Having a solid football title at a console launch has always been important and it seems like GameCube will have just that courtesy of EA Sports. While the version at Camp EA showed noticeable slowdown and was certainly less playable than the PS2 version, one should consider that the GameCube version still has several months left to iron out the kinks and the PS2 version is just about complete. So, having prefaced the state of the game, how did it play? Pretty good, I think.

The graphics were pretty impressive from character models to facial features to player animations. More importantly, the gameplay was quite solid. Admittedly, I haven't followed the Madden series in the last couple of years (Blitz's fast arcade gameplay was gotten my football gaming recently), so I haven't seen the recent improvements in football sim AI, but the CPU players were reacting smartly (blockers carrying out their assignments, defensive backs trying to bat down passes instead of intercepting them, receivers running out of bounds to stop the clock).

The play balance on offense seemed solid, too. Properly executed running plays could generate solid yardage, of course, being the undisciplined Blitz player that I've am now, more often than not I got stuffed behind the line. Still, I could see that it was usually my fault for not taking the hole that my linemen were opening. The passing game was similarly realistic making softcore Blitz gamers like me pay for foolishly throwing into double coverage. I became quite familiar with those previously mentioned ball batting defensive backs. One particularly cool, though completely unintentional, play (my biggest passing game) came when Jeff Garcia faked a spike into the ground and successfully hit a wide open Terrell Owens for a huge gain taking me to my opponents 5 yard line. Unfortunately, the next play resulted in a fumble on the goal line, so my beautiful play was all for naught. I suppose that's what I get for playing Blitz.

Of course that may all change this fall, as this taste of classic Madden gameplay has rekindled my interest in a realistic football game. And if everything goes to plan, EA should deliver another solid addition to the Madden franchise for the GameCube, every bit as good as the PS2 and Xbox version (with the possibile bonus of GBA support), and yet another reason to look forward to Nintendo's new system.