''Madden NFL 2003'' is an

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

simulation video game Simulation video games are a diverse super-category of video games, generally designed to closely simulate real world activities. A simulation game attempts to copy various activities from real life in the form of a game for various purposes such ...

based on the NFL that was developed by

EA Tiburon EA Orlando is an American video game developer located in Orlando, Florida, founded in 1994. It was formerly known as Tiburon Entertainment, which was List of acquisitions by Electronic Arts, acquired by Electronic Arts in 1998. After the acquisi ...

and

Budcat Creations Budcat Creations, LLC was an American video game developer based in Iowa City, Iowa, and was a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision, though they formerly had partnerships with Electronic Arts and Majesco Entertainment. They were largely respon ...

and published by

EA Sports EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they imitated real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network" (EASN) ...

. The 14th installment of the ''Madden NFL'' series, the game features former

St. Louis Rams The St. Louis Rams were a professional American football team of the National Football League (NFL). They played in St. Louis, Missouri, from 1995 through the 2015 season, before moving back to Los Angeles, California, where the team had played ...

running back A running back (RB) is a member of the offensive backfield in gridiron football. The primary roles of a running back are to receive American football plays#Offensive terminology, handoffs from the quarterback to Rush (American football)#Offense ...

Marshall Faulk Marshall William Faulk (born February 26, 1973) is an American former professional American football, football running back who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 12 seasons and is the current running backs coach at the Colorado ...

on the cover. This edition of ''Madden'' was the first to have EA Trax, the Mini Camp mode, and to feature

Al Michaels Alan Richard Michaels (born November 12, 1944) is an American television play-by-play sportscaster for '' Thursday Night Football'' on Amazon Prime Video and in an emeritus role for NBC Sports. He has worked on network sports television sin ...

as play-by-play announcer, who took over for

Pat Summerall George Allen "Pat" Summerall (May 10, 1930 – April 16, 2013) was an American professional American football, football player and television sportscaster who worked for CBS Sports, CBS, Fox Sports (USA), Fox, and ESPN Sunday Night Football, ESP ...

. Although it featured the expansion

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. The team plays its home games at N ...

and the relocation of the

Seattle Seahawks The Seattle Seahawks are a professional American football team based in Seattle. The Seahawks compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) NFC West, West division. The club entered the NFL a ...

to the NFC, it was actually the second to do so (after the previous edition had it done in the second season of its own Franchise mode, with the Seahawks still in the AFC and no Texans team when said mode was started). The game was released on August 12, 2002, for the

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

PlayStation is a video gaming brand owned and produced by Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), a division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. Its flagship products consists of a series of home video game consoles produced under the brand; it also consists ...

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

and

Xbox Xbox is a video gaming brand that consists of four main home video game console lines, as well as application software, applications (games), the streaming media, streaming service Xbox Cloud Gaming, and online services such as the Xbox networ ...

. The PlayStation version also includes the

Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...

version of '' John Madden Football 93''.

Reception

The GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox versions received "universal acclaim", while the PC, PlayStation and Game Boy Advance versions received "generally favorable reviews", according to the review aggregation website

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. In Japan, where the PS2 version was ported for release on December 19, 2002, ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'' gave it a score of 33 out of 40. ''

Maxim Maxim or Maksim may refer to: Entertainment *Maxim (magazine), ''Maxim'' (magazine), an international men's magazine ** Maxim (Australia), ''Maxim'' (Australia), the Australian edition ** Maxim (India), ''Maxim'' (India), the Indian edition *Maxim ...

'' gave it a perfect score twice, once from Ryan Boyce, who said that "The folks at EA Sports... loaded this year's ultrarealistic game up with a slew of new features that include online play, a huge arcade-style training camp, and a nifty play creator that’s so versatile that you can have receivers run pass routes that spell your name"; and once from Scott Steinberg, who said that, "Destined for the Hall of Fame, Madden's latest namesake (now in its 13th year) improves upon already stunning graphics and amps game play with faster speed and such fresh gridiron moves as sidearm passing and—wahoo!—gang tackling." ''

The Cincinnati Enquirer ''The Cincinnati Enquirer'' is a morning daily newspaper published by Gannett in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States. First published in 1841, the ''Enquirer'' is the last remaining daily newspaper in Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, altho ...

'' gave it four-and-a-half stars out of five, saying, "Veteran players will be familiar with the feel of the game they grew up with, but there are certainly enough tweaks and new additions to justify its purchase." ''

BBC Sport BBC Sport is the sports division of the BBC, providing national sports coverage for BBC BBC Television, television, BBC Radio, radio and BBC Online, online. The BBC holds the television and radio UK broadcasting rights to several sports, broadc ...

'' gave the PS2 version 87%, saying, "While 'NFL 2K3' still has slightly better graphics, Madden's updated controls, the excellent franchise features and its heavenly tactical play make it one of the best sports games ever to grace the PS2." ''Madden NFL 2003'' was a runner-up for ''

GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady, and Jon Epstein. In addition ...

''s August 2002 "PC Game of the Month" award. It won the publication's annual "Best Sports Game on PC" award, and was nominated in the "Most Improved Sequel on PC", "Best Traditional Sports Game on GameCube", "Best Traditional Sports Game on Xbox" and "Best Online Game on PlayStation 2" categories. During the 6th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, the game won both " Console Sports Game of the Year" and " Computer Sports Game of the Year".

Legacy

''Madden NFL 2003'' was included in '' The EA Sports Collection'' in May 2004 along with other 2002

games.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Madden Nfl 2003 2002 video games Budcat Creations games EA Sports games EA Tiburon games Electronic Arts games Game Boy Advance games GameCube games Games with GameCube-GBA connectivity Madden NFL Multiplayer and single-player video games PlayStation (console) games PlayStation 2 games Video games developed in the United States Windows games Xbox games