CaMmO's Review of NFL Fever 2004 (Xbox World Collection)

User Rating: 9 | NFL Fever 2004 (Xbox World Collection) XBOX

By CaMmO | Review Date: August 31, 2003

I've been a fan of fever since day 1 and I still think this is one of the most slept on football games. *Graphics* The graphics on this game are flawless I dont see what people are complaining about. You actually get to see players without their helmets on and it looks near bout identical to the real life player. I've seen the complaints of how fever hasn't changed graphically but any blind person could see the improvement in graphics. Everything is on par down to the dust the players kick up when they run. *Sound* Fever always has had the best in game grunts and groans. I mean you gotta just get crunk and turn up the volume if you listening to it in surround sound because the hits are awesome. The commentary compared to the other games may not be as good but it holds its own. My only complaint is the change they've made with the in game music. It only plays while you're picking a play (which wouldnt take long) and it's not as frequent as past fever games (why would you change that?). Overall the sound is the best I've heard in a football game and I've played em all. Madden has the best in game music though. *Gameplay* Well you'll either love it or hate it. The first thing I noticed was the speed of the game. It's not as fast as previous Fever games and I loved fever for it's speed, BUT you can see why they slowed it down because now the game has a more fluid feel to it. Tackle animations were kind of scarce in previous fever games. You'd always get the same few tackles which were the "quick hit and their on the ground" tackles. Now you get a gangload of new tackle animations from wrapping em up and dropping em on their head to grabbing em by the ankles and holding on for dear life tackles. The passing game feels more solid than ever before. My complaint about 2003 was that I couldn't get a passing rhthym goin. Now I can actually complete at LEAST 5 passes straight and actually complete over half of my passes throughout the game. The catching seems to be more lifelike and real. In 2003 it didn't seem like you had much of an option when throwing because you had to wait for them to run the route and try to pass immediately when they cut which became kind of difficult considering sometimes you'd be under immense pressure. Now the passing seems more balanced. I just recently got the game and so far my only complaint is the difficulty of defense. I cannot seem to stop the other team from scoring. Tackles will be missed leaving me saying "what the hell" and the cpu has a field day with short passes that lead to 20 yard gains. Maybe it's just me and I need more practice but defense was never this hard to play. *Summary* So you get some and you lose some. The game has a lot of noticeable differences (the biggest being the speed) and the graphics have stepped up a notch. Compared to madden and 2k4 I think it holds it's own (unlike others). Every game has it's own feel and things you'd love about it. I personally prefer fever because it seems to have that perfect little mix of everything.