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Xbox | Sports | Madden NFL 2004

Boxart for Madden NFL 2004
Madden NFL 2004 6 screen shots
  • GRAPHICS: 5.0
  • SOUND: 5.0
  • CONTROL: 4.0
  • FUN FACTOR 5.0
  • AVG USER SCORE 4.8
  • AVG CRITIC SCORE 4.6
Winner of the GamePro Editor's Choice Award

Review: Madden NFL 2004

Review by Wes Nihei | 08/12/2003 | 14:40:10 PM PST

Who says you can?t teach an old dog new tricks? Madden NFL 2004 makes the competition bark like a canine.

Stock up the fridge, pay the electric bill in advance, and kiss your significant other good-bye. Madden NFL 2004 is a feature-packed football powerhouse that's going to keep you housebound for the duration of the NFL season.

High-Class Football
Madden's one of those games that just keeps raising the bar?on itself. This 2004 edition maintains the traditional love affair with the NFL that football gamers have come to expect from the series while adding some dynamite new features.

Hardcore Franchise players, for instance, are going to party hearty with the new Owner mode. At last, you can take a shot running every aspect of your football operation. Winning the Super Bowl is one thing, but how about turning a profit? You can set ticket prices, adjust parking fees, and spend cash on advertising to put butts in the seats. The menus take a little time to master, but, hey, it's a long season.

Budding billionaires can work the off-season, too. You can negotiate contracts, sign free agents, and even scout rookies and rate them at the combine. Owner mode also has an amazing build-a-stadium feature. You can construct your football dream house from the ground up with a simple-to-use tool that enables you to manipulate hundreds of architectural features from lights to end-zone logos with a few button presses.

Playmaker Power
Yes, the behind-the-scenes stuff is pretty darn cool. But on the field is where Madden is money. All the player models have received another megadose of polygons. The PS2 looks even better than last year's version, but the Xbox and the GameCube really shine.

But whether it's for PS2, Xbox, or GameCube, the familiar football action rocks. Of course, the game feels best when played with the PS2 controller. The Xbox and the GameCube are fine, too, but their button layouts force sometimes awkward finger stretching.

This year Madden juices its overall fine control scheme with a new system called Playmaker Control. This feature enables you to control teams and individual players on the fly by pressing toward a direction with the right joystick on the PS2 and Xbox or with the C-stick on the GameCube.

Playmaker adds great gridiron nuances to your game. Prior to the snap, for instance, you can react to the opposing team by switching the direction of a run on offense or cheating the secondary to one side on defense. After the snap, you have to take the time to become a real football maestro to manipulate all the regular buttons as well as the right analog stick for Playmaker Control. If you can manage that, you can perform slick tricks such as directing your blockers during a run or signaling your receivers to break off their pass patterns on offense. On defense you can instantly commit to the run or the pass once you read the opposing offense. Playmaker works great if you can stay calm enough during the heat of battle to fire it up.

Madden Goes All the Way
The best gets better. Not content to sit on its?.er, laurels, Madden NFL 2004 raises its game to yet another level. Once again, the road to the videogame Super Bowl leads through the house that John built.