Just two years ago, NFL 2K presented the first legitimate challenge to Madden's stranglehold on football games. This November, three's a crowd when Microsoft makes its claim to the football crown with an Xbox version of its PC sports franchise, NFL Fever 2002. Let's be up front about a few things right off the bat: Fever is visually impressive--its textures and lighting are some of the best yet seen on a console. But forget all that graphical glitz and glamour for a moment, because when it comes to sports games, flashy looks will only get you so far.

Any sports game worth its salt lives and dies on its gameplay. Take last year's Virtua Striker 2 or World Series Baseball on the DC, if you need proof. Both games looked beautiful but played dismally and were consequently shredded by the press. Fact: In the realm of sports games, your bite must equal your bark. So, it was somewhat refreshing when we found Fever's development team eager to answer questions and receptive to opinions and criticisms on how their game played as they demonstrated it at E3 2001.

You're afforded some opportunities for innovation when you build a franchise from the ground up. Fever's project manager, Kathie Flood, admitted that the development team is currently weighing several gameplay features and options that would be unique to Fever. We were able to check out some of the intuitive ideas at E3. We learned about passing icons that brighten or darken based on surrounding coverage. If Cris Carter is wide open on the sideline, for instance, his icon will shine much brighter than a double-covered Randy Moss' icon would. Another idea the team is tinkering with is play routes that show up as transparent overlays on the field when you pull back to check your receivers, which lets you see which routes will gain a certain amount of yardage (useful during those tricky third-down conversions). Small innovations, yes, but the team hopes they will help separate Fever from the competition.

There are plenty of options and features off the field in Fever too. While Fever 2002 won't have online play, you do get other standbys like create-a-player and practice modes. There is also a challenge mode that lets you take on past Super Bowl teams with today's squads. Finally, there's the dynasty mode, where you are the general manager of a single team for up to 25 years. You can try your hand at simplified versions of salary-caps management, free-agent negotiations, and NFL drafts. If you're successful, Fever rewards you by displaying your Super Bowl trophies in the trophy case (you also get awards for your outstanding player and career achievements, as well). Also notable in the dynasty mode is Fever's experience system. Your veterans' savvy and your rookies' physical ability will increase or decrease throughout their career, based partly on how you fit your players' talents into your own way of playing football. The experience variable attempts to simulate how some players can excel in one team's system but disappear in another.

Graphically, Fever has set high standards for itself. Stadium details, in particular, are noteworthy. At E3, we were shown FedEx Field and were amazed by all the little details we saw when the stadium's shadows were cast on the field. You could see track lights, flagpoles, and banisters identifiably silhouetted--just like how a real midday game looks. Fever's superb lighting engine extends to players' bodies and uniforms. Each player's shadow is as detailed as the models themselves, and helmets accurately reflect stadium architecture and light sources. Weather effects look realistic too, and day and night sky textures are photo-realistic. The game also makes use of hundreds of recorded player motions. Flood explained that they have taken players' motions and have "split, combined, and tweaked to include [them] in the game," promising that Fever will "have enough motions to accurately portray the player behaviors and provide an excellent on-field experience for users." Another small graphics detail that Microsoft promises is player facial animations that are lip-synched to their dozens of recorded taunts, snap cadences, and other on-field chatter.