A head to head comparison between Madden 2005 and ESPN 2K5

Never before have football gamers had it so good, two powerhouse football titles going head to head with the same desire and enthusiasm as a battle between Dallas and San Francisco would be on ‘any given’ SuperBowl Sunday. But who comes out on top you want to know ? Which is better ? Okay, well we’re coming to that but wait a minute. Games, and more importantly whether a game is good or bad is a very subjective matter. What one person sees as a realistically modelled NFL defensive lineman might be a Frankenstein monster to somebody else. The ‘war’ between these two football games has often been fought out on internet message boards as the real life battle has been a consistent and overwhelming victory for EA . Which brings me to the inevitable boxing analogy. The one about how Sega and their NFL 2k series keep picking themselves up off of the canvas and coming back for more year after year. No references to Mike Tyson please, that would be unfair. However, this year Sega have put a ton more effort into the game and produced a genuine contender. Far from being the forbidden fruit here at Madden Planet, we’ve put NFL 2k5 through it’s paces and here is our breakdown of who comes out on top in the critical areas.

Now, before we start just to make this a purposeful exercise we’ve come up with a totally arbitrary but entirely worthwhile scoring system upon which we will rate both games; at the end of which we will add up the scores and in the style of Bob Barker on the Price is Right tell the winning game to ‘Come on Down’.

So here goes…. we’ve taken the press releases from both games indicating their ‘key’ big features for their 2005 XBox games and assessed ten of them one by one. Both companies have had a year to produce and implement these new features so it’s a fair comparison to make given the similar timeframe they have had to do it in. You might consider that we left out something very important, gameplay being the most obvious, but this is our criteria and we’re sticking to it. By comparing 'key' features we think that's fair. Here goes….

Madden 2005 :
Hit Stick : EA have implemented what many people would automatically just consider as a gimmicky feature in a very useful risk-reward type way. It actually adds a lot to the gameplay and might inspire folks who don’t usually control their DB’s to pick up the thumbstick and do some jockeying. Score : 5/5

Defensive Playmaker Controls : Never before has it been possible to change so many elements of your defensive play ‘on the fly’. That means after you’ve broken the huddle you can change the assignments of individual players in a highly effective way. Score : 5/5

Storyline Central : An immersive addition to franchise mode, but not without the odd repetition especially early on while position battles are playing themselves out. It might just deter some folks from sticking with it but rest assured later in the year it becomes much more varied and unique. The radio show element is very cool. Score : 4/5

Player personalities : Bringing cyber athletes to ‘life’ has been a key element of the football games from EA this year, not simply Madden but also NCAA. It’s not over the top, it’s not stupid, it’s integrated extremely well and it throws another element into the game that folks have never had to consider before. Score : 4/5

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