Key Features

• Full NFL license for real players, teams and stadiums
• Up-to-date statistics and complete seasonal tracking
• All new player face and body technology, so player and coach faces and body shapes will look even more like their real life counterparts
• New modes include Two-Minute Drill, where points can be earned on offense or defense in a quick-hitting fast-paced game within the game; Create-a Team, featuring customized uniforms, helmets and stadiums; and Coach's Corner, where you can learn about the X's and O's of football from John Madden while perfecting in-game skills
• Completely revamped and realistic player faces with varied geometry, giving more realistic and unique faces (no more psycho-zombie eyes), mouth guards
• New animations, more realistic tackles including drag-downs
• More realistic lighting, sunlight, etc.
• Analog and digital support
• Play and draft with the newest NFL franchise, the Houston Texans. Take them to the Super Bowl in Franchise Mode
• New Madden Cards with new players, new designs and cheerleaders
• Hundreds of new animations have been added, while a new focus on player emotion and high drama has been added with cool replays featuring camera angles a TV broadcast can't capture, such as inside the huddle
• With widescreen 16x9 TV support, you can now see all of your receivers run their patterns.
• Madden NFL 2002 incorporates strategy from real NFL coaches and John Madden himself, improvements to blocking and pass coverage lead the list of changes for 2002.

Madden 2002 is very much a football simulation. To that end, the game features the full NFL license for real teams, players and even coaches, in addition to the realization of perfectly rendered stadiums based on their real-life counterparts. Real team playbooks -- the most abundant and authentic of any football title, are also included. Everything has been updated to include tracking through the last year's season so Chicago Bears fans will, of course, find themselves at a disadvantage while Baltimore backers will begin the new season with a bang of talent (minus quarterback Trent Dilfer obviously).

The backbone play mechanics of Madden 2002 are the direct evolution of last year's game. Player physics are spot-on and control is still tight, allowing for quick running jukes, stiff-arms, spins, speed bursts and dives. There are standard bullet and lob passes, with a manual or automatic icon system. Players can, in the face of a coming blitz, throw away the ball or decide to run it. Basically, it's all there -- all of the options and control intricacies that made Madden 2001 great. Some improvements, though, are immediately noticeable in the GCN 2002 version. The offensive line seems more varied, the quarterback -- a target in last year's game -- features speedier animation and thus is harder to take out, and the glaring money plays of Madden 2001 have been addressed and are no longer a problem.

Play wise, 2002 is poised to become the most polished Madden entry yet, but the GCN version won't be finished for some months. In that time, EA Sports has indicated that it will be tweaking and modifying the game to work more intuitively with Nintendo's controller. That aside, the GameCube incarnation will play identically to its PS2 counterpart -- and that's not a bad thing.

Graphics
Madden 2001 for PS2 was a beautiful football game. It featured extremely detailed polygonal 3D player models that shined with lush animation. One-handed catches, diving tackles, and touchdown celebrations were standard, and they all looked almost real. EA Sports even added in a few extras, such as helmets that reflected the lights of the stadiums as players moved and physical eyes on athletes -- scary, eight-ball eyes that stared blankly and gave us nightmares. With 2002, the player eyes have been corrected and as a result athletes have reverted back to human form. They also appear taller and thinner, as opposed to the somewhat chunky looking guys that crowded the fields in last year's game.

Tons of new player animation serves up even more realistic looking running and passing techniques, along with a variety of one and two-handed catches, celebrations, walk-backs, and even sideline activity. The background crowds are still somewhat static, but EA Sports promises that the first row will animate as big plays are successfully executed, thus adding a new level of realism to the look of the game.

Outlook
Madden has always been the best football franchise and the 2002 version for GameCube is bound to take the series to the next level. With an already solidified physics and control system in place, the full use of the NFL license for real teams, players, stadiums and playbooks, and noticeably enhanced visuals over last year's incredible effort, football fans are in for a treat. We only hope that EA Sports fully utilizes the GameCube controller for optimum performance.

If you want to get into the huddle and Under the Helmet of real NFL football, head over to NFL.com. With live chats, real-time audio and interactive polls, you can experience NFL action like never before.