Sound: 7
Gameplay: 8
Replay Value: 10
Reviewer's Tilt: 9
Overall: 9.1
I'm going to start off by saying I'm not a die-hard football fan, in fact I don't really know that much when it comes to the sport. I don't enjoy playing it in real life, but I do enjoy watching it on TV every once in a while. I do, however, enjoy playing it in the video game world. Living in Colorado, my favorite team is obviously the Denver Broncos, who I might add look absolutely wonderful on the Xbox. As do all of the other NFL teams that are featured in this game.
NFL Fever 2002 has plenty of fun options, but nothing that hasn't been done about a thousand times before. You choose your team, your opponent's team (computer player or second player), the weather (snowy, rainy or clear), the time of day, and you can also toggle the wind. It gets better though. You have an exceptional amount of customization options in terms of realism. You can choose your opponent's difficulty level, and make it so that you and your opponent's team can make mistakes. These people actually drop the ball on occasion, so they're not perfect. Your players can become injured too, and are then replaced.
This game has a few modes of play, which is a nice feature. Practice mode should be first attempted before starting a game, just so you can get a feel for this game's controls and so you get to see how well the AI works with different situations. You can play a single game, which is basically just one game that is just for fun. If you really are serious about football, I recommend you playing in Dynasty mode in the Season menu. It lets you manage a team for up to 25 seasons, and gives you plenty of options when it comes to replacing players and giving your players higher stats. Basically, NFL Fever 2002 is all about gameplay, even though some minor bugs do interfere.
Let's discuss the graphics, which is just frosting on the cake. The player animations are very diverse and fluid, and the players' uniforms ripple in the wind. Mud smears on the clothing, and rain soaks through as well. The reflections on the players' helmets is truly photorealistic, and the physics are just right for this type of game. If a player is extremely lean, he will obviously run a little bit faster than someone who weighs a little more. There are many, many polygons to be found and most importantly...the football is actually round(!). The grass is beautifully detailed and the weather effects look perfect. The ground gets muddy during heavy rain, and footprints appear in the snow and stay there throughout the entire game, not a single one disappearing. The crowd looks really great, unlike World Series Baseball which has a pathetic looking crowd (still a great game though!). I could go on all day about the little details, but I won't. Overall a very nice package.
The sound effects were well done, but it doesn't seem that they're quite as crisp or as loud as Madden's. The music is great, and the crowd cheers are just fine. The best part about the sounds are the player's taunts, which are both funny and realistic. The taunts are even executed with the other player's name, which is just a bonus. The commentary, however, isn't as lucky. It's mostly good overall, but it doesn't sound that appealing to the ears and isn't all that fun. It's dead-on accurate however.
There, I told you why you should buy the game, and I'm not even that big of a football fan. Sorry for any gushing that I did, and it sounds like this game is damn-near perfect. It's quite exceptional, but no game is perfect. If there's one thing that I want you to know about NFL Fever 2002, it's this:
NFL Fever is one of the best games for the Xbox. It's true. Everything from the fun and varied gameplay to the stunning, highly detailed graphics makes this package shine like no other football title has done for me. With the recent release of this years' Fever game, you can find this game for $20. At least I did. And it is worth it, don't mistake this game for another football game, or diss it because it's made by Microsoft. Think Microsoft doesn't know a thing about football? Fever will prove you wrong. In fact, I'm just going to say that Fever 2002 is one of the best football games that you can buy. Enjoy, folks. --Chris Currey