Madden 2005 initial impressions.

:tongue Hey Guy's,
Let me say first that I have owned every version of Madden (Yes I even spent $800 for a 3DO), and just about every other version of football games out there, and until this year there hasn't been a better football video game made, until this year. ESPN 2K5 in my opinion blows Madden away in almost every area. I thought I would never say that, but it is true. The graphics on ESPN 2K5 are way ahead of Madden's this year, the game play is better and the player animations are much more realistic. I am so disappointed in EA for this version. There has been many articles on how they redesigned the player models for this year's version and in my opinion they took a step backward. I just hope that the designers realize that they fell behind ESPN and push harder to put out a better version next season. What do you guy's think?

this will probably get moved to the gaming forum, but i haven't played the new madden yet (although i've been playing madden since genesis). once i played espn's (formerly sega's) 2K series, i've been hooked... gameplay is much better for my style of video game play. madden may have the market for extra features (dynasties, custom teams, etc), but i just seem to have more fun playing espn's.

I went from Madden to the 2k series but now I am switching back to Madden, only because everybody I know has Madden. I 've tried for a few years to convince them to make the switch but it wasn't happening. I'm sure once I get the hang of madden again I'll love it. but I always liked 2k

ESPN is ok. But I still want Madden!!!! :)

Madden all the way for me.

I just got it tonight, I'm simming the first season to get to the offseason stuff. So far I've spent about an hour just doing training camp stuff and getting familiar with all the new stuff. Haven't actually played a game yet! LOL

yeah Summo, going from 2 weeks with ESPN's 100s of super-nice animations to Madden's 5 year old ones (what are there 50?) and the 8 new ones this year is way too hard to come back to. and you're right about the players, look at their textured arms compared to ESPN's normal-mapped ones (3D textures), its a step back from last year when the lighting came from the environment, not drawn on. its too bad too, cuz the field and stadiums were really improved in this year's Madden.

the one thing that keeps me from going totally Sega Fanboy is the 'rotate and run' thing the ESPN players do on small radius turns. totally defeats the purpose of the love and care that went into all 100s of dope animations they did. love the cuts and twists on drastic moves tho. for small turns they need to lean into it like in Madden. else i think ESPN has it beat.

all the defensive hot routes/audibles Madden highlights so hard this year are in ESPN (love the on-the-fly audible setting and player swapping at the playcall screen). but playing and seeing the game in action is what does it for me. just seeing the running back take a handoff bump into his guys, squeeze between, stutter...so much more dynamic. and the tackles. lord the tackles. thats real physics. if only they didnt rotate on small turns!!!!

too bad about the franchise/draft/etc. options everyone wants too. to me its about the game on the screen and in my hands.

Madden all the way for me.

I just got it tonight, I'm simming the first season to get to the offseason stuff. So far I've spent about an hour just doing training camp stuff and getting familiar with all the new stuff. Haven't actually played a game yet! LOL

Matty, have you played this years ESPN yet? play on Slow and watch some replays of what you just did, and then watch and wonder at the realtime tackles. you'll be in awe. i been playing Madden since John Madden Football on the genesis, but Sega's been trying harder than EA for years now.

I only have one problem with ESPN NFL 2k5...it's not on PC.

No I haven't played espn and I don't plan to. I gave 2k4 a shot and I just didn't like it.

I dont get any of anyones reasoning behind likeing the espn game better. The presentation is superior to madden... AKA the part of teh game taht has nothign to do with playing, or a franchise... The animations were cool for about ten minute when I played the espn game. ESPN took so much time in trying to make an animation look real, that they fucked up the way players actually move. When you cut in espn the guy goes straight left, then straight up. most of the time when you have a fast player you get run down by a linemen becuase of the way the animations are. OK, so if you watch the instant replay it looks cool, who cares, in actual gameplay it takes away from the experience.

Everyone here seems to be aruging about the animations for some reason and not taking into account any of the other factors. you look at the game as if all that matters is when you play one game. Off season mode is elementary compared to madden..

Next year id be willing to bet that madden adds in a bunch of stupid presentation just to shut up the critics. That way, all the players that dont care about gameplay and just want the pregame show to be pretty will be happy.

ESPN uses a better rendering system and has more detail in their graphics, but those graphics during gameplay are less representative to acutaly players motion then in madden.

There should be a seperate thread for this argument. one for people that only play one of the games and are hugely biased, and another thread for those people that own both games and have played both of them through atleast one season and know the differences. Its just getting annoying having the same arguments with people that having even played both games. My final opinion is that ESPN is pretty to watch, but is inferior to madden as a complete game.