The Top 5 Madden Games of All Time

In the timeless words of Aaron Froh, a "happy maddenoliday" to all of you.  Today marks the release of Madden '13, which EA Sports is hailing as "the best installment of the game yet!"  They don't tell you that their grading criteria for "best" is "which one can we get people to fork over $60 plus add-ons for?"  In their defense, you never asked.

Every year the Madden people make this claim, and every year the Madden fanbase calls "bullshit," before grumpily handing their credit card to the greasy local Gamestop cashier.  Statistically speaking, they HAD to have been on the money with their "best ever!" claim at least once.  Maybe a couple different times.  But, the question remains--when?

That is why we're publishing the Top 5 list today.  Why top 5?  It just seemed to shake out that way.  Besides, there's only 20 choices--is the second quartile of EA's efforts really that worthy of recognition?

5. John Madden Football '92
Talk about a trip down memory lane.  Our video game systems in the early '90s were still only marginally better than the games that could be programmed into a graphing calculator.  This particular game wasn't even licensed by the NFL or NFLPA--in fact, "Tecmo Super Bowl 2" was a much bigger deal at the time.

But the Madden series survived, and this was the first time they had any of the following:

• Instant replay
• Varying weather conditions
• A two-player mode (!)
• Audibles
• Pass Interference calls
• Injuries

Hold the thought on that last one.  Those are all important developments, but so was most of early gaming.  Why wasn't this spot given to the '94 game, which was the first to get licensing rights from the NFL and NFLPA?

Because the '94 version of the game didn't have players getting trucked by ambulances.  Checkmate.



Had EA shown the foresight to get Pat Summerall's voice into the game before 1994, and combined the ambulance with Pat's classically deadpanned "Oh no... there's a man down," this game would be even higher on the list.

4. Madden '03
It took EA precisely two years after the advent of the PS2 Generation of systems to realize "hey, wait, we've got all this processing power and we're just porting souped-up versions of our old 16-bit menu music.  Let's fix this problem!"  Madden '03 was the first game to license their own menu music, and also introduced the concept of minigames.  A huge win and a little win.  Penalty points for being the first game to not have a commentary team of Madden and Summerall.  Al Michaels wasn't terrible, but 2003 marked the first step on the road to Cris Collinsworth.  Not fucking cool.

3. Madden '99
And this game's includion is precisely WHY Madden '13 will never grace this list.  Madden '99 introduced legions of sports fans to Franchise Mode.

Sure, it was choppy and buggy.  You'd never get a QB worth drafting unless you got a Top 4 pick.  The draft was only four rounds long.  After three or four years, every team had a kicker and punter with an overall rating over 95, and the free agent scrap heap was littered with 85-95 rated kickers.  Drafted players in Franchise mode lacked school info or even first names.  And the actual gameplay itself that year was notoriously glitchy (the only penalties legitimately called were encroachment, false start, delay of game, and offsides; holding was called if your QB held the ball too long).  But I can't even begin to fathom the centuries worth of man-hours of productivity that got sunk into Franchise Mode over the years.

This year, Madden decided to scrap it, claiming that the experience is melded into "Connected Careers Mode."  Look, EA.  We all tried Superstar mode.  On paper, it was the greatest idea ever.  But the reason your focus groups kept telling you to keep Franchise mode is because the gameplay in Superstar SUCKS.  For some reason, your little brother NCAA College Football can include both modes and make them both ridiculously addicting.  Why can't you?

2. Madden '05
Is this a loaded list?  You betcha.  Four of the five choices were made primarily for arbitrary reasons.  This is one of them, and that's because I absolutely ran shit when it came to Madden '05 online.  See, there was a glitch that year where you could spread your defensive line, have them all rush to the outside, and you'd get pressure on every single play.  I figured this one out before anyone else online, and managed to work my way into the Top 50 on the PS2 online leaderboard.

Does this game still deserve such billing?  Oh, you bet.  EA developed the Hit Stick for that year's game, and may have indirectly led to the NFL's currently continuing concussion crisis.  Alliteration aside, there have been precious few advancements in the field of shit-talking during my lifetime.  I'd rank them in the following:

1. The Internet (now not only possible, but encouraged, to talk shit across great distances)
2. Beer Pong
3. The Hit Stick

Remember the scene in Swingers where they're playing NHL '94, and the one guy makes a big deal about how he's gonna make Gretzky's head bleed, then unpauses the game to do so and still talks mad shit?  That's what every two-player Hit Stick was like, only without the shady unpause.  And you know that guy who goes to shake your hand, then pulls it back and yells "Psyche!" as the whole class unloads both barrels of laughter at you?  That was what every failed Hit Stick was like, if only because the overexaggerated tackle attempt made the meager juke look a thousand times more impressive.  You could even Hit Stick the quarterback, which caused a near-heart-attack every time it happened to your guy.

Like Franchise Mode, the Hit Stick no longer features in the games.  Unlike Franchise Mode, there is actually a legitimate reason for it--kids play these games, kids emulate the amped-up bone-rocking shots, kids give themselves concussions, kids turn into vegetables later in life.  That does not, for one fraction of a second, make me miss it any less.

1. Madden '10
The most important lesson you need to learn to become a functioning adult is this: Life isn't fair.

Technically, I became an adult on December 17, 2006, when I turned 18.  Technically, it's a "transition" that we never truly 100% complete.  But I do remember learning about fairness at the hands of Madden '11 two summers ago.  My buddy across the street had bought the new game before I had.  He brought it over; we picked our teams through the "each spam randoms until a fair matchup pops up."  He had Vince Young and the Titans.  I had Derek Anderson and the Cardinals.  He spent the next hour or so running around in the backfield like a chicken with its head cut off, then launching off-balance prayers towards his wideouts in the endzone.  I lost 70-3 to this strategy.

I've never paid for a Madden game since.  The gameplay of Madden '10 was like a fine cigar--every subtle piece accentuating the next, and working towards a big picture of complex perfection.  The player collisions were realistic--the main gripe with the past few installments had been how remarkably easy arm-tackling was.  The playcalling system was simple enough to grasp, yet difficult enough that you actually felt like an NFL coach executing a gameplan.  The passing game was realistic as hell--mistakes were punished, and the margin of error for those mistakes shrunk exponentially if you were tring to make a throw that wasn't possible IRL.  You truly needed to know the game of football, inside and out, to master this one.  And, while EA's money-grubbing was picking up steam, it had not yet reached epic proportions.  Just tons of in-game ads, mostly for Snickers.  I actually enjoyed having "Patrick Chewing" as a draftable wideout, and the "Chews wisely!" advice before every coin toss.

But I guess I was the only one.  The focus groups complained about the difficultly of the passing game and, next season, we were back to every quarterback with an ounce of speed turning into a cross between Michael Vick and Jesus himself.  Meanwhile, everything that could be turned into a monetized add-on was.  Want to draft like it's the '02 engine again and you can see every rookie's stats?  Ten dollars!  Make it twenty, and we'll tell you EXACTLY how his ratings will play out every season.  For under a hundred bucks you can build an unstoppable super team and flatten the CPU resistance!

I'm probably not going to get a chance to play Madden '13--it's been nearly two years now since I had a working XBox 360, and I've got several thousand dollars worth of other expenses that take priority.  But from what I've heard, I'm not missing a whole lot.