Madden 2001

SONY Playstation 2

Click HERE for screenshots.

Wow!  The graphical jump in going from the original Playstation to the Playstation 2 is huge.  From the opening menus to gameplay on the field, Madden 2001 looks prettier and runs more smoothly than any of its predecessors.  That said, are these dramatic improvements enough to make it the best Madden yet?

Well, yes and no.  To begin, the new Madden Rap (“The Mad in the Game”) by Xzibit is inferior to the 2000 rap by Ludacris.  I found it to be comparatively mean spirited and less catchy.  Sorry Xzibit, maybe next time! 

The other gripe that I had off the bat was the long loading times.  Loading screens to get to the main menu and to launch actual games are notably longer than in earlier years.  I’m sure that this is a result of the improved graphics and animations, but is noteworthy nonetheless. 

Madden 2001 came out in anticipation of the 2000 season, which means it was based on the rosters/ratings following the 1999 regular season.  By the end of 1999, the Patriots were in serious trouble.  Curtis Martin and many other stars were long gone and were playing for the hated Jets, rookie phenom Robert Edwards had blown out his leg in a volleyball game at the pro bowl, and cheerleader/coach Pete Carroll was fired.  These are just some of the components that add up to the 2000 Patriots team in disarray. 

After some jiggering with certain settings, I managed to get the team to the playoffs, where I reset the game to the default settings (including “pro” difficulty) and settled in for their first matchup in the divisional round against the Seattle Seahawks. 

Getting right into the game, I was immediately struck by how tricky the kickoff meter is in the game.  It is fast and unforgiving- be sure to err on the side of kicking before the “power meter” reaches its apex rather than after, because you can easily end up with a terrible kick. 

My impressions of playing the game on offense and defense were generally positive.  The game has a more realistic feel than 2000 – the emphasis on arcade action has been scaled down a bit to increase the sense of simulation.  The PS2 controller adds a few more buttons to the equation, but I was doing alright and found myself ahead 7-0 by halftime vs. Seattle.

After one half of play, I did have a few nitpicks.  While the graphics are awesome compared to all the predecessors, the smoothness of all of the player models and animations do give them a bit of a sterile/Ken doll appearance.  There is not much “grit” to show here – everything looks squeaky clean, even in bad weather games.  Another thing I noticed was that the audience in Foxboro kept repeating the same generic “Let’s go TEAM!” chant throughout the game.  It is a stupid chant and got old fast.

My second half against the Seahawks did not go very well.  They scored a field goal early in the third, and my frustration began to grow with the way some of the plays went.  I got the sense that play outcomes were pre-ordained, regardless of my efforts at coordinated button mashing on the field.

There were instances of open receivers dropping balls, double covered receivers making impossible catches, open running lanes disappearing instantly, etc.  The most flagrant took place when Seattle scored the game winning TD with 20 seconds remaining on a hail mary pass into triple coverage.  Frustrated with my 10-7 loss, I was not sure if the game was buggy or if I was just upset about my loss.

My rematch against the Seahawks was higher scoring, but also included a fair number of buggy plays.  I could put intense pressure on the Seattle QB and he would wheel around and side arm a perfect 25 yard strike into double coverage.  In spite of these frustrations, I did manage a 14-13 halftime lead. 

I managed to increase my lead to 24-13 as the forth quarter wound down.  Once again, Seattle managed to score on a hail mary play against my “prevent” defense in the final moments to close the score.  In spite of this push, I managed to hold on to the 24-19 win.

As I braced myself for the AFC Championship against the Jets, I couldn’t help but get a bit emotional.  After having watched the Jets upset the Pats out of the playoffs in real life a few days before, I was wary of losing to them in Madden as well.  As the game loaded up, I noticed that this was the first time in four Madden games that there were no pre-canned videos of James Brown, Madden, or Summerall before the game giving me vague advice about “putting points on the board”.  A good decision by EA sports to let these go. 

The Championship game was in the snow in Foxboro and began with a series of defensive stops.  After four consecutive three and outs, the Jets started to win the battle for field position and got some offense going with Curtis Martin.  A pair of sacks by Willie McGinest forced the Jets out of field goal range late in the first quarter, and when Bledsoe and co. got the ball back, I was able to put together a nice TD drive.  The Jets answered with a fieldgoal, but a deep TD pass from Bledsoe to Terry Glenn extended the Patriots lead to 14-3 at halftime. 

I opened the third quarter with another TD bomb to Glenn, which put me up 21-3.  It was at this stage that I discovered a trick/cheat on defense.  If I reshuffled my defensive line manually before the snap, the CPU did not know how to react and I could force pressure every time.  In other words, by moving my nose tackle to the end of the line and keeping my defensive end in place, the pressured side of the o-line could not block everyone and I could sack the QB. 

It might have been cheap, but it worked, so I went with it and sacked Jets QB Vinnie Testaverde 8 times in my 28-9 win. 

My Super Bowl matchup was once again against the Panthers.  The game was set in the rain, and while I did not notice much of an impact on the way the game played, the gravity of the game was enhanced by the repeated thunder claps throughout.  An early interception by Bledsoe set up an easy Panther TD and put me down 7-0 early.  I decided to go back to the player with the most production from the Jet game and aired it out to Terry Glenn, whose spectacular one-handed catch in the back of the end zone tied things up.  The Panthers responded with a great drive and TD run before I managed a field goal at the end of the half, making the score 14-10 Carolina at halftime.

Halfway through, the Super Bowl game was excellent and felt completely realistic.  It reminded me of the good games of Madden ’98 where you had to fight for every yard and the CPU was smarter than you thought.  There were not any garbage plays that made no sense either.  I made note that I needed to take more shots at Terry Glenn in the second half if I was to come away with the big win.

The third quarter was a defensive struggle, but I managed to just barely make a short field goal as the quarter ended, closing the score to 14-13, Panthers.  The kicking meter is rough.  All too easily, the Panthers marched down and answered with a field goal of their own, making the score 17-13.

Running out of time, I put together a great 8 play, 75 yard drive deep into Panther territory.  With two minutes left in the game, Bledsoe got into the endzone from one yard out on the QB sneak.  For the first time all game, I led 20-17! 

I was looking forward to stopping the Panthers one last time and running out the clock, but the game was far from over.  The Panthers put together a great drive of their own and seemed to figure out my defensive line cheat.  Whenever I would move a lineman out of position, they would run to the gap where he had been.  This forced me to be more conservative, but ended in disaster when they ran a sweep to the right of the field and I repeatedly failed to bring down their running back.  Four broken tackles later, I was stunned to find myself down 24-20 with 1:13 left on the clock. 

Once I had the ball back, I fired a strike to the sidelines to Troy Brown for a quick 14 yard gain.  I then saw my note to throw more often to Terry Glenn and decided to take a shot deep with the volatile wide out.  As I dropped back, I was surprised to see he was in single coverage streaking downfield.  I threw the ball up and watched as he jumped for it.  He made the catch and shook off the lone defender before walking into the endzone for the game winning score.  I won the game, 27-24.  Glenn finished with over 200 yards receiving and two huge TDs.  He was named the game’s MVP. 

In the end, I had fun with Madden 2001 – it was better than I thought it would be.  The graphics are definitely the best yet in the series and the gameplay was pretty good.  My d-line “cheat”, which yielded 8 sacks against the Jets (and only 9 points allowed), did not work nearly as well against the Panthers (2 sacks and 24 points allowed).  It seems that the machines are beginning to learn…