Championship Manager franchise for soccer) that have successfully produced entertaining sports management experiences despite the abundance of player data, game data, and the time constraints of a season.
3. I have never, never, NEVER played a game with so many load screens in my life! It is unnecessary and pointless. Just lazy, lazy design.
4. Random crashes. Particularly for me during practice session. Which leads me to...
5. The practice sessions are dull and repetitive. Again, I understand, this is what coaches really do. But I bet they go to the bathroom and pick their nose too. I don't need those things simulated, nor do I need to run through every practice. I would have been happy with just scheduling practice, but not having to watch every. single. play. Althoughg you do have the option to skip coaching practice, you lose the ability to create "money plays," which are plays that you have rehearsed so often, they have a high chance of success on gameday. Also, the game punishes your simulation of practices with higher frequencies of injury, or players which are often not ready for game day. Which leads me to...
6. Player development. Players are granted range of ability scores (ex. Strength 65-85) that change throughout the season. If a player is well prepared and practiced, he will peak near game day. However, these scores all plummet the very next day. Players must then be retrained through practice again and again every single week. Again, it may be somewhat real, but it is tediously dull. I guess the designers were trying to emphasize the need for between game and preseason practices. Real? Yes. Boring. Yes. It would have been enough to require practice to maintain player ability scores, instead of the need for practices to continually replenish ability levels before game day. Which brings me to...
7. Gameday. Some people do not like the graphics used here. I don't mind. I've dealt with plenty of text-only or dots-on-a-field sports management sims that it's refreshing to watch a game. But this is not a normal NFL game. First of all, only 5 minute quarters are allowed. I understand this is to prevent the padding of scores with excess plays from button mashers, but Madden (again!) allows me to modify the quarter times. The 5 minute quarters are too short to produce NFL-level numbers for offense and defense. Also, on the field adjustments are nearly impossible in PC mode. It requires the fast paced button pressing of a gamepad. If you want to adjust your linebackers and tell your corners to enter bump and run, forget it. The plays almost always starts before you have a chance. As for the game itself, you are practically guaranteed to have at least 2 interceptions for both quarterbacks every single time. 3-4 is the norm. While passing for 150 yards. Every game. Maybe if I'm Joey Harrington, sure, but not for Peyton Manning.
8. Motivation mode is worthless. Example. My QB just threw an 80 yard touchdown. I tell him he's doing a great job out there. He responds negatively and his stats drop. Gee, I'm sorry I complimented you! Also, you are limited to 2 choices for motivation strategy (aggressive and passive/complimentary), but have no idea how players will react. What's worse, if you use the same strategy twice on a player, he may react positively and then negatively on the very next attempt. Or vice versa. It's better to just not use or even include this feature at all. To be fair, I did enjoy the ability to tell individual players to emphasize particular aspects of their gameplay, like "concentrate on stopping the run", or "throw the ball out of bounds if you are under pressure". Well done there.
Despite all of these "issues", I really enjoyed the idea of coaching my NFL team. But in the end, I didn;t enjoy the actual experience. In one particularly revelatory moment, while wading through screens and screens of info, I felt that not only wasn't I enjoying the game, I wasn't even playing the game. It was as if the game was playing itself, with the simulation screens, watching the games without being able to adjust the rules/time/plays, being shackled to an unnecessary daily schedule, etc, the I was just fighting to create my own enjoyable coaching experience which the game would not allow. So I gave up. Guess which game I WILL be buying to get that experience? Yes, Madden. It's a shame. I always wanted a deeper version of Madden's franchise mode, but not at the expense of enjoyment, much less playability.
In conclusion, Ernest Hemmingway once said "The first draft of anything is S#@t. If nothing, writing is rewriting." That philosophy really sums up NFL Head Coach. I think of this game as the awful first draft of a potentially great series. Although there are multiple problems, they are all solvable. In fact, they've already been solved in Madden's franchise mode. It's funny, you can see them trying to make a different game to avoid complaints from players that "It's too much like Madden", but instead committed a worse sin: they created an unplayable game. What I'm encouraged about is that all the good aspects of NFL Head Coach are all new ideas: Interviewing for your first head coaching job, hiring assistant coaches, designing my own coaching avatar, the dynamic draft, changing player strategy, and dealing with agents. But I just get the feeling the developers decided to dump this on the public, and design next year's version based on the criticisms of this game.
Customer Review: Needs a lot of work: a double-let down all around
Summary: 1 Stars
Being a stat-head obsessed with baseball stats I thought this game might bring some of the obsessiveness of some baseball games into the game of football. I expected the game to move slow, but its pace would make a snail impatient. I expected the game to be rich in statistics and analysis and here the game falls flat and that's the biggest disappointment of all.
The interface is your desk, mostly this involves going through clicks to your computer and your calendar or playbook for most of the first few hours you develop a team before you get to actually coach a game. Best to fly through it once then see what the point is and start over, which is what I did. The drills are critical in getting your team ready for the game. The coaches often have some suggestions on lineup changes but you can see that for yourself, so the meetings are of marginal interest at best and get tired fast. Most activity occurs at your computer, unfortunately that's one thing that needs a lot of work. Scouting, signing, drafting and trades work similar to many other games and I won't waste review space on them. For what they are they're pretty much fine for what they are. Let's get into "coaching" ...
Your main computer activities are lineup changes, playbook changes and a calendar. You can use the calendar to skip ahead to other events and reschedule some things (though never the boring redundant ones) for example, change your pass skeleton drill to a full off v def contact drill. You also must arrange your play designs, regular season trades and free agent signings by swapping out a drill or other swappable activity. While you can add and remove plays from the playbook, making a new play requires using up a swappable task, and it becomes obvious those tasks are best served by conditioning your players.
You may be tempted to load up your playbook then you'll realize that it's best to start small and work up (a nod to realism) as your team has to learn each play to make it effective.
The drills work up your skills on any play and also give your players some overall boost. The one-on-ones really boost your players and can make red ones turn green in the depth chart coloring scheme, but the longevity of that is week-to-week. You must keep working them. Each drill they run adds 6% for noncontact and 20% for full contact drill to the "money play" and when you get 100% you have a really fine money play. I found my defensive money plays routinely lead to massive loss of yards and interceptions. Still, to be realistic, poorly fit plays to your design won't stay money plays for long and probably won't work that great in the end. You should start with a good play in the first place, of course.
So after the doldrums of getting your team and playbook together it's time to play a game. If you've been paying close attention don't be surprised here when the order of the plays is different than it appeared in the full contact drill. Another reason not to fill your playbook to the max. So we run some plays ... at some point you'll want to review what happened on the last play. You can see a video clip while the play clock ticks away, but nowhere does it tell you anything useful like how many yards were lost or gained, who made a tackle, etc. In a game that seems designed for this sort of detail, there's none. At the end of the game you get to review the most basic of stats but that report goes away when you close it and vanishes never to be seen again.
What would really be nice is organized reports and the ability to see the results of plays you call. In a game with this price tag being what it is I simply *demand* to see such things as in depth analysis of the games (and drills, too) and there isn't any of that. Want to see the results of a HB Draw play on 3rd and short? Yeah, so do I. Forget it. It's not happening.
It would be nice if you could even export the most basic of data. Sadly this can't be done nor is the single file save adaptable to any program readily (if you're determined you can parse some info from it from the looks, but I'm not going that far). I made spreadsheets to manage my playbook and players. Sadly, this is what I did because the game doesn't do it for me in any way. It's a game to play with a clipboard but it doesn't support the clipboard. I don't know about this voice activated thing, maybe I'm missing the whole point? Annoyingly the game traps your Win key and Alt-Tab attempts so you can't even Alt-Tab to your spreadsheet when looking at your playbook. Grab a pencil! Now technology has come full circle, thanks EA Sports!
I'm trudging through a rather successful season coaching the Detroit Lions. I'm coaching the Lions because atleast they managed to get the coaching offer part about right ... my favorite team I interviewed for doesn't really need a coach but Detroit's offer was hard to pass up and gave a lot of cap room to work within. We're quite happy running a ruthless 46 defense and scoring about half the points on defense money plays while heads-tails determines our choice of Jeff Garcia or Joey Harrington. I'm not sure how much longer they'll have me as a coach though.
Note you also don't get much in graphics. It has the Madden engine and the gameplay is ok, but limited in angle without much to do but call plays and watch. There's no player photos.
The final gripe is the interface for the PC. Things like using the [ character for backspace. This leads to a bug in the play design save when you by habit DO use the backspace key which leads to a bunch of useless empty play formation saves to add clutter.
I don't get it. I'm sorry, but it seems like a team of college weekend coders could put this together in VB within a semester. Move it to the bargain bin already. Let me know when it begins to live up to its hype.