Madden NFL 08 review (Xbox 360)

Sometimes I wonder what I’m doing reviewing games. I mean, all the free titles, developers wining and dining you at exclusive events in French mountainside chalets hosted by all natural Playboy bunnies whose sole aim is to please you and a friend of your choice if you give the score of their employers’ latest title an ‘8’ or more. You see, these days and eight out of ten is the magic number. Of course a nine or a ten is where it’s really at but with an eight you’re almost guaranteed a great experience although nothing revolutionary is added to the genre/gametype.

That’s how I view things and many other reviewers seem to concur. So whilst I’m being massaged in some enormous kidney-shaped sauna, a sixty five inch screen rolls down from the ceiling, my martini is lovingly caressed from my grip and replaced by a Xbox 360 gamepad and Madden NFL appears in front of me with rousing intro music that bleats out of gold plated speakers. They want me to love this game; I now definitely want to love this game. But did I?

Overload

You see, apart from the utter fantasy I have written above, the whole point is that there are just some games that you want to love. As an avid gamer, I want to like them all at the very least, but there are some games that simply ooze detail and atmosphere and you want to award the developer a high score.

Madden NFL ’08 is one of those. You want to reward the developer for the man hours it has put in devising a myriad of gametypes, options and ideas that all do their very best to enhance the gamers’ experience. So what’s the problem? Well the problem is it just doesn’t quite get there. It’s almost as though you’re overloaded with options and these only serve to confuse the issue. Also, sometimes you just need to get the core mechanics right so that these options can be fully enjoyed.

Off to the Flying Start

Enough procrastination, there’s a review to do. The intro I alluded to really does get you going. You see scenes from various huddles and team talks from the real world of American Football interspersed with clips of actual game footage whilst a soundtrack like something out of A Few Good Men stampedes in the background all serving to get you charged and ready for the first down and ten. I was impressed. After the come down of the intro you’re led to the now familiar options screen that EA is using for all their next-gen outings with news tickers giving you real time NFL news and the EA radio nattering away to itself in the background.

Here you’ll gain access to the most notable addition to Madden’s gameplay, Superstar mode. Here you design a player and take them from no-name to fame and have an input into whether you want them to be big strong, slight and quick etc. A good idea in theory but in practice the training mini-games can be quite repetitive and are very limited in scope: weightlifting, running and a practice match, that’s all you get. Although making that first throw as a quarterback that leads to a touchdown after calling the play is as satisfying a game moment as they come. And as you gain more success in calling plays and making passes, the more you will be used on field and the more your chances of signing bigger clubs and choosing more ruthless, cold and cut-throat agents will grow.

Manual Help?

There is also the mode that lets you take your NFL team of choice all the way to the top giving you the ability to draft new players and compete against the other major teams in the league. Another great intro ensues as your team walks out into the arena. As they strut their stuff and play to the crowd the camera zooms in on the name embossed on the back of their shirts and the commentator gives you a run down of the player himself, his history and what you can expect of him. Another nice touch. You then get the chance to pick a ‘play’ (your tactics for those who aren’t familiar with the terminology) as you try and foil the opposition and gain some yards. This is where an intricate knowledge of the game is almost paramount in order to know what on earth it is you are doing.

The manual offers nothing by way of explaining even the simplest plays and working out which play does what and why and when best you should use it can be a very laborious and insipid process. However, you can ‘Ask Madden’ and he’ll pick the best play to choose and why although deciphering what he’s talking about is as much as a challenge of pulling the move off itself. Although if these things are your bread and butter then the 20 or so options for each Hot Route and Audible will be welcome additions and give you something to think about.

Interceptor

For all the bells and whistles that Madden 08 flaunts it is unfortunately the basic gameplay that it fails on. Even if you’re an aficionado of the sport you’ll notice that the number of interceptions is criminal. Even if you put the interception slider down to zero in the options menu they still happen far too often compared to real life. The amount of fumbles that your supposed carrying specialist makes is way off the mark too. As EA pride themselves on realism, I did a little background check.

On NFL.com it states that LaDanian Tomlinson, one of the star running backs in the NFL, has had twenty four fumbles out of over 1000 catches since the year 2001. I then wonder why my star catcher has already outdone that tally in one season although his catching stats are lie around the 95 mark. For the American Football fan this really removes some of the realism and the newcomer this only adds to your frustration as you might well think you’re doing something wrong which is why completing a pass seems so difficult. Well let me allay your fears and say it’s the game, not you.

That is not to say that Madden NFL 2008 doesn’t play a good game of ‘football’, it does. It’s just I would rather that EA Sports concentrated on making things accessible to the newcomer and also have the plethora of options and refinement for those who know what they’re doing from the outset. So many EA Sports titles have got this balance right in the past and it’s a shame that the scales are markedly tipped in the favour of the hard-core. Also, not adding the ability to save mid-game means that you can’t drop in and out of the title so make sure you’ve eaten your dinner and have a few hours to spare before booting up.

So as my dream world of mountain top French châteaux diminishes into the stark realism of my white-walled front room, brown sofa and my meagre 37 inch plasma TV, I’ll have to score the game a seven. It tries so hard to be all things to all people but for me it tries to walk before it can run. Oh well, no invite for me next year then!