Does that mean its perfect? No, far from it. There are plenty of plays that work well, but in general, I can actually lose and that is wonderful. I have yet to attempt the hardest difficulty, as I am still trying to win consistent Super Bowls on the lower settings. This bodes well for a game in a genre where replayability is king.

As an occasional Madden gamer, I bring a unique perspective. I am someone who has not played the series since the Sega Genesis, and am looking at this game in a vacuum. If you are an owner of 2004, and want to know whether to grab 2005, or wait until 2006, I cannot help you. If you are like me, someone who enjoys a good sports game and does not mind football, then hopefully I will be of service.

In addition to a challenging presence on the field, Madden also offers extensive off-field game. The NFL is known for its drama in the front office, and Madden pulls no punches creating an interesting simulation of the NFL GM role. You can sign, trade, release, draft, scout and develop players and lead your team to the Super Bowl. There are a number of cool features here. Some you have to give credit to the NFL, as well as EA for bringing to life. For example, many leagues would never allow a game to offer relocation. In Madden, if attendance is not good, you can make a pitch and relocate the club to a major city. This is one of my favorite little gems.

Unfortunately, the front office end of the game suffers from the problem that they seem to have solved, at least for me, on the field: it is too easy. There are lots of absolutely cool features, but in the end, give me any team and two years, and I will be handing my front office a Super Bowl. That is a shame, as I believe the future of sports gaming is the amalgamation of the hardcore text simulations with the on the field arcade games. Madden NFL 2005 is the biggest leap to fusing these two genres, but still has a ways to go.

For those that loath numbers, be happy to know that you can pretty much ignore them. The management is absolutely fun, if too easy, but it is also quite simplistic and not all that necessary. There is little to stop you from just plowing through franchise mode and ignoring the bulk of it. You could also simply play a normal season mode, or random games.

On the field, the game is a challenge, and for that, I give it high marks. Your roster matters, but the most important thing remains your skill. Subtle things like how long you hold the pass button can be the difference between a lethal aerial assault and many interceptions. The plays you call also seem to have a big impact. Even as just a casual football fan, I really enjoyed trying to guess pass vs. run and moving my plays towards that. Happily, though for the true arcade fan, you can pretty much plow through this by "Asking Madden" and letting him call plays for you.

Traditionally, I have not been too keen on football sports games because I never much enjoyed playing defense. I felt like I was just biding my time until my next drive. Madden solves this one, too. The playmaker feature lets you call things like an individual blitz on the fly. This makes for a mountain of fun. If you think they are going to pass, and you have an extra CB than they have WR, grab that guy, bring him closer to the line of scrimmage and tell him to blitz. Suddenly, on the snap your guy rounds the corner and gets the sack before the ball goes off. It is quite a challenge and thrill.

There are a few problems on the field. The ground game is inept on both sides. In franchise mode you see other running backs around the league getting normal yardage, but your running back is most likely not going to be anywhere near that (unless you play full length games). Running up the middle is very difficult, I have yet to figure it out, and sometimes running to the outside can meet success, but that too is error prone. I have phased it out, choosing instead a short passing game. The computer does not appear to be any better when you play them. I constantly hold them to anywhere from 25 to negative yards a game, and believe me this is not because I am personally good at stopping the run. I usually go for the sack, taking a man off run defense. The other computer players always stop him for me.

For fun, I once tried playing a full-length game. The game is clearly meant to be played with very short quarters, and it shows when you go to a longer game. It was still a challenge, with the score 50-47 at the half when I finally gave up. The flaw is that they geared the game towards 5-minute quarters, thus things get drastically out of hand in 15-minute quarters. I had thrown for 600 yards in the first half alone and my seldom used running back (or so it seems in shorter games) was actually on pace for a respectable afternoon. Do not let the score fool you. I did not score on every drive. Things just move too fast (no real time between plays) and as a result, everything is insanely inflated. Had I played a full season of full-length quarters, I would conservatively guess McNabb would have thrown for 16,000 yards that year. To put that in perspective, he threw for 3875 last season in real life and 16926 in his six-year NFL career. This is a tad frustrating, but what really could have been done? It is safe to assume that almost no one wants to play with full 15-minute quarters, so sacrifices have to be made. However, if the option is there, I would like to have seen more effort to making that game length realistic.

On the useless side is the new "create-a-fan" feature. I am not sure why it was put in, but it's there for those of you that like foam fingers. It seems to be the only aspect of the game without any real purpose.

Back on the positive side, I must say that I do not think there have ever been a better mini-game then the traditional kicking interface for football games. It has been the same for years, and I hope it never changes. You snap the ball and a meter starts to go up, based on when you hit your button, strength and speed of it come back is determined. The harder you try to kick, the faster the bar starts coming back. You then click again to stop it inside a small area to determine accuracy. It is a very simple game, but I have always loved it and am glad to see it has not changed in all these years. The entire thing moves faster and gets more precise as you increase difficulty; making kicking one of those fun things and ensuring you do not always feel compelled to go for it on fourth down.

Another joy of the game is min-camp mode. This is a series of fun little mini-games that let you hone your skills. EA takes it a step further; in franchise mode, you can run the whole gauntlet and be rewarded with skill points for the player you selected to do each drill during training camp. To be honest, I often found myself simulating my season so I could do training camp over. There are two passing drills, one where you need to avoid balls shot at you (they come faster and more often on higher skill levels) and then throw to the appropriate target, and one where you need to pass to receivers threw rings to work on accuracy. There are also drills for running, run blocking, tackle breaking, kicking, punting, receiving, and pass defending. All of the drills are a good fun and hard to master; each is a game within a game that is well worth the effort.

Visually, the game is second to none, as is the EA standard. The models are excellent, as is the motion capture. Occasionally you see a clunky thing here or there, but generally, there are no complaints. The only flaw I have seen is in the fans, which are quite lackluster in the background, but to be honest, I only noticed this once I started taking screenshots. Obviously, your focus is on things that are more important during the gaming experience, and it would silly to waste system resources on something I would not normally notice anyway.

EA did a good job on nearly all aspects of the audio experience. The lone exception is the play-by-play. As usual, it is repetitive, a bit annoying and not useful. Often they say things that make no sense, and stand out as odd. The sound track for the game though is quite superb. I would go so far as to say that they should expand it so music plays during the game with the commentators turned off. Nothing illustrates the point better than mini-camp mode when they do just that. There is something to be said for playing fast-paced drills to the sounds of Green Day.

The UI in game is the usual fare, and easy to work with. Do not try the game on PC without first buying a controller though, it is an exercise in frustration. Outside the game, it is the stock EA Sports UI. Luckily, though, it seems that they made this UI for Madden and then adapted it for the other games. The annoying and silly aspects I found when using almost identical UI in the NHL series are not present at all in Madden. It is generally easy to use and non-offensive. Although, I do find that in franchise mode they have buried some management features deep in a few menus. There is a lot more depth to franchise mode then you see at first glance. Do not hesitate to wade through a few screens and see what you can really do.

Overall, Madden 2005 reviewed on its own merits without consideration for past editions, is a solid football title for anyone who wants to have some fun. There are some rough edges, but there is nothing in there that makes it not worth the sticker price. Madden NFL 2005 is exciting, fun and most importantly a challenge.