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News: Tom Morello stars in Guitar Hero III
Activision has announced that Tom Morello, from Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, will guest star as a boss character in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. Click here to read the article.
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NFL Fever 2003
Microsoft surprised many people last year by delivering a solid and fun football game. This year, NFL Fever 2003, is out with beefed up graphics, gameplay, sound, and most importantly... Xbox Live support! Does NFL Fever 2003 evolve or is it just merely an upgrade... tack on a few extra things and ship it, or is it a full on new experience? One way to find out... continue reading!
NFL Fever 2003 is impressive. While the market is competitive with EA's Madden and Sega's 2K series, being a top dog in this yard is tough. That didn't stop Microsoft from diving head first into the race to make the best football game out there. While it still has a few years of polish to dethrone the current king, Madden, the NFL Fever series is clearly on the path to greatness.
The controls in NFL Fever 2003 are easy to learn. The Left stick or the D-Pad are used to move your player. The face buttons allow you to throw, pass, fake, juke, jump, tackle, sprint, lateral, etc depending on wheter you are playing defense or offense. Either way, the game flows well and doesn't have you looking down at your controller for any reason. You'll have the control functions down in a jiffy.
Gameplay wise, NFL Fever 2003 offers many modes of play. You can either play an exhibition match, career, franchise, or go on Xbox Live and take on the world... well 250,000 potential competitors. While playing Fever, I was very satisfied with the flow of the action. It is not too Sim like or to Arcade like, it is a perfect combination of both. Different players act differently. Skinny ones of course will run faster, while big players will run slower but hit harder, especially the defenders. If you are a rookie then you can choose to play on the Rookie difficulty level, but if you fancy yourself a football pro then step it up a notch and play on a higher difficulty. NFL Fever 2003 is easy to get into and score touchdowns.
Visually, NFL Fever 2003 impresses. Character models are nicely modeled although the kickers are a bit too big. Stadiums are are modeled after their real life counterparts and actually reflect off of the player helmets! The turf us beautiful and the ball actually looks like a real life ball, you can almost feel the pig skin in your hands.
Audio wise, NFL Fever 2003 sounds great in surround sound. You'll hear the announcers comment on the plays while the crowd chears or boos. You'll hear every tackle, every take down, every sack... you'll hear the sound of two human bodies crashing at full speed and it all sounds great!
Overall, if this is your first time with the Fever series then you will have one hell of a time. But if you own or played NFL Fever 2002 then you might think this is merely and update, but aren't all football games just updaptes of last year's game? I believe Microsoft Game Studios did a great job with this year's edition of Fever and can hardly wait to see what they pull out of their magic hats for 2004.
Report Card:
Gameplay = 9
Graphics = 9
Audio = 9
Replay Value = 9
Overall: 9/10
Click here for the NFL Fever 2003 screenshots gallery!
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