Review by: Jason McMaster

Madden is the biggest, baddest sports franchise in the American market, and with that comes a certain expectation that every year it is going to get bigger and badder. And every year, on every console except the Wii, it has done so. The Wii is a strange beast because it’s a juiced up GameCube with motion controls, so developers have to come up with clever tricks to make the “cutting edge” games seem “cutting edge” on the Wii as well. Sometimes this works out and you get a pretty cool experience, but sometimes it misses the mark.

Madden 10 starts the same as all the other Madden games, with selecting your favorite team. After that, well, it’s a bit different. There’s a Franchise mode, but it’s hidden and the same as last year, which is a disappointment. However, there’s a “Road to the Super Bowl” selection that lets you play a full season, half season or the playoffs. Also a disappointment is the realization that you can’t really do much to your team in the way of management in any of the modes. So much for franchise play.

As for the controls, you have the choice of a simplified mode, which is super-simple, without the nunchuck, or advanced mode. Then your choice comes down to your passing style – would you like to point and then pretend to pass the ball or would you like to hold A and point at a guy? Most people, I’m sure, choose the latter because it gets pretty old having to pretend-pass the ball all the time. That’s when the graphics hit you. All of the players look like big, goofy caricatures. This is a matter of taste and perhaps this will appeal to the casual or younger set, but it still looks weird.

Once the initial surprise of seeing your favorite players rendered with all the love of a Saturday morning cartoon wears off, you can actually start paying attention to the game. Gameplay, in and of itself, is pretty decent, but the controls certainly take a bit of adjustment time. Most players are used to selecting a symbol or color that denotes their receiver choice instead of, you know, just pointing or throwing. Really, you’d think the throwing thing made more sense but people are creatures of habit, so the new controls take longer to master than most would think.