It’s funny – EA has put in a lot of touches to appeal to a traditional football gamer – the stats and scoring drive information is great and unlike the 360 version, it’s easy to view your other team’s timeouts remaining and challenges left. You are even able to save a game in progress (YAY!). However, at the default levels the game is just an offensive scoring fest.
Thankfully you can change the difficulty levels and as required under federal law, there are game sliders. Unlike other console versions, the sliders don’t have numerical ratings, so instead of setting punt accuracy to “48”, you have to say put it a quarter of the way between + and -. EA did include a feature called “codes” so rather than trying to explain the defensive sliders to you, you can just say that we use the code “uxezPpM2” which you can then input and it adjusts your sliders accordingly. While it would have been better if you could just upload and download your sliders, this method does work and the passwords aren’t that long and annoying to type in.
This is the first third party game to include Mii’s. While their presence in the party mode really doesn’t add much to the actual gameplay, it’s a nice feature. The Party mode is exclusive to the Wii; the mode includes a trivia game, mini games and a “telestrator mode” so you can really diagram that 80 yard rushing TD to taunt your friend. It’s too bad this mode isn’t available online!
It’s true; Madden 08 has an online mode! The gameplay is very good – there’s no lag which is impressive considering how ‘new’ online play is on the Wii. There’s not a whole lot of depth in the online mode (i.e. there are career stats but no playable leagues), let’s just be thankful you can play online without friend codes – instead you’ll use your EA messenger name to play. Downloadable rosters are also available and have already been updated since the game’s release.
The graphics remain a stumbling block. The game looks like a PlayStation 2 game, with jaggies everywhere. The frame rate is smooth but yikes—it’s not pretty. As far as the audio goes, it’s rather interesting that EA keeps the Madden and Michaels team doing the play by play rather than the horrible “EA Sports Radio” on the other next-generation consoles. It may sound weird, but the Madden and Michaels team actually adds to the fun of the game.
Overall, if you can get over the graphics and don’t mind doing some tinkering with the gameplay sliders, you’ll have a great time playing Madden NFL 08 on the Wii, and it is especially great for those who aren’t expert console footballers thanks in part to the new Family Play feature. Now…let’s just work on improving the graphics, fix the crazy interceptions and add some online league functionality and everyone will be happy!
