# 19 Madden NFL 2002

Game Info

Publisher: EA Sports

Developer: Electronic Arts - Tiburon

Platform:  PS2

Genre(s): Sports

Players: 8

ESRB Rating: E (Everyone)

Release Date: August 21, 2001

Intro:
The opening animations Madden NFL 2002 give a great feel and add anticipation to playing an NFL game.  I could tell from the start that EA Sports had put a lot of work into player animations, which meant that the play would feel at least like watching a game on TV.  The game doesn't disappoint in this regard.

Getting Going:
I opted to play in easy mode since I'm not really familiar with football games.  The load screen at the beginning makes getting going easy.  It tells you what the most basic controls do. I had read through the manual first, so I was well-aware that the controls shown on the load screen barely touched the available options.  The next screen allowed me to pick my teams and which team I wanted to control.  The choices here were more obvious than they had been in NCAA Football 2002 so I found it easier to choose the team I was going to control. 

Fun:
I do enjoy a good NFL football game and getting to play with my team on the field was exciting.  It was great to watch my team take the field and catch familiar names, even if the players didn't look like their real life counter-parts.

Visuals:
The plays are easy to read.  The animations of the players on the screen for tackles, fumbles, grumbles, etc, all matched what I might see in a real game.  It's not finely textured, but I didn't expect a 2001 game to be so.  Some of the animations resembled the NCAA Football 2002 game a little too closely.  I do get tired of watching the QB grab and adjust his helmet.  I would love to see some of the animations you always see from familiar players, such as Favre's #1 run and the end zone leap, but, I wasn't disappointed in the visuals overall.  Also, as I was playing on Lambeau field, falling snow during the game was a nice touch and I appreciated the brief pop-ups of stats that showed familiar player faces.

Sound:
The commentary in this game is a nice touch.  I never found it repetitive or irritating.  I enjoyed the discussions.  The easy game gave me the option of getting help from Madden.  The tips were useful, concise and added a nice touch to the game.  Perhaps it would have been nicer if it had been from Mike Sherman instead, but the Madden voice acting adds to the feel of the game.  The sounds of the crowd cheering for the respective teams was amazing and I waited for the familiar Packer charge even though it wasn't forthcoming.

Intelligence:
Nothing is handed to you in this game.  The game is fast.  It's hard to move the ball.  When you get a nice drive, it feels like an accomplishment.  I felt as if the other team played well, provided good coverage and gave a real NFL feeling to the game. 

Immersion:
Football and other sports games don't come easy for me, so I doubt that any sports game will feel truly immersive to me.  I simply have to try too hard and think too much to sink into a sports game and let the world fall away.

Cameras: 
The action is fast.  The views are simple and wide enough to get a feel for what's going on.  I didn't have a lot of control of the camera that I noticed and I still get that blue arrow that confuses me--the one I noted in NCAA Football 2002.  I don't feel like I need that much control of the camera for this game, however.  My only complaint is that there were occasions in which I was unsure of what yard line I was on.  It wasn't announced constantly and I would have like the option of panning to check.

Controls:
There is definitely a steep learning curve for controls in this game.  There are a lot of them which means there is a lot that you can do.  On the other hand, for a quick and dirty game, it's easy enough to get into using just the controls shown briefly on the load screen and the game is still fun to play.

Ideas:
I guess the biggest thing I'm taking away from Madden NFL 2002 is the use of icons, as in logos and celebrity names.  The feel of Madden NFL 2002 was much more familiar and exciting than NCAA Football 2002 simply because I watched Favre and Freeman take the field together once again.  All of the iconic references put together added a more immersive experience of the game even if I didn't feel that the game, itself, was immersive.

Memory:
I'll trade this game and not really look back.  The biggest thing I hope to remember about this game is what separates it from the other Madden games as I actually have several on my top 100 list.  I keep wondering about that.  Other than players, what can make a franchise stand out like this to rate so many similar games in the top 100?