Quarterback Can't Hold the Ball That Long!

Madden NFL 11
Year Released: 2010
System: PS3, others
IGN Rating: 8


Madden NFL football is one of my favorite gaming series ever. I began playing in the mid '90s on the Sega Genesis and have played many versions throughout the years. I just pulled up some video footage of Madden '94 on YouTube and it is amazing to see how the game has changed over the years. Sometime in the early 2000s (I believe) they added franchise mode, which not only let you play a full season with your favorite team but allowed you to play multiple seasons with the same team. In between seasons players would retire, you would have to resign your players, participate in free agency and the NFL draft to fill gaps in your roster, set prices for tickets and other events at your stadium, and manage finances. It was an amazing new feature to see how players would progress throughout their careers and there was quite a lot of strategy that went into building a winning team. You had to spend money to get good players, but you were restricted by the salary cap, and you had to capitalize on your spending by winning or else no one would come to your games and you wouldn't make any money. I spent countless hours on franchises on Madden 2002 for the PS2.

Madden 2002 was the last Madden game I seriously played. After that I was too busy with school to play games and the Madden games were getting to be too difficult. You almost had to have NFL coaching experience to be any good. However, I've been in the mood to play some Madden so I picked up Madden 11 for $15 on Amazon. Madden 12 is out as well but it cost $60 and is basically the same game as 11. I have no idea why they come out with a new version of this game every year when the versions are basically the same. I think they could pretty easily come out with a new game every few years and just supplement with downloads in the meantime. My guess is that they haven't figured out how to make money doing that yet so they just try to sell people a brand new game every year. The way I see it, unless there are major changes I think it is well worth saving the $45 and just getting the game that is a year old.

This is a typical Madden game so if you've liked the games in the past you'll likely enjoy this game as well. Sadly they've dumbed down the franchise mode a bit. You still have to do roster management and the draft and everything, but unfortunately they've basically taken away price setting and advertisement budgets. You basically don't have to worry about finances or attendance at all in this version. On the plus side there is a new feature that allows coordinators to call the plays for you. Football purists won't like this but you can turn the feature off if you like. I like the feature because as I said, the play calling has got so intense it seems like you have to have coaching experience to have success. Plus they pick reasonable plays most of the time.

All in all it is a solid game and if you like football and are a fan of the Madden series of games, it's a steal at $15. It has great game play and presentation, and the franchise mode, while dumbed down, is still involved and fun. I signed Manning to a 3 year extension (instead of the 5 he got in real life) and after seeing how the team is performing in real life this year, you better believe I got a plan in place for the post-Manning era. His name is Zack Legaux, rookie QB out of Florida. He's a third round draft pick. He is currently rated at 83 overall (Manning is 99), which is higher than Willy Wonka's (thanks for that, Craig) rating of 66.