Madden 2010 – Review – Xbox 360

Vick, Favre, Wildcat, and dog piles, all features of this years game, but what does this game that the other years don’t?

After unwrapping the game and opening the case, I was sort of surprised not to find a paper giving the code to enable online franchise mode. After finding the code on the back of the manual, I redeemed this code only to find out that this wasn’t anything new. It has ALREADY been in past seasons, and called Online League. You can have up to 31 of your friends team up to simulate the full NFL season.
Wildcat offense is implemented this year, but only for a select few teams, such as the Vikings, Dolphins, Eagles, and Steelers. From what I have seen, most of the plays are reverses (end-arounds) or having the player line up in the backfield.

The chance to hop into the pile and fight for a fumble makes its debut also. EA added a button pressing mini-game to the already tough regular games. The fumble game makes you mash one of the 4 color buttons. As the mini-game progresses, it changes to another button. If you aren’t fast enough, you lose the battle.
Brett Favre and Michael Vick are not in the original game, but if you log on to XBL, you can get a roster update with them in it.
A couple of things that they had in past seasons that they didn’t bring back this year:

* Superstar Mode
* Touchdown Celebrations
* Hit Stick
* QB Eye
* 5 minute quarters
* Easier Achievement getting

Technically, they still have Superstar mode, but now its called “Become a NFL Superstar”
In past seasons, the default setting for game quarters were 5 minutes. The default settings are now 7.

Sounds
Jam-packed into this years sound track are plenty of well-known artists and songs, such as Pantera’s Walk and Slipknot’s Duality. Also coming back for an unprecidented 21st season, the man, the myth, the legend, John Madden lends his voice to the game also.

Glitch
I have only seen one real problem/glitch with the game so far. Every once in awhile when you start a game, it will sort of freeze. Normally freezing causes you to reset your console, but this one just takes longer to load. I first noticed this when I tried to do an online scrimmage. I thought maybe my console froze, so I pressed the Xbox button and the dashboard popped up, so I knew it wasn’t that. I quit that game after that. Though another time when it happened I waited it out, and played the single-player game I initiated.

Achievements
There are a total of 24 of them for a regular 1000GS. In past years, one could possibly get half of them by just playing 1 game on easy. This year, EA added rules to get them. 5 minute quarters on all-pro difficulty. They also added player ones, such as: stopping Adrian Peterson in the backfield, stiff-arming Bob Sanders, Winning at Lambeau Field while its snowing, and intercepting Peyton Manning. I did notice that some didn’t unlock even though the settings were correct. Looking back into the list showed that I had gotten them, but I did not get notified?

Overall
Its just another sports game, but more challenging!. Viva La Madden.

Score: 8 out of 10

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