SomethingSports

Keep playing Madden 2005!

It's a little tricky trying to review a game that you have never played but we are going to try anyway (fuck, we're not professionals!). A real reviewer would actually play 2006 when making the bold statement as we are doing here. We are not real reviewers. We just masquerade as bloggers.

Who cares about Madden NFL 2005 when the brand new Madden NFL 06 is available? Well for one thing Electronic Arts now has an exclusive licensing deal with the NFL worth $400 million [WSJ]. Which means the noteworthy 2kSports series which finally began to take a bite out of Madden's sales by pricing itself at 19.99 will no longer be able to use the official names of teams and players thus leading to no new 2k games. Basically the only competition Madden will have is previous incarnations of itself. The price will only get more expensive with the next generation consoles priced at 59.99.

A lot of people are thinking about purchasing it or have done so already. We have no comment for those who have purchased it. But for those who have not, (there are a few of you); Consider the cost of a new EA sports game being well over fifty dollars and the fact that you may already have madden 2005 and grown attached to the game.

The Wall Street Journal covering Madden 06 would be a suprising but that game is EA's cash cow. Why? Because every August millions of mostly Americans buy it. Most buy it every year. Is that going to change? Probably not. The consumers who spend $50+ each year for EA's next "generation" footballer. While we keep lining the pockets of EA stockholders with cash,

"We [Electronic Arts] are raising our second quarter 2006 revenue estimate from $635 million to $650 million."

-WSJ.com

[Electronic Arts], has racked up more than $1.5 billion in retail sales in its 16-year history

What are they buying? Mostly new uniforms and some more players. They've finally tweaked the passing game. EA Sports hasn't made a major change in the passing system since Madden NFL 96 when they took away the boxes at the top of your screen that you showed you each reciever for the way we are used to passing the ball now, with the camera zooming out and showing your recievers down field. This was a great change because before with the boxes it was hard to tell where exactly on the field your reicevers were. (Anyone remember Joe Montana Football, or Talk Football?)

Although I appreciated the change it was hard for me to see my receivers down field on my Sega Genesis. I didn't get used to this form of passing the ball until Madden 98 for the original Playstation. So how long will it take me to get used to this new quarterback vision cone? I don't even want to know. The vision cone sounds horrible from what people tell me about it. I just hope its one of those features that EA Sports adds in a game and decides to get rid of it in future versions because it sucks! Instead of adding the vision cone, why not add some more playable mini games online? Hopefully they did. Cause this reviewer is not buying it.

Rushing attack was my favorite part of the online experience for Madden 05. But then again, if their is no competition (Backyard Football 2006, WTF!?) then EA Sports can actually make the game worse than the predecessor each year and people will shell out $50 each year to buy it.

So far the odd madden years are actually better, and if you only buy or play odd years the things they change back and forth are actually less annoying since there seem to be less differences game play wise. So suck it up, live your life and when you feel like playing some football keep that Madden 2005 handy.


Primary Contributors
jp, leejrihs

Posted by jomynOw at 7:36 AM