One of the hotly touted features is the new “Weapon” system. This is basically a list of icons that appear underneath a player so you can easily identify star players and what their specialty is – being a finesse pass rusher, running good routes, throwing the ball exceptionally hard or accurate, etc. It’s a neat enough idea for people unfamiliar with the league and it’s not bad for when new players enter the league in franchise mode, but EA did this with its NHL series years ago, so it’s not like this is a revolutionary design element. The best part of this is the “smart” player skill which allows you to see the opponent’s play from time to time. Other than that, it’s basically just icons showing you your best players.
The atmosphere still needs a major kick in the pants. EA Sports must ditch the generic radio broadcaster. It’s a painful thought: but even John Madden’s commentary was better than this. The radio guy is just atrocious; it’s so bad that you may even just turn him off and use the stadium announcer—or better yet just put in a music CD and listen to that while you play. The radio guy, supposedly, is your hometown guy, yet he calls star players on the other team by their first name. The real life Browns announcer will never, ever, call Rudi Johnson, “Rudi” or say, “Chad catches the pass for a touchdown!”
The crowd is also dead. You never get the feeling that you are playing in a raucous environment. Granted, most of the NFL stadiums have gone high class corporate, but come on. For a company that relishes graphics, animations, and overall presentation, it’s just plain bizarre than its flagship game comes off so plain and generic.
Adding to the presentation blandness, you don’t get any stat overlays. Curious how many yards Tomlinson has bruised you for this game? You need to pause it and search yourself. There’s also no drive recap. It’s still all very basic. This also transfers over to franchise mode – you don’t even get a score ticker! It’s week 17 and you need to win and the Ravens need to lose to get in the playoffs? You should get real time updates to see how Baltimore is faring, but that is nowhere to be seen.
In fact, franchise mode remains underdeveloped. EA clearly doesn’t consider it a priority to fix the problems that persist in this mode and maybe they’re right? Maybe not enough people play it or complain about it because it’s been messed up for years now and shows no sign of improvement. From basic things like being able to place a player on Injured Reserve and sign a new free agent to take his place (the IR player still takes up a roster spot, which is just silly) to more pressing issues like draft AI.
Does it make any sense for the Raiders to use the 7th pick in the 2008 draft to take a quarterback when they have JaMarcus Russell? Or the Steelers to take a quarterback with the 11th pick? The Vikings taking a running back in the first round when they just drafted Peterson is just ten ways of stupid. The AI never drafts for need—ever, and after a few years it starts to have a huge impact on the league as top flight players never develop. For the casual player this isn’t going to be an issue at all, but if you are going to spend the time to have a franchise mode—why not do it right instead of using smoke and mirrors?
In the end, that’s really what Madden 08 on the 360 is – it’s a game that while still fun, is nowhere near the level that it should be. A game this popular and that is this much of a money making machine should not have some of the problems that crop up every single year. So while the yearly Madden review is as pointless as ever, it doesn’t take away from the fact that EA Sports should treat its rabid fan base a little better than this. After two decades of unyielding support…don’t they deserve it?
