Interface and Sound

Clicketty-clacketty

Madden 2003 has a very modern-looking interface. Most menu commands are clustered at the bottom-right corner in a circle menu. Trendy, clean and easy once you get used to it, we cannot deny the appeal of the general design. Granted, it would be simpler to have a traditional menu, but then it wouldn’t be as cool, would it?

Getting up from the effort

Coverage

Thwack!

Cool only goes so far in making an interface good. After all, the primary purpose of an interface is to help you interact with the game. The Madden interface has some kinks we’re not too pleased with. For starters, while most items from the circle menu you can switch between on the fly, there are others which you need to click “Done” on to close them before seeing another window. The second issue we had was that of clutter. There icons in the circle menu are packed tightly together and not very descriptive. Finally, the trade menu needs a major overhaul. Players can select only one team at a time and then scroll through the two dozen various positions/draft picks to trade. If the trade is denied, it’s time to go all the way back to the original team and modify the choices offered. This is ridiculously cumbersome and time-consuming, even with a mouse. There should two lists, one per team, rather than forcing the players to switch between them.

Ungh, grunt, grrr

The soundtrack that comes with Madden 2003 is stunningly good. Rather than re-using the rap tunes which got too repetitive, EA switched to a rock/alternative ensemble. Featuring Andrew W.K. along with a complement of lesser-known artists, the soundtrack is full of high-energy songs that are perfect for sports. They’d go perfect with a highlite reel for that matter. If some of the tracks aren’t your flavor (like, oh, say… Bon Jovi) you can move them out of the music folder or specify your own MP3 directory. Specific songs from a directory can’t be selected, only moved to their own folder.

Can he make it?

C'mon Chuck!

Gannon the Cannon

The on-field sounds are awesome. Obviously the sound of 250lb men crashing into each other at full throttle is limited in how high quality it can get, but EA has made improvements in other areas. The addition of Al Michaels to the broadcast booth is a godsend, it’s just that much less time that Madden blabs on about “how those big ol’ d linemen” are going up against the “big ol’ o linemen”. The commentary is typical football game fare, on the mark about fifty percent of the time. When the comments are off, they can range from ridiculously funny to utterly moronic. The Al Michaels parts seem to be on the mark more than Madden, surprise, surprise.