Overview- Critic & User
Reviews - Videos &
Screenshots
News- Codes
& FAQs - Gameplay
Controls - Similar
Games
Bundles
Critic & User Reviews
IGN Review of Madden Football
Madden NFL Football on the 3DS reminded me of how I enjoyed sports games when I was a kid, and not in a good way. When I was young, I'd tear open that morning's issue of Newsday and pour over the box scores. My friends and I would create fantasy leagues for the MLB and NHL based on these box scores, keeping track of our stats by hand. Before long, my love of statistics combined with the video games I was playing. Early sports games on the SNES didn't have season modes, so I'd keep intricate stats of my own to make up for what titles like NHL '93 lacked.
This arcane system was fun -- but time-consuming -- and either way, those days are long behind us. Or so I thought, until picking up Madden NFL Football on 3DS. While Madden NFL Football plays reasonably well and looks and sounds just fine, its barebones approach brought me back to the way sports games were more than 15 years ago, and as a result, the overall product comes off as completely rushed, lacking any worthwhile features or much-needed polish to keep you engaged.
Madden NFL Football does its best to replicate the football experience on Nintendo's new handheld. You'll have the option to play standard 11-on-11 games, or more fluid and rapid 5-on-5 games with altered rules. You can set up everything from the time of each quarter to how often penalties are called, and of course, each NFL team is fully represented. You'll have an option to play a full or abbreviated season, or through a playoff bracket. You can even practice your skills, should you so desire.
These options seem nice for a handheld version of Madden. But almost immediately upon beginning the experience, problems start cropping up. Season mode in Madden 3DS is so vacant of features that I found myself wondering why I'd bothered playing through it at all. We're talking about a season mode where nothing but your wins and losses are tracked. Season mode doesn't even record individual player statistics. And while it's a minor gripe (largely due to the awkward timing of the game's release), you'll be playing through a retread of the 2010 season, complete with Super Bowl XLV. All of this makes Madden NFL Football feel decidedly old, and makes the time investment necessary to work through a seventeen week season of football not worth it.
The look of Madden 3DS is decent for handheld fare, but I imagine the game's graphics could have been refined if there was a longer development time. The same goes for the in-game animations, which are at times really beautiful, and at other times totally awkward. In terms of audio, there are some standard rock tracks from the likes of Blur, and full in-game commentary and crowd noises. All of it gets repetitive, especially if you dedicate the time necessary to get through a full season.
The longer I played, the more problems I encountered with the AI. Sometimes, your AI-controlled opponent won't play with the clock in mind, even though its team is down by 7, the ball's on my 30, and the half is about to run out. On the other hand, Peyton Manning brought the no-huddle offense to a whole new level, somehow assembling his team onto the line mere seconds after a tackle concluded a previous play. When receiving kick-offs and especially punts, balls would land next to my returner, and he'd run off without it, or refuse to pick it up until a defender was directly on top of him. At times, my returner would deem is appropriate to let a punt that would have landed in his arms at the 30 yard line bounce behind him, so that it would settle somewhere around the 10. Conventional wisdom dictates that nobody punts in Madden. But the AI certainly does, and it would be nice to actually play a punt return properly once in a while.
One of Madden NFL Football's biggest shortcomings is its lack of multiplayer features. You can't play with anyone over Wi-Fi, or otherwise get in some sort of single-system management feature. There's nothing of the sort. Madden NFL Football is strictly a single-player affair. So what you're looking at is a single-player experience with limited options, a featureless season mode and questionable AI tactics.
The whole experience brought me back to the days of keeping my own stats by hand in EA's earlier offerings. But it's 2011, not 1994, and our expectations should be -- and are -- a whole lot higher.
©2011-03-24, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved
This arcane system was fun -- but time-consuming -- and either way, those days are long behind us. Or so I thought, until picking up Madden NFL Football on 3DS. While Madden NFL Football plays reasonably well and looks and sounds just fine, its barebones approach brought me back to the way sports games were more than 15 years ago, and as a result, the overall product comes off as completely rushed, lacking any worthwhile features or much-needed polish to keep you engaged.
Madden NFL Football does its best to replicate the football experience on Nintendo's new handheld. You'll have the option to play standard 11-on-11 games, or more fluid and rapid 5-on-5 games with altered rules. You can set up everything from the time of each quarter to how often penalties are called, and of course, each NFL team is fully represented. You'll have an option to play a full or abbreviated season, or through a playoff bracket. You can even practice your skills, should you so desire.
These options seem nice for a handheld version of Madden. But almost immediately upon beginning the experience, problems start cropping up. Season mode in Madden 3DS is so vacant of features that I found myself wondering why I'd bothered playing through it at all. We're talking about a season mode where nothing but your wins and losses are tracked. Season mode doesn't even record individual player statistics. And while it's a minor gripe (largely due to the awkward timing of the game's release), you'll be playing through a retread of the 2010 season, complete with Super Bowl XLV. All of this makes Madden NFL Football feel decidedly old, and makes the time investment necessary to work through a seventeen week season of football not worth it.
The look of Madden 3DS is decent for handheld fare, but I imagine the game's graphics could have been refined if there was a longer development time. The same goes for the in-game animations, which are at times really beautiful, and at other times totally awkward. In terms of audio, there are some standard rock tracks from the likes of Blur, and full in-game commentary and crowd noises. All of it gets repetitive, especially if you dedicate the time necessary to get through a full season.
The longer I played, the more problems I encountered with the AI. Sometimes, your AI-controlled opponent won't play with the clock in mind, even though its team is down by 7, the ball's on my 30, and the half is about to run out. On the other hand, Peyton Manning brought the no-huddle offense to a whole new level, somehow assembling his team onto the line mere seconds after a tackle concluded a previous play. When receiving kick-offs and especially punts, balls would land next to my returner, and he'd run off without it, or refuse to pick it up until a defender was directly on top of him. At times, my returner would deem is appropriate to let a punt that would have landed in his arms at the 30 yard line bounce behind him, so that it would settle somewhere around the 10. Conventional wisdom dictates that nobody punts in Madden. But the AI certainly does, and it would be nice to actually play a punt return properly once in a while.
One of Madden NFL Football's biggest shortcomings is its lack of multiplayer features. You can't play with anyone over Wi-Fi, or otherwise get in some sort of single-system management feature. There's nothing of the sort. Madden NFL Football is strictly a single-player affair. So what you're looking at is a single-player experience with limited options, a featureless season mode and questionable AI tactics.
The whole experience brought me back to the days of keeping my own stats by hand in EA's earlier offerings. But it's 2011, not 1994, and our expectations should be -- and are -- a whole lot higher.
THE 3D EFFECT
When I first got my hands on a 3DS at E3 in 2010, some of the games worked well in 3D, and others didn't. However, the one thing that never happened to me while sampling a wide variety of games was pain from any title's 3D effects. That's why I was taken aback when Madden's 3D irritated my eyes time and time again. I couldn't find a "sweet spot" from which to use the 3D -- it simply gave me a headache no matter what I did.
Your experience with Madden's 3D functionality may be different, but for me, turning the 3D off didn't detract from the gameplay. If anything, keeping the 3D off made Madden look a lot better.
When I first got my hands on a 3DS at E3 in 2010, some of the games worked well in 3D, and others didn't. However, the one thing that never happened to me while sampling a wide variety of games was pain from any title's 3D effects. That's why I was taken aback when Madden's 3D irritated my eyes time and time again. I couldn't find a "sweet spot" from which to use the 3D -- it simply gave me a headache no matter what I did.
Your experience with Madden's 3D functionality may be different, but for me, turning the 3D off didn't detract from the gameplay. If anything, keeping the 3D off made Madden look a lot better.
©2011-03-24, IGN Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved