Sound
Which is the least-grating commentary team? Al Michaels and John Madden? Or those random ESPN guys? And why exactly is Franz Ferdinand in a football game? These questions shall be answered...and pretty much only these questions. Seriously, what else would you ask about in a sound category?
ESPN
If you're going into your football game purchase plan this year with the hope of hearing drastically better commentary than last year's games, you're going to be sorely disappointed. Starting with ESPN... About 80 percent of the commentary in ESPN NFL 2K5 appears to have been recycled from last year's title, and it's actually more repetitive than it was. The good news is that the other voice work from the real-life ESPN personalities is much better. The dialogue itself can be a bit one-dimensional, but it's cool to hear Boomer talk about the game's big plays during the halftime show and get the skinny on the draft straight from Mel Kiper Jr. (aka the most insidious-looking draft expert ever to walk the earth).
The remaining components of ESPN's sound are also pretty great. Excellent sound effects permeate much of the in-game action, and all of the usual ESPN music is front and center, along with some generic soundtrack stuff thrown in for the crib mode. You can also access custom soundtracks on the Xbox, and, again, you can use the stadium music editor to play whatever music you'd like to during a game.
Madden
John Madden needs to either completely change his personality or stop providing commentary. In Madden NFL 2005, he is actually even worse than he ever has been before, managing to be even more obvious in his statements and even less useful. Al Michaels is only slightly better, but at least he keeps the play-by-play reasonably useful. All told, the commentary is entirely forgettable.
As far as music goes, once again EA has trotted out its EA Trax program with a whole bunch of bands that don't quite fit into a football game. Franz Ferdinand? The Hives? Faith No More? Yeah, they're great bands that we like a lot, but what the heck are they doing in Madden?
Finally, there is a pretty nice array of sound effects in Madden NFL 2005, but there's nothing that especially stands out. It ultimately seems like the developers at EA kind of sleepwalked their ways through the sound design for this year's game.
Which is better?
Neither game is especially wonderful in the sound category this year, but ESPN does have some components that are appreciably better than Madden. The sound effects are generally better, the custom music options on the Xbox are extremely cool, and all of the ESPN personality dialogue just adds to the package nicely. ESPN takes it.
Winner: ESPN NFL 2K5
Previous PageNext: Conclusion
More Features
Games you may like…
-
ESPN NFL 2K5
(XBOX) -
Madden NFL 2004
(XBOX) -
Madden NFL 06
(XBOX) -
ESPN NFL Football
(XBOX) -
NCAA Football 06
(XBOX)
