Madden 2004 (1 Viewer)

[AndrewW]

Around the Horn (ESPN show) had the 1st preview of Madden 2004. Looks much better than 2003. Had Vick running and it looked exactly like him-holding ball in his left had...anyway, can't wait

 

[Damien]

I got mine preordered(PS2). Go to easports.com and watch the clips, by far the biggest improvement(and edge over ESPN) is the owner mode. It looks too good to be true. Hopefully the core gameplay has been improved as much as the franchise mode.
Another quick note I'm not a believer in this playmaker mode until I play it, because it seems a bit arcadey.

 

[RudyN]

Mine is pre-ordered also. Can't wait to start my Raiders franchise.

 

[Scott_W]

The clips and interviews on EASports look great. Owner mode looks to be pretty indepth, approaching the Front Office Football games.

I think the new playmaker control looks good too.

I'm going to be disappointed though if there are still generic defensive playbooks for each team, and if the QB still has to much time in the pocket. Hopefully the core gameplay has taken steps forward as well, and not just the front office.

Online with voice chat on the PS2 should be a blast as well. NCAA 2004 is done pretty well, so Madden should continue to improve this.

 

[Mike Pattee]

The plays should be better, They improved NCAA's defensive plays quite a bit so I would hope they would do the same with madden.

 

[Scott_W]

The plays should be better, They improved NCAA's defensive plays quite a bit so I would hope they would do the same with madden.

Its not that the defensive plays are lacking, but to generic. Even in NCAA, every single college team calls the same defenses. The offensive playbooks are a bit different, but not the defensive ones. Very annoying.

The same was true of Madden last year. Pittsburgh had the same defensive playbook as the Rams. Simply not accurate, or very exciting.

 

[AndrewW]

True, but the Steelers defaulted with the 3-4 D. I love to play online, but there's too many cheaters. For instace, I was winning someone ranked like 140, and I was beating him easily and he quit at the very end...making it look like we never played. Hope they fix that. I like using the Raiders but with the Rams' playbook.
What's this about using a microphone? Are they available? Where does it hook up? That would be fun trash talking....

 

[Mike Pattee]

I read in an interview somewhere that they had added a lot of team specific plays to the playbooks. On the other hand another post said that while they had added a lot of plays they still hadn't matched sega so who knows. We'll find out next week. If I'm not careful I"m going to end up buying 4 football games this year.

 

[Frank Grimes]

As an aside, did you see the fantasy draft on the same Around the Horn episode? For being experts they sure as hell don't know how to draft a decent team.

 

[Scott_W]

True, but the Steelers defaulted with the 3-4 D

In Sega's game, the Steelers didn't even have a 4-3 setup, like real life, which is a better way to handle it. Granted, running a 4-3 in Madden wouldn't be as effective last year because of the personal, but still shouldn't been present.

NCAA has a 'Fair Play' mode, which takes away a lot of the cheating, Madden will have something similar I'm sure. No more going for it when its 4th and 20, bogus punts, etc. Also, it appears disconnects count both as disconnects and loses now, so people may be less inclined to cheat. You can't stop cheating, but from my limited exposure to NCAA's online mode, its a lot nicer.

I'm getting Madden and ESPN now... Unless I love them both, I'll probably eBay one of them after playing them a bit. Last year, I really enjoyed Madden's minicamps, and this year the minicamps plus owner mode look great, even if you don't play many of the actual games.

 

[ChrisR]

Does anyone know if this one will have a fantasy draft like they did with madden 2003?

 

[Mike Pattee]

I can't imagine them taking out fantasy draft.