Was absenteeism a little high on Tuesday among the guys at the office? EA Sports would like to think it was because "Madden NFL 2005" came out that day, and some fans of the football simulation are rabid enough to take a sick day to play it. But this year, the 15-year-old franchise faces stiffer competition.
Last month, ESPN Videogames released "ESPN NFL 2K5" for Xbox and the PlayStation 2. Fans have billed the title as a "Madden killer" because it"s just $20 (less than half the price of the EA Sports release in those formats) and certainly doesn"t play like a bargain basement game. To see how the games stacked up, I shipped them off to my local football simulation experts -- Rob, who was anxious to check out the ESPN hype, and Dan, a would-be team owner who worships the code "Madden" runs on.