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MADDEN NFL 2002

REVIEW by: Kazooie

Any idea can appear to be a successful one on paper. But paper is far different from reality, because as your X's are moving around, their O's are in motion too. Skill and talent come into play, as a stud can always break away and grab you from behind before you even get out of the starting gate. Of course this works oppositely too, as weak protection will ultimately lead to a collapse to even the mediocre, and with the collapse a loss. Execution can carry you for a while, but then all of a sudden anticipation, instinct and intelligence enter the picture, causing even more unforeseen problems. Everything's now closing in and you're an inch away from being brought down, when by stroke of luck you're sprinting towards the goal, although obviously not by design. You won't admit this at the post-game press conference though. After all, it was your offensive genius that is the reason behind this play's success.

This is football in a bottle. While it's good to be consistent and execute well, it's better just to wait for the other team to mess up, and when they fail, jump in and capitalize, knocking the wind out of them for the rest of the game. Even better would be to have the franchise player, the man who makes the other team make mistakes. Sure every player seems to have the equal opportunity to make the other team fail (or for himself to succeed, whatever your approach is), but this man somehow goes beyond, and it's hard to tell why. He could be very religious or unlucky in love, but you'll never know the reason behind his success. Just be grateful for what he does and stop your pondering.

While teams consist of fifty-five men working together, it can often come down to the leg of one man who decides victory or failure, sometimes by inches. This leg is a leg of magic and mystery, as it can boot two consecutive field goals from fifty yards away, and then shank an extra point wide right. No matter how you align the X's and O's, there's no way to guarantee that the ball will sail through the uprights. He gets to be the hero as well as the goat, and no matter how hard you work, it can come down to luck at any time. Of course this doesn't even take into account the conditions, such as wind, weather, surface and stadium. Nothing is guaranteed in the NFL, except of course your twelve million over three years, with incentives.

All said elements above have been incorporated into Madden NFL 2002. But not only are they present; they are flawlessly there, waiting for you to partake in them. On the field, the game accurately plays like real football. Passing plays and running plays all work to various successes, and if you are consistent with one of these, the computer will pick it up and adjust its defense to stop you. Mix up the plays a bit and give it to the guy who they least expect to get the ball, perhaps the fullback, or a quarterback sneak. Maybe dump off a pass to the tight end as he cuts to the outside, or toss up a fifty-yard bomb to your speed receiver. If you insist on focusing on running up the middle with your power back or go to your star receiver on a slant route constantly, you'll eventually fail, because the computer is now smart enough to adjust, as are real life defensive coordinators. Keep going to the same guy on a pass, and they'll put two defensive backs on him, maybe three. Go with a run to the outside too much and the safety will cheat up and bring you down behind the line of scrimmage. In order to bring home the prized Lombardi trophy, you need to be consistently different.

The way you play defense is far different though. Find a few defensive plays that you like, and your set for the rest of the season. Unlike on offense, the defense doesn't make the plays. Rather, it reacts and tries to stop the play before it even starts. Through practice, you'll be able to guess either pass or run based on the formation the computer uses and be right about seventy-five percent of the time. If you bet on a pass, you can either blitz or drop back into coverage. If you guess run, take off like a bat out of hell and charge straight at the back, and say a prayer that there's someone behind you in case you miss the tackle. Even more gratifying than scoring a touchdown is making a goal line stand, especially when it's your man who stops him at the one-inch line.

Aside from laterals and flea flickers, almost everything else you'll ever see on an NFL football field you'll find in the game. Plays range from the generic HB Dives and Slant patterns to the insane five wide receiver Hail Mary. On defense, there are a good variety of blitz packages and coverage packages to choose from, so in emergency situations, you can always surprise the offense with a cornerback blitz or even drop a defensive lineman into coverage. If that's not enough, you can also shift linebackers and lineman before the play even starts.

Off the field scenarios are similar to real life. Trades, free agent signing and player releasing is just the beginning. If you start a franchise, which truly is the meat of the game, you'll be greeted (or maybe threatened) by coaching changes, the NFL draft, retirements and even exposing players for the expansion draft just to name a few. Tedious jobs such as reordering the depth charts and rooting through the pile to find the youngest free agent may leave you with rewards in future in-game seasons. If you go all out and sign a bunch of middle-aged guys, your team will get progressively worse as they age, but if you try and mix in some younger talent, they will eventually mature into the super-stars of not only your team provided you choose wisely.

Not only are there the thirty-one NFL teams we all know in the game, but there are over a hundred others too. You'll find John Madden's favorite, the All-Madden team. You'll come across the Ecko Team, featuring a bunch of scarily excellent players sporting Ecko brand apparel. Almost every classic team you can imagine is in the game, either playable from the start or available through Madden cards. You can go back in time and witness such hideous jerseys as the old Tampa Bay. You can go back and rewrite history, and have the Bills win four straight super bowls rather than lose four consecutive. Classic battles can occur between the greats of their respective decades. Not only that, but there are also all-time teams, made up of the best players to ever play on that team. Who's the better dynasty, the Cowboys or the Steelers? Pit the All-Cowboys against the All-Steelers to determine it once and for all.

By accomplishing feats on the football field, you'll earn tokens. Depending on what difficulty level you play on and the difficulty of the task you complete, you'll earn a different number of tokens. Tasks range from sacking the quarterback (easy) to have a player who is injured score a touchdown (hard, and based a lot on luck). In exchange for one hundred tokens, you can purchase a pack of fifteen Madden cards, or cheat cards. These cards can be a lifesaver in some situations. While some of them are relatively useless, such as the ones that boost one player's ability, there are more helpful ones that can do a variety of things, such as shrink the goalposts to a miniscule size making it impossible to kick a field goal. Also through these cards, you will gain access to secret stadiums and teams, and even classic players of the likes of John Elway, Barry Sanders, Mike Singletary, and Richard Dent.

For those looking for the glitz and glamour of the NFL, you'll find enough of it. While there is no post-game wardrobe along the likes of Michael Irvin, or even Ray Lewis, the uniforms on the field are accurate and detailed all the way down to the sun gleaming off their helmets and the names printed on the back. You can almost always recognize the players down on the field as they move around, juking, jiving and dancing their way into the end zone. Player motion is fluent, even with there being a total of twenty-two men on the field playing at once not including the referees. You can clearly see the players when you drop back to pass, and jaw-dropping hits will do just that.

The commentary of John Madden and Pat Sumerrall is average at best. There's little enthusiasm to their voices, and a good portion of it is stating the obvious. At times their play calling will go astray, as they seem to be calling a different game, such as when going four yards past the first down marker results in Sumerrall saying, "He just barely got through for the first down." Aside from this, the music is rather bland, although the one rap song during the menu screen was good, and surprisingly, about football.

Madden NFL 2002 is by far the most accurate football simulation game to date, and not only does it flaunt the present, but it embraces the past. Its design should suit everyone from the modest football fan to a member of the Redskins' Hogget's, as not only is it fun, but also accurate to the same degree as an Olympic archer's shot. In fact, Madden is such a complete representation of actual football that the only squabbles are minor ones concerning statistics and other specifics to that sort. Madden has worked hard at climbing the ladder, wrestling with competitors from the days of Tecmo to the current NFL 2K series, and is now the undisputed football king.

Therefore, I definitely recommend getting this awesome Football game for the GCN! You definetly won't be disappointed!

Presentation This game plays almost exactly like the NFL. Although, the announcers and music do create quite an annoyance.	7.5
Graphics The graphics to this game are simply stunning. From falling snow to the crowd, Madden 2002 has some of the best graphics around.	9.0
Gameplay The controls are not only easy to learn, but very easy to use.	8.0
Overall Unlike the past, Madden 2002 is one of the most realistic football games on the market.	8.2