This is the year Gameday 2004 turned the corner!
If you don't want to read any further let's get this out of the way. NFL Gameday 2004 is back!
Quick impressions of a quickie game. Go ahead and ask away. I'll try and answer as much as I can.
Presentation: 8.5
Cool NFL Films Intro. Good audio presentation by Enberg and Fouts. Nothing special but it's not as bad as Madden 2004 with Michaels and Madden.
Interface: 9.0
Very intuative, easy to get around the menus.
Visuals/Graphics 8.5
Very nice, grass looks real has a nice texture to it. A very bright game. Pro Player Stadium looks just like I remember with the dirt infield at the start of the exhibition season. Player models look very good as well. Some jaggies but better than previous games. Game has cheerleaders like Madden's game. My only problem and it's slight is that the game seems to run a little on the slow side even setting the game speed on high. Is this Sony's way of avoiding framerate issues?
I don't know but not a big deal.
Gameplay 9.0
Very surprised, quite good. Who says it was easy to run the ball. Using Ricky Williams against Tampa with the difficulty at "Vetern" averaged 3-4 yards a carry. Defensive AI plays the passing game quite well. Sometimes you get a deep ball, most of the time you need to play a short passing game, this applies to the NFL. It appears from the short game in Veteran difficulty you have to mix up your plays.
Nice feature I left the Gameday series i with Gameday 99. It has a hot key for pass protection which trust me you will need it. L1= Max Protect or Super Protect. This means you can initiate Pass protection from a back or if Super Protect from both backs.
The defensive AI pass rush is very good, stay in the pocket cause the big defensive uglies are looking for ya.
That's it for now, ask away I'll see if I can answer ?'s. Be warned my Football knowledge might not be as advanced as yours.
Without seeing ESPN Football 2004 and having played Madden 2004 (love that game). Gameday 2004 is starting to chase Madden. It's a very solid effort by Red Zone.
My review score for Gameday 2004 "8.8"