Madden NFL 2003

Written by Tony Kennetz on August 22, 2002

Full Review: Who's gonna be Madden's alcohol supplier now that Summerall is gone, anyway?

Now in its 13th year, Madden NFL 2003 is the respected standard in football games Ц whether or not the football powerhouse is the best football game for a given year. Year in and year out all NFL games that are released immediately get compared to Madden Ц in the case of NFL 2K, Madden's biggest and most dangerous competition, many (including me) feel Sega's NFL game actually surpasses Madden in numerous categories. However, we're in a new year, so all bets are off.

Which is why Madden NFL 2003 is so impressive. In the face of stiff competition on PS2 from NFL 2K3 and rebuilding powerhouse in NFL GameDay, EA and Tiburon actually went back to the drawing board a little bit to give Madden a fresh feel that it hasn't had in quite a few years. The result? Madden 2003 is actually a fully enjoyable football game that suffers from none of the sluggish gameplay that hampered previous PlayStation 2 incarnations, and is actually so well done that it makes it extremely difficult to actually make an obvious choice for the best PS2 football game out there. Those who might have been turned off by previous Madden's have a reason to come back for at least a rental try Ц because this is easily the best Madden game in years.

As usual, Madden 2003 comes stocked with all the trimmings as far as game modes go. The usual exhibition, season, and Franchise modes are included, along with a Football 101 training session with former Oakland Raiders coach (and of course, everyone's favorite unintelligible NFL announcer) John Madden. We'll get into Franchise mode in a bitЕbut first the latest additions to Madden 2003.

Madden 2003 also includes 2 new modes of play to amuse you Ц the Mini-Camp mode, and of course the highly touted online play. While online play isn't technically available to use yet (I say technically because if you have a proper USB modem, you can play online until the Network Adaptor is released Ц look for a review of Madden's online play in coming weeks), Mini-Camp mode is good enough to tide you over in the meantime.

Based in the mold of Sega Sports Tennis' insane training drills, Mini-Camp mode takes you across the country in the Madden Cruiser, to every NFL city. Each city has a different training drill and/or difficulty level Ц including games such as learning how to punt the ball to put the offense deep in their own territory, or the proper way to bat down passes in the air. As simple as they might sound, they're actually pretty tough and very addictive. You do get rewarded for it Ц getting a gold trophy for a drill nets you a special Madden Card, plus it unlocks a game situation to test out your new skills. Complete the game situation (typically involving either scoring the winning TD/Field Goal or shutting down the computer offense in a certain way), and you get the Cheerleader Card for the team you're playing as. That's right, now you can collect football cards of half-naked women to show to all your friends (of course, they pump up the home crowd when you use the card in a game). Not that I'm complaining, or anything.

The Mini-Camp mode isn't just a silly mini-game to take emphasis off the actual games Ц instead Mini-Camp actually enhances the game, simply because you'll be learning skills that many times are ignored. Once you spend enough time with the drills, getting all the controls and techniques down will make you a much better player against any sort of opponent.

Madden's famous Franchise mode returns as always, and it's as deep as it ever has been Ц perhaps the deepest version ever. The latest additions affect both the pre-season and post-season activities. First off, pre-season games have been added Ц and playing them comes highly recommended. Unlike NFL 2K3, which just has them to have them (and you can turn it off anyway), Madden's pre-season lets you check out players and even enhance them if they have a good pre-season. In these games the starting lineup plays the first half, and the 2nd team plays the second half. A lot of times a player will have a surprise pre-season and get a major boost in attributes Ц plus it's a good way to have a good old-fashioned quarterback controversy. You can skip the games if you want (manually, there's no option to turn them off), but doing it might cost a few players a chance to get better, thus making your team better.

In the post-season (I'm skipping the actual season here, because it's not much different than previous Madden games, plus I'm pretty sure most people actually know what the point of a season is), there are a handful of steps to do before starting over next season. The process of signing your own free agents is simple enough (however, I think some players should shun the team and hit the free agent market, it's too easy to keep the same guys if they never refuse to resign a contract), and priorities can be deciphered easily by player ratings and years remaining on a contract.

Signing free agents from other teams is still classic Madden Ц something that's yet to be matched in an NFL game. For a 30-day period, you can take your checkbook out into the open market, hunting after big names or just a few decent players to shore up your team. Of course with a salary cap in place (which you can turn off, but it's stupid to do it), you can't sign everyone, plus you should leave plenty of room for signing those greedy college kids to NFL contracts. The CPU teams are much more aggressive than in the past Ц rarely do they let you win a player on the first bid, unless you jack up the market for the player so high that nobody else can touch him. If you have a team with a lot of cap room, this is an easier procedure Ц but if you're on a smaller budget and less cap room, it's better to just avoid getting into a virtual auction for a player, no matter how good he is.

The new wrinkle here is the scouting portion of the game. Instead of going into the NFL Draft blindly, Madden features scouting reports. You're able to scout up to 15 different players (plus you can import your NCAA 2003 draft classes into the game, if you know enough of them built in scouting is easier), so hunting around and knowing your needs will let you get a leg up on the other teams come draft time. When Draft day comes, players you scouted are colored differently, and come with a more detailed report on the player, as well as their draft position expectancy (1st round, 2nd round, etc).

Once the draft is done, you can then sign your rookies, realign your depth charts, and it's then time to play again. You personally can pick your pre-season games, so picking teams (always from the opposite conference that you play in, it seems) that test your team is a wise idea considering how important it is.

As always though, all the game modes mean squat if the game isn't any fun to play. And in the case of Madden NFL 2003, the game is very much fun to play Ц and very improved from previous versions of the game. Tiburon did 2 smart things here Ц toning down the annoying momentum, and speeding the pace of the game up to feel less sluggish. The result is a Madden game that feels largely unique from 2001 or 2002 versions. The momentum is still there, but it's no longer so exaggerated and unrealistic. In the 2001 or 2002 versions, a wide receiver would catch a ball and head 10 feet in the opposite direction (like when they catch a ball on a curls play and run back to the line of scrimmage before they can turn around, but by then they're tackled), or just run out of bounds on an outs play because they can't turn upfield fast enough. In Madden 2003, that's all changed. Yes, making a catch on a curls play will cause a slight run backwards towards the line, but a second later you can regain control and head upfield or at least get a 7-8 yard gain on a short pass play.

The passing game in itself is much improved. No longer do receivers drop the ball as often when they're wide open, and actually hold on more often after a jarring hit (something that bothers me about NCAA 2003). This is offset by a much more aggressive set of DB's. If you throw into coverage without as much as a hole to thread the needle with, they'll either bat it down or pick it off, but they don't get quite that many interceptions. Just as long as your receiver is actually open, it's easy to get the ball in there. Usually though the defenders play you pretty tight, so actually getting open is tough, with the exception of a few plays (typically plays where a guy runs one way then cuts another, they can get a step or 3 on the DB)

This change in momentum doesn't really affect the running game Ц but the running game in Madden is still improved. Now backs Уget skinnyФ when coming through the offensive line, instead of bunching up with them for a bad run. Instead the backs turn sideways to slide through the hole, and hopefully out ahead of it for a large gain. That is, of course if the defense didn't beat your line at the outset of the playЕin that case you're kinda screwed. The running game is still quite refined; with big bruising backs busting up the line is pretty easy (or you just drag guys with you for extra yards), but with a speed back who isn't as strong, cutting away from the line and going with tosses and sweeps is the way to go.

Playing on defense still needs a little work, but it's not as bad as it has been. I've discovered that the computer typically can burn you for a long play if you call the wrong one, or just are a really bad tackler. Since it's quite tough to bring down a player unless you're really aggressive, it leaves you open to get burned fast. It also seems that the DB's are nowhere near as fast as computer WR's, since once they get by, nobody can even get near catching up, so it's a waste of time. In that way, it almost forces you to run a lot of nickel and dime plays to prevent a big play, which leaves you open to get hurt by the running game.

However, in typical EA tradition, the running game is anemic and once you get ahead by more than 2 scores, they just abandon it and go to the air constantly. Thus playing tight defense early in the game combined with good offensive productivity will actually let you ease up later and run nothing but nickel and dime sets to avoid and shenanigans by the computer. What's strange is NCAA 2003's running game is actually much better and can actually hurt you Ц probably because of that damn option play 90% of the teams run nowadays.

Despite that, the game does give you a pretty tough game consistently Ц simply because getting ahead by 2 touchdowns is a tall order. It's possible against the worst teams, but usually the tough teams will either shut down your run and force you to pass, or shut down your pass and force you to run. Sometimes they shut both down, but usually they concede one or the other and smash your head in the other one. Stopping the computer from scoring is possible as long as you don't call the same plays constantly, and spend plenty of time in Mini-Camp to learn the correct way to tackle here. Unfortunately, you need to be up on All-Pro or All-Madden to get this kind of result, simply because rookie and pro are far too easy. Rookie is disgustingly easy Ц the computer probably completes 4-5 passes out of 25 all game long. Pro is a little tougher but you still can run and pass the ball at will, only now the computer puts up a little more effort.

Graphically, Madden 2003 hasn't changed all that much from previous versions, but still looks quite good on the whole. Player faces are much improved, even if they don't catch NFL 2K3 in that category. The stadiums are gigantic and are complete with a fully animated crowd that will leave in the 4th quarter if a game is a total blowout. All the new stadiums are there for your use (even if the Сnew' Bears stadium is just a borrow from Illinois' Memorial Stadium, complete with the Illinois logo in the end zone instead of the BearsЕand in year 3 you don't get to play at Soldier Field again), and look completely accurate. Grass-based fields get worn away by 4 quarters of football, and lighting effects are simply amazing Ц some parts of the field might be dark, others are completely bright.

Player animations are great as always, and include new tackling animations such as a swing-like tackle where you take the guy down by his shoulders (almost holding, actually), and of course the getting skinny animation, which is not as good as 2K3, but still pretty well done. The players themselves are varied in size and weight, and look less like the little children that made Madden 2001 look like a joke compared to NFL 2K1. Madden 2003 truly looks like a real football game.

The audio is much improved in every possible way. As you know, Pat Summerall has retired and John Madden has moved onto ABC's Monday Night Football, so who better to replace Summerall than MNF announcer Al Michaels? Michaels calls a good game here, and actually talks more often in the 1st quarter than Summerall did in a whole season in previous Madden games. Plus Michaels actually sounds excited to be calling a football game, unlike Summerall who sounded like he'd rather be anywhere else but in the game. Madden's phrases are pretty much aped from old Madden games, but this time he seems more like a compliment to Michaels instead of the star of the announce team, thus his signature remarks feel sound a lot better here. With the exception of NFL 2K3's team, nobody actually has done it better than Michaels and Madden (who might be the new M&M's, but Madden probably ate all the M&M's).

Get this Ц Madden 2003 has a soundtrack. Instead of constantly annoying music playing in the menu screens (typically poorly written and rapped tracks that suck on EA's fat one by practically making them seem like Gods), EA Sports went out and got a ton of new rock & roll tracks instead. So now you'll find acts like Andrew W.K, Audiovent, Quarashi (Beastie Boys light), and even the venerable Bon Jovi (who turn in a pretty good song here), along with about 10 more. You can also hear these tracks in the background during games if you listen close enough in-between plays. If you can't stand rock music (lamer), you won't like the soundtrack, but everyone else will find it to be a refreshing change from the garbage of the last couple years.

On-field sound effects are not really that great, but competent. The crowd is well voiced and there's a little on-field chatter, but unfortunately not a lot of trash talking like NFL 2K3 has. But unlike past Madden games, the great play-by-play overshadows it, making it less important, really.