So far I've played 4 games, working on #5 right now. :) Here's what I
think...
Graphics
--------
The graphics are great, basically. :) The animation is wonderful, and
everything just looks really nice... Not much to say here, you've
probably read the other reviews that tell all about this.
I give em 9 outta 10.
Sound
-----
The crowd noises and grunting are cool. The music in the menus isn't
bad either... The "BOOOOOOO" is great. :)
Now for my big bitch. There's no announcer, and I don't care! And you
shouldn't either. Know why? If you're eating up your RAM with some
hefty speech samples, you have less room for the graphics. Which means
you're going to get some nice, crappy animation. Personally, I'd
rather have fluid animation than a stupid-sounding announcer who says
totally inappropriate things half the time.
I give it 7 outta 10, for lack of variety. No biggie.
AI
--
The AI is pretty good. I've heard the complaint about the slant play.
I haven't tried it, but I believe it. No AI will ever be perfect...
Even in the best PC football game (FPSPro95) the AI doesn't account
for some things, like shifting so that a previously inelligable
receiver can now catch the ball. If there's one or two AI busting
plays, just don't use em. You still have plenty of others to choose
from.
I give it 8 outta 10, so far...
Gameplay
--------
This is the reason this game rocks. The control you have over your
player is immense. You can juke, spin, dive, leap and stiffarm your
way to that 99 yard TD return. On defence, you have forearms and "swim
moves" to help you out, as well as the diving. And you have speed
burst on both of them. There are tons of stats, etc.
It IS pretty easy to get ints on Rookie level, especially against
crappy teams. 10 minute quarters, playing the Cowboys, I had 4 ints in
the second half alone against the giants. Playing against decent teams
(Vikings, Broncos) I had a total of 1 in 2 games.
The running is a bit slow, yes... But at least it's not like in some
other games where the people have 5 yard strides. In the NFL, people
usually take about 2.5 yards a stride (if I'm remembering correctly)
and in gameday it's around 1.5. Mainly beacuse the running animation
cycles a bit quickly. Well, anyway, it just allows for more strategy
while running -- fine with me. :)
I give it a 9.5 outta 10.
Overall, I'll give this game 9 outta 10... Madden will have to be
*real* nice to beat this...
Oh well, I'm going to go play more. :)
 -  - -- - --- -- ----Mitch Burton---- -- --- - -- -  -
-  - -- - --- -- ----bwizard@bga.com--- -- --- - -- -  -