Madden NFL 10 Review

Madden 10 is a great addition to the tried and true formula of American football. The game has a wealth of features and game modes to go along with some of the best graphics and sound this gen. If you like American football this is the game for you; if not give it a try, you will be pleasantly surprised.

This year’s Madden has had a graphics and presentation overhaul; the players on field look much more realistic and compare well to their real life counterparts. Subtle facial animations make the players look real; players now call for a pass, scream in pain and get angry at one another. Seeing the facial animations for these actions never gets old.

The whole presentation of the game has been changed from 09 to now give a real football experience, from the shots of the coaches on the sidelines screaming orders to the players to the close up shots of the refs; whom now have much better character models. The player character models are much improved too; the new layer of animations make the game look much more realistic.

There is a new play-tak system which means that when you are running with the ball you have more options due to new animations to get out the way of oncoming players, how does this impact graphics? Well simply the new animations are a big part of this game, they are fluid, having three or four players running at you to tackle you at once never gets old. These small tweaks to the graphics and presentation make for a much more realistic game.

The sound design has been a focus in this game too, having played Madden 09 for a long time for much of last year I found the sound design to be a little off. This year they have resolved this with all new sounds. Cranking up the 5.1 to hear a stadium full of people cheering, jeering and singing makes you believe you could actually be in the stadium. The sound effects within the actual game are terrifying, from the hard impacts of a linebacker smashing your quarter back, to the last gasp tackles which sound like your whole skeleton has just smashed.

I would not dare ask where or how they made these sounds but let me tell you they are epic.

Madden 09 was my first real time spent playing American football in a long time (I’ve played the Snes and Mega Drive games), being English I play FIFA, a lot. Something about American football has always interested me; the no holds barred type of fast paced yet slow at times game style is quite intriguing.

Naturally the first thing I noticed with Madden 09 was that it felt rather fast; too fast in fact. I didn’t feel like I had much control over the players; this was evident while I was the person defending. I would always go in for a tackle only to find that I completely miss as my player runs way past the oncoming runner.

This year’s Madden has changed that, the gameplay speed has been toned down a touch which means I felt much more in control of the player and overall game.

When getting into the menus for the game you are bombarded with many choices of game types, the standard play now and franchise mode return along with the superstar mode. All of which will be familiar to the regular Madden players. Something new which has been added to Madden 10 is the online franchise mode. This mode lets you pick a team and battle it out in a league against strangers or friends. Scheduled times will be in place for you to play a match, if you fail to play this match the host of the league can either force the CPU to play the match or let someone else take control of your team.

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