Rating: 
Summary: A little weak on content.
Review: Maybe I was jaded by the content of NHL 2001. The depth of the play by play.
Madden lacks in this department, I was hearing John say the same things by the second half of the first game. In contrast, NHL 2001, I'm in my seventh season, and still hearing things I haddn't before.
The gameplay of Madden makes up for this, however. Sticking with what has worked for the past 10 years, its become the standard. Motion is fluid, Graphics are good, play choices are excellent. I can do without the coach commentary for offside calls, but AI is ok.
If you are looking for football for the PC platform, it really is the standard. If only they had a little competition to push them to greatness.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful but flawed Gem
Review: My impressions are largely on a 1000mhz system with a 64meg video card & 256mb 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: (B+) 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. The strangest animation choices are the "stealth ball" and the some one got tackled so we must all fall down. Sound: (B) 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. The player sound is a bit out of sync with the action sometimes. Play design/Play book: (D-) It is very bad and very limited. You are limit to being able to design 6 plays. You can not modify existing ones, and you are limited to what plays exist in your selected playbook (each coach has one more or less based on the real one). It is awkward and unpredicitable to include your plays in any game. Game Play: (D+) The computer cheats badly (and obviously) and eny level of difficulty. To test this I assembled a very superior team and played against a computer controlled team with an average player rank of around 14 points lower (this is night a day, Rams vs. Bengals time). I played the same game 6 times at twice each at 3 different difficulty levels. I played coach only mode, so no arcade skill would skew the out come. And the computer out passed and out pass defended me at every skill level. I had the plays selected displayed for both of us, so the computer would only pass against pass Defense, and I would only pass against run defenses. I ran different plays from differnt situations, etc... to be sure that no algorythm could spot any sort of tendencies on when and how I would pass. It is still quite possible to win, easy even. But in those 6 games I was out passed (in completion percentage by 35% and yardage 3 to 1). There are also a bunch of game play sliders which do not work quite right. Turning pass blocking to zero and there is still next to no pass rush from the D-line. Turn the interceptions to 2 clicks below normal and still both sides will have 4 to 8 picks per game. 3 clicks and there probably won't be but 1 pick (for the computer only) in every other game. There are other quibbles, but this shows the average level of testing and polish in this area. 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. Bugs/Crashes: (C-) They are ironing out some of the crashing bugs but not all. This game is the least stable game I own. It is the only game I ever tried which crashed just because the processor was too fast. This is ironic since to turn on ALL the graphics options, even my 800mhz chip is not quite enough (900mhz is really needed to turn EVERY thing on). The game still crashes most of the time when trying to play online. After 3 patches it is more or less stable on the 800mhz system for 1 player games only. It should not have shipped quite this buggy. They should include an INI file to allow more precise tweaking. Ie: the NFL average for INT's is around 4%. I have a choice of below 0.5% or above 15% with no middle ground. Over all: (C) It does somethings quite well. It is fairly pleasing visually. 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. This is sadly the best one out there.
Rating:
Summary: A beautiful but flawed Gem
Review: My impressions are largely on a 1000mhz system with a 64meg video card & 256mb 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: (B+) 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. The strangest animation choices are the "stealth ball" and the some one got tackled so we must all fall down. Sound: (B) 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. The player sound is a bit out of sync with the action sometimes. Play design/Play book: (D-) It is very bad and very limited. You are limit to being able to design 6 plays. You can not modify existing ones, and you are limited to what plays exist in your selected playbook (each coach has one more or less based on the real one). It is awkward and unpredicitable to include your plays in any game. Game Play: (D+) The computer cheats badly (and obviously) and eny level of difficulty. To test this I assembled a very superior team and played against a computer controlled team with an average player rank of around 14 points lower (this is night a day, Rams vs. Bengals time). I played the same game 6 times at twice each at 3 different difficulty levels. I played coach only mode, so no arcade skill would skew the out come. And the computer out passed and out pass defended me at every skill level. I had the plays selected displayed for both of us, so the computer would only pass against pass Defense, and I would only pass against run defenses. I ran different plays from differnt situations, etc... to be sure that no algorythm could spot any sort of tendencies on when and how I would pass. It is still quite possible to win, easy even. But in those 6 games I was out passed (in completion percentage by 35% and yardage 3 to 1). There are also a bunch of game play sliders which do not work quite right. Turning pass blocking to zero and there is still next to no pass rush from the D-line. Turn the interceptions to 2 clicks below normal and still both sides will have 4 to 8 picks per game. 3 clicks and there probably won't be but 1 pick (for the computer only) in every other game. There are other quibbles, but this shows the average level of testing and polish in this area. 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. Bugs/Crashes: (C-) They are ironing out some of the crashing bugs but not all. This game is the least stable game I own. It is the only game I ever tried which crashed just because the processor was too fast. This is ironic since to turn on ALL the graphics options, even my 800mhz chip is not quite enough (900mhz is really needed to turn EVERY thing on). The game still crashes most of the time when trying to play online. After 3 patches it is more or less stable on the 800mhz system for 1 player games only. It should not have shipped quite this buggy. They should include an INI file to allow more precise tweaking. Ie: the NFL average for INT's is around 4%. I have a choice of below 0.5% or above 15% with no middle ground. Over all: (C) It does somethings quite well. It is fairly pleasing visually. 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. This is sadly the best one out there.
Rating: 
Summary: Repetitive Crashes Make Game a Bust
Review: No amount of neat graphics can overcome the frustration of the game throwing you out with 2 minutes left in the half. The tech support did me no good also. You might have a machine that has no problems with it, but then again you might not. I surrendered to the crashes and mailed the game back to EA Sports asking for my money back.
Rating: 
Summary: IT'S THE ONLY FOOTBALL GAME WORTH BUYING
Review: So what if it's not totally different? If it ain't broke, don't fix it! It's only $40 / year out of your hot little hand. I think it's well worth the money just to get all the new rosters and be able to find REAL competition on-line. I think the game is great and I would'nt change a darn thing about it. FEEL THE POWER!
Rating: 
Summary: Buy this game, But not for Madden NFL 2001
Review: Take out your wallet's and wipe the next few weeks off yourschedule. Madden 2001 will be a fun game. But included on the CD with Madden 2001 will be the new single player version of Front Office Football...I believe they're doing this to hype the online version of FOF to be released later this year. Anyway. I've got last year's version of this game and aside from the fact that it was only able to be purchased online through e-liscensing techniques, this game was incredible. I've never lost so much time to a concept so simple. If you don't know anything about FOF go to the website and get some info on the game so you can make your own choice. If you do know about FOF, This review probably doesn't matter because you've heard that FOF 2001 is included on the CD and pre-ordered Madden 2001 anyway. Chris
Rating:
Summary: Hall of Fame Game
Review: The best football game I've ever played, great defence, tons of new plays, and the graphics! The graphics are almost as good a ps2! The create a player has amzing detail, neckpads, to visors, to knee pads! And in game detail is amazing! For example, u know when you walk and your foot kinda bends? It shows that! It's easy to play and it's a must have game! I can't wait to see what Madden 2002 is going to be like!
Rating:
Summary: The trouble with madden
Review: The game has excellent graphics and is often fun, however it is not great. I love football so i play this game often although it is badly flawed in some circumstances. Field goals are impossible from over 40 yds unless you beef up the fg distance and if you do this you will see the cpu easily kick 55 yarders into a stiff wind, as the cpu is far superior kicking. The cpu also cheats if you driving late for the win and you run up the middle to center for the field goal you will fumble 80% of the time and the cpu will recover and force overtime, this has forced me to throw the cd like a frisbee into the wall a couple times. Sometimes when you go to kick a field goal the game will momentarily freeze and your field goal will fall far short. Passes are often dropped in situations where in the NFL a star great hands man like Cris Carter would never drop them, like on 3rd and 4 a 6 yard floating pass into the flat to a wide open reciever, very frustrating. If you do not turn facemasks off you will be penalized for facemasks repeatedly. Open men will jump and wave there arms and then when you throw them the ball it riccochets into the turf off of their facemasks. Often even on high difficulty settings its just too easy to run, you can repeatedly use the same play and sometimes get well over 200 yds off it. There is also the bizarre situation that passes can be thrown right to a defender with good hands like deion sanders and he will drop it 98% of the time. Some games are a real joy and others are dull, anyway thanks for reading im off to play a game and hope its a good one, BTW buy Diablo 2 and System shock 2 and you will love them.
Rating:
Summary: Gimme A BREAK!!!
Review: the gameplay of this game is horrible.if the computer is losing by the beginning of the last quarter then they just start to magically catch anything that comes their way even if you tip the pass.the blockers are constantly missing thier blocks.the recievers hardly ever catch a pass unless they are wide open and sometimes even then they drop the ball.running the ballc an be hard at times to because the defense can dive so far away.the graphics of this game are fairly adequate but i think they could be better.
Rating:
Summary: The graphic is as good as it can be....
Review: The graphic of this game is super, it is as good as it can possibly be! The sound effect, on the other hand, is not as great. Madden's comments, as always, are pretty lame most of the time. It doesn't have those exciting stadium announcements as in NCAA Football 2001. Gameplay-wise, it is VERY similar to Madden 2000. There are not that many choices for formations in the playbook. But, for those NFL fans, it is really a very good game to get..., at least, it is the best looking football game so far!
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