Hello gang. Sorry for the late response. I've been playing Burnout 3 and Black Arrow for the past, um, well for about 10 hours straight... actually I was going to respond last night and then the boards went down for maintenance at midnight. Anyway, here goes my take on the Madden review.
First lemme say that as for an "average score" that does not eliminate bias. From the people I know who do average scores, they don't like it, because sometimes they want a game to get a certain score so they are forced to "adjust" the breakdown scores in things like graphics and sound so that a game gets that 7.9 they are hoping for. My main problem with an average score is that it forces every category to be of equal value for every game.
Frankly, sound is not as important as gameplay in most games. Sound can add a lot to a game and sound is sometimes more crucial to a game (say Silent Hill or DOOM 3) than others (like Otogi). Sometimes presentation does a lot to make a game great (NFL 2K5), but should presentation outweigh gameplay? Should sound matter more than lasting appeal? I don't think so. At least not for every single game. It should be a game-by-game decision, because frankly sound isn't gonna make a huge difference in the quality of a puzzle fighter. The sound may be great, but if the sound is annoying arcade noise, that doesn't mean the puzzle elements aren't totally addicting. Hell, the graphics probably wouldn't be anything to get excited about either. But should the game get a sucky score because of it? I mean, it's a puzzle fighter and expectations are different than those for a first-person shooter or a racing game or a fighting game. To me nothing is more important than a game that plays well. So as for doing an average, most IGN editors, to my knowledge, are opposed to that idea, as am I.
I didn't review ESPN NFL 2K5, that was Chris Carle, I merely added secondary comments to his review, because I try to have an IGN Xbox voice on as many reviews as possible. I played a lot of NFL 2K5 and could have written the review, but knew Chris would do a bang-up job. Why didn't I do that with Madden? I should have, I really just didn't think to do it. But I support Jon's score, because Jon has played more Madden than some testers at EA. No, really, Jon has played a lot of Madden.
J Rob is our sports editor and plays more of every sports game (minus maybe hockey) than anyone else in the office. He's been in the industry for a long time and he is more than qualified to review games. I'll be honest with you, reviewing sports games is tougher and takes a lot more time than reviewing any other genre, because sports games require a bigger investment of time and there's so much to talk about in any sports review. So, while I was certainly willing to review Madden, I knew that I would never have as much time to play it as Jon did and I also knew that he would and I knew his review would be very in-depth, which it is.
We had exclusive reviews for both madden and ESPN. That's part of our job, securing exclusives. How do we do that? We ask. That's pretty much it. Me, I send in proposals for every worthwhile game I like that includes a big plan for all the features I want to do before the game launches and a request for the first review. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. We've had exclusive reviews that have received 9.5's and plenty that got 7's and 6's. Anyone can make a claim that people are bought off, without having any evidence except their own paranoia.
What if I claimed that some of you were paid by Sega to talk crap about the Madden review. Sounds crazy, right? But I could do it none-the-less. I don't believe it (though I know of companies that have done that), because I know those guys at Visual Concepts very well and that's just not their style. Still, I could say it as much as I wanted without anything to back it up except for "evidence" that I create in my own mind. We don't even have a Zabruder film on this one.
ESPN was our top story for the entire day of Friday when we did the review, but was moved from that spot that night because we had a prior commitment for top story. The reason for the conflict in the first place was Sega's shift to release the game early. But it was top story for about 7 hours and then moved to our next best spot. It also had a lot of traffic so I know people saw and read it. And since I can look at traffic for ESPN and Madden (since yesterday has passed) I can tell you that ESPN actually have more traffic it's first day then Madden did.
What do I think about Madden vs. NFL 2K5? I think they are both great games and that one game's strengths tends to be the other's weaknesses. ESPN is strong on presentation for sure. Best presentation I've ever seen in a sports game. Truly awesome. Madden is good, but not great here. And presentation goes a long way to making up for some of NFL 2K5's gameplay holes. Madden outshines ESPN in two spots.First, the Franchise Mode, which was already better last year, absolutely destroys NFL 2K5 this year. It's really phenomenal in Madden. Truly great. But it's also the gameplay that is better. This year it really is all about defense. The tackle animations are awesome and this is by far the toughest (and best) Madden yet. I didn't want to like Madden. I'm not a Madden fanboy at all. Hell, I was there at midnight 9/9/99 to get my Dreamcast. I have no love for Madden, haven't for 5 years now. I didn't want to like Madden, but I do.
The game is good. Those that disagree (if you've actually played the review build for a significant period of time), that's cool. That's your opinion. Jon has his, but Jon also has a very popular website on which to express his opinion. And that's what reviews are, opinions backed up by facts. Jon supports his arguments. You may not agree, but it's not like the entire review is "Madden is great, cuz, uh, it is it. It's really really really really really really really really really really really great."
I like both of these games a lot. And I think both reviews did an excellent job of explaining the good and bad of each game. I thought both of these games were overrated last year, but I do think they are both a lot better this year.
Is Madden better than NFL 2K5? I dunno. To me they each have their merits and it's very, very, very close. I would have given them the same score, actually, because I think it's so close it comes down to personal preference. The games are so neck-and-neck that all we can really do is explain the good and bad of each to inform readers about what each game has to offer so they can see which sounds best to them. I'll try and pull together a roundtable next week where the football fans at IGN talk about the two games and argue over which is best.
I personally prefer NFL 2K5 myself, but I also see all of the great things in Madden. Really the gameplay is un-Maddenlike. It's gonna jack Madden players up because all of the old cheats and holes are gone. I think people who say it is the same game as last year either haven't actually played it or never play much Madden so they wouldn't be able to tell. This is absolutely 100% not the same Madden. EA did a lot with the AI this year, whether you want to believe that or not is your choice. But I'm not Madden fanboy and I can certainly tell the difference. The defense on all-madden is insane.
I love NFL 2K5, I love Madden 2005. They are very close and it really is a matter of choice and opinion as to which is best. Obviously you can see which Jon prefers and you can tell which one Chris Carle loves. Jon has played more of both football games than anyone in the office. I trust his judgment, because he can come over and talk to me for a half hour explaining why Madden is great. It's not like he just says "9.5" one day and I nod my head in agreement. We talk about sports games every day. It's not some sudden decision. I thought he would give it a 9.4, and in fact Jon was thinking that for a while too. But over the past week he started leaning towards a 9.5. We discussed it and we really went into detail on the differences between the two games. In the end, I agreed to let him give the score he felt was justified, because he could justify it.
As for why gameplay got higher on PS2 than Xbox, that's an unfortunate result of some difference of opinions on scoring between the sites. On IGN Xbox, we believe in a 10-point scale for the breakdown sections (that means graphics, gameplay, etc., can only get a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 score) and a 100-point scale for the overall score. We try and put this in every review now. It's something we used to only do for our own reviews, so you'd see some older reviews with 8.5 or even 7.4 in things like Sound. We're trying to make at least the Xbox site consistent. The PS2 gang believes in a 20-point breakdown scale (5.0, 5.5, 6.0, 6.5, etc.). Yes, it's incredibly stupid that all of IGN is not consistent, but this goes wayyyyy back to the beginnings of IGN. Some editors have very deep-rooted beliefs in their scoring systems. We're trying to smack each other around enough that we all do the same scoring, but so far IGN Xbox, IGN Pocket, and IGN Cube do a 10-point scale and PC and PS2 do a 20-point scale.
Why do I believe in a 10-point scale over a 20-point scale? That's a discussion for another time. Suffice to say, I believe that those breakdown scores are meant to generalize the quality of one part of the game, not provide a specific comparison with every other game ever made. A 10 in graphics means that it's at the top of the food chain in terms of visuals, that it's as good as any Xbox game to date. It doesn't mean it's perfect. That's for a breakdown score, not the overall score. For a better understanding of the breakdown of a game, well that's why we write long reviews. And then the final score is the one that frankly is always going to be used to compare itself against other games.
Anyway, this is actually longer than most reviews, so I am gonna stop now and let the argument begin anew.
One site can not use the same scoring system across platforms? Gee it is a wonder how IGN lost money every year until they went private.