In continuation from yesterday’s story about the recent firing of Jeff Gerstmann by Gamespot over a bad review, I am examining the most blatant act of game racism I have seen in the last year.

Back when I was playing Sega Dreamcast with the other 7 owners in the world, Sega Sports put out their own game to compete with Madden - NFL 2K. At the time I thought “Oh great, another crappy sports ripoff that no one will play”. I still do not know why I gave it a try. Perhaps there was no Madden on Dreamcast. Either way, I ended up buying a copy and I was immediately impressed. The game in essence was just another football game, but there was something about it that impressed me. I was instantly sold on the 2K franchise over the EA Sports counterpart.

It took a few years for the game to catch on, but to this day some people will still call NFL 2K5 the best football game to ever be created. Electronics Arts is not a big evil corporate monster for nothing, they realized that they were quickly losing market share to this new competitor. Great news for the consumer, as EA will be forced to make a superior product now thanks to the competition right? Wrong. Instead of improving their product, they bought the rights to the NFL so no other game company can make a football game except for them. I was so pissed off - as were many others.

Last spring I saw the light at the end of the tunnel (and no I hadn’t just eaten a whole box of Krispy Kreme donuts). This was a light of hope. 2K Sports was finally making another football game! But wow, was the EA License over already? I did some investigating to find out that while 2K sports was putting out a football game, it was lacking the NFL license. They had independently contracted players no longer in the NFL to make a classic football game. Truthfully I was a little disappointed, but I still had high hopes.

There was not a lot of hype for All Pro Football outside of the real fans of the series, and in fact most people knew nothing about this game, the history, or why it existed. To many APF2K8 was just some rip-off boring uninteresting football game and to many more it would remain that way - thanks review industry.

Releasing a full month after APF, Madden had probably the largest advertising campaign and launch budget I have ever seen from the Video Game Industry. They had NFL Superstars at a midnight release in time square. Anything related to football would have the Madden 08 tag on it as well as the Xbox 360. Madden stories were being released in integrals preparing up to launch time generating a lot of hype. People were genuinely excited and APF fell by the wayside.

For me, there are 2 distinct types of sports games that are fun. First is a realistic sports sim game that I can play and think “WOW, this is just like the real sport”. Second, is the high scoring, hard hitting, extreme arcade sports games like NBA Jam or the newly revamped NBA Homecourt (from the NBA Street Series). Both styles have a place, as do the occasional game that doesn’t fit in to either category.

Football games generally fall in to the first category. Sure there is NFL Blitz, and sure these games can be fun from time to time. But football is a game deep with strategy - and so should reflect the video games. In real football if you do a weak side blitz with maybe 2 people, and the quarterback sees it coming and dumps a quick screen to a rolling out running back on the same side - the defense is in trouble. With the defenders from that side blitzing, the running back can usually pull out a quick 10 yards or more. In real football if you play a dime defense or a 4-3 man defense every single down, the offense is going to start picking you apart. In real football if you do a strong toss from I formation or a deep out pass from shotgun every single time - once again, you will get picked apart. This is the type of football that All-Pro Football tried to capture.

All-Pro Football makes you try to play football properly. You cannot run the same play over and over, just as you cannot succeed with a pass defense against the run. Play-calling is important in APF - but perhaps even more important is your overall strategy. 2K sports forces you to create a team to play with - there are no pre-made teams of legends. In this game you can pick 2 Gold players (Elway, Montana, Walter Payton), 3 silver players (Cunningham, Maynard, Bart Starr), and 6 bronze players (Bernie Kosar, and many many more). You have to strategically plan your team. If you want to lean on a passing game, you better select some receivers, qb, and maybe one or two offensive linemen - otherwise you’ll see Marino bouncing passes off receivers faces and then getting sacked. If you want to play defense, don’t expect your 1 gold corner to be the saving grace of your team - the offense just wont throw in his direction. You need a full out gameplan, and there just simply aren’t enough legends to make your team overly diverse.

This forces certain team matchups to perform well in some situations, but not others - which is a good thing. How many NFL teams do you know that win against any opponent (and shut your mouth about the Patriots, thats not common). There will always be one style of offense that counters another style of defense. Look how the Colts took down the amazing Bears defense in last years Superbowl. All-Pro Football does this to perfection. I went with a linebacker heavy defense running a 3-4 with 4 legend LBs. This was great for short game offenses. Unfortunately, anyone running 4WR sets with deep balls would just walk right over my defense as I was faced with a decision. I could continue with my 3-4 defense and force my LBs to cover WRs in the deepgame, or have to take them off the field and play nickel or dime defense - benching my legends. Either way you cut it, I would lose one of those games.

Another excellent thing that APF has is the amazing online section found in all 2K games. Without going in to too much detail, there is just a huge depth for tournaments, online seasons, stat tracking, and other features that are not found in EA Sports games. Joining a draft season where everyone is building unique teams of legends is some of the most fun I’ve had in an online game in a while - and you don’t have to deal with every single team running with Earl Campbell in the backfield!

These are the types of decisions and realistic football mechanics that are found in APF. It ends up with a much more rewarding gameplay experience. It is simply hands down the best and most realistic football game around. However, it also has some shortfalls. The graphics are sub-par to Madden - as are the overall offline game modes (it only has Season mode, Quick Play). I understand that this is a killer for some fans of the Dynasty or Franchise style modes of NCAA and Madden - we will deal with that later.

So what does the insanely over-hyped Madden 08 offer us? First of all, it has amazing presentation. The non gameplay graphics are very pretty, as are the general surroundings and sounds. It has the NFL license (its always fun to play your favourite team!). It has great depth to the single player mode.

Wow Peppercorn, Madden is pretty, has more game modes, and has my favourite NFL team… why the hell would I want some graphically inferior game that has players from before I was born? I’m buying Madden!!!

Oops, did I forget to mention that Madden’s gameplay is absolutely horrible? It is somewhere in between the arcade antics of Blitz, and the realism that is APF - essentially leaving it in limbo, with no real place to call home. The character animations in Madden are terrible, especially watching the QB move in the pocket. Have you ever played a game that feels so over-animated you feel like you are losing control of your character? That is what you will find in Madden. Slight motions, or contact with other players will send your character into pre-made extended motions that might look pretty, but end up with you losing responsiveness to your player. On some occasions I felt like I was simply playing Dragon’s Lair in the 80s. If you don’t know this reference, and you were born before 1990, you should probably just end your life now.

The bottom line is that while APF comes up short in the presentation category, it comes up huge in the gameplay. Madden is essentially the exact opposite. If that is the case, the games should have similar and comparable ratings. Any fan of true NFL gameplay should gravitate towards APF, while people looking for a pretty game with Franchise mode should be playing Madden.

My personal opinion? Gameplay wins over anything. In my reviews, I consider Gameplay to account for about 2/3’s of the games review. Anything else is just filler. The best looking game that plays like crap - is crap. If that is the case, All-Pro Football should have a higher review over Madden. Of course other people might equate gameplay as an even contributor to graphics, sound, presentation, and so on.

Let’s have a look at the reviews that Gamespot gave these two games. Keep in mind that EA is a major player in the Video Game Industry, and that Gamespot runs huge advertising campaigns for the EA Sports games just before they are released. All-Pro Football was barely known.

Madden 08: 8.5/10
The Good:

• The new “weapons” feature is a terrific addition
• A complex but fully manageable control scheme
• Much deeper franchise mode with owner mode features
• Excellent animations
• Much more challenging game than last year.

The Bad:

• Fumbles pop up more than they ought to
• Audio design is lackluster
• Still no significant additions to the online play.

First of all lets look at the Good section. The weapons feature that they are discussing is a great feature. But guess what? It was already in All-Pro Football. This feature is a way to separate 2 top tier’d players from one another by giving them special abilities. Everyone knows that Dan Marino and John Elway played the same position completely differently. These games separate them making Marino perform better in the pocket, and Elway being a better scrambler. Being a weapon also makes you stand out from a regular player and perform better. Hmmm… sounds amazingly similar to Gold vs Silver vs Bronze vs Nonamers.

Excellent animations. Yes they are - and I said they are excellent. But why no mention about how these animations cause you to essentially lose character responsiveness?

Much more challenging than last year. Ok fine, this is a genuine good thing - but still, the game is not even close to the level of challenge of APF. You still do not have to be strategic in your playcalling and picking the wrong plays will not burn you like they do in APF.

The bad specifically mentions a poor online play. What a game killer for something of this sort. Sports are naturally competitive and put you against other people. Should your game excel in this area? Apparently it should only excel in single player offline modes. For such a major fault, why is this game still rated an 8.5.

Also, Gamespot using a medal system in that they award medals for aspects of the game that stand out - for either being good or bad. Let’s take a look at the medals for this game.

Great Sequel. Huh? Great Sequel? Why? Because the graphics got spiffed up? Or because the game handles like a piece of junk. Maybe they accidentally meant to give it the medal for the same game as last year - with little improvement. Who knows.

Outstanding Gameplay. Wow… this one is completely unacceptable. The gameplay is the major fault in Madden. It looks like a cartoon. What game were they playing?

Sharp Control. Again… wow. A major contributor to the horrid gameplay is the equally as horrid controls.

Now a quick look at APF 2K8:

7.5/10 - 2K football returns with solid gameplay and a new focus on classic players, though the roster isn’t the only aspect of the game that feels old.

They were nice enough to give it 2 medals in the good category. Great Sound Effects and Strong Multiplayer. Thanks Gamespot.

The bad? Blatant in game advertising - just like in the real NFL. Actually the blatant advertising they are talking about seems to be when you put together a huge drive and the announcer says “and now the Stride Ridiculously Long Lasting Drive brought to you by Stride Gum” at which point they break down your drive play by play - which is actually pretty cool! So what if they mentioned some product. Big deal.

Disappointing. I’m sorry Gamespot, what was disappointing about this game? The fact that it had the best and most realistic football gameplay in years? Or the fact that it was better than the game that paid you a ton of money to advertise their products for them.

Stripped (Ever feel like you’re playing a half finished game?). So they are missing a Franchise mode. Fine, dock some marks. But why this award was given to APF and NOT given to Hellgate London is another massive article on its own. There is nothing half finished about APF. They again delivered the best gameplay in a football game. Id rather have every single aspect of APF removed from the, keeping the gameplay intact, than having extra modes, mini-games, and other bells and whistles.

Anyway. Noone here is claiming that APF deserves a 10/10, and Madden should be a 5/10. I do however believe that the Gamespot reviews should be swapped. If anything, they both should meet in the middle at an 8/10. Madden received endless praise for how great it was, and all I keep hearing is how disappointing APF is. Again, I play the games for the gameplay, and there is no questions that APF has superior gameplay to Madden.

If you need to see the comparison for yourself, have a look at this video. Yes - it is not Madden vs. APF. It is however NCAA vs APF, the EA Sports college game that came out at the exact same time. Both games NCAA and Madden are very comparable. Have a look and tell me what YOU think about the gameplay…