Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful but flawed gem
Review: My impressions are primarily based on a 1.4ghz system with a High end 64meg video card (NVidia Geforce2 Pro) & 512mb of ram. I also have a 800mhz CPU which I tested it on. This game is the best current football sim. That said, it is not a great sim, but a good one. It has huge glaring flaws in some of the physics. And EA Sports is quite unreceptive to comments about things other then crashes. In other words, if it runs it's good enough. This is an unfortunate stance.Graphics: (A-) Very good. Not flawless, but very well done. The weak points in the graphics would be the stadiums. The score board is just a drawing. The crowd and the players on the sidelines are just obvious flat, badly draw, 2d art. The catching, fumbling, and other things involving character animation is not well done. But more or less acceptable. Sound: (C-) Ok but redundent. The number of different comments John Madden & Pat Summerall do is very very limited. You will hear the same exact comment a dozen or more times in a game. Quite dull. The stadium sound is decent. But the thing I miss the most is the taunting. Last years model had the funniest things the players would say. It added a nice bit of color which is sadly missing. Play design/Play book: (F) This feature was present in last years model. And while it was weak last year, at least it was there. There is no playbook customization or play design of any kind this year. Very disappointing! Game Play: (C-) The computer cheats badly (and obviously) and eny level of difficulty. This can be balanced with the sliders, but by default should this be needed?
Other areas such as pass rush, QB skill, etc can NOT be balanced with sliders since any movement has no discernable impact.
With patch 2.21 this part is better. Not perfect, and not really tweakable with the sliders. With default settings, pass rush is still NIL, QB's have an easier time going deep then passing short, etc. I think the most annoying aspect is that hitting the QB 20+ times in a game has no impact on his ability to play. It would seem that the QB being pummled should have at least some reduction in his skill. Franchise mode:(C-) It works mostly. However the draft is heavy skewed towards just a few positions. Everyone in the league will soon have an all star TE or 3, and more FB's then you can shake a stick at. The trading module is pretty broken. The computer will never offer a trade. The computer teams pretty much don't sign free agents either. Want to help the computer?? Sign a bunch a free agents and trade them to the computer teams for low draft picks.
Player movement is too limited. Players seldom have comeback seasons, or the such. If they are young and deemed to have potentional they can, and typically will, improve. However there is no in season learning. There is no moving from position to postion. Want to play Rod Woodson at corner like the good old days? He will only play there with out of position penalties. It is not uncommon to draft a player with great potential and move him to another position. The NFL has several examples of former LB's playing Safety & so on. Bugs/Crashes: (B) It doesn't crash often with the patches. A nice change from last year where it took 5 patches to improve system stability.
This time it was reasonablyh stable after 2 patches. It did not like my NVidia graphics card until I updated the driver. It would re-set the card's clock speed and ram speed to the lowest programmable level leaving the system partially unstable and the game unplayable. This was NOT a bug in the driver, since this is the ONLY game to ever have this problem. Updating to the latest drivers from NVIDIA.com solves this issue.
Giving it a "B" here is clearly being a bit too charitable, since I am not factoring in having to update drivers, and apply several game fixes. But if you do the same, you will probably also be pleased with the over all stablity. If you don't take these steps, be prepared for crashes, lockups, dumps to windows, etc. Over all: (C) It does somethings quite well. It is pleasing visually. With a few obvious and glaring exceptions, it has most of the features we want, they just don't all work very well. Bottom line is this. I would rate it lower if there were anything to compare it to, but there isn't. Sadly, This is isn't the best PC football game, it is the only one. Improved from last year:
--Player ratings are a tiny bit more detailed.
--graphics are improved.
--Stability is improved (comparison after the 2 patches, 2001 with all 5 or 6 patches is equally stable).
--Better sliders, most offer seperate tuning of computer and human players.
--Online play is supposed to work this year. I haven't bothered yet, based on how very badly it worked last year. Worse then last years model:
--Playbook customization is gone.
--play design is gone.
--the hurry up clock is gone. And since the game manages time so badly you have to play with 8 to 10 minute quarters to compensate.
--sound. Removing the taunting and 'smack' talk removed much of the color from the game play. Over all, it's slightly better then last years but not by much. It's disappointing to see how many of the flaws carried forward. Even most disappointing to see features being dropped.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful but flawed gem
Review: My impressions are primarily based on a 1.4ghz system with a High end 64meg video card (NVidia Geforce2 Pro) & 512mb of ram. I also have a 800mhz CPU which I tested it on. This game is the best current football sim. That said, it is not a great sim, but a good one. It has huge glaring flaws in some of the physics. And EA Sports is quite unreceptive to comments about things other then crashes. In other words, if it runs it's good enough. This is an unfortunate stance. Graphics: (A-) Very good. Not flawless, but very well done. The weak points in the graphics would be the stadiums. The score board is just a drawing. The crowd and the players on the sidelines are just obvious flat, badly draw, 2d art. The catching, fumbling, and other things involving character animation is not well done. But more or less acceptable. Sound: (C-) Ok but redundent. The number of different comments John Madden & Pat Summerall do is very very limited. You will hear the same exact comment a dozen or more times in a game. Quite dull. The stadium sound is decent. But the thing I miss the most is the taunting. Last years model had the funniest things the players would say. It added a nice bit of color which is sadly missing. Play design/Play book: (F) This feature was present in last years model. And while it was weak last year, at least it was there. There is no playbook customization or play design of any kind this year. Very disappointing! Game Play: (C-) The computer cheats badly (and obviously) and eny level of difficulty. This can be balanced with the sliders, but by default should this be needed?
Other areas such as pass rush, QB skill, etc can NOT be balanced with sliders since any movement has no discernable impact.
With patch 2.21 this part is better. Not perfect, and not really tweakable with the sliders. With default settings, pass rush is still NIL, QB's have an easier time going deep then passing short, etc. I think the most annoying aspect is that hitting the QB 20+ times in a game has no impact on his ability to play. It would seem that the QB being pummled should have at least some reduction in his skill. Franchise mode:(C-) It works mostly. However the draft is heavy skewed towards just a few positions. Everyone in the league will soon have an all star TE or 3, and more FB's then you can shake a stick at. The trading module is pretty broken. The computer will never offer a trade. The computer teams pretty much don't sign free agents either. Want to help the computer?? Sign a bunch a free agents and trade them to the computer teams for low draft picks.
Player movement is too limited. Players seldom have comeback seasons, or the such. If they are young and deemed to have potentional they can, and typically will, improve. However there is no in season learning. There is no moving from position to postion. Want to play Rod Woodson at corner like the good old days? He will only play there with out of position penalties. It is not uncommon to draft a player with great potential and move him to another position. The NFL has several examples of former LB's playing Safety & so on. Bugs/Crashes: (B) It doesn't crash often with the patches. A nice change from last year where it took 5 patches to improve system stability.
This time it was reasonablyh stable after 2 patches. It did not like my NVidia graphics card until I updated the driver. It would re-set the card's clock speed and ram speed to the lowest programmable level leaving the system partially unstable and the game unplayable. This was NOT a bug in the driver, since this is the ONLY game to ever have this problem. Updating to the latest drivers from NVIDIA.com solves this issue.
Giving it a "B" here is clearly being a bit too charitable, since I am not factoring in having to update drivers, and apply several game fixes. But if you do the same, you will probably also be pleased with the over all stablity. If you don't take these steps, be prepared for crashes, lockups, dumps to windows, etc. Over all: (C) It does somethings quite well. It is pleasing visually. With a few obvious and glaring exceptions, it has most of the features we want, they just don't all work very well. Bottom line is this. I would rate it lower if there were anything to compare it to, but there isn't. Sadly, This is isn't the best PC football game, it is the only one. Improved from last year:
--Player ratings are a tiny bit more detailed.
--graphics are improved.
--Stability is improved (comparison after the 2 patches, 2001 with all 5 or 6 patches is equally stable).
--Better sliders, most offer seperate tuning of computer and human players.
--Online play is supposed to work this year. I haven't bothered yet, based on how very badly it worked last year. Worse then last years model:
--Playbook customization is gone.
--play design is gone.
--the hurry up clock is gone. And since the game manages time so badly you have to play with 8 to 10 minute quarters to compensate.
--sound. Removing the taunting and 'smack' talk removed much of the color from the game play. Over all, it's slightly better then last years but not by much. It's disappointing to see how many of the flaws carried forward. Even most disappointing to see features being dropped.
Rating:
Summary: This game has glitches
Review: On my computer the graphics are really glitchy. I don't know why. The gameplay is good, though. I like franchise mode because it goes to an unlimited amount of years (or I think so). I think they should make the graphics less glitchy with 2003 but otherwise it is good.
Rating:
Summary: Just like 2001.
Review: Overall this games is very similar to 2001. They used the same autorun and main game interface that they used in 2001, but they spiffed it up. The close up view is really neat though. Plus you can make your own logos and field logos for your customized teams which is really cool. The flaws to this game are the fact that it does not work well with 2k or Xp. It says its compatible with 2k, but its (not). I have 2k with a GeForce 3 64 mb DDR and the menu is slow as hell and takes forever to load. Oh and god forbid Madden and Pat say a few more things and sound a little less Corny. I have nothing against John Madden or Pat Summeral in real life I believe they are the best color commentators in the game, but in Madden 2002 they sound (bad). Overall this game is decent and gets you all the new stats and updated rosters and a few nice new features.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Madden Game
Review: The commentary is the same stock audio that they have been using for the last 2+ years. The graphics are first rate. The A.I.? Well, I didn't actually get that far. I'm sorry but this is years iteration has THE WORST management tools I've ever had the displeasure of using. I have always considered myself an excellent evaluator of on field talent and have enjoyed the free agent, trade, and draft systems of the previous football games I've purchased...Madden 2002 is woefully lacking in these areas. It's not that the options aren't there, they are just the worst I've seen in recent years. Too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: It's okay...if you just play exhibition games
Review: The commentary is the same stock audio that they have been using for the last 2+ years. The graphics are first rate. The A.I.? Well, I didn't actually get that far. I'm sorry but this is years iteration has THE WORST management tools I've ever had the displeasure of using. I have always considered myself an excellent evaluator of on field talent and have enjoyed the free agent, trade, and draft systems of the previous football games I've purchased...Madden 2002 is woefully lacking in these areas. It's not that the options aren't there, they are just the worst I've seen in recent years. Too bad.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Game, Somewhat Unrealistic
Review: The Game Has great graphics, and team management in season mode is fun. I like season mode better than single game and season mode provides interesting play, player progression, and management. However, the pass defense for human controlled teams is bad and unrealistic. The human rushing game is quite effective yet the cpu rushing game is nonexistant. This provides skewed statistics. Overall, the game is fun to play.
Rating: 
Summary: Bad Play
Review: The graphics are great..to a point. The Players are not accurate in their ratings. I have Dave Moore as TE and he drops almost Every pass that goes to him, even when wide open! I'm tired of Madden and Summerall making comments on that (He just dropped the ball...) The defense is way bad, especially the cornerbacks. I like to play as a linebacker and the defensive backs keep giving up the big play. Not realistic at all. Too bad, I like Madden 2000, but not this one. Go back to the drawing board EA.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: The graphics are the best that they have ever been. When a QB can get a bloody nose during the game and it shows the blood on his face; that is what you call amazing. The game play is even awesome. It allows for improvement but it takes a long time to master.
Rating:
Summary: Looks Great, That's About It
Review: The graphics for this game are fantastic, but boy does the gameplay stink. The review up top sums it up. Horrible, horrible, horrible AI. The people at EA should be ashamed of this, considering that this is last year's console version. Every pass is caught with one hand, forget about running the ball, every pass over the middle gets dropped, and your team's defense only has a prayer if you use the Dime. Forget about 4-3, that's a guaranteed touchdown. Do yourself a favor, spend 15 bucks and get Madden 2001, which is a heck of a lot more fun to play than this bag of frustration.
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