| MAIN Madden '99
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MADDEN '99 developed by Electronic Arts published by Electronic Arts |
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Here's Cris Carter spanking about the Packers like the Lindbergh baby. This is why the Pack had to take seventeen defensive backs in the draft this year.
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Madden
'99 offers numerous upgrades over its previous PC predecessors but nonetheless
features the tiring array of specific, intentional mistakes in order for appeal to be left
in next year's version. The problem, of course, is that EA's "best" simply
isn't good enough anymore. In head-to-head mode the game is a significant upgrade over the laughable Madden '97 and pathetic Madden '98. The '97 version, of course, was completely unplayable due to cornerback AI which had a defensive back in man coverage always leap to attempt an interception. One would think this oversight would not have made it past QA -- perhaps it didn't. Regardless, no patch was ever issued to fix this. Essentially the only way to cover a receiver in '97 was to have your DB ten yards off the ball so that he could make a tackle. EA's penchant of "letting the game play for the player" when no input occurred on the gamepad is tedious and undefendable from a design standpoint. This has all been removed from the '99 version. Statistics are kept, however the usual baffling omissions occur. Certain players will lend themselves to collecting kick or punt return stats and some won't. It's unbelievable that this occurs -- it shouldn't matter if you have a center or a waterboy take back kicks, it's more work to ensure that their stats don't display than it is to make them behave like a WR or DB in this manner. Even then, not all WRs will correctly accumulate stats correctly. It's stunning that this still occurs -- this is EA's fourth revision of the game (the '96 version was never released) along with a couple versions of NCAA College Football. Stats aside, the game is fun in two-player mode. To it's credit I was unable to find any "money" plays in the time I played the game. These types of plays have always plagued previous versions of the game. The computer presents a challenge at "Pro" and "All-Madden" skill levels. The graphics are much improved with the change to fully polygonal players (finally!) taking place. Passing remains intuitive in the classic Madden manner. Madden takes advantage of an 8 button controller quite well with plenty of different methods of imposing your will on your computer players. Defensive players can now attempt to hack at a football and force a fumble, anyone with the ball can attempt stiff arms, spins, leaps, etc. PC controllers are no longer two-button affairs and it's nice to see Madden '99 continue to raise this bar. A franchise mode was included this year. EA Sports, for whatever reason, has been reluctant to include such a feature consistently in their previous sports titles. A properly implemented career mode can add longevity to a sports game. Not unreasonable to expect such a feature from a game that the public is dropping $50 on every year, but it directly conflicts with Electronic Arts' desire to soak money out of the consumer every single year. Essentially, sufficiently upgrading Madden by having a career mode as rich as Front Page Sports Football '96 might mean that Madden 2000 would not appeal to some gamers. EA will never allow this. Much in the same way that NHL '97 was perfect except for an arbitrary lack of human goalie control (which was fixed in NHL '98), Madden '99 has a 15 year limit on a career mode and only a three-round college draft. Awful. Ultimately, Madden '99 fails because six weeks into my franchise league (with my Saints up against the 49ers) the game immediately dumps back to the desktop when I attempt to start the game. It is, I suppose, a blessing in disguise that it happened so soon. I have had many, many problems with EA's hockey games doing something similar. To the point where I no longer play them in season mode due to their eternally faulty implementation and coding. It's tired. A season was completely wiped out on me -- what incentive do I have to pick the thing up again and start playing? Absolutely none. Not when better solutions like FPS: Football '96 exist and are able to go 12+ seasons without a single fatal crash. The test system, incidentally, was a Celeron 450 with a Voodoo 3. Hardly a berzerk combination that should escape test. EA simply doesn't care after they get their money and they shall no longer be getting any out of me due to this latest sloppy crash. A patch was issued for some of their sports titles to ensure that the Voodoo 3 was supported but they seemed to be graphic related. It is unlikely if another Madden 99 patch will be issued. Which is, of course, a shame but par for the course when it comes to EA Sports.
SUMMARY: F. Madden '99 is as bad and as good as every other EA Sports title. That level of sloppy mediocrity simply isn't good enough anymore.
--Robb Sherwin 5/31/99 |
