App review: Madden NFL 10

review by Steve Loopipe

If one thing is clear from the caliber of the games appearing on the App Store of late, it’s that the iPhone is becoming a legitimate gaming platform, with big-name developers finally joining the fray of late. Of course, a gaming platform isn’t really a gaming platform until one particular game is made available for it: That game, of course, is Madden. So really, what better time than Apple’s keynote to announce the new, gaming-centric iPod Touch to also announce the release of Madden 10 for the iPhone?  Of course, just because a version of Madden exists doesn’t make it a good game, especially at a high-for-the-App Store price of $10.  Considering myself a hardcore football fan and occasional Madden consumer, I could hardly wait to find out for myself.

This version of Madden, as one would expect, is fairly stripped down as compared to its console cousins, but that suits the iPhone version just fine as a more casual, pick-up-and-play edition of the game. The only modes available are Play Now, which launches a stand-alone game where you can choose which team to play against, or Season, which simulates a full 16-game season.  There are options to adjust rosters (which are slightly out of date having been released before the start of the season), but otherwise, you just launch a game and go.  As one would expect, dropping out of the game to take a call or otherwise via the home button auto-saves the game, and the player can pick up right where he left off (and the game launches very quickly, to boot), making playing a full game in several five to ten minute sessions extremely possible. Multiplayer is not available as of this writing, but is promised in a future update.

The controls have been completely reworked for the iPhone Madden, and they work so well that you can sometimes forget that you’re using a virtual d-pad to move your players around. Context-sensitive action buttons appear on the lower right side of the screen, and handle everything except for passing, which is handled by tapping on the receiver (indicated by a circle color-coded to indicate how open he is).  Being a casual player of Madden myself, I really like this control scheme even better than I do that of the console versions, since one of the problems I tend to have with Madden is trying to memorize which button controls which action in any given scenario; now they’re all right there on the screen with helpful icons to remind you. 

A new addition for the iPhone version is a stopwatch button that activates what EA calls Action Control, which is essentially slow motion. Honestly, the addition of this button alone made this version of Madden much more fun than any other version of the game I’ve played, and I don’t know why it took so long to put it in.  Being able to slow the game down helps in all kinds of situations – finding a hole in the defense as a running back, cycling through reads as a QB, switching to the correct receiver and determining which direction to run in as the defense, etc.  Obviously, you don’t need this feature – Madden’s gotten along for 15 years without it – but especially if you find the speed of Madden overwhelming, it really makes the game feel much more fair.

The presentation is fairly good as well, given the iPhone’s limitations.  Graphics are fairly well done, with reasonable representations of the various stadiums and player models.  You won’t have individual faces modeled like you will on the consoles, but that doesn’t detract from the experience at all.  More importantly, everything is extremely smooth; through several full games played on my iPod Touch 2G, I never noticed even a small amount of slowdown due to performance issues.

Sound, on the other hand, needs some work.  The base background sound is incessant crowd noise that sounds less like cheering and more like static.  John Madden and Cris Collinsworth do provide sparse commentary, but it’s repetitive and generic, and more often than not, you get no commentary at all.  You can listen to the iPod music in game, but you have to select the music in game, there is no shuffle mode for playlists, and the music overrides all the game sound, including on field sounds and commentary, which is kind of weird the first couple of times you try it.  

There’s also the issue of the playbook, which seems too limited for seasoned Madden players but could be overwhelming for beginners.  Plays are split into run/blitz, short pass, long pass, and special teams, and while those cover most situations, when you’re looking for a specific type of play, such as a play action pass, it can be difficult to find it lumped among all the other passing plays.  That said, most versions of Madden tend to have an Ask Madden mode, which chooses the play automatically for beginners, and that option appears to be missing (or at least well hidden) in the iPhone version.  Given how geared the game is toward casual players, this seems to be a fairly glaring omission.  

Even despite its faults, though, Madden NFL 10 is a fantastic football game, and the price is extremely fair given the comparison to the full console versions at $60, and especially when compared to the $30 Nintendo DS version.  Hardcore Madden players may miss some of the features, but for everyone else with even a passing interest in football or in Madden, this is a no-brainer.  If this is the state of gaming on the iPhone as of right now, I can’t wait to see what’s coming next.

Madden NFL 10 is available in the App Store.