Remember the good ol’ days when the NFL didn’t exclusively license it’s players to the Madden Franchise and games like NFL Blitz were around? Well those days of innocence are long-gone as EA Sports has held the exclusivity of the NFLPA for nearly 5 years now. While other franchises have tried to remain alive by tapping into the likenesses of legends like John Elway (All-Pro Football 2K8) and Lawrence Taylor (Blitz: The League series), both attempts have generally been viewed as failures. Even EA Sports has attempted to make arcade-style NFL titles (NFL Street series and NFL Tour), but has always been seen as coming up short.
After all these years, home consoles have been missing a solid NFL Arcade game to compliment the simulation-style play of the Madden series. EA Sports seems to have recognized this hole, and tried to address it through using the name of it’s flagship franchise, Madden.
Features
As far as features go, Madden NFL Arcade is extremely bare-bones, as most “arcade” titles are. As you arrive at the main menu, you have essentially two gameplay options: solo or multiplayer exhibition matches. There is no season or franchise mode, which will really hurt the replayability of the title for fans of the regular Madden series.
Also absent from this title is the ability to manage rosters in any way. One thing that supplements this, however, is the fact that EA has made it so that when you play an online match, your rosters will update to mirror (for the most part) each team’s current squad. This really is a great feature that really helped the game keep up with it’s older brother franchise a little bit more. The main problem with this feature, however, is that in order to download the rosters, you must enter into the pregame lobby, where each player would choose his/her respective team. This becomes problematic (as it has in the regular Madden franchise) because it means quitters galore. If you don’t want to play an online match, but still want updated rosters, you must enter into the pregame lobby, wait about 10 seconds while the roster update downloads (all the while you’re watching your potential opponent choose his/her team) and then you back out, only to send both players back to the matchmaking menu. It can be extremely frustrating to try to find an online match at times.
Other than gameplay features, there’s 200 achievement points to be had, most of which aren’t terribly difficult as long as you play on the original game settings. There’s also leaderboards, which simply do what any other leaderboards do, show you where you rank in the world.
Presentation
NFL Blitz prided itself on having player models that more closely-resembled the Incredible Hulk than human beings. Madden NFL Arcade has essentially taken their player models from the Wii version of Madden NFL 10 and plugged them into a cartoony environment featuring NFL stadiums and various animations from Madden NFL 10.
The graphics are close enough to Madden NFL 10 that players of both games will feel as though they’ve seen it all before, but far enough away from the sim franchise that it doesn’t really come off as copying.
One difference that is unclear whether or not it is a positive change is the fact that there is absolutely no announcer or commentator. The Madden franchise has always had somewhat lackluster announcing (even though they have been improving upon it slowly, but surely over the past few years), but was taking the announcer out altogether the right move? The best move might’ve been to take the abandoned “radio guy” announcer that fans saw in the main franchise for the first few years that appeared on current-gen systems to plug it into this game. While the “radio guy” announcer might not have fit the sim-style that the main franchise goes for, he could have been right at home in this iteration of the game.
Gameplay
As everyone knows, where most great games excel is not in the features or presentation departments, but in the gameplay section. This is particularly true for arcade titles.
Madden NFL Arcade basically plays like a sped up version of Madden NFL 10, but there are differences that set this title apart from the main franchise that must be addressed.
The most obvious difference is that this game is played 5 on 5 instead of 11 on 11. This formula is really successful as it not only speeds up the game, it makes the game feel a lot more accessible to the casual football fan and it really gives the game a “backyard football” kind of feel.
Adding to the arcade-y feel of the game are the “Game Changers”. Much like the “Game Breakers” in the NFL and NBA Street series, Game Changers are essentially power-ups that can be used throughout the game. The Game Changers appear frequently and can be used pretty much without discretion, though it may be wise to save particularly strong Game Changers for big plays in the drive. The Game Changers are pretty varied, with there being 13 different power-ups in total, ranging from adding extra linemen to either hunt down or protect the QB to freezing a player on the opposing team for a play. The only problem that can be cited with the Game Changers is that they have the ability to, as the name alludes to, change the game too dramatically, in what has come to be known as “Mario Kart Syndrome”. Luckily a football blowout can’t be completely reversed as easily with something like a Red Shell, but if you really don’t want the luck-factor of Game Changers getting in the way of a skill-based game, an option exists to turn them off.
The Verdict
Madden NFL Arcade is by no means a “bad game”. In fact, most of the time, the game is quite enjoyable. The only problem that holds this game back from being a must-buy is the features department. The game really could’ve used a shallow version of a season mode. Perhaps that’s a bit much to ask from a 1200 MSP title, but fans have really been spoiled with the feature-rich Madden NFL 10.
Should you buy this title? It all depends on what you’re looking for in a football title. If you want to play some football, but don’t have the money for Madden NFL 10, you now have two options. If you’re looking for the sim aspect or want to spend all your time in franchise mode enjoying the Front Office type of management gameplay, you will probably want to consider picking up Madden NFL 09 used for probably about the same price as this download. However, if you want a fast-paced, simple version of football with decent graphics and a “let’s not take things too seriously” atmosphere, then you will probably want to check out Madden NFL Arcade.
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