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Review by Rick Tittle, host of the Video Game Review This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

When it comes to video game titles which recur on an annual basis, I always have one eyebrow raised.  In other words, why should we shell out our cash for a game which is virtually the same as the previous year’s incarnation?  This is the yearly hurdle for EA to negotiate with all of their sports titles.  And of all those, MADDEN NFL is by far the biggest and most lucrative.

Let’s face it: John Madden is now more famous for the video game franchise which bears his name than he is for winning a Super Bowl or for being in the Hall of Fame.  His very name is a piece of Americana.  That being said, we do not have to bow down every season and worship an inferior product, and this is one of those rare times when the game is just not up to scratch.  You see, the excellence to which Electronic Arts has established has pushed the bar very high, and anything but the best is below their stringent standards. 
Therefore I always compare a new sports title to the one from last year.  Is it so much better and worth obtaining?  For MADDEN NFL 10, the answer is a resounding "no."  I can sum up my frustrations of this game from merely playing for about 10 minutes.  That’s all the time it took me to want to yank this disk out of my console and Frisbee it out the window.  Listen, last year’s Madden was a big deal.  It was the 20th anniversary of the game and it was very well-made, indeed.  How could EA improve on it?  They couldn’t and they didn’t.  Let’s talk turkey.
     
I chose to play the Cardinals at Oakland.  First of all, the "Black Hole" (the area where you never want to be situated, trust me) is on the wrong end of the field.  The wrong end!  I have season tickets and I am in the north end zone, the one which says OAKLAND.  The real Black Hole is in the south end zone, the one which says RAIDERS. That's an oversight, and an especially galling one considering EA is Bay Area company.  Also, the referees pointed the wrong way sometimes on penalties.  The wrong way!  That's so lame!  Another unbelievable occurrence was that Justin Fargas broke a run for 35 yards.  Any real Raider fan would tell you that is not possible. 
But let me get to the worst part of the game, and that is the announcing.  Tom Hammond is a cure for insomnia; boring beyond belief.  He even talks over his color man, Cris Collinsworth.  I hate Collinsworth.  He is an idiot in everything he says and now we have to suffer with him on this game?  The announcers don’t even watch the game, either.  One time there was a fumble and Collinsworth was droning on about a cliché on penalties.  It’s so not realistic.  After loving every minute of Sony’s MLB The Show, a game where the perfect symphony of the announcers is always legit and apropos, I cannot believe the announcing in the Madden title was a mere afterthought.

More problems: the music is all speed and goth metal.  Yawn.  The rosters of all-time players don’t even include photos of all the players (Joe Montana – picture not available – lame).  The new Pro-Tak system of gang tackling went unnoticed, as well.  Probably the only cool thing is the Virtual Trainer, where you get to play in a Tron-like parallel world on a black sheet of glass.  That’s realistic…not.

If this was the first game in this series, I would really like it.  And if you love to pick up the new copy every year – if that's your thing – then have fun with it.  Yet while it would be easy to simply gush all over this title, I can't.  It's worse than last year's by a mile.  Look in the bargain bin and get MADDEN '09.  Avoid this one.  Let’s hope next year EA doesn't mail in it again.  A very poor effort indeed.  I give it a 6 out of 10.